i would imagine he is watching closely. >> we will be having this conversation a lot, i think, between now and november of 2024. lastly, "axios" is reporting secretary of state antony blinken is weighing a potential meeting with china's top diplomat later this week to de-escalate tensions over the downing of the chinese government spy balloon. what can you tell us as to when and where this might happen? >> you know, this is -- there's a lot at stake, as you know, and this could come up soon. blinken and weng are supposed to meet, the top official you mentioned. there are tensions over the downing of this balloon. they are set to meet. no plans are confirmed, but the big picture is that if they don't meet, that would be further evidence or exposure of this fact that u.s.-china relations are strained and continuing to be strained. >> yeah, there was a thaw there at the g20 when president xi and president biden met, but things

are tense again. thank you so much for joining us this morning. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. a self-loathing has swept our country. joe and kamala even say america is racist. this is not about identity politics. i don't believe in that, and i don't believe in glass ceilings either. strong and proud, not weak and woke. that's the america i see. [ applause ] >> the only challenger so far to donald trump in the 2024 presidential race kicks off her campaign. during that speech, nikki haley took a dig at her former boss and president joe biden. we'll play for you those comments. also today, we'll get our first look at the pieces of the grand jury investigating the president's attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in georgia. plus, mike pence wants all the credit for doing the right

thing on january 6th but doesn't want to talk about it under oath. we'll show you what he had to say about the subpoena from the special counsel. president biden expected to address the string of unidentified objects that were shot down over the northern united states area. big news for 30/50 today. we have a big announcement. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, february 16th. along with joe, willie and me, we have the host of "way too early" and white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. historian and rogers chair in the american presidency at vanderbilt university, jon meacham joins us this morning. former chairman of the republican national committee and msnbc political analyst, michael steele joins us, as well. joe, great group this morning. a lot of politics to get to. >> well, we have meacham. other than that, a great group. >> i don't think mika said that with enough respect in tone.

i'm a little -- >> i was trying to sound haughty. >> i'm a little discombobulated with that. >> pulitzer prize winner in her midst. come on, it's big. vandy guy. hey, willie, i just -- this is a problem i think republicans are going to have as they run throughout this entire cycle, going up to '24. nikki haley talked about, you know, she's proud, we're proud, and we should be proud of this country, and i completely agree. it is, unfortunately, donald trump and republicans that have blindly followed him through the years, including nikki haley, who have been the first to talk about how horrible america is, talk about how terrible our military is. they'd rather have the russian military than the american military. that support a president and always supported a president that loves the russians, kgb leader, more than our intel

community. said they trust the russians more than they trust our own intel community. they're the ones who sit back quietly and pay homage to people who say that the united states military is bringing helicopters from afghanistan to the united states to hunt down people who voted for trump. that say our premier law enforcement agencies are the ones that kick down doors because they're going to drag people off to jail who voted for donald trump. they're the people that constantly drag down this country, constantly trash our institutions, constantly trash the men and women in uniform, claiming they're weak and that they're woke. so, you know, i kind of think, and we can talk to meacham about this, too, but this is exactly what left-wing radicals did in the 1960s. this is something that gave birth -- and i know because i was there, listening to my parents and other people -- this

gave birth to the conservative movement of the late '60s and the '70s. the america, love it or leave it. if you hate this country so much, if you hate the united states armed services so much, if you hate our intel community so much, if you hate the men and women in the premier law enforcement agency, the fbi, that protects us every day, if you trash teachers, you hate our schools, you think, somehow, we can't even let our kids read books about roberto clemente and hank aaron, you know, problem is probably not with the other side. the problem is probably with you. until somebody has the guts, until somebody is actually strong, until somebody is actually willing to take on those lies that republicans have been feeding americans time and again -- and, by the way, they've been losing -- the lie

about elections being stolen, the lie that you can't trust american democracy anymore, you have to take on those lies. you have to tear those lies to the ground, and you have to build up america. you have to build up america's armed forces, say it is stronger than ever before. you have to build up america's intel communities. you have to thank them for all the great work they are doing. you have to build up the very things that, again, left us tore down in the 1960s and '70s, and that vladimir putin wants to tear down now. if you can't do that, you can't be president of the united states. >> well, to separate yourselves from that list that you just provided, which i think covered almost everything, including the fact that donald trump is still calling the fbi the gestapo because they exercised a search warrant to find classified documents at his beach club, to separate yourself from all of that is to separate yourself from donald trump. that's the fear all these candidates, including nikki haley, who worked for donald trump, criticized him later and

said after january 6th, "he led us down a path we should not have followed him" -- those were her words to "politico" -- how can she say that when she'd followed him down these paths? that is the dilemma, jon meacham. the people who are running, who may run, look at mike pence, mike pompeo, down the list, people have gone along for the ride. most of the time, mike pence the exception right at the end, have gone along with donald trump. how now do you run against a guy and separate yourself from donald trump? >> yeah. jon meacham -- sorry, i was going to go to you. quickly, you have to do something that ronald reagan always did. these republicans don't do, the trump republicans don't do, you have to talk about what is right about america. welcome at our past sins, all right, but also talk about what's right about america. these people have it backwards.

they don't want to talk about the problems we've had on race in the past, right? they want to trash our military today. they don't want roberto clemente, but they want to defund the fbi. they have it backwards. >> classically, fear is a great starter, but it is not in american politics a good finisher. i think the most interesting thing governor haley has said in the past couple days that i read was she pointed out that the republican party has not won the popular vote for the presidential election, i think, since 2004. if you broaden that a bit, to use a biblical 40 years -- that's for willie because i know he thinks in biblical terms. >> he does. >> there are only three people in american history on the republican ticket who have won the popular vote.

ronald reagan. the other two were named george bush, 1988 and 2004. that tells you something about where the country, at least 51% of the country, actually is. and this campaigning to the narrowest possible number that can be relied on is maybe good for a primary, but it's fatal, and we almost saw it literally be fatal, to the american experiment. we do ask people to actually transcend their appetites and ambitions when they get to the positions of power. it's kind of an edmund berke thing, right? sometimes representative reflection of your will, and sometimes they owe you their best judgment. presidents, in particular, owe us their best judgment. the last thing i'd say on this is, anybody who runs for

president, if i could grab them for a second, i would say, the things we tend to remember about presidents -- and as bill clinton will tell you, everybody gets a sentence and maybe not that, right? lincoln saved the union. fdr won world war ii. you think about, what do you want your sentence to be? what that sentence almost always is about is about transcending your own limitations. that you've imposed on yourself to get to power. so transcendence is the key to historical greatness, and that means telling people who sent you there that they might be wrong. there is nothing, nothing, nothing in the republican primary electorate that says the people are interested in hearing that they are wrong. >> we'll be talking a lot more politics coming up later in the show. we do want to get to the news now. out of ukraine, russia claims to have made gains in the country's

luhansk region. moscow says forces broke through multiple ukrainian defensive lines in the area with the progress forcing ukrainian troops to pull back by about 2 miles. russia's claims have not been independently verified, and ukrainian officials have not commented. the united kingdom's defense minister says they estimate that 97% of russia's army is inside ukraine. however, there are questions this morning about russia's military tactics and its ability to maintain sustained, large-scale ground assaults in the wake of a disastrous attempt to take a ukraiian city. "the new york times" reports the scale of moscow's losses in the battle is only coming into focus. accounts from ukrainian and western officials, ukrainian soldiers captures russian soldiers and russian military bloggers, as well as video and satellite images, painting a

picture of a faltering russian campaign that continues to be plagued by battlefield dysfunction. britain's defense secretary cited reports on wednesday that a whole russian brigade was effectively annihilated in vuhledar. moscow lost over 1,000 people in two days. the british defense intelligence agency reported last week that russian units likely suffered particularly heavy casualties around vuhledar. jonathan lemire, this battlefield information we're getting, the many different sources point to a russian army that is just getting kind of slaughtered in different areas in ukraine. >> yeah, catastrophic defeat after catastrophic defeat from the russian military. the issue is it doesn't seem to be changing vladimir putin's thinking at all, according to u.s. officials i've spoken to in the last 24 hours or so. they continue to throw men, many

poorly trained, poorly equipped, to the front lines, the meat grinder, as it were, in effort to make incremental process. trying to show some victory as we approach the one-year mark. there is a growing expectation that putin will be addressing the russian people at some point next week about the status of the conflict. he wants to point to some sort of even minor victory here. they've used the wagner mercenary group to supplement forces. they've also taken heavy losses. there's an expectation here, mika, that this russian offensive that we've all known is coming, may have already begun. nato secretary general stoltenberg say they believe this is the initial wave of that. there is a belief they may try to conscript more men in the coming weeks, then as the weather gets better, launch the full assault. >> willie. >> we'll keep an eye on that. president joe biden is expected to speak possibly as soon as today about his administration's decision to shoot down four flying objects just in the last couple of weeks. amid growing calls from lawmakers to hear from the

president on the situation, resources familiar with the matter tell nbc news white house aides have been discussing privately whether or not biden should address the american people. last weekend, the pentagon shot down three unidentified flying objects in u.s. and canadian air space, less than a week after bringing down a chinese spy balloon off the coast of south carolina. biden is expected to announce a plan of action for dealing with similar events in the future, mika. >> joe sat down yesterday with national security adviser jake sullivan for an upcoming special to mark the one-year anniversary of the war in ukraine. he asked him about those unidentified objects. let's take a quick listen. >> tell us about the unidentified objects flying over montana, the rest of the continent. do americans have any reason to be concerned? >> well, just to set the context, following the downing of the chinese spy balloon,

norad, northcom, the military element charged with the defense of north america, tuned its radar in a way that began picking up more of these slow-moving objects, that our radars had previously not picked up. in fact, chinese spy balloons had overflown our country without the knowledge of the previous administration because the radars weren't picking them up. what we can say is that our intelligence community has, at this point, a leading explanation that they are look ing at, that, in fact, these objects are benign. we're also putting in protocols now for how to manage the fact that there will be balloons from commercial entities, civilian, flying in space. what are the protocols for taking them out of the sky? what are the protocols for managing the threat to civilian aircraft, and how do we get a handle on what is up there? because what this whole episode has shown us is there are a lot

more things in the sky that are unidentified, are unclaimed, that need to be managed and dealt with. we now have a process in place to do that. >> we're going to hear more of joe's conversation with national security adviser sullivan one week from today as part of "morning joe's" primetime special marking the one-year anniversary of the war in ukraine. the special hour will also feature joe's interviews with second blinken and moore. that is next thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. look forward to that. former south carolina governor nikki haley has formally announced her 2024 bid for president. she officially kicked off her candidacy at an event in charleston yesterday, stressing the theme of a new generation to lead the country. haley called for mandatory mental competency tests for poll

politic tig politicians older than 75. probably a dig at joe biden, but also her former boss, who is 76. >> america is not past our prime, it is just our politicians are past theirs. our best days are yet to come if we unite and fight to save our country. when i look to the future, i see america strong once more. the america i see, the permanent politician will finally retire. mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old. >> joe, she said a lot of things that republicans want to hear. a lot of it was very trumpy. the mental competency test, we could have used that in the last administration, age aside. >> well, yeah. i mean, you have -- you had donald trump's own cabinet members talking about the 25th amendment, whether they'd have to implement it or not. >> it wasn't a joke. >> no, it wasn't a joke.

it was deadly serious. of course, she would never bring that up in her speech. so, you know, michael steele, it was -- you know, it was a good enough launch in 2008 or 2012. here we are in the middle of the age of trump, and, you know, "new york times" has a story about republican candidates afraid to mention donald trump's name. he is like lord voldemort. you have to mention his name and go after voldemort if you want to defeat him. they have to do the same thing with donald trump. they're just not going to do it. when they give this speech as if it is 2008 or 2012, everybody in the room is just sitting there waiting. you know, the elephant, the

800-pound elephant in the room. that will always be donald trump until somebody takes him on and beats him. >> joe, you and i have been on the same page on that point for a long time now leading up to this election. all of this, you know, fight and fury, and i can take on a bullry bully in heels and all this other stuff is silly until you actually do it. that's the test. no one is interested in your three-point plan, in your haranguing around the state of the country, until we know you're actually prepared to and have the ability to take down trump. if you can't mention the man's name, you can't take him down. it sounds good that you can beat up a bully until the bully is right in front of you. then what do you do? what do you think is going to happen when donald trump aalighs the stage and rips you a new one? what is your response going to be? ignore it? you have to engage if you're

going to be president. i put it this way, none of these individuals on any list, any board we put up with a picture, is going to make it through this gauntlet unless they're prepared to lose their primary. meaning, they're willing to put everything in it to become president. and everything requires that they take on trump directly. none of these people, not one, zero, are going to do it. they're just not. a lot of bluster, a lot of noise, a lot of hot air signifying nothing, a lot of crazy plans, like we're going to somehow give mental acuity tests to 75-year-old politicians. who is going to do that? are you calling for the government to insert itself in this process in a way that is going to take some politician into a closet and see if he is smart enough to continue in the job? this is the kind of silliness we are going to be seeing coming out of these candidates as deflections because they don't

want to deal with the thing in front of them. that's ron desantis. that's nikki haley, tim scott, all of them. until they do, america is going to sit back and yawn at their campaign. >> jonathan lemire, we have a case in that very point last night. nikki haley was on with sean hannity. sean asked several times, where do you differ from donald trump on policy? where do you differ? give me a couple areas you differ. she wouldn't answer the question. he said, i'll try one more time. he asked her. she said, "look, sean, i don't kick sideways. i'm kicking forward," something like that. she said, "i'm running against joe biden." actually, that's not true. first, you're running against donald trump before you get to joe biden. even on the day of her campaign launch, there still are no good answers to that question. >> she's obviously had months and months to prepare for that very question. of course, yeah, you might get to face joe biden eventually, but you have to get through. he is the final boss. you have plenty of people to get through first, and trump most of all. for all these republicans, it'll

be this delicate dance of where you need to try to differentiate yourself from trump without drawing the wrath of the former president trump or his supporters who, of course, you need. you need to siphon off some of them in order to be a viable candidate for the republican nominee. if there is a mental acuity test, jon meacham, let's remember, donald trump said he passed one. remember the five words? person, woman, man, camera, tv. trump has that down. we'll see if anyone else can do it. weigh in, if you will, about this dilemma. does it remind yo of an overwhelming favorite in a party from a historical perspective, when others need to knock him or her down but also try to win his or her supporters? >> sure. any time you're running against a former person, you end up, particularly someone you've served, right? >> right. >> you have to thread a needle.

you know, all of this is an analog conversation, right? this is like talking about atari. this is a pre-trump conversation about american politics. another story we're talking about is the story of insurrection, whether the vice president of the united states, who stood between us and the abyss, is going to testify about that. it's not, as eleanor roosevelt said in 1940, it is not an ordinary time. i think if the republican party, and i'm not a republican, i'm not a democrat, but in so far as a historical matter, we need two functioning parties that have an allegiance to the constitution. that's the central question for anyone who wants to be president on the republican side. are you going to try to treat the unconstitutional nature of

trumpism as a problem that must be eradicated? or are you just going to tiptoe around it? >> right. that's the bottom line. >> if you hope -- and there are a lot of establishment republicans, i'm sure joe talks to them all the time, who i think have this vision that, somehow, the old musical of the city that only came down once every hundred years or so. it is a generational illusion, jonathan. we'll talk about it later. they have a vision that there is a post-trump world that is just going to come one day. they're aei republicans running, so they're like, okay, we have some people now who have been to a heritage seminar. it is going to be okay. i don't know if it is going to be okay. >> right. >> because it just takes 30%, 35%. the polls have been consistently wrong now for years for various technical reasons.

i don't think we're through this. it is an american question, not a partisan one. >> mm-hmm. >> whether it's the governor of -- former governor of south carolina or the former secretary of state, whoever it is, i think the person who is going to break through here has to break through for the country, which might kill you in the party, right? you need a mitt romney. >> yeah. >> as opposed to one of these sort of sub-trumps. and you wouldn't get that. but if we want this experiment to keep going, we need that. >> it's funny -- >> yeah. >> go ahead, joe. >> go ahead, mika. >> it's funny. nikki haley talked in her speech about trump -- well, about losing again and again and again, but she didn't say it was trump, but it was trump. so she understands that it is not working. she can vocalize that. she just won't vocalize who is the reason for it.

>> yeah, exactly. by the way, willie, do you have your score sheet out? if you have your meacham, jon meacham score sheet out -- >> lose, lose, lose. >> we can mark this down under brigidune. that is the second reference in the past few weeks here at "morning joe." i'll be expecting my "morning joe" friends and family an upcoming musical starring jon meacham off broadway, coming your way very soon. so it's -- i don't know. it's just not that hard. >> i know. >> i don't think it is that hard -- well, brigi dp brigidun probably hard but -- no, you have to be strong. you have to be strong. say, listen, thank you, trump.

thank you for 2016. we'll get you a gold watch. we are greatly appreciative. but i have a problem, and this may be a character default on my part, but i hate losing. i hate losing so much. it just -- it just drives me crazy. i like to win. i like to win like republicans used to like to win. i hate losing in 2017. i hate losing in 2018. i hate losing in 2019. i hate losing in 2020. i hate losing in 2021. i hate losing in 2022. and i sure as hell don't want to lose in 2024. we're going to lose not only elections, but if we keep losing the elections, we're going to lose the country. so we're going to have to close the door on the past. we're going to have to give our national -- our national championship coach who won a national championship for us in 2016 a gold watch and send him

on his way. give him a tip of the hat. but we have to look to the future. yeah, he's done a lot of things that have hurt us, including denying who won the last election. he's so obsessed with the last election that we're going to lose the next election. somebody has to do that. they can't, like, kind of talk in the shadows. what nikki haley did on sean hannity's show. >> tiptoe, tiptoe. >> how do i differ? sean, i win elections. that's how i differ. i win elections. i don't look at past elections i've lost because i don't lose elections. that's how i differ. if republicans want to win again and get back into the white house again, vote for me. if they don't, they can vote for the other guy. i don't care. if they want to keep losing, i can't help 'em. it's just, like, it's not hard. it's not that hard. >> it isn't.

actually, it's not just about the winning for someone like nikki haley. nikki haley has a very powerful other story. she was a governor in a southern state, in a red state, a confederate state, and she took on the confederacy and won. she took on the constitution, the anti-constitutional behavior, and won. so she can make a very different case from any of the other candidates in how you stand on principle, how you reaffirm constitutional principles post a civil war, how you reengage the country on matters like race, which has always been a problem for the republican party. but you can't go there, you can't be in that space, you cannot have that conversation if you cannot deal with the racist attributes of a party under

trump. it's embraced white nationalism. it thinks there are fine nazis and fine klu klux klan members. you can't do that if you are not willing to go there. you are absolutely right, you tie that into the winning. that's how we win again. we win because america is behind us. and america is behind us because we're not standing on anti-democratic, anti-madisonian, anti-constitutional principles. and you're right, joe, it is not hard. but it requires something they don't have. leadership. >> yeah. >> and we haven't seen leadership in the republican party since donald trump wiped the floor with 15 republican senators, governors, and politicians in 2016. >> so we're going to talk about this a lot more ahead on "morning joe." we have a lot of other news to get to, as well. still ahead on "morning joe,"

mike pence confirms his unusual legal strategy for fighting a doj subpoena. we'll explain why the former vp says he's immune from testifying about the attack on the capitol, where his life was threatened. plus, we're expecting the partial release of a georgia grand jury report investigating potential interference in the 2020 election. what it could reveal about possible criminal charges for donald trump and his allies. also ahead, senate majority whip dick durbin joins us with his new plan to keep kids safe online. and we have a major announcement from know your value and "forbes" about the latest guests to be announced for the 30/50 summit, which is now just weeks away. you're batchwatching "morning j" we'll be right back.

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portions of the fulton county grand jury report are expected to be made public today. only the introduction, conclusion and a section where jurors said they were worried some witnesses lied under oath will be released. the majority of the report will remain private until the fulton county district attorney concludes her probe. trump and his associates are being investigated for their actions after georgia flipped blue for joe biden in 2020. there were several attempts to recapture the swing state, including the call between secretary of state raffensperger and trump, where trump asked to, quote, find the necessary votes for trump to win. >> so, look, all i want to do is

this. i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. meanwhile, former vice president pence plans to fight a subpoena from the special counsel investigating former president donald trump's actions surrounding the january 6th attack, calling the demand for his cooperation unprecedented and unconstitutional. pence addressed reporters after speaking at an event in minnesota, saying he is immune from testifying because of legal protections for lawmakers. he says he was acting as president of the senate during the january 6th electoral college vote count rather than as a member of the executive branch and, therefore, has legislative immunity. >> my fight is on the separation of powers. my fight against the doj's subpoena, very simply, is on defending the prerogatives that i had as president of the

senate, to preside over a joint session of congress. you have to decide where you stand, and i stand on the constitution of the united states. >> pence also noted his argument for legislative immunity was the same one the justice department used in 2021 in its defense of a lawsuit claiming the 2020 election was illegitimate. pence was subpoenaed by special counsel jack smith. a source familiar with the matter said last week. jon meacham, obviously, this is a man in mike pence who is planning to run for president. he was in minnesota and iowa yesterday. one of the attack lines, not just for pence but every republican running right now, is the weaponization of the justice department, the weaponization of the fbi, all these things we've heard from donald trump and his acolytes. is he on good ground here with his argument, saying i'll take

this to the supreme court if i have to? >> yeah, as a profile in courage, vice president pence is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory here. this is an un -- i'll tell you what is unprecedented and unconstitutional, what the president of the united states was trying to force the vice president of the united states, who is the president of the senate, to do. mike pence stood between us and the abyss. and it is a remarkable thing. because if he had caved to what the president wanted to do, we would have had chaos. it could have pushed past deadlines, gone to the house, any number of things. and so he did an important and good thing. and so this just feels, to me, as you're saying, like a little bit of stage craft for the base. the constitutional argument doesn't strike me as particularly compelling because

he was -- he is an executive branch officer. so i -- if i were him, just tell truth. when in doubt, the truth sometimes works. >> it's the same dilemma -- go ahead, joe. >> i was just going to say, they can't, jonathan lemire, they just can't ever play it straight. here's a guy who, again, did some things very right on january the 6th. now, he's claiming privilege that he can't tell the truth about an insurrection that led him and secret service around him thinking that they may be killed on that day? secret service protecting him, holed up while the mob was outside the room, just feet away. calling home like it was 9/11 because they didn't expect to survive the day. mike pence says that he was fleeing down there in his

position as president of the senate. it is a preposterous argument and an argument that the supreme court will throw out. but, you know, jonathan, this is just like politicians that stood up and were strong on january 6th and now said, yeah, i'd vote for donald trump if he were the nominee. i said before he disgraced america and was a danger to the republic, but i'll vote for him if he is the republican nominee. at some point, you're going to have to choose a side. you're going to have to either support american democracy or support a guy who has said that the constitution needs to be overturned. what was the exact word he said? the constitution needs to be -- what did you say? >> suspended, i think. >> oh, my god. >> terminated. i think it was terminated. maybe even terminated. now, let me just ask you, if you're mike pence, or you are

other members of the republican party, or if you're just somebody out there watching right now that says, well, i don't like donald trump, but i sure don't like that joe biden guy. he's crazy. yeah, i'd vote for donald trump. how do you ever vote for a man who tried to overturn american democracy and who said that he wanted to, quote, terminate the constitution of the united states? just like i said before, this is not really that hard. these people are just soiling their reputations for life for not standing up for what is obvious. the defense of the constitution, the defense of american democracy, the defense, well, of all the things they claimed to be supporting when they held up their hand and took an oath to the constitution of the united states. >> yeah. as the saying goes, the time for

choosing, but they won't. they're not going to choose. it was mitch mcconnell just this week, again, we know he's been a fierce critic of donald trump since the insurrection, but he made clear this week that if trump were to be the republican nominee, he would support him again. the situation with pence, very reminiscent of what we were talking about with nikki haley. trying to distance himself from trump somewhat but not alienate or anger trump or his supporters. won't go all the way there. mika, this is the second time pence has tried to be very cute when it comes to investigations. >> let me make it clear, it is not cute. >> no. the january 6th investigation, as well, he would not cooperate. he didn't want to testify. he sent his aides to do so. that's happening here, too. he doesn't want to have to use his own words, his own voice to condemn what trump did. >> right. his own experience, his own truth. >> that's right. stood up to him that day but not since. >> really lame, among other things. let's bring in political investigations reporter for "the

guardian," hugo lowell. okay, so he won't -- he'll fight the subpoena. how does this impact the investigation? >> you know, principally, it is going to be a delay tactic. this is straight out of a trump playbook. it is performative. if he really wanted to testify, he'll go in voluntarily and testify. so, you know, i think from the justice department's perspective, they are baking in extended litigation into their investigation because that's really where this is going to end up. at the end of the day, i don't think this argument is going to work, and i don't think the justice department looking at the argument as something that will severely hamper their inquiry. that is principally because, you know, what pence is claiming is, what he is trying to suggest is he has total immunity from the subpoena. that's not the case. you know, how this is likely to play out is they will go before the chief judge of district of columbia. they'll go, oh, i can't answer some questions because of the speech and debate clause, but i

possibly can answer others. the justice department will say, no, you can answer all of it. the speech and debate clause is for legislative purpose. january 6th, while it was a joint session of congress, was basically a ceremonial process. it wasn't passing a law. it wasn't debate on the house floor. it was really a ministerial job that pence had. that's why, if you have a very narrow reading of what the joint session was, the speech and debate kind of privilege protection he is trying to claim probably doesn't apply. that's how we anticipate the justice department to get around this. >> okay. i mean, to me, it's just -- fine, a subpoena. he doesn't want to answer questions. but i want to hear from this man about his feelings, about what trump did in the lead up to january 6th. i want to hear what he feels about trump as president and whether or not this man is a threat to our democracy. i need to hear this from the former vice president.

don't you? don't we deserve to know exactly how he feels about this? michael steele, wouldn't it make sense that the vice president, perhaps, the former vice president under president trump should tell us how he feels about what happened during trump's presidency? >> i couldn't agree more. i don't get the complication here because it's not complicated. i think, you know, hugo's reporting and certainly what we've been saying here this morning about this matter, it's very clear to all of us. you were there. i mean, this is like any other thing that would have happened on the capitol. and the investigators would want the prinipals who were involved in that thing to come tell us what you know, what you saw, what you heard. what were your conversations? what's so complicated about that? you're not being asked to reveal

national security secrets here in a public forum. you're asked to tell us exactly what occurred that day. you heard people calling for you to be hanged. what did you think about that? you refuse to get into your own car because you were suspicious of the secret service agent who supports trump, who was tasked to drive the car. i mean, can you tell us about that? what was the reference points for that? why did you feel that way? what suspicions did you have? why is that so hard? your president, your partner tried to overthrow the government. he tried to instigate you to overthrow the government. you refused. could you tell us about that? >> thank you. >> why is that complicated? >> right. >> this is where the credibility of these candidates, these wanna bes like pence who want to blow

past this, joe, and say, oh, it's all -- you know, that was then. we dealt with that. no, we have not dealt with that. because you have not told us your side of the story. you were there. we saw you in the garage on the phone. what were those conversations? why can't america know that? so they're all going to have credibility problems here. you're not going to get to blow by january 6th. you're just not. the country won't let you. >> you're not going to be able to do it. hugo, of course, the judge doesn't really care what we want to hear or if mika wants to hear what he was thinking about, you know, hanging mike pence. but the judge likely, will he not, think it is very relevant, if they're trying to get to the bottom of the january 6th conspiracy, possible conspiracy to commit sedition by the president of the united states, former president of the united states, mike pence is at the center of that story. donald trump's efforts tok elec

to do something that when, you know, when he called dan quell, he said, you don't have to power, mike. you don't have that power. but at the heart of this conspiracy, there sits donald trump's efforts, alleged conspiracy, to get mike pence to play the key role in the conspiracy. i'm just curious, how would any judge not compel him to testify? >> jon was completely right when he said the insurrection and the capitol attack itself was unprecedented. that's actually a really strong argument that the justice department has in front of judge howell. the justice department basically has to show they cannot get the testimony that mike pence otherwise would provide from any other source. that is certainly true in this instance because, in a lot of these conversations leading up

to january 6th, whether it was, you know, objecting to the certification on january 6th or whether it was, you know, trump trying to overturn the election through fake electors or other way, with john eastman. you know, pence was the only guy on a lot of -- on the other end of a lot of these conversations. he is really the only person who can speak to those conversations. if he is doing so under oath, you know, the justice department and the special counsel's office would get the clearest account of what went down. crucially, to what trump's intent was and what trump really wanted pence to do, throw out the election. send it back to the house or the states. i think that is really crucial. in many respects, play the judge -- maybe the judge does want to know what pence was thinking. >> for anyone who cares about what happened on january 6th, there are people who are serving time, who are in jail right now because of what they did at the

capitol on january 6th. there are people charged with seditious conspiracy, and the vice president doesn't want to talk about it? he has no feelings about this? come on. real quick, meacham, then we have to go. >> it was a coup. >> attempted coup. they defecated on the capitol. people died. >> i know this isn't the most profound thing i've said this morning because i haven't mentioned "my fair lady," but it was a coup. >> he has nothing to say. >> therefore, what happened, it's important for everything. this is not complicated. >> no, it's not. >> i mean, it was -- it was a coup attempt. again, donald trump planned to use mike pence as the pin that he was going to pull out in the hand grenade to set all of this in motion, to start the coup in motion. >> how weak, that he can't answer questions. >> there was screaming.

there was yelling. there was name calling. he did everything he could do to try to intimidate him into basically, again, pulling the pin out of the hand grenade. i guess that's about the only thing left to say, other than, willie, also be looking forward in the coming weeks carousel references and jon meacham being off broadway in a full recasting of everything we've ever thought about the musical "carousel." >> highly anticipated revival. jon, you slipped in george bernard shah with "my fair lady." >> i'm on fire. >> political investigations reporter for "the guardian," hugo lowell, thank you for coming on.

ap african-american studies court, the florida governor is threatening to ban the program for all students. reverend al sharpton led a rally yesterday against all this in tallahassee. he joins us on "morning joe." em. all it takes is eight minutes to get started. then work with professionals to assist your business with its forms and submit the application. go to getrefunds.com to learn more. i'm a screen addicted tween. and, if i'm not posting on social media, i don't feel seen. hey mom. look! mom! oh my god mom. you gotta look at this. nope. keeping my eyes on the road is paying off with drivewise. post about that. bo-ring. oh! say cheese! no, thank you. unblock me! stop! [screech] that was awesome! hey what's your @? i'll tag you. get drivewise from allstate and save 40% for avoiding mayhem like me.

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♪♪ look what jon meacham has done. look what jon meacham has done to our show. it's a little bit like, you know, meacham really doesn't usually do revivals for any place past 1964. i don't know about "phantom of the opera." welcome back to "morning joe." jon meacham. >> yes, sir? >> we look forward to your future performances in "brigadoon," "carousel."

any others? >> i do a lot of karaoke in assisted living facilities when i'm out talking about lincoln. yeah, get ready. >> okay. >> all of those. fantastic. we look forward to that. >> any time. >> may we move on, thank you. >> we may. >> i'm going to reset everything. welcome back to "morning joe." it is a few minutes before the top of the hour. reverend al sharpton was in tallahassee yesterday where he was joined by black leaders and activists to protest governor ron desantis' opposition to a college board advanced placement course in african-american studies. >> after 57 years of jim crow, it was education, brown versus the board of education, that kicked off in 1954, that inspired rosa parks to sit down a year later in 1955. if you would study history, you

would have known to mess with us in education always ends to your defeat. you talk about florida is where woke dies? we went from woke to work. we going to work on you, desantis, until we tell the whole story. >> sharpton led a rally with several hundred people, including black lawmakers and clergy from a local church to the capitol to protest the desantis administration's objections to the course, as well as recent moves such as expanding a state program to transport migrants from the southern border to other states. desantis has shown no signs of back away from the college board conspiracy and now wants to explore ways for florida to avoid doing business with the non-profit all together. reverend sharpton joins us now. want to talk to you, as well, about the sentencing of the buffalo shooter and those

incredibly emotional moments in the courtroom. but we're talking about two americas, whether it's in buffalo or florida. what'd you learn from the rally? >> well, what i learned is that people are genuinely incensed by what the governor is doing. for the governor and the college board to decide to say what part of black history is comfortable to floridians, basically white floridians, is as offensive as you can get. they're not limiting just to black studies, but lgbtq rights as well as women. we're talking about -- and you have meacham here, we're talking about a period where we have history of this. where you must remember one of the most effective ways of dehumanizing blacks in slavery was it was against the law for

us to read and write. then it was against the law for whites to teach us. edge caution was always something we always saw as our key to coming out of being enslaved. >> yes. >> because of our ability to read and white. now you're going to limit what we can read and white in ap classes? people won't be able to handle watching movements like the civil rights movement, like the black lives matter movement, like lgbtq rights, and it is not to condemn the country. it is to show how the country evolved. we need to know we went from slavery to electing barack obama. to try and eliminate that, i think, is un-american, as much as it is racist. >> reverend, i'll leave the historical aspect to meacham. but politically, how concerned are you that other states might follow this lead? >> we had no engagement, and

there was a couple thousand people there, every elected official just about in the black caucus and latinos in the state legislature there. and every major pastor from all over florida. no engagement. wasn't looking for it. because i think he is playing petty politics, as the social philosopher joe scarborough says, he is a day trader. he is looking at now, not looking at history. he wants to be baby trump. he is going to use race like trump did. don't forget, the entry of donald trump into presidential politics was birtherism. >> might be better than meatball. >> baby trump fits him. he is a miniature trump trying to be like daddy, and daddy spanks him and they have a little inside family fight. they're the same thing. >> oh, my gosh.

>> i think the fear is what you raised. if he can get away with this and cement this in florida, it will be used in other states. because he is basically trying to do a state's rights movement. we're deciding in this state who gets an abortion, how education goes. the whole civil rights movement was against states rights. we needed federal protection against state segregating us. >> jon meacham. >> the remarkable -- one of the remarkable thing think about when this debate comes up is john lewis is born in a segregated alabama in 1940. cannot vote until 1966, 1968. parents can't vote. he is buried from lincoln's catafalque in the capitol of the united states. he goes from not seeing a white person, except for the mailman, until he is 14 years old, to being honored as a statesman of the republic.

that story itself is the country. it's not that the struggle is over, but if you can't engage the complexity of history, then we can't become a more perfect union. because if we don't know what these forces are -- and they are perennial. this is about taming these forces. it is about managing and marshalling them. >> that's right. >> because we're sinful and fallen and frail. the american story is really just enough of us did just enough of the right thing at the right moment to push us forward. that's a hugely important story. and is it political? absolutely. but politics is about people. if we don't create a habit of heart and mind where we engage this, then the experiment is in terrible shape. >> terrible danger. reverend al, i want to talk to you about the sentencing hearing yesterday in buffalo. it's just a few minutes past the

top of the hour. we're going to get to that in a moment, if you could stay. >> yes. >> we'd like to hear your thoughts. former u.n. ambassador and south carolina governor nikki haley announced her 2024 bid for the white house yesterday. haley painted a picture of being a, quote, tough as nails woman. ready for the white house and ready to bring change to america. she also made her opening case on why she is more fit to lead over president biden. >> they have us spiraling toward socialism with a new $1 trillion spending bill every few months, and a national debt over $30 trillion. on biden and harris' watch, a self-loathing has swept our country. it's in the classroom, the board room and the back rooms of government. every day, we are told america is flawed, rotten and full of hate. joe and kamala even say america is racist. nothing could be further from the truth. and i have a particular message

for my fellow republicans. we've lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of americans. well, that ends today. >> joining us now from charleston where nikki haley spoke yesterday is nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali. good morning. what was the event like last night? how was nikki haley received? big crowd. paint the picture for us. >> reporter: yeah, willie, optically, it is exactly the kind of rollout that you want to have. if you listen to that speech there, you could almost imagine that this was a speech being given in the general election, which would be fine, except that we've got a year and a half to go until we get there. nikki haley is nowhere close to taking on president biden at this point. instead, she has to go her only

official opponent, her former boss, donald trump. we know this field will get a lot bigger, probably with a lot of governors, current and former. she'll have to put her executive leadership, both here in south carolina and at the u.n., up to the test there. look, if you listen to her speech yesterday, we've heard the way that people like ron desantis are tossing red meat at the base when they talk about wokism going to die in florida. that wasn't the nikki haley messaging way. she had the said culture wars mention, but at the same time, she took it on in a different way. look, for me as someone who looks at this through the lens of not just another women getting into the race but a politician of color on the republican side, she talked about gender and race, talking about the ways she felt she was able to rise as a woman of color to the governor's mansion here in south carolina. then also making clear that she opportunity want to play a game of identity politics in the

traditional sense, where she is not asking voters to vote for her because she is a woman. which, of course, makes sense. as i wrote about in my book, republican politics issue identity politics. >> former governor of south carolina, popular, but also in the state is donald trump. do you get a sense about how nikki haley is going to walk that line? criticism of donald trump on the one hand, praise of him, having worked under him as the u.n. ambassador, and how are the voters talking about this? if they have good feelings about donald trump, what do they want to see from nikki haley to swing their vote to her? >> reporter: this is going to be the question that we grapple with, willie, over the course of the entire primary. it is not just nikki haley who has to defend working in trump's administration and now challenging him. that's going to be true for mike pence, for mike pompeo, for others like desantis, who is

close to the former president. yesterday, nikki haley wasn't talking about trump. she didn't name him, though his aura was over the event. at one point, she suggested all politicians over 75 should take a mandatory mental acuity and competency test. clearly, that is something she's talking about in relation to president biden, but that would also apply to the 76 or 75-year-old donald trump. she's taking him on without naming him, which is probably not going to be something that you can do for long in a primary like this, where everything is about trump. but this is clearly the way she's going to try to content with that issue. i would note, yesterday, there was only one speaker who mentioned trump by name. it was congressman ralph norman, who, of course, is in washington, was one of the key holdouts against kevin mccarthy in the freedom caucus. but he mentioned president trump

directly by name, saying that he thanked him for his service but that it was time to turn the page. you're watching that be the argument here. especially as nikki haley tries to bring in the entire idea of electability, having lost seven of the eight most recent popular votes, that is something i think we're going to hear time and time again, both from haley and everyone else who is going to toe the line between trump but not alienating him too much. >> it'll be fascinating to watch. ali vitali from south carolina, thank you so much. joe, your assessment of nikki haley out of the gate here? obviously, she'll have a lot of trouble, as are all the candidates, of grappling with this question of donald trump. someone she worked for, someone she was critical of on january 6th, then said i'd never run if he's in the race, and now she's in the race. >> this may sound radical for trump republicans, but if they

want to win, they'll have to start telling the truth. they have to tell the truth about donald trump. i mean, every single line that she said, you know, americans will look back and go, wait a second, that's not right. she started out by accusing joe biden of running up the national debt. she talked about the $30 trillion debt. nikki haley knows, and i'll tell you what, a lot of americans know, that donald trump rose the debt more than any other president in u.s. history over four years. and donald trump increased the debt more in four years than presidents did over the first 220 years of our republic. america went 220 years, 220 years before all those presidents together increased america's debt more than donald trump did in four years. so you have to get a better

argument than that. the republicans spun us into debt, who bankrupted us. john heilemann, i wrote a couple other things down here. when she's talking about how democrats are negative, democrats are saying america is bad? no, they aren't. democrats aren't saying america is bad. we talk about it every morning. i wrote a few things down. donald trump, the person whose name she shall not mention, wrote a book called "the american dream is dead." all he talked about was the american dream is dead. his inaugural speech was about american carnage. he's recently talked about the need to, quote, terminate the constitution. top republican senators say our military is weak and woke, and they wish they were more like russian soldiers. military men and women weak, woke, and they're bringing helicopters from afghanistan to attack people who voted for

donald trump. they're also saying the fbi is coming to houses across america to kick in doors, to arrest people who voted for donald trump. you have one of the most senior senators in the republican party saying the irs is going out to iowa with ar-15s to kick in doors of small business owners and middle class americans to shoot and kill them. i could go on and on. they say that they trust vladimir putin more than they trust america's premier law enforcement agency. they say they want to defund the fbi. you could talk for four hours about republicans hating america and republicans hating american institutions. if you are a republican and you want to actually win an election for once, tell the truth about how great america is and how

wrong donald trump has been, and you just may win an election. >> well, joe, yeah, it is an incredible list that you could put together. i think if you went back to the period, the 72 hours after the fbi showed up at mar-a-lago alone, just took all the public statements by every elected republican official about what they said about the fbi, the doj, and the whole law enforcement structure of the united states, you could make a list four, five hours longer than what you said just of republicans trashing institutions. this is the fundamental feature of the age of trump. it's the age of grievance, and it is omni directional. grievance against liberals, grievances against special interest, and also grievances against the american government, america's government, its legal system, judiciary. every institution that's been part of making america great, as donald trump likes to say, has been a target for republicans. that has been a giant, long --

for the last seven years, it's been a republican squawk fest. as far from the traditional sunny optimism of a ronald reagan or george herbert walker bush or george w. bush. traditional republicanism has been about american exceptionalism, the greatness of america. that's been at the core of republican appeal until the era of trump, where it is bitch and moan about what is wrong about america. i'll say about nikki haley, you know, it is an announcement speech. i don't want to, you know -- it's traditionally, in both parties, historically, you give announcement speeches. they're not typically a time you spend -- you get out the big 3 wood, the driver, and take it to any of your opponents. that's not usually what announcement speeches are for. i'll give her a pass in her announce. she didn't go after donald trump. but if her test she wants to

apply to anybody over 75 is for apply a test for political competence and civil competence to every republican who runs. if you are a former member of the trump administration, are you willing to take on donald trump by name? if you're not, please go home. second, are you willing to say, straight up, first question out of everybody's mouth should be, just want to double check with you, is joe biden the legitimate elected president of the united states? if there is any equivocation on that matter, let i loan de you failed the civics test. thank you, you can go home. those are more important than nikki haley's competency test she wants to apply. i'd like to hear her on all three subjects over the coming days. >> americans may -- trumper may not like it, but the question about do you believe joe biden

is president of the united states and was he fairly elected president of the united states, everybody that ran in a swing state in a major election that were election deniers lost. again, you know, it's such a burden on me to try to help my former republicans. >> making me tired. >> yeah, they're making me tired. all i'm trying to do is help you start winning elections again, right? this is all pretty simple. it's all there. you deny elections, you lose. you attack the military, you lose. you attack law enforcement officers and the fbi, you lose. you go around and push conspiracy theories, you lose. you talk about fortress america and being an isolationist, you lose. you talk about keeping all immigrants out of the united

states, you lose. because most americans still view -- have a view on all of these things, views that resemble ronald reagan's. again, i will just say, yes, he was for america being a city shining brightly on the hill for all the world to see. yes, he was optimistic, you know, talking about how he really believed america's greatest days were ahead of us. he said it. he was mocked by left wingers, just like any democrat that is saying that now is mocked by trumpers. even on immigration, ronald reagan's final address to america said that if we close the doors to immigrants in the future, we will become older, we will become less vital, and we will cease to be what makes america great. >> well -- >> it's not hard. i mean, they could choose a guy that's lost five or six

elections in a row, or maybe they could just thematically follow a president that won 49 out of 50 states. they always choose the loser. i just don't get it. this is not hard. >> and that's the thing for candidates, they have to address the reality. and it would help them to address the reality. because even trump supporters remember the past two years, three years, where trump lost again and again and again and again. it's not like they have to convince them of something. that's what happened, katty kay. yet, with nikki haley, we get a tinge of the american carnage speech. just like sarah huckabee sanders after the state of the union address, it's like, what planet are we on? your guy lost six, seven times, and created a lot of what we are talking about here, this negativity, this anti-democratic

vitriol, and hatred of minorities and immigrants. so, you know, talk about american carnage. speak for yourself, first of all. secondly, trump has a track record. why can't these candidates just address it? >> i mean, it's a feature of populism, it's us against them. somehow, the establishment elite took power away from us, and we are angry at them, whether it's the -- whatever you call it, the administrative strait, established media, organs of government. that anger is free floating. you hear it still in populism, whether it is here in the united states, brazil or hungary, the tone is actually similar, the language is similar wherever this pops up. nikki haley is in an interesting position. on the one hand, she's trying to present herself as the daughter of the optimistic side of america. a family of immigrants who managed to become successful in

this country and is the new generation. at the same time, she knows she can't alienate that portion of trump voters for whom the american carnage idea really resonates. so she goes after joe biden and kamala harris. i mean, erroneously. they've made a point of saying america is not racist, multiple times, saying the country is not racist. she has to tap into this, which gets to her underlying problem of how she deals not just with donald trump but with donald trump supporters. so far, she's -- i take john heilemann's point, this is her debut, but at some point, she's going to have to go after him. he's the only other candidate running at the moment. she can't go through the whole of this primary campaign ignoring donald trump. it is not possible. she has given us no indication so far, just as ron desantis has given us no indication so far, of how she'll actually handle the bully when he is right in front of her on a debate stage. i don't think we've had an

indication from either her video or her speech yesterday that she's particularly prepared to do that or has a plan for how to do that. >> yeah. and, michael steele, you look at one quote after another from ronald reagan. it's all about optimism. when the lord calls me home, whenever that may be, i will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. optimism is in order. day-to-day democracy is proving itself to be not at all a fragile flower. and he goes through -- actually, he talks about a lot of countries in central and eastern europe, countries that are now fighting for their freedom once again, and who is it? you've got republicans that are saying, we should just surrender. trump republicans, we should just surrender and turn it over to russian aggression again. again, this is just like, you

know, everything is backwards. these republicans could actually learn a lot from the guy that got you and me into politics, ronald reagan. >> so, joe, reagan talked about our cause, the cause of the country, the cause of our party, in a way in which america saw themselves reflected in that. and we won elections. we won the argument against our political opponents. we made the better case to the american people. nikki haley yesterday in her announcement talked about our cause being just. my only question in response to that, well, if it is so just, if it is so right, why have americans rejected it? seven out of the last eight elections. why can we not reengage them along those democratic principles that reagan espoused?

you've embraced a man who says he is bigger and better than reagan. in fact, he says he is bigger and more popular and greater than the founder of our party. that's not -- that's not a cause that is right. that is narcissism. america doesn't embrace narcissism. because they don't see themselves reflected in it. and so unless you're willing to show america who we are as a party, and i can speak as a current member of this party because i know it pisses them off i'm still here. i ain't going anywhere yet, right? because that cause that you talk about, nikki and tim and desantis and all the rest of you, is not a reflection of america, it's a reflection of donald trump. and until you break yourself free of that, and right yourself with the cause of the country, those madisonian democratic

principles, you say your stand on the constitution. yeah, you're literally standing on it, wiping your feet on it by embracing narcissistic policies and a person that leads to insurrection. so, yeah, the cause is right in your mind but not right for america. that's what this election is going to be about. >> well, and on a constitution, standing on a constitution that donald trump said needed to be terminated. >> terminated. >> because he lost one election. because he lost one presidential election. so the answer is to terminate the constitution. the negativity is, of course, jon meacham, overwhelming. i've been talking about ronald reagan, but let's expand this out and make it very bipartisan. i think most historians, if you talk about who the two most influential presidents of the 20th century would be, many historians would pick, yes, ronald reagan, but also, of

course, the most impactful president of the 20th century, franklin delino roosevelt. a man who was -- had unbridled optimism. the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. optimism through the darkest moments of the great depression. optimism through the darkest moments of world war ii. my mother and my aunts and my family in rural georgia who survived, in large part, because of franklin d. roosevelt, when he passed away, they wept. said it was like, you know, it was like a member of their own family had passed. it was that optimism, though, that fdr gave my parents in rural georgia, that gave so many

other americans, that got them through these difficult times. optimism with a tough look at some of the challenges that we face, combined together, that's a winning formula of a politician of any party of any age. >> the first great successful party president was thomas jefferson, who was the architect of the politics of optimism. there was a light coming across the continent, and where it'd end, no one knew. every successful president has spoken in that vernacular. not out of a mindlessness, not out of a kind of whistling past the graveyard, but because if you're going to undertake human leadership, you have to give people an incentive. lincoln said men act on incentive. he couldn't put emancipation on the table in 1864 because he had

asked black men to take up arms for the union. if that were removed, then the war would be lost and there would be a moral -- a fatal moral compromise. this is hard, but it's straight forward. it's not simple but it is straight forward. that is, we are not perfect. we are flawed. the remarkable thing about the national experiment is that just enough of us have done just enough of the right thing at critical moments to continue to make this worth defending. what's our immigration problem? it's that people want to come here. that's the issue. and so, you know, i don't want to cue the kettle drums, but fundamentally, an argument -- a party's argument based on american decline is a primary season argument. it's not a general election argument. >> all right. jon meacham, michael steele,

john heilemann -- >> i'm bummed out. kettle drums here, i brought them. >> oh, you did? >> meacham is like, no kettle drums. it was true, when it turned out that donald trump -- that argument about american decline was the argument that was able to win. there are a lot of things to say about that. in general, it's been true. >> let's be clear, i would have had a very different view about what i just said if he had won the popular vote. >> well, yes. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll get a live report from the sidelines of the munich security conference set to convene as we approach the one-year mark of russia's invasion of ukraine. plus, the latest from the pentagon ahead of president biden's expected speech on unidentified objects shot down by the u.s. military. also ahead, former national security adviser stephen hadley joins us with 30 newly declassified transition memoranda from the george w. bush administration. we'll talk about that. also, we've already announced an incredible lineup

for the 30/50 summit, which is happening in just a few weeks on international women's day. hillary clinton, billie jean king, catherine o'hara, malala, ayesha curry, misty copeland and more. coming up in a few minutes, we have a remarkable addition to that all-star lineup that will make the 30/50 conference in abu dhabi the most historic meeting of women in our time. that incredible announcement coming up in just a few minutes. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. i've never been healthier. shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. proven over 90% effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older.

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who killed ten black people shopping at a grocery store in buffalo, new york, will serve life in prison without the possibilities for parole. nbc news correspondent rehema ellis has more on yesterday's emotional sentencing hearing. >> my brother was one of the victims of this senseless massacre. >> reporter: in the courtroom, victims' families facing down a convicted racist gunman, showing grace. >> do i hate you? no. do i want you to die? no. >> reporter: but also pain. >> you have shattered a lot of lives here, son. >> reporter: there was anger. >> i will hurt you so bad. >> reporter: and rage too overwhelming to bear. this was the moment the sister of 72-year-old catherine massey got up to speech. >> you don't know a damn thing about black people. we're human. we like our kids to go to good schools. we love our kids. we never going to your neighborhoods and taking people out. >> reporter: her brother charged

at the gunman. guards quickly subdued him while peyton gendron was ushered out of the courtroom for a few moments. massey was devoted to family and community. she wrote about the need for gun safely a year before her life was stolen by gun violence. >> reporter: gendron, the white supremist gunman, targeted african-americans in a buffalo supermarket. he apologized. >> i did a terrible thing that day. i shot and killed people because they were black. >> reporter: the judge was not moved. >> there is no place for you or your ignorant, hateful and evil ideologies in a civilized society. >> nbc's rehema ellis reporting there. rev, you've met with those families, many of them. you've spoken at funerals for some of the victims there, ranging from an 86-year-old woman out buying groceries to a hero security guard who confronted the gunman at the cost of his own life.

what were your thoughts as you watched that yesterday? >> i watched it yesterday as we were doing the march in tallahassee, and i was explaining to some of the people with me that people underestimate the real pain and rage that victims go through. whether it is a racial killing like buffalo or police killing. many of us -- and in my capacity as a civil rights leader -- it's also been pastoral. you try to talk to people to really channel that rage and channel that pain into making change. you're got to remember, we're talking to people that didn't choose to go into civil rights or choose to go into politics or do any of this. they're normal people seeing their mother or brother or sister killed for no reason. i'm surprised we don't see more outbursts like we saw yesterday.

it should be a tap on the shoulder to americans, these are average people suffering from our lack of setting or social landscape, that would take these guns out of the hands of people as sick as this young man was. and i think that pain just exploded yesterday, and people ought to really look at how many other scenes we could have had like this because of the pain people have to suffer and many of us have to try and pastor them into being more positive in their -- and direct in their action, but not try to lessen their pain and outrage. >> reverend al, we'll continue to cover this. thank you. >> thank you. nine days after the september 11th terror attacks, president george w. bush used, for the first time, the phrase, war on terror. he added that america's enemies were the, quote, radical network of terrorists and every

government that supports them. president bush's approach to not only al qaeda but other foreign odd ver sars like china and russia, are the subject of a new book published yesterday, entitled "hand-off: the foreign policy george w. bush passed to barack obama." it makes public for the first time a set of newly declassified transition memoranda, 30 of them, prepared by president bush's nsc staff, for the incoming obama administration, to outline the key foreign policy charges it would face. joining us, former national security adviser for president bush, for president george w. bush, stephen hadley. he is one of the book's editors. thank you for coming on the show. it is good to see you. what do we learn about the george w. bush administration foreign policy in these documents and how it applies to challenges we face today?

>> well, thanks for being -- very a chance to be on the show. what the book really shows is what, in the transition memos what the staff thought they'd accomplished and what remained to be done under the obama administration. as we saw it at the end of the administration in 2008. i think if you look at the book, it corrects a lot of mythology about the bush administration. a lot of people think the only thing we did was iraq, afghanistan and the war on terror. if you look at the table of contents, simultaneously, we were handling the full range of foreign policy issues that you outlined. i think the second thing that comes from the book is that a hot of the initiatives and conceptualization and implementation of the policies of the administration are really in hands of the president. i don't think people realize how much in any administration the president is the chief

strategist for that administration and the source of a lot of the energy for its initiatives. finally, i think the other thing that comes from the book is you see that american leadership in the world is still crucial. none of the major initiatives, whether dealing with proliferation, terrorism or pandemic diseases or the diseases that were ravaging africa at the time, none of those initiatives would have happened without american leadership, without america taking a first step and then rallying the international community to follow in behind. those lessons are important for americans to understand when they think about america's role in the world. >> stephen, what a fascinating book. what a fascinating look at two administrations that were supposedly polar opposites and, yet, strangely linked by a financial crisis, where barack obama and george w. bush were basically teammates. bush handed the baton to obama, who finished what he began after

september the 15th. also, with the war on terror, barack obama went into the white house wanting to find himself being everything george w. bush and dick cheney were not. we saw it time and again, whether it was drone strikes, how he executed the war against terror, that there were some things that he just was linked to the bush administration on. not only followed many of those policies but actually amped them up here and there. >> that's true. you know, one of the best kept secrets in washington, and i think for the country, is how much continuity there is in foreign policy between administrations, even administrations of different parties. and i think the other thing that people missed is that any administration will start initiatives whose success or

failures really will be determined by their successors, and whether the successors pick up on the initiatives and carry them forward. that was certainly true on the war of terror. it was true of what we were trying to do in afghanistan and iraq. we weren't going to produce stability in either of those countries within the space of one administration, but they were going to have to be handed over and become the responsibility of subsequent administrations to finish the job. >> in the book's chapter on russia, under future challenges, the memoranda transferred to the obama administration highlights the importance of defending russia's neighbors. it reads, in part, quote, russia is now trying to reassert its influence with tactics of intimidation and direct meddling and interference in the sovereign affairs of its neighbors. russia's intense opposition to nato enlargement, to georgia and, in particular, to ukraine, will continue to undermine these

countries' ability to maintain a western path. the next administration will be confronted with the challenge of how to reverse russia's advance into georgia, stop further russian provocations, and restore georgia's territorial integrity. furthermore, russia attempts to challenge the territorial integrity of ukraine, particularly in crimea, which is 59% ethnically russian and is home to the russian navy's black sea fleet, must be prevented. russia covert action and propaganda activities to heighten ethnic tensions in crimea and maintain instability in the region will likely continue. katty kay, it certainly did. >> yeah, what a prophetic memo that was, stephen, when you were writing it. i remember during the 2008 campaign, of course, john mccain said we're all georgians now. georgia, as you see in the memo, also the focus of your white

house's attention. if you look from 2008 to 2022, what were the missed opportunities insofar as it came to russia and vladimir putin, in particular? what more could have been done during the two administrations of president obama and then donald trump to contain russia and perhaps head off what we now see happening in ukraine? >> you know, katty, when they went into georgia, one of the things we said at the time is, if we do not inflict a strategic defeat on putin for having gone into georgia, today it'll be georgia, tomorrow it will be ukraine. the day after, it'll be the baltic states. of course, the baltic states, being in nato, if russia were to go into the baltic states, it'd be war between russia and nato. so we saw this pattern coming. it was one of the efforts we tried to do after he went into georgia, to really throw the

whole relationship in the toilet. to basically say, you can't have a constructive relationship with the west if you do this kind of thing in georgia. i think probably more should have been done then. more certainly would have been done in 2014 when russia goes into ukraine for the first time. i think we tried to have in the bush administration a constructive relationship with russia. we had a lot of cooperation with russia. we tried to bring them in the international system, to convince putin that he had a historic opportunity to bring russia into the west. he decided not to take that opportunity. at the same time, we strengthened our alliances. we strengthened nato by expanding its numbers and expanding its members as a hedge, if you will, against the possibility that russia would become, sadly, exactly what it has become. an angry power pursuing a

revision of restoring a russian empire within the space of the former soviet union. that's a vision that is at stake in ukraine. if we are not able to support the ukrainians to the extent that they can defeat russian strategic objectives in ukraine, we'll see more of this. that's the fear. >> the book is entitled "hand-off: the foreign policy george w. bush passed to barack obama." it is available now. former national security adviser stephen hadley, thank you for being on this morning. we appreciate your coming on the show. >> thank you. coming up, we'll reveal the latest big name to be added to the "forbes" and know your value 30/50 summit in abu dhabi. we're back with that big news after a short break. ubrelvy helps u fight migraine attacks. u won't take a time-out. one dose of ubrelvy

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welcome back. the forbes and know your value 30/50 sum in it abu dhabi is less than three weeks away and today we have a major announcement. ukraine's first lady will appear at the summit which takes place on and around international women's day. zelenskyy has become a symbol of extraordinary courage representing the women and families in her country. the first lady will be virtual on a panel with me, former secretary of state hillary clinton and the icons of women's rights in what will be the greatest global gathering of women in history. others include billie jean king, misty copeland and many, many more. joining me now is vice chair of

the summit huma abedine and randall lane and with us still is msnbc contributor katty kay. this is so exciting. huma, as vice chair of the summit, talk about the significance, the global significance of having first lady zelenska at the summit. she is representing so much, a symbol of so much courage. >> we are holding the conference in a place at the crossroads of the world marking international women's day and today even though we have a list of women who in business and media and culture and the arts there is no greater symbol in terms of courage, lap and hope for protecting women and children than her.

i worked for a former first lady. it is what you make it. >> tell us a little more about her. what prepares someone like this role? >> she said nothing could have prepared her for this role. she comes from the entertainment world like her husband. she was a writer and editor on successful shows and appearing with jill biden on mother's day and then traveled around the world to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis we can't wait to hear from her at the conference. >> randall, we have done events together. what do you make of this group of women, the legends to see on

stage? >> it is staggering given the size of this event. this is an inspirational woman after inspirational woman and she represents sometimes history comes to you. we like to think that everyone can make history. she's risen in an inspirational way and so much about the event is talking about mentorship, inspiration. like huma said, did not ask for the role and could have left. she stayed. she stayed. it's that courage, that willingness to say i didn't ask for this, could not have expected, but to rise up and rise up to the moment, that's something that's inspirational for everybody. >> she will be surrounded by women that stepped up in their

lives for equal rights and equal pay and sur vial. it is remarkable what she has been able to do with just taking herself and representing children and women fighting for their lives. >> it is a spotlight on the fate of women and children. she focused on the 12 million ukrainians, most women and children, displaced in the country. rape in the country. the maternity hospitals bombed. she putted a global spotlight on that describing herself as shy but turned up at important international meetings. spoken to the united states and now there in abu dhabi with you. i think having zelenska on the same stage with hillary clinton

at a conference with gloria steinem elevates her and to her elevates her cause and will take the opportunity i'm sure to talk about the plight of ukrainian women and children. she's a great addition to the conference. >> yeah. we are really excited. it is close. >> close. buy the tickets. >> huma, randall, thank you both. for more on the upcoming summit and how to join us head to forbes.com or know your value.com. remarkable news. thank you very much. we'll speak to the head of the u.s. agency of humanitarian aid for the earthquake in turkey and syria. plus senate majority whip dick

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what would you say are the differences? let's start with president trump. what policy differences do you have with him? >> i had a great working relationship with him. i consider haim friend. most of the policies he did i totally agree with. >> anything you specifically that you would do differently? >> mothers can't find baby formula. families that can't afford groceries. >> nikki haley not yet making a strong case why voters should choose her over donald trump. she kicked off the 2024 presidential campaign yesterday in charleston. welcome back to "morning joe." it is thursday, february 16th.

joe, don't you think she needs to maybe prepare a stronger answer? i can think of one about losing. again and again and again and again and it is time for someone new and to put trump behind us because he does not win. i said it. so you don't have to. >> it reminds me of -- i had this discussion with john heilemann in 2012. mitt romney knew he would be asked about romney care in massachusetts and yet when he was asked he didn't have an answer and never really got an answer. wait a second. really smart guy. he knew this question was coming. and yet he just wasn't prepared for it. same thing here with nikki

haley. i'm wondering, john heilemann, nobody got a glove on trump in 2012 but carly looked pretty good in debates. is there anything that nikki haley can take on? it remind me of the moment asking tony stark how, you know -- glove on thanos. how do you beat him? he said, i don't know. i got thrown to the ground but carly may provide some guidance to nikki haley on how to take this guy on. what do you think? >> sarah who ran the campaign has a piece in "the atlantic" and points out rightly there's challenges and opportunities for women who are -- woman to take on donald trump.

she pointed back to the carly experience saying the one moment trump eventually as he did with a lot of women, turned on carly. he said how can anybody vote for that face? attacked the physical appearance. she fought back against him and saw the poll numbers. she had flaws as a candidate but saw the poll numbers go through the ceiling briefly when she was able to show toughness resolve and going toe to toe with trump to take him on. it is a question coming off the segment just now. you know? nikki haley, a woman over 50 who will be out there, maybe the only woman in this field. >> right. >> i'm curious what you think

about that because trump has had a very -- found it harder to deal with strong women than men. meat ball ron is vintage trump. whatever you think about the nicknaming forte. it's degrading but meatball ron is like -- de-sank moan you. he sees desantis as a threat. he found a hook. praising nikki haley. doesn't take her seriously. then he'll trash her. how can she use this to her advantage? >> obviously she's dealing with a primary audience and running against trump and should capitalize on the fact she is

the first to jump in after trump. leave it to a woman to stand up to the forces of loser-dom first. and being in high heels or whatever, something so less than inspiring about being a female candidate. she ought to be the only person to beat trump and the first to jump in. i like donald trump, she can say. we need to putt the past behind us and losing behind us. with all due respect, that's what's been happening. here i am ready to go. ready to fight. i don't see anybody else brave enough to jump in. joe? am i totally wrong? >> not at all. she couldn't talk about a policy she disagreed with on donald trump? just stop playing to the cheap seats and be courageous and

something good might actually happen. john heilemann, joe biden will i think be talking later today. we had reports he will talk about the unidentified shot down objects overhead. i went to oeob and spoke to jake sullivan about this to ask him if americans had anything to be concerned about. >> what we can say is the intelligence community has at this point is leading explanation they are looking at that they are benign and now managing the fact there's balloons flying in american airspace. what are the protocols to take them out of the sky and managing the threat to civilian aircraft

and get a handle on what's up there? there are a lot more things in the sky that are unidentified unclaimed that need to be managed and dealt. we have a process in place to do that. >> jake said the objects he believed them to be benign but this is an issue. it doesn't really ring my bell. i think i'm in the minority here. i think americans are looking upward and this is an issue that joe biden needs to address. how do you think he should do it? >> the starting point is the stories over the weekend. looking at the stories. people around the table i'm having dinner is this "independence day" again?

american culture is replete with fascination over ufos. like years and years of people fixated on this question. not just nuts and out to pasture staring up in the skies but people who wonder -- why the fascination with area 51. i think it would be a mistake for anybody not to think an issue cutting out of the -- an issue beyond -- not traditional washington policy issue. an issue that cuts deep in the culture and people are -- the people that don't normally pay attention to politics are curious, nervous, want clarity about it and it would be the biggest mistake about the white house is feel this is a test for

joe biden to talk about an issue that almost everybody in the country has a feeling about it. people have a degree of curiosity or dismissiveness but if you try to make a joke out of and not talk about it in a way that people understand you will miss an opportunity for joe biden who for a lot of people despite the things he established are worried that he is not fully engaged. might be too old for the job. this is a moment to talk to people in a language to understand and put people's minds to rest, both serious people that care about national security and americans saying wheat the deal with the strange objects up in space? >> willie, i think i might be in the minority here. i assume that we have commercial -- whether it's commercial

objects or whether it's private objects or research objects i suspect that's probably what it is but at the same time americans are fixated on it and want better answers than they got so far. >> even if it is not aliens, are there foreign nationing flying balloons over our country undetected or unengaged by the u.s. military. let's bring in senate majority whip dick durbin chairman of the judiciary committee. want to talk about the legislation about keeping kids safe online in a moment but you received that classified briefing a couple days ago about the unidentified flying objects. it was interesting to see

senators bipartisan coming out satisfied with what they heard. what did you take away from that briefing? >> i felt the administration is taking this seriously. as americans we want answers. i think they are investigating the objects shot down. part of it is in a part of canada that is 50 degrees below 0. i'm sure the president and the administration addressing this issue today. >> the tragic, awful shooting at michigan state university in east lansing renewed the conversation what to do about gun violence in this country. students there survived the oxford high school shooting. graduated. went to michigan state. there was a sandy hook kid

there. what can we do in the moment? is there any momentum, energy on capitol hill to push forward with gun safety? >> it is basic. really. the american people have to ask themselves a question. have you had enough? do you want to make america safe again? we have had 67 this year. more shootings than days in the year. i still remember the sad, gruesome, awful situation in highland park last fourth of july. i have met with the victims. we have got to get serious. america has seen this over and over again. maybe we'll finally do

something. >> you chaired the senate judiciary committee. this was the confirmation of the 100th federal judge since president biden took office. we know that former president trump talks about this as his legacy. tell us about why this is so important and why the diversity of the group means so much. >> we believe that diversity is important coming to the administration of justice. all americans should walk into a law enforcement agency and feel that there are people like them considering the plight and i think it really brings credibility to the judiciary if it is a diverse group. we have had more women of color apointed across the land than

the history of the united states and the member of the supreme court and the first days of service making history herself. some of the those on the other side don't. >> i want to talk about the clean slate for kids online legislation you have sponsored. in ohio, for example, they propose new legislation to require con sent for kids under 16 to get accounts on platforms like tiktok or snapchat. ohio's bill comes as connecticut has produced similar legislation. let's talk about your legislation that you propose on a national level. we had internet people on the show.

they say they won't let the kids put tiktok on the phone. it is a chinese government pushing narratives to children. >> the senate judiciary committee is not a book club. there are real differences on policy but this hearing is one where democrats and republicans seemed united in the effort to protect children. the kids are being abused, exploited because of the irresponsibility of the social media groups. understand what you are doing to kids and change the ways. i think it is time to consider liability. to see the mothers in the hearing room with photographs of their children that committed suicide after being exploitded by the social media hounds is

unacceptable. there should be liability for entities putting the things online. the bill that specifically you mentioned said kids to be able to erase whatever record on the internet prior to 13. i would go further if i could. they deserve a chance to not be exploited by the internet. >> this is an issue that president biden raised in the state of the union address so there is a lot of energy around it. the state law in ohio requires parental content for anyone 16 to sign up. you drop that to 13? >> the record that kids are creating with the eyeballs on the screens day after day. and the companies are gathering every morsel of information to exploit to make a profit.

that should end. that is just one step but i believe the issue of liability which is a subject matter of the judiciary committee is one that really ought to be clear. 230 exemption is terrible. we need to change it. >> this is a really serious issue. as a parent of two teenagers. thank you. we'll check back with you on it. dick durbin of illinois, thank you. >> thank you. it's been ten days since that powerful earthquake. reuters reports a 17-year-old pulled from the rubble of a building this morning. more than 41,000 people have died. teams from around the world are helping with rescue efforts and providing aid.

those supplies are finally reaching syria, as well, now that more border crossings have opened. joining us now samantha power. it is really good to have you on this morning. if you could talk to us about the dire need that exists right now, especially getting into syria. >> viewers at this stage probably need help comprehending the scope of this but in turkey of the 3 million people living in the zone 1 million people have had the homes damaged or destroyed. that kind of boggles the mind. in syria about 350,000 people displaced. we have the death toll tragically increasing every hour of every day but the buildings have not been penetrated by search and rescue crews.

we support the white hell mites which did heroic work -- helmets which did heroic work. but they are just one organization. the fact that the border crossings have been opened by the syria government that resisted that after the earthquake means that we have hundreds of trucks crossing in with supplies to help with water, food, tents, the supplies that should have been there from the beginning. >> sam, it is katty here. what's the future for the people that survived? at the moment buildings are unstable. not much in the way of sanitation i understand. project out. will the people have to leave the area? many people moved because they are refugees from syria. what does the future hold for

the people in this region? >> i think again to define the region broadly in turkey the of course is bringing all resources to bear. search and rescue teams from more than 50 countries and reflective of the ease with which if the turkish government wants it the international community will be there. in turkey you see large funding appeals and the government and the citizens chipping in and people moving in the country. in syria in the opposition held areas they don't want to go. the war is still over in the public imagination for many but not for those who live in fear of the brutal assad regime.

so the goal is housing. then conversations about what reconstruction can look like. there's so much need in the world. so mobilizing international resources to help that rebuilding effort in northwestern syria and southern turkey is a key part of the u.s. message. we were the first out the gate with a commitment but other donors have to step up. >> you have a new piece in "foreign affairs" how democracy can win. you write early 2022 may prove to be a high-water mark for authoritarianism. the past few years have demonstrated the shortcomings of

beijing's model. public support dropped significantly since 2020. after years of democratic backsliding the world's autocrats are finally on the offensive. to seize this moment and swing back to democratic rule we must break down the wall that separates democratic advocacy from economic development work and demonstrate that democracies can deliver for their people. we must redouble the efforts to counter digital surveillance and disinformation. we must update the traditional democratic assistance playbook to help our partners to respond to campaign against then. only then can we beat back anti-democratic forces. katty kay, this guidance applies

not just to countries around the world but america. >> yeah. the threat of disinformation to democracies is real. if people can't trust the information they get how can they make informed choices about the people they elect? we see that becoming more of a problem the more advanced technology becomes. ai is posing a huge opportunity and very real challenges. to samantha, it is an optimistic take on the sort of decline of populism but if you look at a continent that you know well, africa, we see clear dominance of china and russia in that continent. i wonder if the struggles are playing out in different regions of the world. >> i think the polling that's

cited in the article is global and you do see a disillusionment with the forces. not sufficient disillusionment but that's why a point of emphasis i make is the importance of those pursuing political reform, telling the truth delivers economically. this is a point that president biden makes again and again and why in the midterm elections the democratic party did be thor than people expected. the economic head winds were being -- if you pursue a path of political reform, enhancing the rule of law, if you don't want the debt distress that comes with the large chinese loans is

the international community going to be there? is the private sector going to be there? will citizens see alongside democratic moves, rule of law strengthening, anti-corruption fighting that there are meaningful changes in their lives? that is hard coming out of covid with inflation, because of putin's war and food security in africa and elsewhere. but there is a lot of remorse about the large debt that's been incurred often with not the kind of infrastructure that people expected and not hiring local workers. and so this is a moment that if we can modernize the playbook, pay more attention to the economic side and as you note get much more sophisticated in

training young people to distinguish fact and fiction while telling our story compellingly i think this is a moment we can seize. >> samantha power, important piece in "foreign affairs." we appreciate you coming on the show this morning. thank you. >> thank you. joe? >> it is a great point. that samantha power makes. about what's happened over the past year focusing on russia and ukraine and don't take a closer look at really the global changes that have happened over not just the past year but three, four years. we have china to overtake us economically, militarily, been in retreat. president xi for whatever reason

taken more autocratic steps. as the chinese middle class grows and as the economy slows down, as the chinese communist party gets more autocratic by the day that poses an extraordinary challenge for china's growth in the future. spending more money policing the state internally than foreign policy and other things makes a huge mistake. remember the global alliance to put together and russia and china had an unlimited friendship? you don't hear about that anymore because at the time they believed wrongly like everybody else beliefs wrongly and donald trump believes wrongly and too

many trumpers believe, they believed america was in decline. they believed nato was blowing apart at the seams. the alliance is stronger than ever. we are talking about finland and sweden, countries never considered to be part of the nato alliance. possibly becoming members. you have germany talking about spending measure on the defense budget than russia. a game changer. we see over the past year how autocratic regimes are on the back foot. democracy and western style democracy that donald trump hates and many hate as they embrace, it is surging.

it is a great point as we to cuss on ukraine and russia by samantha power. global trends changed over the past year. still ahead on "morning joe," the latest developments from ukraine where there are more questions about the capabilities of the russian army following another failed assault. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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testifying. he says he was acting as president of the senate in the

january 6 vote count and therefore has legislative immunity. >> my fight is on the separation of powers. my fight against the doj's subpoena very simply is on defending the prerogatives i had as president of the senate to preside over the joint session of congress on january 6. for me this is a moment where you have to decide where you stand and i stand on the constitution of the united states. >> pence also noted the argument for immunity is the same one the justice department used in 2021. the justice department succeeded in getting that lawsuit dismissed but the judge did not cite the government's position in tossing out the case. pence was subpoenaed by special counsel smith.

this is a man planning to run for president. he was in minnesota and iowa yesterday. the attack line is the weaponization of the justice department. the weaponization of the fbi. is he on good ground saying i will take this to supreme court? >> he is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory here. i'll tell you what's unprecedented and unconstitutional. what the president was trying to force the vice president who's president of the senate to do. mike pence stood between us and the abyss. it is a remarkable thing because if he caved we would have had chaos. any number of things. so he did an important and good

thing. and so, this just feels to me as you're saying a little bit of stage craft for the base. the constitutional argument doesn't strike me as particularly compelling because he is an executive branch officer so if i was him just tell the truth coming up, two of the next guests are detailing the epic battle for a media empire. that's ahead on "morning joe." we are back in a moment. i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. ♪♪ with skyrizi, most people who achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months... had lasting clearance through 1 year.

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comment. britain said that 97% of the russian army is inside ukraine. however, there are questions about russia's military tactics and the ability to maintain sustained large-scale ground assaults in the disastrous attempt to take a ukrainian city. "the new york times" reports the scale of moscow's losses in the battle is only now beginning to come into the focus. accounts, ukraine troops captured russian soldiers and

painting a picture of a faltering russian campaign plagued by battlefield dysfunction. britain's defense minister said a russian brigade annihilated where he said that moscow lost over 1,000 people in 2 days. the british defense intelligence agency reported last week that russian units likely suffered major casualties. this battlefield information, many different sources point to a russian army that is just getting kind of slaughtered in ukraine. >> catastrophic defeat after catastrophic defeat. doesn't seem to change vladimir putin's thinking. they just continue to throw

member, many poorly trained and equipped to the front line, the meat grinder as it were, trying to show a victory here. there's a growing expectation that putin addressing the russian people next week and wants a point of minor victory. they used the wagner mercenary group and there's an expectation here that this russian offensive may have begun. nato secretary-general stoltenberg said they believe this might be the beginning wave of this. coming up, world leaders arrive in germany. we'll get a live report from overseas just ahead on "morning joe."

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all i want to do is this. i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is 1 more than we have. because we won the state. >> coming up, parts of the fulton county special grand jury report on donald trump and the 2020 election interference in georgia will be made public today. we'll get live reports. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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and now, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. ends monday. welcome back to "morning joe." a live look at new york city for you. it is a few minutes before the top of the fourth hour of "morning joe." a treasure trove of lunacy amid a real life succession drama. that is "the daily beast's"

description of the bombshell book "unscripted." the just released book sheds new light on the shocking drama that played out behind the scenes at the paramount media empire just a few short years ago. "unscripted" is an account by "new york times" journalists james b. stewart and rachel abrams of sumner redstone's final years. unscripted is the fly on the wall account of the extraordinary board room machinations that led sherry redstone to wrest control of cbs and viacom from the executives, girlfriends and others who circled him in his final years. the "new york times" calls it a chronicle of corporate greed,

manipulation, misogyny on a spectacular scale that almost brought down paramount global. and the coauthors of "unscripted" join us now. wow. i don't even where to begin. rachel, what's the biggest take-away in terms of this family and the position that sherry redstone is in? >> ultimately this is a family drama at its heart. if you like succession, you'll love this book. this is about a woman succeeding against all odds in a very sexist environment where everyone was quick to believe the worst about her. >> it is a difficult position she's been in in the media world. it's gone through a lot of changes over the past few decades. she was in the middle of it. what do you think your biggest, most shocking revelation in this

book? >> there were plenty of them. we'd call each other back and forth and say, can you believe this? the fact that the two women who moved into the house made off with over $150 million was pretty shocking. the level of sexism and misogyny -- >> examples? >> the cbs board, we have texts, e-mails that show what they were saying. one guy said when sexual assault allegations against les moonves, we all did that. why are you making such a big deal about this? it was incredible that sherry came into a male-led shark tank of the media world which had not changed all that much despite all the revelations. >> you also had a two-page spread in the new york post.

those of us at this table know the name les moonves. >> the redstone family is one of the most important families in american media over the past century. at one point paramount and viacom, it's nickelodeon, paramount, cbs, the brands and companies that shape the shows that we watch and the culture that we live in. this was a multibillion dollar empire. the stakes with this family drama were really high. >> my god. >> talk to us what brought that about and the ripple effects. >> les moonves was proclaimed by the hollywood reporter as the most important person in the entertainment industry. he had these dark secrets in his past.

really shocking examples of sexual impropriety and assaults on women and that he nonetheless launched a civil war in the board room attacking sherry redstone and the family. ultimately his efforts failed on a spectacular level when these women came forward and the new yorker wrote about it. we have new revelations about other things the board learned including trying to cover it up and lying at it and coming under the pressure and sway of a hollywood manager that he was trying to keep his client quiet. it's quite a drama. the coverup in many ways was worse. the board said, these things happened years ago, we don't really care about that. then the lying and the coverup and new revelations finally did him in. >> like what?

>> there's an incredible scene where he has an early morning appointment for his diabetes doctor. he comes into the room. how much can i say? >> i don't know. >> his pants come down and something else comes out. >> i think we're good. >> you walked into that one. >> i walked into that one. >> here's a shocker. he had an employee at cbs working outside his office. part of his job was to administer oral sex in the office. >> rachel, what do you think will be the impact on this company moving forward given the revelations in this book? >> i think all companies have gotten much better at managing pr crises. obviously this particular company has undergone seismic change and sherry redstone is in

charge. she has made commitments to making it a better workplace but we're only five years out from harvey weinstein. things do not change overnight. there's still a lot of systemic problems. >> we'll see how she does. the new book is entitled "unscripted." james b. stewart and rachel abrams, thank you very much. i appreciate you coming on this morning. it is just about the top of the fourth hour of "morning joe." 6:00 a.m. on the west coast and 9:00 a.m. on the west coast in just about one minute. we have a lot to get to, including a live report from the sidelines of the munich security conference as world leaders gather amid rising tensions with china. plus, mike pence says he will fight a subpoena from the

special counsel for the january 6th insurrection. also ahead, the latest from michigan state university, where a candlelight vigil was held last night. there have been renewed calls for gun reform following the deadly mass shooting there. we'll be joined by one democratic lawmaker who achieved a compromise on guns in his state. this morning portions of the report from the fulton county grand jury that investigated if then president trump interfered in the 2020 election with expected to be made public. jurors said they were worried some witnesses lied under oath. the majority of the report will remain private until the fulton county district attorney concludes her probe. joining us now from atlanta, correspondent blayne alexander. also with us garrett haake live

in west palm beach, florida. here in new york is nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard just back from iowa, where you spoke with former vice president mike pence. we'll get to that in just a moment. blayne, let's start with you. when do we expect these specific parts of the grand jury report to be released? >> reporter: we are holding our breath and refreshing that docket. we're expecting it to come some time today. if it's consistent with what the court has done in the past, we can expect it around mid-morning. for the first time after months of watching what we can of this secretive process, we're for the first time getting a glimpse into what happened behind closed doors. we're looking for the introduction and the conclusion. perhaps most notable is this section eight, as the judge has outlined it in which the special grand jurors describe concerns

about the fact that some of the witnesses may have been lying under oath. that's going to be interesting. we do know from the judge already that we're not going to see any names attached to that, but the discussion around that and what founded those concerns will be of interest. we'll look at the fact of what got us here. we know there are a number of questions that we hope to get some insight today. the grand jury talked to 75 witnesses, but many of those people we actually don't know who they are. the judge sided with the d.a. in this. she said she wanted this entire thing to stay under wraps until she decided how she was going to move forward with charges. but the judge said it is important in the interest of public interest and transparency that we put some of this out today and that's what we're going to see happen here, mika. >> let's talk to garrett haake

on capitol hill. sorry, you're in palm beach. donald trump has been pretty active. i think he calls it his southern white house or whatever. that's what he thinks it is. but garrett, my question to you is that donald trump has been pretty active on his social media platforms. how has he been responding as it's become very clear these investigations are heating up, going to the next level? >> reporter: he's been lashing out at the investigators. on the georgia case he's talked a good deal about it on social media. he's argued that his phone call there in georgia, the fulton county call that brad raffensperger was on asking for votes was perfect. he says, more perfect even than the phone call that got him impeached the first time surrounding ukraine with president zelenskyy. his attorneys have argued

because he's not been subpoenaed or even asked to testify in the fulton county case, they don't think he's a target. we shall see. it's a similar posture towards the special counsel. he's argued that the special counsel is corrupt and they ought to be investigating basically pick your issue, crime in d.c. or joe biden's conduct on issue x, y or z. it's the same kind of thing we saw when he was in the white house. we'll see if the tune changes today given the partial release of that report and what information might be in it that points us in the direction of the fulton county d.a.'s ultimate decision. >> donald trump now has at least one republican primary foe in nikki haley. for a little while he seemed to be treating her well. there's a school of thought that he wants as many candidates as possible. this morning he said the

greatest thing nikki haley did for our country was to accept the post of u.n. ambassador because he was able to get her out of south carolina and put a real conservative in place as the actual governor. he has changed his tune already. walk us through what you're hearing from trump folks. >> reporter: well, it's interesting because they have been a little bit restrained in how they've treated nikki haley. you saw a dump on her immediately after her announcement, an e-mail from the campaign going through her record, interestingly painting her to the right of donald trump on something like social security and medicare. put a pin in that. they also announced another congressional endorsement yesterday trying to bracket her a little bit. the problem with trump's attacks

on nikki haley have been that he hired her. he would trash someone as not belonging in a position that he had hired them to. anything he says reflects on his own judgment as someone that brought her into his administration as the ambassador to the united nations. that's a bit of the challenge he's going to have there. trump's not held back on waiting for people to enter the race to try to i the fine them. you're seeing the same thing with ron desantis. he's been very active in criticizing desantis on social media. you can look at those as trial balloons trying to figure out which issue set he can get around desantis on. he's tried to attack him on covid. that's challenging, because so

many conservatives looked at his handling as a model. >> nbc's garrett haake, thank you very much, live in west palm beach, florida. former vice president mike pence says he plans to fight a subpoena from the special counsel investigating former president trump's actions during the january 6th capitol insurrection, calling the demand for his cooperation, quote, unprecedented and unsecurity council. vaughn, you spoke with the former vice president in iowa yesterday. i guess he doesn't want to speak in a legal setting. i'm sure he shared with you his insights as to the capitol insurrection, the day on january 6th where there was an attempted

coup and attack on our democracy where people were killed and have now gone to jail for years and years and some have been charged in a historic move with seditious conspiracy. of course, mike pence and his family's life was threatened as well. >> all of this is happening as he's considering running for president himself against donald trump. >> so of course he would have insights for you about this momentous day? >> we thought that maybe his presidential run would try to draw contrasts on how he handled the aftermath of the 2020 election with donald trump. he wrote in his book extensively about january 6th. he's done interviewed. yet, he clearly wants to move away from it. by not complying with the subpoena, whether it's donald trump arguing that executive privilege precludes their conversations from going before the department of justice or his argument that day that he was serving in the legislative body

as senate president. the courts will determine whether he's got to comply or not. i wanted to put the question to him that the subpoena does not preclude him from voluntarily going to the department of justice. if this day was such a significant moment in american history, why not go and talk about his experience? >> i think the issue here is whether or not a vice president who served as president of the senate should be subject to a subpoena to appear in court. >> but would you voluntarily -- >> the justice department has insisted on that and on reserving that right in the event this were a matter that would go to trial. we just simply made it clear to them we think it is not only unprecedented but it's unconstitutional. i've written about this and spoken extensively.

the justice department has been involved in an extensive fact finding effort. in my judgment this principle of separation of powers is that important. >> actually this is not about separation of powers. there's not a judge that's going to say that mike pence acting in the ceremonial position is able to use this as a way to not answer the subpoena and testify. so i'm wondering, did you get any background from people close to mike pence on what he's trying to do? it's not a good legal play. is it a political play? is he trying not to offend trump anymore? >> mike pence, every single time

he describes the department of justice, he's describing it as a political one, an arm of the joe biden administration here. when you talk to republican voters on the ground, including some that i talked to yesterday, they are hell bent on the belief that there is an underground democratic effort to undermine not just donald trump but the republican party. that's where mike pence, if he is going to run for president of the united states, has to find that balance. clearly there is a republican electorate that believes in this idea of the deep state that undermines donald trump. a large number of republican voters still think the election was stolen from him. that's where mike pence two years after leaving washington, d.c. is still battling this. he intended to talk about a school district that put an agenda affirming care policy. that was the social issue he wanted to talk about. i was talking to this woman michelle, a republican iowa voter.

i said who's your top choice for the caucus one year from now? she says donald trump. i said, what about mike pence? she says i like him, i like what he's saying, but donald trump is still my number one choice. that is what mike pence is up against. as much as he would like to talk about every other issue than january 6th and the effort to overturn the democrat, donald trump just like he's got nikki haley by the wrist, he's also got mike pence by the wrist. >> jonathan lemire, you of course reported on january 6th, wrote a book on january 6th. we have all these people involved in january 6th and even some politicians that weren't involved in january 6th who spoke after january 6th that were just downright critical of donald trump and now they're

politically schizophrenic. you have mike pence obviously who was very critical of what donald trump wanted him to do. he showed backbone on january 6th. i'm grateful that he did. but now he's showing absolutely no courage whatsoever and trying to run from it. kevin mccarthy, of course, on the floor blasted donald trump. other people in his caucus said he was screaming and shouting and swearing at donald trump on january 6th. then he backs away from it and now doesn't want to cross him. you could look at nikki haley, of course, who said in 2016 here's a guy who wouldn't criticize the klan. there's no way i could ever support him. then of course she's flip-flopping back and forth time and again. you even look at lindsey graham, who had some of the harshest

criticisms of donald trump in 2016. all of these people are politically schizophrenic. they're trying to play both sides. they only strengthen donald trump's hand. >> the only republicans who have been consistent and stayed with the criticism of donald trump is liz cheney, mitt romney and a couple of others and that's about it. even mitch mcconnell said he would support trump again were he to be the gop nominee in 2024. vaughn, the pence part of this is the politics of it. look, there is a right and wrong about whether or not he should be testifying. what's the political play here? if you're pence, you're closely associated with trump and trying not to criticize him too much. does pence not understand that trump's die hard supporters will never forgive him for standing up to trump on january 6th? who's actually going to vote for

him? >> that's a question we're going to be continuing to ask over the next 11 months. when you talk about pence, in his book he outlines that leaving the oval office one day just before january 6th, he turned to the then-president and said outside of your family, there's been no one more loyal to you than me. i think anybody in this country could agree, when i was on foreign trips with him around the country, he continually said i am here for president trump, i am speaking for president trump. despite all of that, that moment, that election completely for so many voters had made him null to this process here. that is the issue, because for the four years of success that the trump administration would like to tout, there is such a large subsection of the republican electorate that believes they should have had four more years. you know who got in the way of

that? one man. it was mike pence down in georgia. there are 18 targets of the fulton county, georgia, investigation. you could say there were 18 individuals doing their part to make sure donald trump served another four years. ultimately who got in the way? it's mike pence. that is unforgivable for so many republican voters. >> my god. >> as jonathan just said, those trump supporters are never going to support mike pence. if you're trying to have it both ways, you're going to lose. there's a large chunk of the electorate, maybe 45-50% of the electorate that don't want donald trump to be their nominee. that's what mike pence and others should go after. vaughn just talked about georgia. i can't think of a better example of brad raffensperger and the governor down there,

brian kemp, both of them crossed donald trump in a hard, tough way, both of them did. we heard reports they were done. brad raffensperger is never going to win. the trumpers are going to overwhelm him. they crushed donald trump. they crushed donald trump in the deep south in a really conservative state for republicans. that's the pathway forward. you do it the way brian kemp did it, the way brad raffensperger did. the election wasn't stolen. come on, y'all. just stop. we want to win future elections. stop lying. they can do it. if you say, you can't do it or you'll end up like liz cheney, talk to brad raffensperger or brian kemp. they did it and they had massive

landslide victories in georgia republican primaries. >> absolutely. i don't know how it can be explained to these candidates, nikki haley included. you're trying to appeal to a group of people who don't believe in facts and are stuck on the election being stolen. you're never going to get them. what are you doing tiptoeing around them? you're losing people you could get. >> mike pence, tim scott, nikki haley all on that debate stage, all joined as one unanimous voice and make the case to republican voters, you've got either this or you've got one of us. out in arizona, you have a democrat running the state there as the governor. these are the implications in georgia. we have two democratic senators. these are the implications. you all need to move on. >> the consequences of trump is

losing. new reporting from the "washington post" talks about efforts to counter election deniers. many are concerned that false fraud claims continue to dominate within the republican party ahead of the 2024 elections. in arizona, the state's new attorney general is repurposing a unit that once exclusively devoted to rooting out election fraud to focus on voting rights and ballot access. in north carolina the state board of elections will soon hold hearings that could remove a county election officer who refused to certify the 2022 election results. and in michigan, the secretary of state is working with state lawmakers to toughen penalties for threatening election officials or releasing private information about them. she's also drafting legislation that would make it a crime to knowingly spread misinformation about elections. she and her counterparts from

minnesota and arizona are presenting ideas from a democracy playbook on how elections should run to officials from other states at a conference this week in washington. so there are the efforts to try and make this right. vaughn hilliard, thanks for your reporting. some other stories we're following, an fda panel is supporting making narcan available over the counter. the nasal spray can help in the event of overdose. the manufacturer says it will revise packaging and instructions to address concerns. the fda will make a final decision on the drug in the coming weeks. narcan is already available without a prescription in all 50 states. the fda may approve a vaccine for rsv by next winter,

submitting applications for shots for people age 60 and up and an injection that would protect babies. rsv kills more than 10,000 americans 65 and older and about 300 children under 5 every year. the ncaa has filed an appeal to stop colleges from paying division i athletes. lawyers for student athletes say they are seeking a rate similar to those earned by work study students. the ncaa argued the value of a scholarship outweighs the 10 to $15,000 an athlete might earn on a modest hourly wage. finally, kansas city celebrated the super bowl champion chiefs in a victory

parade yesterday. thousands of cheering fans clad in chiefs red and gold lined the streets as players rolled downtown riding in a double decker bus on the way to a rally at union station, where mvp quarterback patrick mahomes told the crowd his team will be back in the big game next season. >> kansas city, how we feeling today, baby? before we started this season, the afc west said we were rebuilding. i don't know what rebuilding means. in our rebuilding year, we're world champs. i just want to let y'all know -- >> i'm not exactly sure what he did. >> he's coming back to the next

super bowl. >> i thought it was going to be a very close game. i was really surprised all the fox analysts, all the smart people, they all picked the eagles. when i saw that, i was like wait a second, you've got a future hall of fame quarterback and future hall of fame coach. jack and i were talking about as they were going into the fourth quarter, man, they've been here before. andy reid is dialing it up and running circles around the eagles. a lot of times i get tired of hearing guys talk about, oh, everybody underestimated us. that shoe fits very tightly on patrick mahomes' swollen ankle and foot, because they did underestimate this team time and time again. they underestimated mahomes and

andy reid, a big mistake. >> when the chief traded their top receiver tyreek hill, there was a sense of rebuilding. the super bowl is a very different game than any other game. the commercial breaks are longer, the halftime show is longer. there's real value at being been there before. the eagles were terrific all year long. their defense let them down. patrick mahomes is the best quarterback in the league and he rose to the moment, injured ankle and all. that's the second super bowl already. the chiefs are the top dog. coming up, we're going to get a live report from nbc's

courtney kube in munich fresh off her interview with secretary of defense lloyd austin. we'll have the latest on the train derailment in ohio straight ahead on "morning joe." o straight ahead on "morning joe." if your business kept on employees through the pandemic, getrefunds.com can see if it may qualify for a payroll tax refund of up to $26,000 per employee, even if it received ppp, and all it takes is eight minutes to get started. then we'll work with you to fill out your forms and submit the application; that easy. and if your business doesn't get paid, we don't get paid. getrefunds.com has helped businesses like yours claim over $2 billion but it's only available for a limited time.

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. we typically are focused on things that are moving fast. so it's a bit more difficult to select on slow moving objects like a balloon. it's important to make sure that we have channels that senior leaders can use to communicate

with each other. in this case and the case we had a couple of months ago, when something happens, they somehow tend to shut down their military channels of communication. i think that's dangerous. out of abundance of caution, we took the action that we did. the safety and security of american people is always foremost in our minds. >> secretary of defense lloyd austin speaking exclusively with nbc's courtney kube yesterday about the decision to shoot down that suspected chinese spy balloon over the coast of south carolina earlier this month and the bringing down of three other unidentified flying objects in north american air space this past weekend. courtney joins us live from munich with vice president kamala harris and secretary of state antony blinken are attending a conference on global security one week of ahead of the one-year mark of russia's

war on ukraine. what can we expect there? >> reporter: the focus is going to be on ukraine, obviously. the one-year anniversary of the ongoing conflict and then of course on deterrence. that's going to be a big focus of this, deterring russia. we'll have world leaders from this region, of course from the united states with a high level delegation and a large bipartisan delegation. that's pretty common for this conference. every year it brings out these bipartisan delegations to discuss various issues. last year president zelenskyy addressed the group in person. this year ukraine will still be a major focus. i spoke with secretary austin in advance of this one-year anniversary to talk to him a little bit more about the u.s. commitment there. a year ago, it could have been almost unfathomable for the u.s. to have been providing some of the weapons and equipment they

are now providing to ukraine, things that the administration were concerned would be escalatory. instead, one by one the u.s. has decided to send those to ukraine. i asked him what could this look like a year from now. >> is the u.s. getting more and more directly involved in the war on ukraine? >> we've said a number of times we are not at war with russia now, nor will we be. so i know that mr. putin would like to have people believe that, but that is not the case. >> do you see a scenario where at the two-year anniversary of the invasion the war could be at the same place it's in now? >> you're assuming the war will go on for another year. that's a big leap there. so i don't care to speculate on how long the war is going to last. >> that's a pretty big prediction, because we've heard

for a long time now this isn't going to be won militarily, there's going to have to be a diplomatic solution. neither side seems interested in coming to the table. >> you should never predict the outcome of a fight. at the end of the day, the ukrainians are pretty good fighters. >> reporter: at this point it still seems, according to secretary u.s., that the u.s. has set these benchmarks for things they think are potentially escalatory and one by one knocked them down. >> courtney kube live from munich, thank you very much. one week from today, tune into a special "morning joe" prime time special marking the one-year anniversary of the war in ukraine. joe speaks with a number of top administration officials, including secretary of state antony blinken, national

security advisor jake sullivan and more. next thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. coming up, the nation's top aviation official is trying to reassure the public it is still safe to fly following the system outage that grounded domestic flights and a recent string of incidents involving near misses. we'll show you what the head of the faa told lawmakers yesterday on capitol hill. head of the faa told lawmakers yesterday on capitol hill. customizes your home insurance, here's a little number you'll never forget. did you know that liberty mutual custo— ♪ liberty mutual. ♪ ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ ♪ custom home insurance created for you all. ♪ ♪ now the song is done ♪ ♪ back to living in your wall. ♪ they're just gonna live in there? ♪ yes. ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your asthma specialist about a nunormal with nucala. a beautiful look at the sunrise in fountain hills, arizona. welcome back to "morning joe." this morning, fears of a potential environmental crisis are growing in a rural ohio community nearly two weeks after a train derailment led to the release of toxic chemicals into the area. calls for action are growing louder and congress wants answers. correspondent george solis is in palestine, ohio, with the latest. >> reporter: overnight, flaring at a heated town hall.

it's been nearly two weeks since a train operated by norfolk southern caring hazardous chemicals derailed and caught fire. people worried about their health point to the death of thousands of fish in local waters and what they call a frustrating lack of answers. federal epa administrator michael reagan is headed to the site. >> we're going to be here until this problem is cleaned up. >> reporter: while state officials say the air is safe, they suggest drinking bottled water, especially in homes that have wells. >> i have been waiting a for a phone call and i'm not getting one. >> reporter: some evacuated locals, who were told it was safe to return home, now say they're suffering from burning eyes, headaches and nausea. norfolk southern did not attend the meeting saying it might not be safe for its employees.

but it did say in a statement we are not going anywhere. >> it's been an absolute nightmare really, a lot on the nerves for everybody. >> reporter: this woman and her cousin evacuated and say their families have experienced significant symptoms they attribute to the derailment. carol has since returned home, while ashley and her children are staying with her mom in pennsylvania. >> it's just so friendly and now it's completely opposite. everyone's terrified. >> that is an ongoing story. the people of that town have got to be terrified. >> some have voiced real concern they don't have the means to relocate, but are december desperate to do so. years from now, is being exposed to these toxins, what sort of

ill effects to their health will they discover? >> that town needs to be evacuated, it seems to me. that sounds extreme, but until they know. >> certainly have been calls for more state and federal response. we're going to turn now to intense pressure on the faa after a series of close calls on the nation's runways and in the air. the faa chief was in the congressional hot seat yesterday answering questions about that and the computer failure that led to a nationwide ground stop in january. tom costello has the latest. >> southwest, abort. >> reporter: animation presented as evidence in congress depicting a very close call in austin, texas, this month when a southwest plane was cleared to take off just as a fedex plane was about to land on the same runway. the planes coming within 100

feet of each other. it follows the runway close call at jfk airport last month and that united 777 that went into a steep nose dive in hawaii in december, coming within 800 feet of slamming into the ocean. >> you could see everybody's head was planted in the back of their headrests. there were shouts, gasps. you could hear prayers out loud. >> reporter: with another runway close call reported in honolulu, the faa chief, himself a veteran pilot, has ordered a nationwide safety review. pilots, controllers, airlines, unions and regulators. >> we will partner with labor, with the industry leaders and in march we'll have a safety summit. >> reporter: the faa looking for evidence of common problems. are you worried any sense of complacency is a problem? >> no, i'm not worried about that. we have the safest, most

efficient and most complex air space in the world. >> reporter: billy nolan answering tough bipartisan questions about those close calls and the faa notam computer system that crashed in january, forcing the first nationwide ground stop since 9/11. for years congress has provided the money to update its 30-year-old system, but the faa says that won't be completed until 2025. >> is there redundancy being built into it, or can a single screwup ground air traffic nationwide? >> could i sit here today and tell you there will never been another issue? no, sir, i cannot. >> i want to get an answer within a week about a totally separate backup that could be used. >> a lot of questions here. nbc's tom costello with that report.

it's really scary. >> let me say something that i've never said on "morning joe" before. this system is this important to the safety of air travelers across america and there's no redundancy? we're reporting this live and we heard it was going down. you don't have a backup system? >> it's bad not to have a backup system. it's even worse not to have a plan to make a backup system. i'm hoping the answer is that there will be a backup system in place as soon as humanly possible. i'm not sure we got that answer. >> they're talking about 2025. 2025 is too long and too late. steve ratner has been talking

for some time about how outdated our system is. it's a question we've brought up before. post covid we've obviously had work shortages everywhere. when we started hearing about some air traffic control problems, when we started hearing about some incidences that we don't usually hear, because american aviation has been the safest ever over the past 20 years. but we're starting to see one near miss after another. you have to start asking. we heard there's a pilot shortage because a lot of them quit. flight attendants also. there were all of these shortages. what about the air traffic controllers? i would love somebody, maybe pete buttigieg can come on and tell us this, how many air

traffic controllers did they lose in 2020 and 2021 during covid? what backfilled those positions? do we have people that are really inexperienced? did we lose a lot of veteran air traffic controllers? and who replaced them? these are questions that have to be answered, because we're having far too many near misses. >> there's a lot of scrutiny on the transparency secretary in recent weeks on this issue and others. we know that staffing went way down because of covid. people took retirement because they didn't want to come back. that's pilots and engineers and air traffic controllers. also, we have an antiquated system with no backup, particularly has travel surges right now.

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10 before the top of the hour. last night thousands gathered on michigan state university campus to mourn the three students killed in a mass shooting earlier this week. later today police are expected to give an update on the investigation. nbc news correspondent jesse kirsch has the latest. ♪ amazing grace ♪

>> reporter: as michigan state grieves the loss of three promising young lives, the demand for change is growing. dozens rallied outside the nearby state house wednesday calling for tighter gun laws. >> nobody should ever have to go through this. it needs to stop now. >> reporter: meanwhile, survivors are returning to where gunfire erupted monday night, the fbi helping students retrieve phones, laptops and backpacks left kpangtly where they were. he escaped the student union hiding in a nearby ice cream shop after the suspect allegedly accessed two different campus buildings. >> what was it like going back to that moment in time? >> it was hard. i relived the whole thing. >> reporter: the police chief telling me the school of more than 50,000 students may get a security overhaul. >> i think there have to be adjustments made. we can't lose focus on what the

purpose of an academic institution is, it's for learning. >> reporter: this is new police body camera footage shows the suspected shooter during a 2019 arrest for carrying a concealed weapon. the campus community coming together by the thousands, the men's basketball coach among them. >> as a spartan, we always get through it together. we're spartan tough, spartan strong. >> that's the university. that's what we do. we support each other. >> nbc's jesse kirsch with that report, and as we've discussed, the michigan state mass shooting has renewed calls for gun safety reform, and one state can already claim some success on that issue. by a 99 to 1 vote, the virginia house of delegates pased a

gun-related bill earlier this month with overwhelming bipartisan support. a democrat sponsored it and the nra endorsed it. it provides up to $300 that virginians can write off on their taxes when they purchase firearm safety devices defined as locking saves, boxes, and cases. last year police in richmond reported that over 700 guns were stolen just from vehicles alone. joining us right now, the virginia state delegate who sponsored that measure, alfonso lopez. thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. tell us why you sponsored the legislation and how it came to such great success and what can be learned from this for more legislation? >>. >> thank you very much for having me on the show this morning. i really do appreciate the ability to talk about -- or the opportunity to talk about this bill. i dropped my son who's 5 and my 15-year-old son off at school every day, and i find myself having to say a prayer every

morning because of all the shootings that are happening around the country. and so i thought -- we've got to try to find a way to bring the parties together, brady, every town, moms demand action, gifford's and the nra on some piece of legislation they could all agree on, and we tried to basically flip the script a little bit, not mandate anything, not take anything away, but let's incentivize good behavior, let's incentivize trying to get folks to keep their guns in storage saves or in gun safety device, storage devices, and what we were able to do is talk about this in a different way. and i'm very proud of the fact that we were able to for several months work with the nra and all of these groups and get them to yes. finally get them to yes on a significant step forward. is there more that we need to do? certainly. the fact is that we had dozens

of bills in the house of delegates and the state senate to create stronger laws. we had guns -- we had assault weapons bills to address assault weapons, bills to address high capacity gun magazines. bills to address even just studying, even just studying gun violence, and each of them were defeated by the republican house of delegates, so i'm very proud of the fact we were able to get this one bill passed. but is it enough? no, we need to go further, but hopefully this is a positive step forward. >> you know, it's interesting in the state of florida after parkland, even the florida legislature which on this issue has been one of the more extreme legislatures in the country, they were able to pass some gun safety legislation. i am wondering what is next? is there a possibility that we may be able to see gun safety reform passed in states before we get significant gun safety reform passed from washington,

d.c. >> i'm going to tell you, our country has a gun problem. according to the cdc, firearms are the leading cause of death among children in virginia. from 2011 to 2020, virginia -- in virginia the child and teen firearm death rate increased 129%. if these stats don't push people to do the right thing, i don't know what will. and so the fact is it wasn't lost on me that the day that we were able to get the bill out of the senate committee was the five-year anniversary of the parkland shooting. and so this is an issue that i think is so vitally important across the country. we have to address it. we can't keep going through these kinds of traumatic incidents daily. in 2022, there were more mass shootings than days.

in 2022 there were more mass shootings than days. we have to find ways to bring people together, and i think this is a good, significant step in the right direction, but i definitely think that more needs to be done. >> well, and you said that the leading causes -- and i'm looking here also about nationwide -- you say the leading cause of death among children were guns in the state of virginia according to the cdc. that's -- that really says it all. it really does. virginia state delegate alfonso lopez, thank you so much for being with us. we greatly appreciate it and greatly appreciate your work. mika. >> thank you, sir. >> that does it for us this morning. yasmin vossoughian picks up the coverage after a quick final break.

oh booking.com, ♪ i'm going to somewhere, anywhere. ♪ ♪ a beach house, a treehouse, ♪ ♪ honestly i don't care ♪ find the perfect vacation rental for you booking.com, booking. yeah. there are some who want to divide us, to make a political point or turn a profit. joe biden just wants to get things done. in just two years, joe biden's done a lot. biden brought both parties together to rebuild our roads and bridges and passed laws that lower the cost of prescription drugs, deliver clean drinking water, and bring manufacturing jobs back to america. president biden knows we can get more done if we come together. because joe biden's a president for all americans.

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