>> we do know they are meeting behind closed doors and it's possible they will bring up the conversation whether or not to vote or it's possible they might vote whether or not to release it and they have a 50/50 split democrats and democrats on that committee, so it's possible that the vote goes down on party lines. but then there is also the possibility, especially for those of us that have covered congress, that it gets leaked at some point. i will caution people who think that that is the one way that this is going to end up. the house ethics committee is still one of those committees that works with trust and bipartisanship and they keep losing those committees over the years. the years. >> thank you. and thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with

us on this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts now. >> shawn duffy to serve as secretary of transportation. yeah if you're irish catholic like me you know 20 guys named shawn duffy. he sounds like every character in a ben aflick movie. >> he hired the guy from road rules to be secretary of transportation. because, of course he did. the word road is right in there. that's one of his least embarrassing picks. maybe he'll pick one of the teen moms to be secretary of labor. >> this afternoon, he announced his latest choice for the administrator of medicare and medicaid, it is dr. mehmet oz. okay. so he still -- he is still just picking people he sees on tv. next up, the head of amtrak goes to thomas the tank engine. >> that was late night comedians poking fun at donald trump's recent administration picks. in a moment, we're going to

break down who he just tapped for key administration roles in medicare, education, and commerce. and we'll discuss what top senate republicans are now saying about matt gaetz as attorney general as the house ethics committee is set to meet just hours from now. and why republican senator chuck grassley says more transparency is needed to move things much faster. plus, senate democrats are making a last-minute push to confirm dozens of president biden's judicial nominees before republicans take control. we'll tell you what trump is now demanding senators in his own party do. and they did the same thing. >> we have breaking news here that we want to report to everybody around the globe that is watching. how many people watch us on armed forces radio? >> tens of millions. it is hard to measure with, you know, dvr and -- >> exactly. youtube and --

>> snapchat. >> good morning. >> here's some breaking news. here's some breaking news. it says here, willie, that john heilemann, for the first time, since chubby checker, was at number one with the twist got to "morning joe" on time at 6:00 a.m. >> oh, my! >> what are you doing? >> boom! >> i want to say this, this is consistent with my past record which is usually if i'm here on time, it usually means i've been up all night. >> let's talk about this. >> one of your favorite establishments on the other side of the river, you know. >> sure. >> when you walk in late -- >> i'm not late. am i late? are you scolding me for being late when i'm here right now? >> i'm taking an opportunity during a positive moment to reinforce how important it is to do what you did today, unlike stumbling in 20 minutes late. >> what if i stumble in 20 minutes early, like, really stumble? >> we call that mike barnicle.

mike, where are you? i think we need mike micced up and bring him over here. i want mike at the table. can we mic mike up? this is not a show without barnacle. come on, mike. >> he's not supposed to be on today. >> he just wandered in. >> my question about barnacle, how can someone -- he's the master of the irish good-bye, just disappears, early from everything always. where is mike? he's home in bed. he also shows up two hours early. i don't understand that. that's a weird combo. >> it is not even supposed to be on today. >> mike, did you just wander in here? >> no, i've been here since 4:00 a.m. >> come on in. we'll get you a chair. you disturbed jack and me yesterday with your soto prediction. if it doesn't come through, i get a lot of explaining to do. >> he's going to the mets. >> you said he was going to -- see, we knew this. >> soto is going to the mets?

>> is soto really going to the mets? get a chair for mike. >> let me start the show. >> no, no. so, first of all, joe -- i called john last night. to talk about something very important. some have aged extraordinarily well. extraordinarily well. >> we decided last night, right? >> yeah, the three that were big hits in the summer of 1976. >> all i want to be is by your side is a great one. there is some really good solid stuff. you said something about and you said when you listen to the album, you can still smell the summer of '76. >> you can. it is just like -- it brings --

10 years old, a buy icentennial celebration. it brings back -- >> sneakers? >> no man. he's smoking, like, weed, when he was 10 years old. >> that's when i first encountered -- >> we have more guests. also joining us this morning, along with mike and john heilemann who i can't believe he's here on time, u.s. national editor at the "financial times," the great ed luce. >> ed luce agreed with queen elizabeth that it was crude that captain and tennille sang "muskrat love" when she was dancing with gerald ford. >> apparently. i'll research it. i'll research it. >> like i said yesterday, i know useless trivia. that's actually true. so, captain and tennille sang at the big bicentennial gala and

they sang "muskrat love," one of their hits. the queen let them know she thought it was crude that they actually were singing about animals, you know, loving each other. >> all right. >> isn't that a weird booking for the bicentennial? >> no, it was '76, love will keep us together, the biggest song of the year. >> it is important to remember -- for you it was impossible to remember how big captain and tennille were. >> all right. we are going to get to news. >> thanks. >> this is all news. i want to say one thing that is really interesting, and, mike, i'll throw this to you, what we're starting to see with these selections, right, you got gaetz, no experience whatsoever, ill equipped managerially to run a massive, massive bureaucracy, you have dr. oz yesterday, a guy

who really actually supported medicare for all before kamala supported medicare for all, but also ill equipped to run a massive bureaucracy. and you have all of these people, but we spoke yesterday, our show, on background, to some people in the biden administration at justice who said todd blanche, who will be the number two there, he'll be running the agency. gaetz should not get through. we're not saying that at all. but if you look at justice, and i had some top democratic lawyers over the last week saying todd blanche, you know, he's the real deal. >> yeah. >> so, i'm just wondering, if we're starting to seeing some here where -- trump is a tv guy, it worked for him politically. and i'm wondering if you're, like, okay, we're going to get all of these people out front,

who bloviate, fight hard, all this stuff, and then at least at justice, very concerned about a lot of things coming down the pike, but they say todd blanche would run this and whoever he picks to be the front person will probably be a mouthpiece. i'm not saying that's the case, i'm just saying at justice, right now, they're very concerned about a lot of things, but they like that the number two person there who will be running things actually and these are biden people, actually is a pro. >> so, i think you're correct. todd blanche is a legitimate legal giant in his own right. and running the justice department will probably be his chore, given whoever is going to be attorney general. the most important thing to a lot of people isn't justice, though. it happened yesterday. it is the department of education. your children's high school and grammar school education, being run by someone more familiar with wrestling, with

professional wrestling than with actually what goes on in the classroom. people are concerned about what's being taught in the classrooms now. that has occurred over the last couple of -- two or three years. what are third, fourth and fifth graders being taught in elementary schools? what is the curriculum? what is the high school curriculum? look who is the secretary of education now? what about dr. phil? is he going to get a spot? >> willie and lemire, reporting on this, again, what is -- even though "the washington post" today, it is like casey's countdown of the four most horrifying selections thus far and they actually rank them in order, and i think depending on where you are, you know, you can move that list around. but i would tell you, for a lot of republicans that are in the senate and the house and who care about american national security, if you ask them, they will say it is dod. if you talk to people, again,

really conservative republicans in the house, really conservative republicans in the senate, they will say it is tulsi gabbard. they're horrified by tulsi gabbard. if you talk to a lot of other people, they will say it is matt gaetz and john has great reporting on that in a second about talking to republicans on the hill yesterday. so, it really is -- there are four picks right now that -- and, of course, rfk, the new york post keeps pounding rfk every day saying how nutty that selection is. so it kind of depends on where you are on -- that will, you know, you know, have you decide which one of those three or four are most deeply disturbing. and we're going to talk to ed in a second who says the whole thing is disturbing. >> yeah, tulsi gabbard and gaetz slammed again today interestingly by the new york post which seems to be a murdoch-led newspaper on a campaign against certain of these choices. but the question underlying all

of this is do at the end of the day these republicans in congress, in the senate, do they have the guts to cross donald trump. they can say they don't like the guy, they can say matt gaetz is no good, and unqualified and the ethics report will show that, if it comes out publicly, but will they at the end of the day cross donald trump? talk about the tv aspect, dr. oz, so he's put up, this is a senate confirmed position, senators from medicare and medicaid services administrator, in his statement donald trump led by saying, dr. oz has won nine daytime emmys, that he's a good face for public health. so, that seems to be the primary qualification. the problem is this is a bureaucratic job. this is an administrative job. doesn't even have that much to do with being a doctor in this case, it has to do with running these massive bureaucracies. so, it is, john, central casting and getting back to your reporting about matt gaetz, the question remains, the senators have openly said they don't like him and don't think he should be

attorney general. at the end of the day, will they vote against donald trump? >> first on the theme of tv, no doubt, that's pete hegseth too, a fox-friendly face and that's what trump likes. there is a growing belief in the biden administration and elsewhere in washington that it is going to be those nd an third in commands who actually run things while they have the figure head on television, you know, being the face of those departments. yes, and certainly the linda mcmahon pick, flying under the radar because of the assortment of controversial selections here and power rankings of bad cabinet choices. remember the trump campaign promise, he reiterated in a statement yesterday, is to eliminate the department of education entirely. which is a significant thing. to matt gaetz, i was talking about a number of republicans on the hill yesterday, senators and aides, and there is real doubt that gaetz can get through. growing momentum here that this is one pick they will say no to. i'm told some of the senators are telling trump, look, don't make us vote on this one, because we're going to have to vote against you, don't make us

stand up against you, because this one is simply not palatable. we can't do it. >> these are the people that he has spoken to. >> these are the people he's -- >> there is no way for, in any other word, none of these four would get through. none of them would get close to getting through. and i'm talking about rfk, tulsi gabbard. >> hegseth. >> dod. i need to pronounce hegseth. hegseth. and matt gaetz. in any other world, they would never get through. i will say we're talking a lot about matt gaetz because that's what the republican senators are talking about mainly. but, man, i would find it -- all of it is deeply disturbing these picks, but i cannot imagine four republican senators turning over dni to somebody who has apologized for assad as regularly as she has and who is

just continually parroted kremlin talking points. again, i just don't see four republican senators doing that any more than i see them getting matt gaetz. >> there is concerns there. little fly under the radar because gaetz is taking up so much of the conversation right now. and it does seem like? republicans are willing to draw the line on gaetz. they have concerns about others too. and the trump transition team is on the hegseth pick re-examining things because of the sexual assault investigation a few years ago. they do worry about that as well. >> you help me on that for one second, and, mike, we'll get to you in one second. i will say on background, in our conversation on background, there are a couple of things that surprises, one of them was when his name came up, there was not a flinch, but a noticeable we got problems here. >> hegseth? >> hegseth. >> that's -- >> and those weren't the words. but i will just tell you that was the takeaway, because

obviously gaetz is a problem. but i think there must be more there. i think they were just shocked, maybe, blind sided, because there has been no vetting process for these four. there have been vetting processes for rubio. >> he didn't know about that. >> susie wiles was obviously -- everybody was a bit relieved to see susie wiles in there. even ratcliffe. but then, yeah. so, we haven't really talked about hegseth much. i think there are real concerns, people reported about this on the inside about that. so talk about that as well, because there is a lot of things going, again, gaetz is occupying center stage. quite frankly because the charges and the testimony from the 17-year-old junior is so damning that i think that's -- that's really taking all the heat right now. >> and the hegseth thing briefly, some years ago, an allegation of a sexual assault, no charges brought, but

eventually reporting he did pay this woman afterwards as a nondisclosure agreement. but there is -- trump transition officials were surprised by that pick. in part because to joe's point there hasn't been vetting because this is another story line that is not getting enough attention. they're not going through the typical fbi background check process, they're doing it on their own and missing things. >> what do you hear in talking to your sources in washington at the edge of the intelligence community, do you hear the same thing that a lot of other people are hearing that the british, the french, the israelis, are coming in with hints that, you know, we're not going to share intelligence, our intelligence with tulsi gabbard? >> current and former intelligence officers have expressed that fear and heard that from their colleagues overseas saying there is going to be real reluctance to share some of their -- those nations top secrets and intel with the united states there are some concerns about trump, who as we

know revealed intel, but tulsi gabbard in particular, someone who voiced talking points that emanated from moscow, has cozied up with syrians, there is real concern here that the nation will be less safe because allies aren't going to trust us with their intel. >> all right, to ed luce, his latest piece in "the financial times," "trump's demolition of the u.s. state." you write, it is time to study caligula, that most notorious roman emperors killed who was left of the republic and centralized authority in himself. donald trump does not need to make himself a senator, it will be enough to keep appointing charlatans to america's great offices of state. rome was not destroyed by outsiders. it was demolition work that -- it was the work of barbarians from within. pete hegseth, trump's nominee to

run america's sprawling military bureaucracy, was considered too much of a security risk in 2021 to protect capitol hill from protesters. matt gaetz, trump's pick for u.s. attorney general, reportedly won the mar-a-lago beauty contest by declaring, yeah, i'll go over there and start cutting effing heads. giving tulsi gabbard close affinity to vladimir putin's russia, she would be unlikely to get a low level security clearance in normal times. now she will be custodian to america's most classified secrets. rome was not built in a day, as the saying goes, but it squandered its spirit with remarkable speed. and, ed, i think what you're talking about also is democracy itself is imperfect. and also fragile. >> yes. extremely fragile. and the republic, you know, is

only as good as the people upholding it. these, i think, are charlatans. whether some of them, as you've just been discussing, like matt gaetz would be just the sharp window and others like todd blanche would be actually running the department, i'm not sure. but you have got very deliberate choices, people like rfk jr. who will not get jobs anywhere else. peter hegseth i guess can continue as a fox news anchor, matt gaetz is not going to get a job anywhere else. rfk jr. is not going to get a job anywhere else. he's not going to get a job running a medical center at some university campus. these are people, therefore, chosen for their loyalty. they have nowhere else to go other than to demonstrate their loyalty to trump. and so i think there is a larger pattern here, not just that you're getting charlatans. being picked for these really important roles. it is that you have a dismantling of the federal

government. you have a disabling of the federal government, which is a very explicit part of elon musk's mandate, elon musk, i think, being the de facto sort of vice president or co-president in terms of a lot of these selections has always had an explicit desire not just to cut spending or to get rid of regulatory agencies, which, of course, poses enormous conflicts of interest with his business, but to disable a vast institution, the federal government, that he believes gets in the way of the heroic wealth makers such as him. so we do have larger method in the madness than just trump choosing people who look good on tv. i think we have a very clear ideological agenda here to demolish the effectiveness of government. >> well, of course, and, again, i was saying what the justice department officials said on background.

and that one case, but there is a bigger thing going on here, and it lines up with what donald trump has said in the campaign, which is he was talking about bringing the fcc into the white house, talking about bringing in all these other places, even going back to the first term, their attitude on secretary of state was, you know what, they can go around, smiles, shake people's hands, but we're running it out of the oval office. so, again, you can read, you know, ann applebomb's "twilight of democracy" and she said, what you do is if you want to disable the state, the quote, deep state, however you want to put it, what you do is you undermine agencies by replacing competency with loyalty. that's part one. but part two, there is a real belief that, you know, in trump world, that, you know, it is, like, louis xiv who said i am the state, that is the attitude,

trump is the state, and so he wants to know why, you know, if you look at these picks, why do i need competence? we're running it all out of the oval office, which, of course, for many, many americans, you know, 49.1 or 49.2% of americans, that's deeply troubling. >> i'm most concerned, if we're talking in terms of ann's brilliant focus on how liberal democracy becomes illiberal democracy, the victor orban model beloved by so many around trump, i'm concerned by peter hegseth. trump's real complaint about the pentagon in 2020 was that it resisted mark esper, mark milley, they resisted the insurrection act, they resisted the politization of the military. and trump came out of that saying, i was betrayed by the

military. they did not swear an oath of loyalty to me. they kept saying their oath of loyalty was to the constitution. well, pete hegseth fully agrees with trump. he thinks that it is a woke dei, politically correct organization, the pentagon, that needs to be cleaned out. and that needs people -- four-star generals need to be vetted to check their loyalty to the commander in chief. not in the abstract, to this one. as you know, there are certain people like the fbi director who i think chris wray who i think trump probably does want to remove and god forbid replace with somebody like kash patel, but there are protections for a lot of these jobs that there are certain fixed contracts. for generals, there aren't. you can get rid of them, as commander in chief, you can get rid of them for whatever reason you like and promote a corporal if you find that corporal more congenial. you can just have them leapfrog

several levels and become generals, based on their loyalty to you. and that's pete hegseth's role, i think. and that's the most worrying therefore to the future of the rule of law in this republic. >> it is interesting, "the wall street journal" editorial page today said, basically talking to donald trump, says sometimes it is okay to withdraw an impulsive nomination, a choice and talking about pete hegseth, asking, what else is out there? if he didn't tell you about this, what more is to come down the road? we'll see. let's turn to nbc news correspondent dasha burns. dasha, good morning. so we know that in addition to the phone calls that president-elect trump has been making to senators, that the incoming vice president jd vance will be on the hill today, talking to his colleagues about these cabinet picks, trying to whip together some votes. what more do we know about that? >> yeah, so publicly, willie, president-elect trump doesn't show any sign of wavering with any of these controversial picks. he's been putting pressure on

senators jd vance will be on the hill kind of trying to shepherd these folks along, a bit of a charm offensive, a bit of pressure offensive. and with some of these picks, willie, look at linda mcmahon, for example, the department of education, so, so critical. and it is a department that trump has said he wants to dismantle. he can very quickly dismantle certain aspects of biden's push here. for example, student loan debt cancellation. that can go away pretty instantly. title nine protections for lgbtq students, that can be nixed pretty quickly. he's looking to implement universal school choice. and nbc news has been doing an analysis of how much the picks that trump has been looking at have been donating. linda mcmahon, upwards of $20 million to his campaign this election cycle.

we also have chris wright, at the department of energy, who is a big donor. howard lutnick, a big donor. the folks being looked at for treasury, major donors. and that pick we're still waiting on. there is was a bit of an internal knife fight between lutnick and bessent that scrambled that decision. we're still waiting to see what president-elect trump does there. and then, of course, elon musk donated millions and millions of dollars and now has the president's ear. we have been reporting that there some internal friction over that, one source telling me that musk is acting as if he's, quote, co-president. and making sure everyone knows it. and another source telling me he has an opinion on anything and everything and that he is starting to feel to the inner circle of trump world, he's

overstepping, overstaying his welcome a little bit and some speculation that bromance might start to fade given how much trump is used to sharing -- is not used to sharing the spotlight. one source telling me in trump world, if you want sustainability, you got to know when to make yourself scarce and musk hasn't figured that out yet, and trying to have a lot of impact on the picks. >> no, he's not made himself scarce. >> no, that event the other night at mar-a-lago, donald trump said, jokingly, half jokingly, i can't get rid of this guy. dasha burns, dasha, great rtinasalways. thanks so much. >> yeah. and, you know, john heilemann, it is interesting, following up on this elon musk point, you know, as far as don't make yourself too big, right? right? if you want to stick around, it is very interesting that elon musk publicly, on x, i think it was yesterday, publicly was

pressuring donald trump to pick lutnick as treasury secretary. along with the esteemed cat turd and the pressuring for those of you -- i think that's an account on x, right? and cat turd was weighing in. >> i'm more concerned you know that. >> anyway, he -- elon musk pressured donald trump publicly, you're just looking at that and going, yeah, that's not going well. and look what happened. >> the department of commerce. look, elon musk has a different status than anybody else who ever has been in this position with trump before because unlike people like steve bannon or whoever where trump could look at them and say, without my coattails, without me, you wouldn't be where you are today, elon musk, you know, is the richest man in the world before donald trump came along and trump respects that wealth. it is interesting to see how

that goes. shocking to see jd vance out of witness protection. haven't heard anything about jd vance since election night. elon musk has been the de facto vice president. i want to say this, maybe two, one, the justice department is runned by the deputy attorney general and the attorney general is not there to run the department. the attorney general is there to make finalinvestigating, who ar prosecuting, who are we declining to prosecute. the big decisions about is this department about justice or is it about retribution? that's what we care about, because the person who would be trump's loyalists there -- >> what ed luce said, he's going to be looking past whoever he puts there, donald trump, because he's going to be -- >> sure. >> eyeing that person, whoever i put as a figure head is just sort of follow through. and they run -- the number two, like you said, the dag runs it. and the top person is not going

to be making the decision, donald trump thinks i'm going to be making the decision. >> right. and this is the point, the justice department has been a quasi independent agency, not really supposed to -- the attorney general and the president aren't supposed to be talking all the time. the number of meetings between merrick garland and joe biden would be zero over past year. here is the question, the thing i want to say, one thing we're all -- talking about the senate, the senate, one of these people will not get confirmed, will more than one, i got to say, does anybody on this table, can they cite examples in the past, during trump's first term or any other time, when republican senators defied donald trump? is there an example anyone can cite where republican senators on any basis have stood up to donald trump on anything he ever wanted? i don't think trump is going to back down on any of the nominations. what dasha reported is the tone, trump thinks that to back down, to withdraw, to listen to the "wall street journal" would be weakness. he is -- this is about trying to

break the senate. he tried to make the senate explicitly his rubber stamp going forward and demean and diminish the legislative branch. he wants to strip them, he wants them to be his duma. i think he's going to push it. we'll see whether any senators stand up to him. there is no history of it. there is not a precedent for it. >> i was going to ask you to shut up but that was a good point. >> she's so rude. >> to button this up, the deputy attorney general pick is donald trump's personal attorney, so, just -- it is not so clear cut. a little concerning on a number of levels but we shall see. still ahead on "morning joe," senate democrats are looking to confirm more judicial nominees before joe biden leaves office. but trump is telling his party to hold the line. we'll dig into that battle in the upper chamber. plus, we'll have the latest on the war in ukraine as kyiv

launches american made missiles deep inside russian territory. you're watching "morning joe." a lot more to cover. we're back in 90 seconds. t more. we're back in 90 seconds hi, my name is damian clark. if you have both medicare and medicaid, i have some really encouraging news that you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the plans available in your area, you may be eligible to get extra benefits with a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. most plans include the humana healthy options allowance. a monthly allowance to help pay for eligible groceries, utilities, rent, and over-the-counter

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familiar with the situation. the company will separate off entertainment and news channels including msnbc, cnbc, usa, oxygen, e, sci-fi, and the golf channel. the new cable venture will reportedly have an ownership structure that mirrors comcast. comcast's spokesperson declined to comment. >> as you look at the screen right there, the big concern that stock holders right now on wall street are wondering about before they decide what to do with comcast shares is whether mika is going to have to give up her penthouse perch atop the comcast building. >> since i never had it. >> when do we get invited to the penthouse? >> never. i will say really quickly on this, drudge at the top said, oh, like, news meltdown, all this other stuff. i can be completely wrong, we can all be fired a year from now when this happens, you never know what's going to happen. >> or tomorrow.

>> yeah, but in this case, though, willie, what they're doing is what other media firms are doing. you spin off the cable channels, which seven years ago were making a ton of money. now they got to figure out how to make them profitable? disney, which, by the way, huge media news, disney figured out how to make streaming profitable. peacock had extraordinary success in the olympics. they're talking about ing ing this off, comcast, brian roberts owns a third of that, because comcast didn't jump into the bidding war like everybody else, throwing stupid money at streaming services, comcast has a ton of cash. they spin this off, and they're in a position to -- what do you all say to -- to get a lot of chat -- to -- >> consolidate. >> consolidate and ramp up.

you get a lot of people, a lot of different channels together. so, whatever that entity is going to be, probably a lot of cable channels and in a much better position to scale, to scale it. i didn't -- i took one business class at university. >> thanks for that. >> the only thing that makes sense here, do you spin it off, and then you scale it up, and then you figure out how to make it more profitable. >> yeah , this is to keep this network healthy and comcast thriving the way it is. this is the way it is going. people are cutting the cord. cable subscribers are down across the board. this is what bob iger talked about doing with abc and disney and spinning off those networks. we'll see if he does that as well. i think internally it is viewed as a good thing. it gets everyone in a healthy position to continue to thrive moving forward. >> let's move on, newly released data is offering insight on the

deadly cost of america's civil war, based on recently revealed census records from the 1880s. researchers have landed on a firmer estimate of the number of lives lost in the conflict. 698,000. the analysis suggests confederate states suffered a death rate more than twice as high as the union. historians have long grappled with the true number of casualties. and alec baldwin's western movie "rust" will be revealed to the public today at an international film festival in poland. it comes three years after the on set death of cinematographer halyna hutchins. high demand for tickets to the premiere caused the website to crash. hutchins was killed when a prop gun handled by baldwin was discharged during production. all right. >> jonathan lemire, comment?

>> no. >> okay. >> no comment. >> terrible tragedy and baldwin walks ed away from it. >> i'm surprised. such a horrible tragedy. >> i think her family is ukrainian. it is interesting. we'll see. >> let's turn to ukraine. several developments out of that country this morning. right now the u.s. embassy and the capital of kyiv is shut down as it warns of a potentially significant aerial attack. in a post on social media, the state department is warning american citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced. this comes a day after ukraine fired long range atacms, missiles, into russia for first time. that's according to two u.s. officials who spoke to nbc news. russia's defense ministry confirms five of six missiles were shot down over a region that borders northern ukraine. the sixth was struck in midair and frag s ments landed on a military facility causing a fire.

biden authorized the provision of antipersonal land mines to ukraine, that for the first time changing his own policy. joining us now, former supreme allied commander of nato, james stavridis, chief international analyst for nbc news. he authored a new piece for bloomberg "ukraine and russia can find peace with a dmz." great to have you with us at the table as always. we'll get to your piece in a minute. let's talk about the atacms that president biden said ukraine, go ahead and use them. how does that change the dynamic in the war? >> let's do it tactically, operationally, strategically. tactically, this has real impact immediately. i don't believe the russian ministry of defense. i think those missiles probably had immediate tactical impact. used against ammunition sites in the staging areas, willie, for the north korean troops. operationally, this is going to force putin to kind of spread his forces a little more thinly,

to worry more about logistics hubs and to prepare to conduct air defense, something he hasn't had to do in significant ways. that's a cost on his military. and then strategically, what i think the biden team is about and it is a smart play, is to give volodymyr zelenskyy as many chips for the bargaining table as he can possibly have. he's holding a chunk of russia around kursk. here is another bargaining chip, atacms missiles. >> this war just crossed the thousand day mark. and there are a lot of people who say it would have been nice for ukraine to have had these atacms a year ago, a year and a half ago. what do you think? >> substitute for atacms, f-16s, would have been great to have those a year ago, a-1 tanks, substitute, would have been great to have those years ago. we have been always slightly

behind. i understand the theory that you don't want to provoke a nuclear armed power, willie, got it. on the other hand, we have seen again and again putin has failed to respond to his own so-called red lines. >> let's take a bigger picture here, this is the -- this white house trying to rush as much help as it can to ukraine because the clock is ticking. u.s. policy toward kyiv likely going to change dramatically. we talked about the atacms, the land mines, controversial choice to be sure. what else can be done, realistically can be done between now and january 25th? >> the short answer is so often plan b is to work harder on plan a. and what i mean by that is in the remaining 60 days or so, put all your force behind the logistics, get as much of this kit to the battlefield, get as much support to the commander of

u.s. european command, my successor, also supreme allied commander general chris kavoli, load him up, he'll get it moving, get as much of it in train as you can and see where the trump administration actually lands. >> you know, admiral, we're clearly in a transition period here, between administrations. everything you've been talking about and responding to the questions here this morning has to do with the defense department. the reach, the power, the immense impact of the defense department, both on the united states reputation around the globe, and on a daily basis around the globe. what is your view of the furor that has erupted over the potential successor as secretary of defense? >> let me make an initial point, mike, which is all around the world, forward deployed soldiers, sailors, airmen, marine, coast guardsmen, this is white noise to them. they're focused on their operational tasksing. we were joking before the call, you asked me what would be it

like to be out on an aircraft carrier now on command, it would be wonderful. because no one out there, believe me, is following all this. having said that, the department of defense needs experience at its helm and anytime you're putting a candidate forward, who doesn't have the requisite experience, you are going to end up in a place where the department will move less -- with less alacrity, move with less spirit, therefore in the end, even those operational forces are not following this, they are going to be impacted by it, whoever ends up leading that department. >> ed luce has a question for you. and, ed, really quickly, i'm curious, what is nato's response, what is britain's response to joe biden and the administration giving ukraine more weapons that strike deeper into russia?

>> well, britain -- countries like britain and tollland polan been pushing hard for the americans to do that. britain has its own storm shadow, anglo-french artillery that also has a longer range. and that -- those are been lifted. but it required american permission to do so. so there also affects those. i'm fascinated, admiral, by the leverage this gives an incoming donald trump to persuade putin too come to the negotiating table. he shows no signs of interest in bargaining with zelenskyy because he thinks he's gaining more on the ground and why give up, why freeze? does this make putin think again? does this -- is this in effect a gift from biden to trump to get these talks started after january 20th? >> you could look at it that way, ed. i would like to think it is a gift from biden to zelenskyy, who is going to have to go to

that negotiating table. mika read that interesting piece about the massive casualties in the american civil war. that's the other piece of the puzzle for vladimir putin. he's lost 200,000 killed in action, 400,000 who are grievously wounded, 600,000 who have left the country to avoid the draft. he is now approaching civil war-like levels of casualties. it is a terrifying thing in my view if you are a member of the russian population. so i think between the bargaining chips you're absolutely right. the chunk of territory that the ukrainians hold of russia, the new atacms, the f-16s, which are starting to have real impact, those are operational military bargaining chips. on the other side of it is going to be casualties inflicted on russia. those two things i think might

help get putin to the bargaining table. >> i want to ask you really quickly about the cost of this war on russia. we know when with ukraine, because we see it every day, but the biden administration has been criticized by both sides. whether it is the isolationists on the right and the left, or whether it is people who, you know, basically wanting to march -- have ukraine march into moscow, he's always been hammered, second guest, he always had to worry and as james baker always said, 's first goal, avoiding nuclear war. after that, you figure everything else out. i just want to -- how will history 20, 30 years from now, look at this war thus far and how much it has decimated the number two and they are, russia, the number two military in the world. what is the generational impact

of the casualties and the equipment they have lost over the past several years? >> it is massive. and we are only seeing the edges of it right now. and think about the 600,000 young russian males who have left the country. who are they? they're the ones with internet savvy, rubles in their pocket, contacts in the west, they have seen the bright lights of warsaw. they're not coming back. and that is a generational loss for the russians. point two -- >> by the way, you just made mika's brother smile talking about the bright lights of warsaw. >> no, old warsaw is beautiful. >> oh, my gosh. >> gorgeous. have you been to the bristol. >> i have. >> okay, okay. we'll have frommer's tour of old warsaw. we opened up pandora's box.

>> there is a message there. but here's the point i would make to donald trump, about the money we could spend on ukraine. we're talking $40 billion a year, which is about 5% of the u.s. defense budget, our defense budget, $800 billion, $40 billion, 5%, for that amount of money we're breaking the phalanx of russia's military. those were the best dollars we have ever spent in defense. and, point two, all that money, that $40 billion a year, that's not a check we're handing zelenskyy. all that money is paid to u.s. defense contractors making our defense industrial base stronger. russia gets weaker, to joe's point. final thought, the russians today are spending 35% of their gdp on defense. that is not a prescription for long-term growth. >> willie, this is a

generational impact on russia and, yes, it is actually -- it helped u.s. businesses. >> yes. >> in one word, for president trump, it is leverage. this is terrific leverage. you put a small amount of money in, and you get massive effect. this is a good deal for the united states. >> speaking of the president-elect, admiral, he said on the campaign trail, i'll have a peace deal done between russia and ukraine, will take me one day when i become president. you're writing today, in bloomberg, about the possibility of that kind of deal, what it might look like. you said there ought to be some kind of dmz, like between north and south korea. what would that deal look like for both sides? >> a lot like the end of the korean war, which is to say a demilitarized zone, dmz, probably 5 to 10 miles wide, probably be right along the border that you see now between russian forces, ukrainian forces, and that's a tragedy. it is a tragedy that ukraine would give up 20% of its

country. but the other 80% sails on. democratic, free, eventually a path to nato, say three to five years, eventually a path to the eu. not a terrible outcome. a good portion of making that work would be creation of this demilitarized zone, ukraine troops and russian, like the korean dmz, or bring in a neutral force, nato on one side, russia on the other. i can think of a lot of things. all of that to be determined at a negotiating table. but it is a key element that people aren't talking about enough. >> let's say a long way from what putin wanted when he set out -- >> that's the point. when putin wakes up at 2:00 in the morning when he's nest with him, he realizes he hurt himself deeply, the mother land,

he destroyed its prospects. in a smart world, putin would have integrated with europe. it is a tragedy. for ukraine, it is also a ukraine for russia. >> james stavridis, thank you very much. his latest opinion piece is online now. it is worth a read. and ed luce, thank you as well. as always. >> ed luce, the bottom of all of his columns, doesn't say i am the state, he said i am the ft. >> it is available online right now. thank you, ed. and coming up, pablo torre is here with a look at some of the greatest s taking over the nfl. he'll explain next on "morning joe." ver the nfl. he'll explain next on "morning joe. oh! right in the temporal lobe! beat it, punks! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪

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season. actually a bad season doesn't quite explain what it has been for the dallas cowboys. >> that was such a copout. >> if only that's why we have -- >> that's why i'm here on a wednesday. segue back to me. >> steve jobs black sweater. >> that's right. the reality distortion field is what i bring, much like jobs. >> by the way, the cowboys are 3-7. they're not happy about it. their latest embarrassment came at 34-10 home loss to the houston texans on monday, when a metal piece of the stadium roof fell on to the field. >> oh, my god. >> luckily no one was hurt. >> oh, my god. >> other than -- yeah.

structural damage. >> various egos. >> before that dak prescott is on injured reserve, he'll miss the rest of the season with a hamstring injury. this is the longest introduction ever. that likely means america's team will see their super bowl drought extend to 29 years. jerry jones was asked about the exact number of people who were killed in the civil war. i am now going to read the report that places that -- wait. let's bring in now pablo torre, msnbc contributor, pablo torre. willie, can you pick this up for me? i'm out of breath. >> i like it when joe reads a story to me. >> it is too much reading. >> it is way too much. why couldn't we just have said -- >> he's got a great podcast. >> talking about the cowboys. >> why are you talking about the cowboys? >> can we show part of the podcast?

>> we got him here. >> i like where your head is at. >> then we'll go to you. what is this? >> i would like to bring you an individualized, a bespoke podcast in a sense. >> okay. >> i've heard on a certain program this week that we live in a 50/50 nation. and the thing that crosses the gap, of course, is football. and the team that crosses the gap more than any other that overlays both sides of the cultural divide happens to be the dallas cowboys. and so, on my show, "pablo torre finds out," i solve my own curiosities and mysteries. this can be found on an online database that texas operates where you can see the last words of every inmate on death row and so so many of these inmates they use the opportunity to say something at the end of their life on earth to say how about those cowboys, to shout out

their sports teams. the question is, like, why and how do they even keep up? >> pablo torre, thank you so much for being with us. >> no, no, no, no. there is some -- >> what are you getting at? >> -- dare i say relatability, some light in this as well as some macabre. i bring some darkness in my all black box theater outlet. >> i don't know what this is about. >> what are you getting to? >> we sent a correspondent to the polinsky unit and we found a man, he should not be there, he was an accomplice in a burglary where the killer in the burglary has been set free. i say all of this to say this man has been in solitary confinement 23 hours a day for 25 years and this is the biggest

cowboys fan i've ever encountered. and the question we had for him is, how do you watch football, america's past time, on death row? and there is a world that involves fantasy football, in which they are running via fishing line draft picks. a two-quarterback league on death row, a commissioner, they're gambling their rations. this is a place despite all of this seeming like the last place you would see a version of yourself, you get a sense that these people are trying to re-create the national past time under the most dire conditions and then in some cases it is shocking, shocking how football is the one thing they find that connects them to the rest of the country. >> that's fascinating. >> it is a crazy story. genuinely a crazy story. >> this is what we get in your podcast. >> i love it. >> mika loves it. >> that is fascinating.

>> he's awaiting death row. >> waiting for the ax to fall. it gives him great commonality with nearly nine out of ten general managers in the national football league. >> so, it is funny you say that, because charles flores, you would imagine that his perspective on all this has been, of course, maybe brought back to the reality, the harsh reality of he's waiting for the day when this all happens. his execution date. and the guy, joe, he has -- we have been emailing him, he has so many complaints about jerry jones and ceedee lamb. why would you shout out the cowboys, at the end of the your life? this is an expression of a membership, a membership with the rest of the country that otherwise this -- this particular super max prison has taken from him. and i'm not saying that everybody needs to be sympathetic to every inmate on death row, just know there are people inside of there who

should not be there for whom football is their only connection and they express that at the most high stakes moment. >> how does he follow it enough? >> there is a elevision, they can stare through the grate, it is livingston, texas, it is texans cowboy. charles flores was watching the dallas cowboys on monday night and being miserable, miserable in ways that transcend the misery you would expect. and misery in ways that, again, it is just the most american sensation of what do you care about? you care about football to the very end. >> okay. absolutely fascinating. i am -- i'm chastened for even laughing at the beginning of that. that was great. wait. one more thing for you. so interesting. there is a growing trend among some athletes who are now

celebrating with dance moves that are used by donald trump at his campaign rallies. the trend has taken hold, especially in the nfl. but in other sports as well. what you to find? >> this is a bit of a viral trend. all of these athletes to use the parlance of the platform joe was talking about, everyone is retweeting the same meme at this point. and i want to remind people that there are better celebrations than this. this is not a political observation. i believe that when we are celebrating dances, that take so little, we're basically indulging, the great athlete barack obama who said the soft bigotry of low expectations. there is an athlete, a vikings defensive back, you know this story, he has been pulling off the greatest celebrations i have ever seen. so, this is him doing, i think, joe, your favorite athlete, ray gunn, the olympian, from australia. >> no, he does not.

>> look at im. >> got to show the side by side. >> no way! you are kidding me! >> imagine what it takes -- a defensive back is not guaranteed to touch a football every week. he's prepared with an borate routine, i went to minnesota, talked with him, but this is the one, the image you should know is that this man did ray gunn better than ray gunn. and we need to talk more about this. >> hold on a second. we have a lot of people watching who unlike my kids, and everybody else whose kids are out here, don't know who ray gunn is. can you give a quick background? and ray gunn sadly has been drive n from the sport of break

dancing. >> self-exile. australian breaker, break dancing was in the olympics. went out and did that. speaks for itself, scored a flat zero. the judges. but in the process, became the biggest viral star of the olympics. and since bowed out of break dancing because of the mockery. but she said she loved this. shoutout to cam bynum. he did the parent trap dance, the handshake with lindsay lohan. >> no one is doing it -- >> glitch dance, which i won't pretend to -- >> that's how you do it right there. cam bynum. >> you can hear these stories and more on pablo's podcast. "pablo torre finds out." i'm going to download it. >> thank you, mika. >> and you have to come back more often. >> anytime. >> what is today? wednesday?

>> allegedly wednesday. >> say friday. >> come back friday. >> all right. >> stay off death row. come back friday. >> i loved that. that was so moving. that story. >> more cow bell and more -- >> in my ear they're saying more dancing. >> i'm fascinated by the death row story. there is a lot there. i hope people can -- >> all right, still ahead, thank you, pablo. still ahead, republican congressman mike lawler of new york will be our guest from capitol hill on the heels of his big re-election win. we'll talk about that and much more. plus, "the new york times" peter baker joins the conversation with his new piece "trump defies the me too movement with cabinet picks facing accusations." he'll explain why he says this raises new questions about the future of the movement. we're back in 90 seconds. re of t we're back in 90 seconds

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we love how custom ink takes care of everything we need so we can focus on the kids. we make it easy to wow all your groups with high quality custom apparel, accessories, and promo products, all backed by our guarantee at customink.com. do not use the justice system as a weapon. and the message for republicans is don't do it on the other side either. with this absurd ag pick that you just made. justice is different t is . you do not use our justice system as a political weapon.

voters rejected it in november. and they're going to reject it if republicans try to do it also. some things rise above the din. the justice system is one of those things. >> that was fox news host trey gowdy yesterday warning against confirming donald trump's choice for attorney general matt gaetz. >> and, willie, that's -- this is something, when we talked yesterday about how this is still a 50/50 dunn country, don trump did better, texas, florida, states like that, actually crushed his own numbers four years ago. but it is still a 50/50 country. you look at the fact that democrats won in wisconsin, democrats -- democrats won in michigan. democrats won in arizona. it is the fourth consecutive time that arizona has sent a democrat to the -- voted for a democrat to go to the senate.

and they hadn't in 30, 40 years. this is a 50/50 country. a lot of republicans are saying, no, we're going to do what they did to us and we can debate all of that for four hours right here. but what they did to you, if you believe that got donald trump elected, why would you do it -- you would be, again, making marters of everybody. and as trey gowdy said right there, it is just -- it is bad for the justice department. it is bad for the rule of law. it is bad for america. but just selfishly for republicans, and for donald trump, it is bad for them too. >> yeah. first and foremost as you said, bad for the country, let's start there. that's the most important. but also if you want to energize democrats, energize who are deflated, put matt gaetz in

there, pete hegseth in there, watch how they conduct themselves and you'll energize people to go out and vote in two years from now in ways you didn't anticipate. it is interesting. i have to say trey gowdy is the latest to see how aggressively republicans don't like matt gaetz. >> the wall street editorial page talking about pete hegseth. >> telling donald trump, it is okay to withdraw a nomination, that you made hastily and didn't have all the information on. statement to him, this doesn't have to be the final answer on defense. >> donald trump will always listen to "the wall street journal.." >> they're at least saying it. but it is, to watch trey gowdy and others, publicly, in front of microphones saying how little they think of matte gaetz is fascinating. i go back to your point, that we have been making for two weeks you don't have a lot of faith in republicans at the end of the day to cross donald trump. >> we have not gotten to the phase of trump threatening anyone. he's doing the courtship thing.

in the past, we know how he exerted control over the republicans, through the threat of primaries. and so you look at, you know, well, that day is going to come. he's not going to gracefully -- i thought better of it, you know? matt gaetz, a lot of opposition among the senators, i'm going to back off. i'm not predicting how this is going to turn out. but, again, we don't have any precedent in the past, the republican senators, standing up to trump. there is no history of it and trump is emboldened and his feeling is to say, i'm going to test you. what we see as a bug with gaetz is for trump a feature. put the most -- not just a republican who is radical by normal standards, but someone who deeply is offensive to most republicans, even far right of the republican party, nobody likes matt gaetz. even the hard core maga congressmen don't like him. and you saw, like, senatorsopend show us videos we didn't want to see, talking about it on the

floor of the house it was disgusting. this guy from trump's point of view is i'm going test you, test the senate and i'm going to -- >> it is testing the senate. >> it is testing the senate. >> testing, you know, advise and consent. i want to say, it is interesting, jonathan lemire, "wall street journal" editorial page, obviously different from the new york post editorial page. what is so fascinating here is the "the new york post" editorial page is echoing a lot now, both owned by rupert murdoch, but the editorial page is now echoing "the wall street journal" editorial page and, first of all, coming out against rfk in a -- in a really tough way. but now going after tulsi gabbard, going after gaetz, saying these people are unfit to be in your administration. >> and to your point, "the new york post" editorial page is one he will read.

he deeply cares what that paper has to say. we're hearing from so many republicans and john is right, this is -- trump is testing the senate. they stood up to him when he was in office occasionally on foreign policy issues, deeply critical of some of the things he did, particularly in helsinki. they defied him by making john thune majority leader. that's not what he wanted. secret ballot. >> secret ballot. >> can i just say, i have no idea whether this is the case or not, but he was going down, using a system, you know, the transition staff, susie wiles, everybody goes, okay, yeah, she's -- >> she worked for reagan. she's been around. then marco rubio. people go, don't love him, but, you know what, we can deal with him. and then even ratcliffe, didn't like him before, but we found out much, much better than it could have been. then the senate takes the vote

for thune. and think about this. the timing. and then in rapid succession you get gaetz, hegseth, gabbard. and it came immediately after that. and i think, again, i have no information on this, but the timing, i think is too coincidental. it is, like, okay, you're going to give me a guy i hate? all right, well, look who you're going to have to deal with. >> it came on the flight back. the flight back from washington. >> he did it in the middle of thune's victory celebration. like, hegseth breaks on tuesday night, gaetz is in the afternoon on wednesday and tulsi gabbard comes third. the gaetz thing was, i mean, it really was just taking a dump on john thune's victory party. it was, like, you're celebrating, here. >> if we wanted john meacham on the show, to give us that sort of image, we would have john on the show.

but, again, the timing is -- >> not coincidental. >> not coincidental. >> if i may move on now, we have joining the conversation -- >> you didn't like what he said? >> no, u.s. special correspondent for bbc news katty kay and chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" peter baker. thank you very much. >> peter, your thought about what we're talking about right now, which is, again, the timing, you had these picks, the first week where people said, okay, maybe we can ride this storm out. then the senate defies donald trump, they pick john thune as their leader. and then suddenly he's, like, i'm not going through the process, here are three or four picks that are going to put the senate in a really difficult position. >> yeah, no, i think that makes a lot of sense. i certainly -- the way he tends to think. look, what trump has done is rather remarkable. he shifted the spectrum of outrage, right?

you mentioned john ratcliffe. when john ratcliffe, texas congressman, put up by trump in the first term for department of -- director of national intelligence, the senate republicans rejected and said he's way too partisan. we can't have him in there. trump had to back off. and instead he put ric grenell in there and senate republicans went, whoa, let's bring baccarat cliff and then confirmed him for dni because he was a whole lot better in their view than ric grenell. you have the same kind of thing. he softened them up with the marco rubio pick and as you rightly point out, maybe this won't be so bad. and then boom, boom, boom. what he's done with gaetz and hegseth and gabbard and rfk jr. is take away attention from other nominees who also might be controversial in a normal time, who might be hard to confirm in a normal senate and suddenly they look perfectly fine by comparison. who is being put in charge of the medicare agency? dr. oz from tv. this is a reality show cabinet being put together and certain people are going to be taking

the hit up front as matt gaetz is going to be a sacrificial lamb to get some other people through, that's the way it looks right now. >> you covered the white house for some length of time. we had all of these activities going on, all the appointments going on this week. it begs the question, susie wiles is a tremendously respected woman. i think across the board. doesn't matter what party you belong to. there is a lot of respect for her and what she's done, especially in terms of reining in donald trump. she's going to be the chief of staff to the next president of the united states in exactly two months from today. where is susie wiles' role now in terms of all these appointments being made? >> yeah, it is interesting. so a lot of people, as you say, thought susie wiles would be a more conventional republican pick as chief of staff, therefore would temper his instincts. that's clearly not the way she rolls. i don't know her. i think what she may have learned from watching four

chiefs of staff in trump's fist term is you don't control donald trump. and maybe trying to control donald trump say is a losing strategy. you pick your battles when you're an adviser to donald trump. some things you feel like you might be able to stop or moderate or meliorate or what have you, but you're not going to prevent him from doing things he thinks are his best interest. his gut tells him to do. the successful advisers around him have learned not to try. that doesn't necessarily mean for, you know, a successful strategy it may not be and she'll have to pick up the mess that he may in fact create here, but doesn't seem like just watching these appointments roll out that she is, you know, the one directing that set of choices. >> we know that donald trump treats the process like many -- as casting. how do they present, how do they represent him on television, how do they represent him in public. so you get people like pete hegseth, fox news anchor, in

addition to being a military veteran, of course, you got shawn duffy, nominated to be head of the department of transportation. and dr. oz, who as i said earlier in his release, donald trump posted leading with the fact that dr. oz has nine daytime emmy awards for his tv show and having him run the centers for medicare and medicaid services administration, massive bureaucratic job. but this is the way donald trump does it. in addition to having telegenic people out there for him, people when you talk about someone like tulsi gabbard, rfk jr., matt gaetz, who will be pit bulls on his behalf. >> yeah. dr. oz, who, by the way, i did beat on celebrity jeopardy, he may have all those emmys, but he did not beat me on "jeopardy." good one, that one, right? claim to fame. i have not been offered anything in government, so clearly doesn't qualify me to do very much. but the -- i think the point of some of these picks is if your

aim is a populist insurgent to come in and say you want to destroy government, maybe you want people who have no experience of running these things and who can be the wrecking balls like you said, not just being a pit bull on television or having good hair as matt gaetz has, pete hegseth has, it is being the person who can do the dirty work that donald trump wants done. but it is not easy. because these institutions set themselves up not to be destroyed. but he wants somebody who is prepared -- and extremely loyal to him, who in the case of matt gaetz has really nowhere else to go as we're saying in the last hour, and who will do that job of dismantling the deep state, which seems to be if there is an ideological bent to donald trump at the moment and his -- what conservatives say is his authoritarian tendencies, it is the destruction of the deep state, you put in place -- and maybe people without experience is the very point. i think while we focus quite rightly on allegations of sexual

abuse in the case of two of these nominees, it is also worth focusing on their lack of competence. these are people who have never run -- dr. oz has never run anything of this scale. pete hegseth the same, tulsi gabbard the same. matt gaetz the same. they just don't have the experience. so you have to start thinking apart from donald trump's desire for loyalty, is that actually the point of this? >> this is literally ripped out of the pages of ann applebomb's book "twilight of democracy," she says you replace competency with loyalty and the state withers and the power is consolidated. she literally wrote that three, four years ago. so, the big question is recess appointments. obviously there are a lot of republicans in the senate, i can think john cornyn, mitch mcconnell, others, who would be deeply disturbed by that. the question right now, though, what about john thune?

is john thune going to stand up and actually look at the advise and consent, you know, power that is given to the senate? >> core institution of the senate, advise and consent. there are house members who say the only thing about being in the senate is you get to vote on the appointments, that's the main thing that sets them apart institutionally. trump demanded of all three leadership candidates that he said he could do recess appointments. rick scott immediately said, yes, of course. for sure, mr. president. cornyn and thune were more guarded. we think we can take care of this on our own. we'll see. on that wednesday, last week, when trump did what he did over the course of that day and rolled out the three controversial appointments, john thune set down on fox news, and thune said we got to get president trump's appointments through, recess appointments are not off the table, we'll see if that's what it takes, maybe.

you could say he's deflecting the question. but, you know, again, the history is when you see someone buckle in the senate, to trump, rather than defending advise and consent, this is our prerogative, this is what we do, that's opening a door to where we might end up. >> this happens after every election. forgive me for repeating myself, this happens after every election, barack obama's elected, democrats are going to control everything for next 100 years. karl rove's permanent majority, senators that have been around understand. this is not a -- this is not merely a season. this is merely a day. and two years from now, susan collins will either be re-elected, or she will be retired. and if anybody thinks that susan collins can win in maine, when she rolls over -- i'm not saying she is, she's been very critical, but if the senate says, oh, yeah, we're going to

just give up our constitutional prerogative, susan collins has to run in maine and a lot of other republicans have to run in senate re-elections, two years from now, and does he really want to have a guy that has a 17-year-old junior saying she was raped at a drug-fueled orgy or the things over tulsi gabbard? i'm saying susan collins, because to be honest with you, i don't know who else is running two years from now, but i know she is, and pretty deep blue state. so again, i know everybody saying, hey, this is right in front of us. and this -- no. these senators understand that they're going to be a lot of twists and turns. donald trump elected in '16, democrats great year in '18. barack obama swept in '08, and the tea party, and you can go back to reagan. >> 2018 with -- after trump won

in 2016, 2018, huge year for democrats in the midterms. >> and let's talk history. the two greatest landslides in american history. ronald reagan, what happens? he wins in '84. 49 states. and '86, democrats take control of the senate. you can talk about richard nixon in '72, '74, one of the biggest democratic landslides in american history. these senators know this. and so, i just don't know they're going to go, no mas, we're scared of you because of what people are feeling today is not what they're going to be feeling two years from now. >> thune has been noncommittal. there have been a number of senators, not just the susan collins, lisa murkowski, reliable senators who said we're not going to do recess appointments, we believe in our responsibility here to advise and consent. now, could trump try to lean on them and force it through?

i'm told they're still thinking about that at mar-a-lago. but right now, republican senators do not want to go along that way. >> wow. all right. peter, your latest piece for "the times" "trump defies the me too movement with cabinet picks facing accusations." tell us about it. >> yeah, first of all, we should remember this is going to be making history in january, we have the first president taking office ever who has been found liable in court for sexual abuse, that never happened in our history. he seemed to be surrounding himself it looks like in the cabinet with other people who have been accused of sexual misconduct, they all denied it and haven't been found liable in court the way the president-elect has. but, still, pretty interesting he's chosen to go down this route. we have matt gaetz who joe was just talking about, pete hegseth who has been accused of sexual assault, he denies it and says it was consensual encounter. we have rfk jr. accused in a magazine this last summer of groping a family baby-sitter, he sent her a text message

afterwards saying he didn't remember it, but sorry if he did anything to hurt her. said in an interview, while he wasn't a church boy when he was a younger man and, elon musk created work environment, according to a lawsuit filed this summer filed by employees that was hostile to women, talked about their bra size, treated them like objects and so forth. you got a series of candidates now for higher office who have been accused of the kinds of things that brought down a whole lot of people, just in a few years in the me too movement and people will ask what does this mean now? is this a backlash to that? trump always denigrated the me too movement, expressed sympathy for the accused, not the accusers and seems to be daring the senate on one more front here, go ahead and approve these people and then we'll go from there. >> all right. and, i mean, that's just one side of it. the other side of it is the issue of abortion which is going

to be extremely difficult moving forward, trying to figure out how to get some of these really strict bans moved. have to figure out how to find a way forward on that. peter baker, thank you very much. a lot of challenges for women given the consequences of this election. >> just on abortion, i just again, i want to correct the record that we have heard since the election, abortion was a big issue this year, it was a big issue, what was it seven states. >> seven states. >> seven states had votes on it. six of the seven, even conservative states, abortion rights won. in florida, it went down to defeat with a 57% support vote in the state that donald trump won by 13, 14 points. so people who are saying right now, oh, abortion is not a key issue, i don't know what they're smoking, maybe the same thing you're smoking when you were 10

years old, but abortion is still an issue in red state america. >> i think there is room for movement on this. it is not what we wanted. it certainly, you know, not where we want to be. not where women want to be. i talked a lot during the campaign about how these abortion bans are a living hell for women in america. and not just women of child-bearing age having reproductive emergencies, women in general not having access to healthcare that should be available to them and katty kay, now the question is, because there was success -- i will say the florida ballot was so misleading, but the six-week ban in florida is brutal. and i mean that literally. but the question will be how democrats and republicans perhaps work together on this issue and also with president trump who has -- who has -- it seems -- >> critical of the florida ban. >> it seems there is an opening

there. >> and look, look at the final result. i think it was 57% in the florida case and they only needed 0% to prevent that ban from taking effect. even in florida, where abortion rights didn't succeed, they got quite close in a conservative state. people that i spoke to after the night was surprised it had done as well as it did. donald trump, from everything he said during the campaign, his criticism of conservative republicans who ran on extreme abortion restrictions, he doesn't want to have a national abortion ban land on his desk. there seems to be no indication of that. and there does seem to be an indication he wants to work with states where there are -- this is the guy who called himself the father of ivf. he's the guy who put in place the judges who overturned roe, but also has seen the political consequences of that and seems to want to work where he can

with states to limit some of those tough restrictions. >> i agree. still ahead on "morning joe," mike lawler joins us to discuss his re-election victory in new york. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. york you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. wax figure of myself. cool right? look at this craftmanship. i mean they even got my nostrils right. it's just nice to know that years after i'm gone this guy will be standing the test of ti... he's melting! oh jeez... nooo... oh gaa... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪

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welcome back. >> did you say bye to john? >> i did. >> john, we're sorry mika is so mean to you all the time.

>> time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. for the first time in 53 days, the water is clean enough to drink in asheville, north carolina. hurricane helene knocked the city's water distribution system offline nearly two months ago. while it is a welcome development for the community, huge portions of the state are still dealing with the massive damage caused by the torrential rain and flooding. the nypd is launching a program featuring a new type of first responders, drones. two drones will be deployed at station houses in manhattan, brooklyn, and the bronx, to fly off to emergency scenes before officers can get there. the drones will assist in missing person searches, alerts on gunfire, and crimes in progress. and "the washington post" has a new analysis on how the rise of

three pointing shooting in the nba -- >> three-point shooting. >> i'm sorry. yeah, three-point shot. what am i thinking? >> it says -- >> when you're outside -- way from far away, right? >> yeah, that's what the kids call it. >> it completely changed the sport. teams are averaging a 37% three-point shooting per game. teams are routinely fielding lineups with all five players who shoot from the outside, defending champion boston celtics launched 61 attempts from beyond the arc in their opening -- their season opener. >> cleveland cavaliers last night, no longer undefeated, celtics beat them. >> the cavs just an amazing start. i will say, though, you know, i have deep, deep respect for these guys that go out and will practice three-pointers, you know, and we heard the most

dramatic examples of those, but they'll just, you know, a thousand shots a day or whatever, it is great. but i will say, and i'm serious, it kind of takes away from the game. they just walk down the court and chunk it up. what was always so exciting is you have magic driving the lane, throwing it behind his back, somebody, you know, or bird or other people who were aficionados and moved the ball up the court and you had all these action. now it is like lope down, throw up, three points. >> i don't know. i like the three-pointer. >> it used to be an event when a guy would shoot a three-pointer. there was a guy that was good at it. craig hodges could launch threes. now it is everybody. victor wembanyama, who is 7'5" 7'5", in a previous lifetime, he can go through his legs, hit a step back three, it is the game now, steph curry deserves a lot

of credit for that, ing basketball. you got 13, 14-year-olds, two dribbles inside half-court, launching a three. and the guys are good at it. it is fun to watch. >> it is two things. it is the curry effect to be sure. also analytics. three points are worth more than two. the nba teams know that. the celtics beat the cavs, last night was low for them on the season. joe's thought here is not uncommon. there is talk in the game it has become too reliant on the three-pointer, they may be taking away the corner threes. >> it takes talent. you have to make the space. >> no doubt. it has become too easy. >> it has changed the nature of the game. there is nothing more enjoyable to my eyes than watching the old larry bird clips of his passes. they're like magic. they're phenomenal. no pun intended.

but the assists used to be look at the box score of an nba game and check the assists. how many assists did they have? there is no more assists. they come down, boom, take the pop. >> while we're talking about sports really quickly, i was watching the espn show with college football playoff, university of alabama grad, reese, running it. they have, what, not byu, but boise state is up there, and it is so -- it is maddening watching some of the guys there going, you know, booger mcfarland, i don't know why byu is not number two and alabama should be 47. it is like every time. and they say, we tried to warn them about tcu. it is, like, please, you guys have got to stop putting programs that are punching at their weight better than anybody else, but cannot compete with

oregon, ohio state, alabama, georgia, tennessee, ole miss. we know how that ends. >> it ends 65-3 was the final in the national championship game a couple of years ago when georgia beat tcu. what you're talking about is the rankings. love the new playoff. it gives boise state a shot. it gives byu a shot at the national title. but the way it works, they rank the teams, see boise state is 12th. the ranking that came out last night. because they're projected to be their conference champion, the mountain west conference, they get a bye, so that makes them number four. so, in other words, they don't have to play a road game theoretically. they get a bye to the second round. ohio state, penn state, indiana, notre dame, alabama, georgia, they have to slug it out in the first round and one of them goes home with people -- the thing we love about the s.e.c. is the competition. every week the teams are so good. the problem is you lose a couple

of games in that league. >> i will say, reese davis who university of alabama graduate, bought he said it time and again, he said, really, like, georgia, why doesn't strength of schedule matter more than it does. it is not just the fresno states or boise states, really exciting team to play, one of the great running backs in college football history right now. but even, like, the third, fourth and fifth ranked teams, as i said last night, they haven't played anybody. texas hasn't beaten -- they haven't beaten a ranked opponent. their best win was against vandy that beat alabama, but vandy pushed them to the wall. that was a great game. then penn state, does anybody think that penn state is going to beat georgia in america that doesn't live in college station? i mean, it is, like, and indiana, i'm fascinated to see indiana and ohio state this

weekend. i'll be cheering for indiana, but is there anybody, other than maybe booger mcfarland, who thinks they should be ranked number one for the next ten oher years who thinks indiana would be within ten points against georgia, against tennessee, against the up and coming team now, ole miss, who just looked frighteningly good against georgia, a few weeks ago. >> this is the problem where it is not just the s.e.c., but now the conferences are expanding. and the level gets that much higher. of course the schedule is going to be brutal. of course the teams will take a loss or two. cinderella stories are great. they're great right now. they're less great in a primetime playoff game. >> if you're a good team, why don't you just play -- this is encouraging for people to play

really bad teams. and all of your out of conference games like cupcake u, like the worst teams ever, because right now weak schedules are being rewarded. >> i was going to ask the question, of you three, i wasn't going to ask mika because i know she's an aficionado of this, how many times on a friday do you check out the listings for saturday's football games and look at the matchups and say how does that happen? how is oregon playing bishop hendrickson high school or something like that. >> spread offense. >> one thing i'll say about boise state, they took oregon to the brink. they lost by three points against the best team in the country. so -- >> i used to think they were the best team in the country. >> top five. >> did you see -- wisconsin pushed them to the wall. a team that alabama crushed. >> they're a top five team. anyway, boise state has played some teams, they almost beat oregon, at oregon too.

let's see how it plays out. that's the beauty of the 12-team tournament. >> i need to separate out, i think boise state, as you said, from a lot of the other teams. you are right. that's always been a special team. that's always been an exciting team. and they do have maybe the best running back in college football in a decade. >> he's fantastic. they send players to pros, and also have the blue turf. >> the smurf turf. >> let's move to politics in 2022, republicans managed to flip five house districts in new york, the losses led democratic leaders to invest heavily in the empire state this past cycle and with that work, the party was able to win back all but one of those seats. that's the one held by republican congressman mike lawler, who won re-election. and joins us now. >> mike is here. we asked him to come here. he's going to argue that colgate

should be in the top 12 in the college -- do you have a favorite college team, congressman? >> i went to manhattan university. unfortunately, we don't have a football team there. we do have a basketball team. up in the bronx. brother jasper created the seventh inning stretch. little known fact. i would say i'm a notre dame fighting irishman. >> i think maybe i should have a useless trivia podcast. these are the things that matter to me. by the way, yankees stadium this weekend, man, what a football game, notre dame against army. that's going to be an exciting one. all right, so, congressman, let me ask you this, we have been asking democrats over the past week, week and a half, what happened, why did you lose. they have a lot of different theories. we wanted to get you on the show

to ask -- your race was supposed to be very tight. people are talking about you running possibly for governor of new york. what happened this year? a good friend of ours, john avalon, ran a really great race, i thought, out, i think new york 1, out at the end of the island, and he got beaten pretty handily just because it seemed the democratic brand, even in new york state, has been damaged. what did you hear when you were knocking on doors? >> well, joe and mika, new york was interesting. democrats banked their entire strategy on taking back the majority through new york and california. because over the last two cycles, republicans flipped ten seats and that's what gave them the majority. so democrats figured, if they went all in on new york and california, they would get back to the majority. they spent $250 million in new york.

and they were able to flip three seats, two of which were very tight, mark molinaro and anthony d'esposito ran great campaigns but came up just short. as you just pointed out, out on long island, you know, nick lalota crushed john avlon by double digits. in my race, i beat mondaire jones in a district that has 85,000 more democrats than republicans. we saw donald trump make significant movement in new york, nearly every county shifted rightward. in my home county of rockland county, for instance, he improved by 14 points. he had election districts where he won 100% of the vote in the orthodox jewish community. so, he made significant improvement, we saw that in the bronx, we saw it in other parts of new york city. i think the problem in new york for democrats is very simple.

they control everything. they own it. we have seen a migrant crisis, we have seen a crime crisis. we have seen an affordability crisis. people cannot afford to live in new york. we lead the nation in outmigration for a reason. we have the highest tax burden. you see wall street and big banks leaving new york. they're going to palm beach, they're going to salt lake city, they're going to dallas. it is a big problem in new york. and, frankly, kathy hochul is one of the most incompetent governors in the country. and, yes, they ran a better, more coordinated campaign than they did two years ago, certainly. but they spent $250 million and in the process, lost the majority because they didn't pay attention to the other districts. >> and for those that were wondering when the campaign for new york's governorship would begin, the official time

7:48:32. exactly. >> congressman, you walked into that one. do you have your eye on that job down the road? >> we're going to look at it for sure. i think it is clear that -- >> i'm going to look at eating again sometime, but go ahead. >> it is clear -- it is clear that one party rule in new york hasn't worked. and there needs to be more balance and common sense. i've won three times now in 2-1 democratic districts. this district that i just won re-election to, joe biden won by ten points just four years ago. donald trump is going to come within half a point of winning the seat, of winning that district. there is definitely been a rightward shift in new york. and i think it really boils down to issues, whether you're a republican or a democrat doesn't really matter. most people just want a good paying job to provide for their families, a quality education for their children, access to housing and healthcare. and they want to live in safe

neighborhoods. and here you have kathy hochul bringing back congestion pricing, which is nothing more than a scam, it is a commuter tax. one week after the election, charging the average new yorker $2500 just to commute to work. meanwhile, providing illegal immigrants with billions of dollars worth of free housing, healthcare, clothing, education and food, but charging the average new yorker to commute to work. this is the stuff that drives people crazy in new york. and i do think there is an opportunity in 2026 and so we'll take a look at it. >> so, okay. that's an answer. willie, really quickly, one of most fascinating insights i've seen on what's happened in new york and california, which, of course, democrats rightly were thinking given the past, we're going to invest heavily here, they broke for donald trump. they broke for republicans and if you want to know why, you don't have to talk to, you know,

"the new york times," the "new york post" editorial page, listen to what ezra kline said in "pod save america" about people living in new york city and san francisco and los angeles and the quality of life going down. i thought ezra really laid a lot of this stuff out to explain the more conservative break. >> it is just not rockland county as the congressman mentioned. it is the bronx, queens, brooklyn, where we saw some movement toward donald trump. congressman, want to ask you about some of the choices that president-elect trump has made for some of these posts. you've been very critical in the past of matt gaetz calling him a charlatan, saying he's not conservative. do you think he has the qualifications and the character to be the attorney general of the united states? >> willie, how about those georgia bulldogs? >> i'm a vandy guy. i can't help you there. what about matt gaetz? >> i've been clear about my thoughts on matt gaetz. i stand by everything i said

about him. fundamentally obviously the president has the right to nominate who he sees fit to serve in his cabinet, but that's why we have a senate confirmation process. and matt is going to have to answer a lot of questions about the allegations that have been leveled against him, including obviously the allegations he had sex with underage women, and paid for it. and that's something that i think is certainly fair game and needs to be addressed by him directly through any senate confirmation process. i do believe the president deserves a swift and fair confirmation process of his nominees and there should be up or down votes taken quickly because we have a lot of work to do. but at the end of the day, i believe it should follow the process. i don't believe we should be in recess to do this. i believe the senate should move swiftly on these nominations, give them a fair hearing but have an up or down vote.

i think matt is going to have a challenge when he has to actually address the allegations that have been leveled against him. >> you worked alongside matt gaetz for some time. do you believe he's qualified and has the character to be attorney general? >> no. i think obviously i think we have seen within the department of justice a weaponization. i do believe that the american people sent a very clear message on election day that they want government to work, and so you need somebody of the highest ethical standard there. and that's why the senate will go through the process it will go through. and ultimately i'm sure there will be a nominee confirmed that will do the job and do it well and clean up the mess at the department of justice. >> congressman, i wanted to say congratulations on the baby. how are we doing? two weeks old now. >> we just passed the three-week

mark. my wife and i planned this very well, eight days before the election. but baby elizabeth rose is doing well, thank you. >> that's great. okay, very briefly, just on bobby kennedy who, of course, was in new york resident of your state for a long time, what are your thoughts on him as in the healthcare position, running healthcare? >> look, he was actually a resident of my district, lived in bedford, you know. there is many issues that i disagree with him about, including vaccines as well as the shutting down of indian point. he led that effort and convinced his former brother-in-law andrew cuomo to shut down indian point. i think he's also raised significant issues with respect to food in america, obesity, chronic illness, i think he certainly has more qualifications than xavier becerra, the current secretary of health and human services, who never had any qualification

to be in that role. so, you know, look, again, this is why you have a senate confirmation process. they'll go through it. he'll answer questions that i'm sure senators will have for him. but ultimately i do believe president trump has the right to nominate who he sees fit to help him. at the end of the day, it is going to be the president's direction, working with congress, to enact the policies. and these cabinet secretaries, of course, serve at the pleasure of the president and could the work of the administration. i think many of these issues have been litigated through the course of the campaign and donald trump won overwhelmingly both in the popular vote and the electoral college, and republicans held majorities in the house and the senate, despite a map that is very tight and really did not lend itself to a large majority. so, you know, we're going to move forward. obviously the american people are focused on the issue of

affordability, on the issue of the border crisis, on the international crises that we're dealing with, and i'm looking forward to hitting the ground running come january. >> all right, republican congressman mike lawler of new york, thank you so much. >> thank you so much. >> certainly -- >> on many fronts. >> certainly was a big win for donald trump in states like texas, ohio, iowa, florida. but, again, you look at the electoral college map, a good comfortable win there. but we're a 50/50 nation. 50/49, look at the swing states, all win a point, a point and a half. >> he's up by a point and a half over kamala harris, up 49.9 to 48.5, something like that. >> but that's where america has been now in the 21st century. >> yeah. >> this is a 50/50 nation and any parties that don't recognize that, even after the elections, pay.

>> all right, we want to turn overseas now for a very special look at one man's mission to bring a free press to afghanistan. journalists have long been targeted there as the taliban cracks down on any form of dissent. a new book entitled "radio free afghanistan: a 20-year odyssey for an independent voice in kabul" is written by media executive saad mohseni. and it takes readers inside efforts of his company, moby group, to continue its reporting under the oppressive regime that is hostile to a free press. and saad joins us now. thank you very much for being on. i want to hear everything about what your company is trying to do. particularly as it pertains to the education of young girls, which is a huge issue there. >> thank you, mika. well, we established our business in 2002 and in 2021 we

thought we had to shut down our operations. and lo and behold we continued with restrictions, of course. but our women continued to present the news, continued to report on events around the country. and they're behind the cameras, and in front of the cameras. as a matter of fact, we have more women working for us today than three years ago. and we also upped our education programs. we're doing full subjects for grades seven, eight and nine. as challenging, as difficult it is to work in this environment, we continued. >> so, with respect and admiration for what you do, my simple question is, how are you still alive, and how do you continue to operate? >> it is very difficult, i mean, i think, you know, we have to be pragmatic. we have to understand that not being there is probably worse than being there. we have limitation restrictions, but our job is to inform, to

educate, to entertain. the taliban are a reality we have to accept. and we made that decision -- we made the decision to stay in 2021, knowing the risks, knowing that we will have restrictions. you probably face a similar thing. we have to be realistic and pragmatic to, you know, and you're facing those issues today in the u.s. so, what is it like today in afghanistan under taliban rule? >> it's very difficult. the situation is a lot more nuanced than what you would read about in the media. women continue to work, they drive

their vehicles, and when you arrive in kabul, they stamp your passports. at least in the major cities. it's better than what we expected. and in the villages it's a lot more restrictive. and one of the things that i pointed out is that the movement is not monolithic, there are individuals who are more pragmatic than others and it's important to engage in afghanistan for the sake of the population. 43 million people, they should not be forgotten. >> the new book radio free afghanistan is on sale now. author saad mohseni, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you so much for your work. the third hour of morning joe kicks off right now. trump also nominated sean duffy to serve as secretary of transportation, if you're irish catholic like me you know at

least 20 guys named sean duffy. -- >> he hired the guy from rule rules to be secretary of transportation. because of course he did. that's one of his least embarrassing pics, maybe he will pick one of the team moms to be secretary of labor. this afternoon he announced his latest choice for medicare and medicaid, it's dr. menopause. okay, so he still picking people that he sees on tv. okay next up the head of transportation goes to thomas the train engine. >> in a moment we will breakdown who he just tapped for a key administration role in medicare, education and commerce, and we will discuss what top senate republicans are now saying about matt gaetz,

his attorney general nomination as the house ethics committee is set to meet hours from now, and why republican senator grassley says more transparency is needed to move things much faster, plus, senate democrats are making a last-minute push to confirm dozens of president biden's judicial nominees before republicans take control. we will tell you what trump is now demanding senators in his own party do. >> listen, we are going to get to news, but i do want to say one thing that is really interesting and mike, i'll throw this to you. what we are starting to see with these selections, right, you've got gates, no experience whatsoever ill-equipped managerial to run a massive, massive bureaucracy, you have

dr. oz yesterday, a guy who really, actually supported medicare for all before kamala supported medicare for all but also, ill-equipped to run a massive bureaucracy. and you have all of these people , but we spoke yesterday, our show, on background, to some people in the biden administration who said todd blanche, who will be the number 2 there, they said he'll be running the agency. dates should not get through, we are not saying that at all but if you look at justice, and i had some top democratic lawyers over the last week saying todd blanche, you know, he's the real deal. and so, so, i'm just wondering if we are starting to see something where, get a tv guy, trump is a tv guy, it has worked for him politically. and i'm wondering, okay we are going to get all of these people out front, who fight

hard, to all of this stuff and then at least at justice, you know, they are concerned about a lot of things coming down the pipe but they say todd blanche would read this and whoever he picks to be his front person will probably be a mouthpiece. i'm not saying that's the case, i'm just saying at justice right now they are concerned about a lot of things but they like that the number 2 person there who will be running things actually, and these are biden people, actually is a pro. >> so, i think you are correct. todd blanche is a legitimate legal giant in his own right and running the justice department will probably be his chore. the most important thing to a lot of people isn't justice, though, and it happened yesterday. it's the department of education. your children's high school and grammar school education being run by someone who's more familiar with wrestling, the

professional wrestler, then it is with actually what goes on in the classroom. people are concerned about what is being taught in the classrooms now that occurred over the last couple of years, what are they being taught in the elementary schools, what is the curriculum look who was the secretary of education -- >> what about dr. phil, is he going to get a spot? >> even the washington post today is like, casey's countdown of the four most horrifying selections, and they rank them in order and i think, depending on where you are, you can move that list around but i'll tell you for a lot of republicans that are in the senate and the house and who care about american national security, if you ask them, they

will say it's dod, if you talk to people, again, really conservative republicans in the house, and the senate, they will say it's tulsi gabbard, they are horrified by tulsi gabbard, if you talk to other people they will say it's matt gaetz and john has some great reporting on that in a second, talking to republicans on the hill yesterday. so it really is, there are four pics right now, and of course, rfk, the new york post keeps pounding rfk everyday saying how nutty that selection is, so it kind of depends on where you are, you know, have you decide which one of those 3 to 4 are most deeply disturbing and we will talk to ed in the second who says the whole thing is disturbing. >> tulsi gabbard and gaetz both slammed today interestingly by the new york post , but the

question underlying all of this is, do, at the end of the day these republicans in congress and the senate, do they have the guts to cross donald trump. they can say they don't like the guy and he's unqualified and the ethics report will show that, if it does come out publicly but will they, at the end of the day, cross donald trump. you talk about the tv aspect, dr. oz, so this is also a senate confirmed position, senators for medicaid and medicare services director. trump led by saying, dr. eyes has won nine daytime emmys, he's a good face for public health. so that seems to be the primary qualification. the problem is, this is a bureaucratic job, this is an administrative job, it doesn't have that much to do with being a doctor, it has to do with running these massive bureaucracies. its central casting, getting

back to your report about matt gaetz, the senators have openly said they don't like him and don't think you should be attorney general. at the end of the day, will they vote against donald trump? >> the theme of tv, he's a fox news face and that's what trump likes, and there is a growing belief in the biden administration and elsewhere in washington that it's going to be that second and third in command to run things while they have the figurehead on television. it'll be the face of those departments. and yes the linda mcmahon thing, flying under the radar because of the assortment of controversial selections but remember the trump campaign, they want to eliminate the department of education but yes, to matt gaetz, i was talking to a number of republicans on the hill yesterday, and there is real doubt that gaetz will get through. there's growing momentum that this is the one pick that

republicans are going to say no to. i'm told by sources that some of the senators are telling trump, don't make us vote on this one because we are going to have to vote against you. but this one is simply, not palatable. >> and these are the people that actually, he has spoken to, in any other world, none of these four would get through, none of them would even get close to getting through. i'm talking about rfk, tulsi gabbard, pete hegseth, rfk and then matt gaetz. in any other world, they would never get through. i will say, we are talking a lot about matt gaetz because that's what the senators are talking about but man, i would find it, all of it is deeply disturbing, these pics, but i cannot imagine four republican senators turning over dni to somebody who has apologized for a sawed as regularly as she has and who has parroted kremlin

talking points, i don't see four republican senators doing that. >> gave his taking up so much of the conversation right now, and it does seem like republicans are willing to draw the line on gaetz but they have concerns about others and the trump transition team on the pete hegseth pic is re- examining things because of the sexual assault allegation. they do worry about that one. >> i will say on background, you know, a conversation on background, there are a couple of things that were surprises, one of them was, when his name came up, there was not a flinch, but a noticeable, what's his name? >> headset. >> yes, we have a problem here.

obviously, everyone knows gaetz is a problem but i think there must be more there. i think they were just shocked, maybe, blindsided but there hasn't been a vetting process for these four, there's been a vetting process for rubio, susie wiles, everybody was relieved to see him in there, even radcliffe, but yeah, so, we haven't talked about hegseth much, i think there are real concerns. and we have a report about that on the inside, so talk about that as well because there's a lot of things going, again, gaetz is occupying center stage, fright -- quite frankly because the testimony from the 17-year-old junior, is so damning, that i think that is taking all the heat right now . >> and the hegseth thing is some years ago, and allegation of the sexual assault, no charges brought but it was

reported that he did pay this woman you know afterwards, as a nondisclosure agreement. but officials were surprised by the pic in part because to joe's point, there hasn't been vetting because this is another storyline that's not getting attention, they are not going through the fbi background check process, they are doing it on their own. >> what do you here in talking to your sources in washington, at the edge of the intelligence community, do you hear the same thing that other people are hearing, that the british, the french, the israelis, are coming in with hints that you know, we are not going to share intelligence, our intelligence with tulsi gabbard. >> current and former intelligence officers have expressed that fear and have heard that from their colleagues overseas, saying there's going to be real reluctance to share some of their top secrets and intel with the united states. first there were some concerns about trump who we know has

revealed intel in inappropriate settings, but tulsi gabbard in particular, someone who has voiced talking points that emanated from moscow, has carried up with -- cozied up with the syrians, there's a notion that allies will be less safe. >> we will share a quick break -- >> can we make it 75 seconds? >>

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care. let's get to ed lewis's latest piece in the financial times, it's in tile, trump's demolition of the usa any right in part, it's time to study caligula. that most notorious of roman emperors killed what was left of the republic and centralized authority in himself. donald trump does not need to make his horse a senator. it will be enough to keep appointing charlatans to america's great offices of state. rome was not destroyed by outsiders. it was demolition work from the bargains with them. pete hegseth, was considered

too much of a security risk in 2021 to protect capitol hill from protesters. matt gaetz, trump's pick for you is attorney general reportedly one the mar-a-lago beauty contest by declaring yeah, i'll go over there and start cutting effing heads. given tulsi gabbard's close affinity to vladimir putin's russia, she would be unlikely to get a low level security clearance in now times. now she will become study and to america's most classified secrets. rome was not built in a day, as the saying goes, but it squandered its spirit with remarkable speed. i think what you are talking about also, is democracy itself, is imperfect, and also fragile. >> yes, extremely fragile, and

the republic, you know, is only as good as the people upholding it. and these i think are charlatans. you know, whether some of them, as you just been discussing like matt gaetz will be just a sharp window and others like todd blanche would be actually running the department, i'm not sure, but you have got very deliberate choices, people like rfk jr., who would not get jobs anywhere else, pete hegseth i guess could continue as a fox news anchor. matt gaetz will not get a job anywhere else, rfk jr. will not get a job anywhere else. he's not going to get a job running a medical center at a university campus. these are people that were chosen for their loyalty. they have nowhere else to go. other than to demonstrate their loyalty to trump. so i think there's a larger patent here, it's not just that you're getting charlatans being picked for these really important roles, it's that you have a dismantling of the

federal government. you have a disabling of the federal government, which is a very explicit part of elon musk's band-aid. being the de facto vice president or copresident in terms of a lot of these selections. he's always had an explicit desire not just to cut spending or get rid of regulatory agencies, which poses enormous conflicts of interest with his business, but, to disable a vast institution, the federal government, that he believes gets in the way of the heroic health makers such as him. we do have larger method in the madness then just trump choosing people who look good on tv. i think we have a very clear ideological agenda here, to admonish this government. >> there's a bigger thing going on here. and it lines up with what

donald trump has said in the campaign which is, he was talking about ringing the fcc into the white house, talking about bringing these other things, even back to the first term, the attitude on secretary of state was, you know what, they can go around, smile and shake people's hands but we will be running it out of the oval office. again, you can read and apple bombs twilight of democracy 3 to 4 years ago and what she said was, if you want to disable the state, the deep state however you want to put it, what you do is you undermine agencies by replacing competency with loyalty. that's part one. part two, there is a real belief that you know, in trump world, you know, it's like louis xiv who said, i am the state. that is the attitude, trump is the state, so he wants to know

why, if you look at these pics, why do i need competence, we are going to be running it all out of the oval office which of course, for many americans, you know, 49.2% americans, that is deeply troubling. >> yeah, and i'm most concerned, if we are talking in terms of ads, brilliant focus on how liberal democracy becomes illiberal democracy. i'm most concerned by pete hegseth, trump's real complaint about the pentagon in 2020 was that it resisted mark esper, mark millie, they resisted the insurrection act, they assisted the politicization of the military, and trump cannot of that saying, i was betrayed by the military. they did not swear an oath of loyalty to me and they kept saying their oath of loyalty

was to the constitution. pete hegseth fully agrees with trump, he thinks it's a woke, dei, politically correct organization, the pentagon, that needs to be cleaned out. and four-star generals need to be vetted, to check their loyalty to the commander-in- chief, not any abstract, to this one. and as you know, there are certain people like the fbi director who i think trump probably does want to remove and god for bid, replace with somebody like cash patel but there are protections for a lot of these jobs but there are fixed contracts, for generals, the arts, you can get rid of them as commander-in-chief, you can get out of them for whatever reason you like and you can promote a corporal if you find them more congenial,

that's based on their loyalty to you, and that is pete hegseth, that's his role, and that's the most worrying to the future of the root of law in this republic. >> the wall street journal editorial page says sometimes it's okay to withdraw an impulsive nomination, and they're talking about pete hegseth asking what else is out there, if you did it tell you about this, what more is to come down the road. let's turn to correspondent dasha burns. >> publicly, willie, president- elect trump doesn't show any sign of wavering with any of these controversial pics. if he's been putting pressure

on senators, jd vance will be on the hill to shepherd these folks along. a pressure offensive, and with some of these pics, willie, look at linda mcmahon, for example, the department of education, so critical, and it's a department that trump has said that he wants to dismantle. he can, very quickly dismantle certain aspects of biden's push here, for example, student loan debt cancellation, that can go away instantly, title ix protections, for jr. students, that can be mixed pretty quickly, and he's looking to implement universal school choice. an nbc news has been doing an analysis of how much the pics that trump has been looking at have been donating, linda mcmahon donated upwards of $20 million to his campaign this election cycle. we also have chris right at the department of energy whose a

big donor, howard let nick who just got, us, he's a big donor. mark rowan, also major donors, and that pick we are still waiting on, there's a bit of an internal my fight between trends 24 -- lutnick and bessel and of course, elon musk donated millions and millions of dollars and now, has the president year. we've been reporting that there is some internal friction over that. one source telling me that musk is acting like he is copresident and making sure everyone knows it and another source tells me that he has an opinion on anything and everything and he is starting to feel to the inner circle of trump world that he has overstayed his welcome a little

bit. and there's speculation that the romance might start to fade given how much trump is not used to sharing the spotlight. if you want sustainability you've got to know when to make yourself scarce and musk hasn't figured that out yet. >> he has not made himself scarce. >> that event the other night, donald trump said jokingly, i can't get rid of this guy. talking about elon musk. dasha burns, great reporting as always, thanks so much. a look at other stories making headlines including one involving our own parent company, how comcast is planning big moves when it comes to its cable channels, like ours, that's straightahead on morning joe. morning joe with the money i saved i thought i'd get a wax figure of myself. cool right? look at this craftmanship. i mean they even got my nostrils right.

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time for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. comcast, which owns our parent company nbc universal plans to spin off its cable tv networks, that's according to the wall street journal and people familiar with the situation. the company will separate off entertainment and news channels , and the golf channel, the new venture will have an ownership structure that mirrors comcast, a comcast spokesperson declined to comment. >> as you look at the screen, the big concern that stockholders are wondering about before they decide what to do with comcast shares, is whether mika is going to have to give up her penthouse perched atop the comcast

building. >> i never had it. >> when will we get invited to the penthouse. >> never. >> i will say this, i can be completely wrong, we could all be fired a year from now, you never know what's going to happen -- >> or tomorrow. >> but in this case, willie, what they are doing is what other media firms are doing, you spin off the cable channels which, seven years ago were making a ton of money, now, they've got to figure out how to make it profitable. disney, huge medianews, disney has figured out how to make streaming profitable, peacock, and extraordinary success, they are talking about spinning this off, calm cost still owns a third of that, and because comcast didn't jump into the bidding war like everyone else, throwing stupid money at streaming services and then

watch it fall, comcast has a ton of cash, so now they spin this off, and they are in the position to, what do you all say? to get a lot of, to get a lot of -- >> consolidate. >> consolidate but just also ramp up. you get a lot of people, a lot of different channels together, and so, whatever that entity will be, there'll probably be a lot of cable channels and they will be in a better position to scale it. i took one business class -- >> i'm glad you gave up. >> the only thing that makes sense is you spin it off and then you scale it up, and then you figure out how to make it more profitable. >> this is to keep these networks like this network healthy and to keep comcast thriving the way it is. this is just the way it's

going, people are cutting the cord. the cable subscribers are down across the board, this is something bob eicher talked about last year, we will see if he does that as well. but i think internally it's viewed as a good thing and it gets everyone in a healthy position to continue to thrive. >> newly released data is offering insight on the deadly cost of america's civil war based on recently revealed census records from the 1880s. researchers have landed on a firmer estimate of the number of lives lost in the conflict, 698,000. the analysis suggests confederate states suffered a death rate more than twice the size of the union. historians have long grappled with the true number of casualties. and, alec baldwin's western movie, rust, will be revealed to the public today at an

international film festival in poland. it comes three years after the onset death of cinematographer helene hutchins. high demand for tickets to the premiere cause the website to crash. hutchins was killed when a prop gun handled by baldwin was discharged during production. coming up, long-range missiles and now landmines. president biden is signing off on ukraine's use of another weapon aimed at slowing russia's advance. that's next on morning joe.

let's turn to ukraine. several developments right now, the u.s. embassy in kyiv is shut down as it warns of a

potential a significant attack. the state department is warning american citizens be prepared to immediately shelter. this comes a day after ukraine fired long range missiles into russia for the first time. russia's defense ministry confirms five of six missiles were shot down over a region that borders northern ukraine. the sixth was struck in mid air and the fragments landed on a military facility causing a fire. meanwhile president biden has authorized the provision of anti-personnel landmines to ukraine, that, for the first time, changing his own policy. joining us now retired for star general, he authored a new piece for bloomberg titled, ukraine and russia can find keys with a dmz. great to have you with us.

let's talk about those missiles where president biden has said go ahead and use them. >> let's do it tactically, operationally and strategically. tactically, this is going to have real impact immediately i think those missiles probably had immediate tactical impact and they were used against ammunition sites. operationally, this is going to force putin to spread his forces more thinly and worry about his logistics, and to prepare to conduct air defense, something he hasn't had to do in a significant way, that they cost on his military and strategically, what i think the biden team is about and it's a smart play, is to give zelenski

as many chips for the bargaining table as he can possibly have. he's holding a chunk of russia around kirks, here's another bargaining chip, the atacms missiles. >> this war just cross the 1000 day mark and there are a lot of people who say, it would have been nice for ukraine to have these atacms a year ago. >> a substitute for the word atacms, f-16s, it would have been great to have those a year ago, a1 tanks, substitute, that would have been great to have those two years ago. we've been always slightly behind. i understand the theory that you don't want to provoke a nuclear armed power, willie, got it. on the other hand, we've seen it again and again, putin has failed to respond to his own so- called threat. >> so let's take a bigger picture here. this white house, is trying to

rush as much help as it can to ukraine. they know when donald trump takes office, u.s. policy towards kyiv is likely going to change, so we talk about the atacms, the landmines, a controversial choice to be sure. what else can be done, realistically can be done between now and january 20th? >> at this point, the short answer is, so often, plan b is to work harder on planet a, and what i mean by that is, in the remaining 60 days or so, put all of your force behind the logistics, get as much of this kit to the battlefield, get as much support to the commander of u.s. european command, my successor, general crisco holy, load him up, he will get it moving, see where the trump administration actually lands. >> you know, admiral, we are clearly in the the transition

period. what is your view of the furor that has erected over the potential successor as the secretary of defense? >> let me make an initial point, all around the world, forward deployed soldiers, sailors, coast guard mints, this is all white noise to them, they are focused on their operational tasks. we were joking before the call, you asked me what would it be like to be out on an aircraft carrier right now and command, it would be wonderful. because, no one out there, believe me, is following all of this. having said that, the department of defense needs experience at its helm, and so, anytime you are putting a

candidate forward, who doesn't have the requisite experience, you are going to end up in a place where the department will move with less alacrity, less spirit, therefore, in the end, even though those operational forces are not following this, they are going to be impacted by it, whoever ends up leaving that department. >> ed luce has a question for you and quickly, i'm curious, what is nato's response, what is britain's response to joe biden and the administration giving ukraine more weapons that strike deeper into russia? >> well, countries like britain and poland have been pushing quite hard for the americans to do that, britain has its own storm shadow. it's french artillery that has a longer range and those have been lifted but it required american position -- permission to do so.

i'm fascinated, admiral, by the leverage this gives an incoming donald trump to persuade putin to come to the negotiating table because right now, he is showing no signs of interest in bargaining with zelenski because he thinks he's gaining more on the ground and why give up, why freeze? does this make putin think again? is this in effect a gift from biden to trump, to get these talks started after january 20th? >> you could look at it that way, i would like to think it is a gift from biden to zelenski, who is going to have to go to the negotiating table. you know, mika read that interesting piece about the massive casualties in the american civil war, that is the other piece of the puzzle for vladimir putin. he has lost 200,000, killed in action, 400,000, who are previously wounded, 600,000, who have left the country to avoid the draft.

he is now approaching civil war like levels of casualties. it is a terrifying thing, in my view, if you are a member of the russian population. so i think between the bargaining chips, you are absolutely right, the chunk of territory that the ukrainians hold with russia, the new atacms's , those are bargaining chips. on the other side of it will be casualties inflicted on russia. those two things, i think, might help get putin to the bargaining table. >> i want to ask you quickly about the cost of this war on russia, we know on ukraine obviously, because we see it every day. but the biden administration has been criticized by both sides, that, whether it's the isolationists on the right and left or whether it's people who

basically want to march, have ukraine march into moscow. he's always been hammered, second-guessed, he's always had to worry and as james baker always said, the president's first goal, avoiding nuclear war, and after that, you figure everything else out. but i just want to look at, how will history, 20, 30 years from now, look at this war, thus far, and how much it has decimated the number 2, and they are, russia, the number 2 military in the world. what is the generational impact of the casualties and the equipment they have lost over the past several years? >> it's massive, and we are only seeing the edges of it right now. and think about the 600,000 young russian males who have left the country, who are they? they are the ones with internet savvy, rubles in their pocket,

contacts in the west, they've now seen the bright lights of warsaw, they are not coming back. and that is a generational loss for the russians. .2 -- >> by the way, you just made mika's brother smiled talking about the bright lights of warsaw. >> old warsaw is beautiful. it's gorgeous. have you been to the bristol? >> okay, okay, we will have the tour of old warsaw -- >> we've opened up pandora's box. >> and beautifully rebuilt after the tragedy of the second world war, there's a message there but here's the point i would make to donald trump about the money we could spend on ukraine. we are talking $40 billion a year, which is about 5% of the u.s. defense budget. our defense budget, $800 billion, about 5%. for that amount of money, we

are breaking the failings of russia's military and those are the best dollars we have ever spent in defense and point number 2, all of that money, that $40 billion a year, that's not a check we are handing zelenski. all of that money is paid to u.s. defense contractors making our defense industrial base stronger. russia gets weaker, to joe's point, final thought, the russians today are spending 35% of their gdp on defense. that is not a prescription for long-term success. >> willie, this is a generational impact on russia and yes, it has helped you s businesses. >> in one word, for president trump, it's leverage it's terrific leverage, you put a small amount of money in, and you get massive effects. this is a good deal for the united states. >> speaking of the president-

elect is there a possibility the deal, you say there be some kind of it dmz, what with that deal look like from both sides? >> it would look a lot like the end of the korean war, demilitarized zone, 5 to 10 miles wide, it would probably be right along the border that you see now between russian forces, and that's a tragedy, right, it's a tragedy that ukraine would give up 20% of his country, but the other 80%, that sales on, democratic, free, eventually a path to nato, say 3 to 5 years, eventually a path to the eu. not a terrible outcome. a good portion of making that

work would be creation of this demilitarized zone, populated with on one side ukrainian troops and on the other side, russian, like the korean dmz or you could bring in a different force. he could have nato on one side, all of that, to be determined at a negotiating table but it's a key element that people aren't talking about. >> a long way from what putin wanted. >> that's the point, when putin wakes up at 2:00 in the morning, when he's honest with himself, he realizes, to joe's point, he has hurt his country deeply, the motherland, he has destroyed its prospects and in a smart world, putin would have integrated with europe, instead, he has created this confrontation by invading a neighbor. it's a tragedy, for ukraine and it's also a tragedy for russia. >> coming up, it could be years

before donald trump is sentenced for his hush money conviction, if it happens at all. correspondent lisa rubin joins us to talk about the new developments, that's straightahead on morning joe. plans availa our area, you may be eligible to get extra benefits with a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. most plans include the humana healthy options allowance. a monthly allowance to help pay for eligible groceries, utilities, rent, and over-the-counter items. the healthy options allowance is loaded onto a prepaid card each month. and whatever you don't spend, carries over from each month. plus, your doctor, hospital and pharmacy may already be part of our large humana networks. so, call the number on your screen now, and ask about a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. and remember,

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coming up, our next guest says the media needs to cover donald trump differently this time. molly jong fast explains how, that's next. that's next.

trump has now nominated fox news personalities for defense secretary and transportation secretary and might not be done. it is already changing. check out what i saw this morning. >> welcome back to "fox & friend." >> and now six commercials for

mypillow. >> it is a little different. a little different. >> wow, that's -- >> what happened to everybody? >> that's an emptyet. >> welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast. you know you need to get up now. go to work. we have been up for many hours, just ask jonathan lemire. it is 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. and jonathan lemire is somehow still with us. >> let me ask you, how do you -- how do you do that? you're, like, on -- >> ours is hard. >> on from 5:00 in the morning to about 4:00 in the afternoon straight. >> and on the phone. >> we're talking to you at 8:00 at night. what is your sleep routine? >> not enough, joe, is the answer there. >> you're a young man. >> i try to sneak naps. today is challenging, i'm going for my annual physical later today, which means i have to fast and can't eat. so -- >> are you allowed to have coffee? >> a little coffee is fine. coffee and some water is going to get me through. it is important to take care of

yourself. >> yes. you're right, actually. you've got to get -- we have a lot of things to do. >> i was in last week. what am i? austin powers? i've been there, like -- i was literally there last week. >> but they have to now -- it is temporary. you have to -- >> sorry, joe. >> yeah. it is going to hurt. it is going to be okay though. >> i think i'm good. >> no. you're going to the dentist. >> wow. >> okay, novocaine for you. >> let's get to the news. molly jong-fast is here, president-elect donald trump continued to make his selections for key roles in his next administration while standing by his controversial choice for attorney general. nbc news white house correspondent peter alexander has the latest. >> reporter: overnight president-elect trump tapping linda mcmahon to lead the department of education, which he repeatedly vowed to shut down. >> one other thing i'll be doing early in the administration is closing up the department of

education in washington, d.c. and sending all education and education working needs back to the states. >> reporter: mcmahon who served in the first trump administration, it comes as trump is standing by his embattled choice for attorney general, now former congressman matt gaetz, offering this one-word answer when asked if he was reconsidering the pick. >> no. >> reporter: the house ethics committee will meet today to weigh whether to release the report on .. while house speaker mike johnson opposes the report's release, some senate republicans want to see it. >> i would like to see our committees do their full job. there needs to be legitimate vetting. >> reporter: an unidentified hacker was able to gain access to a file containing civil lawsuit depositions of two women who made allegations against

gaetz, according to a souris source familiar with the matter, but it is unclear if the file has been released. the source said the file includes damaging testimony including that of a woman who alleges she had sex with gaetz when she was 17. and the testimony of a second woman who said she witnessed the 2017 encounter. a representative for gaetz did not respond to nbc news' request for comment. trump picked mehmet oz for medicaid and medicare services. the long time talk show host physician and failed senate candidate is the latest tv personality tapped by trump. oz, who faced criticism for promoting questionable medical advice would work alongside hhs pick robert f. kennedy jr. >> all right. >> wow, that is a 1-2 combination. >> joining us now, we have special correspondent at "vanity fair," molly jong-fast. nbc news senior business analyst

and host of "the 11th hour," stephanie ruhle. and former msnbc host and contributor to "washington monthly," chris matthews is here with us. great group this hour. >> jonathan, let's start with you on the matt gaetz lobbying on capitol hill. there are so many senators, we heard reports of republican senators just don't see how he's getting through. donald trump making phone calls. but your sources on the hill with the senate saying that there is no progress being made here. matt gaetz and that nomination is still -- it looks like it is not going to make it through. >> the gaetz pick remains in real trouble. what changed here, since the gaetz selection was announced, there are private ings and some public that says this doesn't work, the ethics violations, the lack of qualifications and the rest. what happened the last couple of days is the trump team is trying to lobby. trump is calling certain senators, jd vance on the hill today, but they're being told by

those same republican senators, per my recording, this gaetz pick still not going to work, that this -- that they're asking trump even to consider withdrawing the selection so they don't have to defy him, don't have to deliver a blow to the transition here. there is a sense that most of the others, certainly questions about hegseth at dod, questions about tulsi gabbard, questions about those he just selected to help run the nation's health departments, but at least for now the senate and the gop and the senate is focused on gaetz saying, this is the one that can't go. and we may learn from the house ethics committee today that they're having a meeting, there could be a vote to release the report into matt gaetz that could happen as soon as today, but there is a sense the people i talked to on the hill even if the committee declines to release it today, it is still going to find the light of day in the days ahead, directly to the senate or perhaps even given to reporters. >> that's not democrats saying that, that's john cornyn saying that. that's -- i think you said chuck grassley, all of them saying we

need to see this report. >> kevin cramer of south dakota as well. >> the report, again, you don't have to listen to leaked, you know, emails from leaked sources, you actually had the attorney of the young woman who was a 17-year-old junior testifying under oath that she had sex with matt gaetz and other women saying they saw that happening in a drug-fueled party, right? >> multiple witnesses have seen this. other accusations that there were other women he had sex with and then paid off to stay silent. so there is a lot swirling here. and the republicans in the senate, at least on this pick, are taking the advice and consent part of their job seriously. they want to see this report. and even if the house won't put it out publicly, there is a sense the senate will be able to get it ahead of the hearings. >> not that this makes it any better, but the situation with the 17-year-old girl had witnesses, you were talking about the attorney for the witness. >> who saw that happening.

okay. stephanie, drama around the treasury secretary pick, of course, drama around everything happening right now down there. but especially, i thought it was fascinating, there had been people over the past week who have been saying the more elon musk pushes himself into the center of trump's sphere, the more likely there will eventually be backlash. i'm curious what your thought was when he went on twitter, went on x, and started pressuring donald trump to select howard lutnick and then a few hours later we find out he's going to commerce. >> yes and no. i would say that elon musk side of this, howard lutnick knew over the weekend he was not getting treasury secretary. and elon musk was kind of like a hail mary pass, hey, how about this for howard? he doesn't get it, he ends up getting commerce secretary. the real loser there was linda

mcmahon, who is the co-head of the transition along with howard, who had been gunning sort of for commerce all along, howard kind of at the 11th hour when he finds out he's not getting treasury kind of swoops in and takes commerce, which is becoming a more and more significant role within the administration and linda is then headed over to the department of education, which you heard a moment ago in that peter alexander package is a dicey one because trump made it clear he wants to shut down the doe. what is really interesting, though, with the treasury secretary is howard lutnick is a run and gun kind of guy, like donald trump, fixated on the stock market doing so well, let's deregulate, no matter what. that's all well and good. but people who really understand the economy and markets understand that there is big issues behind this. and trump's potential policies, whether it is tariffs or just these tax cuts across the board, are hugely inflationary. and could crush our already

ballooning debt problem. and when the debt problem worsens and the bond market starts to crack, everything falls apart. so, sorry for being long winded, but the silver lining here is that now the people we're left with to be the treasury secretary are hugely qualified guys. kevin warsh, mark rowan, scott bessent, somebody from the hedge fund community. these guys are highly qualified for the job and while obviously they want a booming stock market and strong economy, they're very well aware of the problems associated with making the deficit even bigger and maybe, just maybe, we won't get the trump mania of tariffs and tax cuts that will crush our deficit. >> it is interesting, because mika and i got a call from somebody -- a leader in banking, who -- we're not familiar with these people like you, but who had said that scott bessent

would actually be a very good selection. we also got calls from attorneys, democratic attorneys, in new york, also saying that the number two at doj, that he's appointed, what is his name? >> blanche. >> blanche also is very competent. it is interesting -- >> joe, i don't know if you're talking, i think i lost my audio. >> she's got no ifb. we'll get you back. >> let me ask you about that, that early selection is okay, some of these people okay, if he in fact selects them, but there are still -- these four picks that "the new york post" editorial page, "the wall street journal" editorial page is saying, are no-goes. >> we heard from trey gowdy, fox news host, say, look, matt gaetz, you can't do this. there are some of the trump selections, you mentioned a few who received relatively warmly

even democrats saying, hey, we can live with that, marco rubio, for secretary of state. but there is an inflammatory four, five if you add dr. oz, where there is real concern. and i think that for trump, his top qualification as we know is often who can present my case on television, who can argue for me on tv with perhaps the actual work in the agency being done in -- at the deputy level, carrying out his agenda. the question now is he dug in on some of the picks, despite resistance from fellow republicans. >> and chris matthews, that's what's so fascinating here, what we're hearing from obviously democrats very concerned about some of these selections, but "the new york post" editorial page, "the wall street journal" editorial page, he cares more about "the post" than "the wall street journal" editorial page, but it is fascinating, trey gowdy going on fox, a lot of republicans in the senate till

saying we have this power to advise and consent. >> i think john thune is an interesting guy to look at here. it is the advise and consent role, number one. also the leadership role. this guy matt gaetz has been bringing down leadership in the house, brought down kevin mccarthy, i think all of them on the hill, republican leaders know this guy is trouble. the other thing is that if you look at john thune's record, when he ran for the senate the first time, he lost by 500 votes, 523 votes it was. and it was a three-man race. libertarian guy running too. so he clearly won the race. and he stepped back and said, no, i'm not going to fend the people here by being a sore loser in south dakota. i'm going to wait it out, run again next time and beat tom daschle, the democratic leader, which he did, a rare occasion to knock off a leader. he clearly is a guy who is very sensitive about the people around him, how people voted and think about politicians. and he's very, very popular. he'll be there forever. and number two, susan d, just

lost her seat in allentown and in bethlehem, she lost her seat very narrowly. she is out of the congress. but she's ranking member on the ethics committee. she said she wants that report out. she's going to be voting today. i think she's going to carry the day. i think the report is coming out. and i think thune is going to get it. it is going to crash and burn because this graphic picture you've been talking about all morning, and yesterday, about his behavior, about matt gaetz's behavior in public at parties, where everybody is watching what he's doing, that picture is in people's minds now. you can't erase it. you can't say i didn't know about that. we know about it. this guy's behavior is outlandish. and i don't think they can do it -- these senators as you mentioned voted an hour ago, they have to get back to their seats and run again with this guy's face on their record of putting him in as attorney general? so i think susan wild and john thune are going to be big

players today and i think it is going to turn around that the president is going to face with the advise and consent of the u.s. congress will make a big difference in history. >> interesting. okay. molly jong-fast, you have a piece for "vanity fair," we need to cover donald trump differently this time. talk to me. >> i'm on my self-reflection tour. >> i like that better. i need to give you your know your value advice right now, i don't want to hear i'm sorry on your podcast, on your social, on this show. you have great insights and you have a great knowledge and there are things you -- we all are learning. >> yeah. >> okay. so, continue. >> that's how she starts all of her know your value. it is not about you. it is, don't say i'm sorry for doing, you know, what you're trying to do. >> i have to say it -- >> we're not here perfect. >> mika, you've been -- the things you suggested to me have

actually always been right. >> always been right. i'll take it. i'll take it. >> let her say that and not you. >> so i just wanted to sort of -- we are in it for four years. this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. we need to protect norms and institutions and not focus on the aesthetic problems with trumpism. so the first time there was a lot of, like, he uses vulgar language, offended by things and more to focus on the norms and institutions. so, is this damage -- the war on woke is vague. the war on woke is vague. you saw reporting that had these people trump voters saying trump defeated woke. that's vague. but the structural things that trump might do to try to fight woke could end up undermining democracy. so, i feel like more focused on democracy, democratic values, norms and institutions, the structures that keep america

america and less focused on the aesthetic problems of trumpism. >> and the thing that stephanie, a lot of people have suggested since the election in talking about this is don't take the bait every day. if something is tweeted out, if an outrageous statement is made, don't set your hair on fire to use words that mika said earlier, but focus on the constitution norms and institutions. right now we're talking about advise and consent. and you talked about that as well. >> joe, it is all just about, you know, covering the hell out of this administration. donald trump obviously won the election. that does not mean he's going to get a free pass to do exactly what he wants and the media not to actively cover him. we're going to cover him every day. as far as what we're covering, even human nature, the majority

of things we panic about, 80% of them don't happen. as it relates to the cabinet picks, we should focus on all of them. focus on what they did, what they have done in the past, what they have pledged to do now, and that will help us understand what they could potentially do in the future. and that's super important to our viewers. right now we know that the trump administration is looking to cut in enormous amount of money out of the federal budget. in theory, that's a great idea. americans want excess, the fat cut out. but they also deserve to know if dr. oz is overseeing medicare and medicaid, what could that mean for them? if the department of education goes away, there are tens of millions of families whose children are part of special ed programs, they need to know what that means. >> you brought up two great points here. it cuts both ways. department of education, if you cut department of education, and let me say, when i was in congress, a long time ago, i said do just that, send all the money to the states, to the

localities, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. you look at it, who are the people hurt the most if you cut the department of education? red state america, the people who voted for donald trump by the highest percentages will most likely be hurt the most. and so talk about that, and talk about how some of these things could actually backfire against the very people who voted for donald trump. >> without a doubt. and that's why we have to pay very close attention to what they're actually going to do. the average american out there, everybody at this table could say, man, the government is too big, it is too fat, has to clean it up. what they're going to do is hugely important. and the american people deserve to understand that. they vote -- more than 50% of the country voted against the quote, unquote status quo. the question is what they're getting. the question for democrats, when you're universally defending our institutions and defending the status quo, people don't like that either, because they want

to know how can we make things smarter, stronger, better. donald trump claimed we're going to clean things up and do that, let's see that happen and see what that looks like and instead of us wringing our hands saying these people are bad, let's show our viewers, let's show our readers what they're doing and how it hurts them. >> you know, chris, it is very interesting, i have to say about dr. oz, these picks, if you look at bobby kennedy jr., we had a republican on mike lawler who is going to be running for governor most likely in a couple of years, attacking rfk for being too liberal. you look at a lot of his issues, dr. oz, fascinating, actually supported medicare for all before kamala harris and, in fact, her plan, as i think it was "the new york times" this morning or "the washington post" said her plan borrowed much from dr. oz's medicare for all plan. so, again, when you just look to

disrupt, you never know exactly what you're going to get. but, chris, i wanted you to talk about what i've been talking about the past couple of days but you're so much smarter, you've been there so much longer, you understand this. those senators, they have been to the rodeo. they have been to the rodeo for years and years and years. and i hate to repeat it, but if people wake up on the west coast haven't heard me say this 87 times, a lot of them, remember, when lbj won in '64, that was the republican party, the republican party comes back in '66 and the reagan revolution is launched, they remember reagan winning 84 states. 49 states in '84. they remember in '86, democrats taking back control of the senate. i can play this out over the next 30 years. those -- talk about those senators, how they understand elections are to be respected prosecution but there is always this kind of pull. there is always -- susan collins is already thinking about her election in a very blue state,

two years from now. >> i think you're so right. i think they realize, if you're a senate majority of 53 seats, a pretty good majority, you know there will be back to 48 or 47 in a couple of years and you'll know you'll want the filibuster. that's why they hang on to the filibuster. that guarantees the rights of all senators to continue debate and fight issues out for 60 votes. but i want to tell you something, you said john cornyn a minute ago, john cornyn came in second in the leadership role in the united states senate. it wasn't rick scott. he wasn't in the running. he was a maga guy. he wasn't considered by the united states senate except by cruz in texas. the real fight was among senators who want to protect the rights of senators. the right to advise and consent. they voted on thune, they almost voted for cornyn, but went to thune because he's a real institutionalist, in there with mitch mcconnell, he wants the filibuster, but he also wants the power to advise and consent.

i'm telling you, watch thune. he's very interesting. he's a real u.s. senator. not a maga guy. a real u.s. senator with a lot of character. and i think he's going to show this president that in a matter like matt gaetz, where the evidence will pile up, i think beginning today, when the ethics committee agrees to let it out, so much evidence that the president will have to pull back. the evidence will turn against trump and this appointment, especially matt gaetz. it is an awful idea to put him on "meet the press" or any sunday show and say here's the attorney general of the united states. here he is. look at him, take a look at this guy and then tell a story about who he was and how he got to be pick and what he had running against him when he was nominated. this is an awful picture. that one right there, to put on television and say this is your attorney general who is going to make sure that all the laws are faithfully deployed. is he? is he the guy to do that?

>> so, chris matthews, former staffer for tip o'neill, and democrat for much of his life, is saying that, but staff, what is so fascinating, that's what republican senators are saying, that's what republican house members -- that's why republican house members who worked with him are saying, that's what the new york post editorial page is saying, that's what republicans are saying on the hill right now. >> joe, you know this better than we do, forget matt gaetz's policy history, forget his sort of sordid track record, lots of republicans on the hill, and i say this carefully, hate his guts. they don't like the guy. they're not his friend. they don't think he's nice to work with. they don't think he's an honest broker. and, you know, half the battle when you want to get a job from your potential employer, it is do i like this person, do i want to sit with them, do i want to work with them. matt gaetz has not made a lot of friends and it is interesting that donald trump, you know, a

week ago we all thought gaetz is trump's sacrificial lamb, he'll put gaetz out there knowing he won't get confirmed, it will distract republicans in the senate and slide tulsi gabbard through. but the fact that trump is doubling down, the fact that elon musk is out there saying, this guy has got a spine of steel, and he's, you know, got contempt in his heart, that's not going to serve the american people and, again, the american people did vote for donald trump because they wanted some sort of change, they did not give him a blank check to completely go off. and if he does, what a missed opportunity because he has the opportunity while the country said we're sliding, we're shifting to the right, he has the opportunity to look to the center and say, great, let me capture all and do something here. and if he goes down the lane of matt gaetz, i mean, he's falling to his worst tendencies and that's only going to kill him. >> all right, chris matthews, thank you so much. stephanie ruhle, we'll be watching "the 11th hour" week

nights right here on msnbc. we appreciate it. let's take moment to look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. the cutting of two undersea internet cables appeared to be deliberate acts of sabotage. germany's defense minister said an underwater communications cable in the baltic sea connecting finland and germany was cut early monday morning, one day after damage was reported to a separate internet cable between lithuania and sweden. we'll follow that. researchers discovered an am ly preserved saber tooth kitten in siberia's permafrost. the 35,000-year-old cat was three weeks old when it died. the kitten is still -- still had its whiskers and paws attached and was covered in a coat of short thick soft dark brown fur. >> okay. that is very specific. >> looks very cute.

>> for a 35-year-old cat. >> it is the first time humans lay laid eyes on a saber tooth cat since its exhibition. >> it is meatball. >> meatball is so cute. >> we learned today -- >> meatball is with my brother right now. >> we learned they're now -- thank you for that information, we learned this morning that there were 698,000 deaths in the civil war and we learned about 35,000-year-old cat. >> we're the full service morning program. >> we are. >> we're not naming it meatball. but it is cute. deserves a name. also the tampa bay rays plan to build a new stadium in st. petersburg. and it is once again the plans are in jeopardy. the board of commissions yesterday postponed a vote to approve bonds that would finance the ballpark's construction. second time the vote has been

delayed. the decision will force the team to postpone construction of the new ballpark by a year. and could completely kill the deal. the rays were forced out of tropicana field due to more than a $55 million in damages from hurricane milton. >> jonathan lemire, in the midst of the tragedy, the tragedy of the hurricane, the one saving grace for residents of tampa, who are baseball fans, was that that stadium was damaged. it is considered by every sports fan the worst stadium in major league baseball. >> truly terrible. the rays already announced they could, because the roof was so damaged, they couldn't play there this year anyway. they'll play at the home of the new york yankees, spring training venue, a much smaller facility. but the future of the rays in doubt. there were rumors they don't draw, but they got this deal

struck for the new stadium and thought that's okaying to save the rays, but now, you know, much like oakland, real question is whether tampa will be able to stay. >> the thing is the rays are a great organization and they deserve much better than they have gotten in tampa. >> first of all, to their -- they always have been a low budget team recent years. they scout and develop talent better than anybody in baseball. i know they were -- they had a down year this past year, they're competitive each and every season. they deserve better than this. coming up, more on donald trump's choice of billionaire financial services executive howard lutnick to lead the commerce department. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin has wall street's reaction to the pick. plus, the president-elect attended yesterday's launch of the spacex rocket starship with company ceo elon musk, underscoring the increasingly close relationship between the two. we'll have the latest details straight ahead. you're watching "morning joe."

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welcome back. a shot there of reagan national airport. speaking of aviation, with president-elect donald trump and elon musk looking on, spacex launched its latest test of its starship rocket yesterday. nbc news correspondent jesse kirsch has the details. >> reporter: this morning, another boeing spacex liftoff is in the books. the company launching starship from south texas tuesday afternoon, propelled by the most powerful rocket. >> it is doing great so far. >> reporter: the empty spacecraft pushed to the limit to see how it would do with challenges like successfully restarting its engines in space and repositioning itself before

splashdown in the indian ocean. >> what a great reorientation by starship. >> reporter: unlike last month's eye popping booster landing and catch -- >> we're no go for tower catch. >> reporter: spacex determined this time around, the super heavy booster would not be able to return to the launchpad safely. the company diverting the booster to a water landing, despite that former nasa astronaut leroy chow says the test flight is still a success. >> it is not a fail. just that they don't have it completely nailed down. >> reporter: watching tuesday's launch from the ground, president-elect donald trump, next to spacex ceo elon musk, tapped to co-lead a new department of government efficiency. mr. trump recently becoming a supporter of musk's space ventures. >> we want to reach mars before the end of my term. >> reporter: that mission to mars a years long focus for musk. but is that just science fiction

or a glimpse into the future? >> starship and the super heavy booster have been under development for ten years and it is pretty amazing how far they've come. >> let's bring in co-anchor of cnbc's "squawk box" andrew ross sorkin. elon musk lobbying very hard for howard lutnick to be the treasury secretary, he ended up getting commerce. talk about that and then talk about who business owners and people who -- ceos on wall street, people who supported donald trump, who would they prefer for treasury secretary? >> well, look, i think the reaction so far for most of wall street and corporate america is around howard lutnick, which seemed to be getting a concession prize of sorts in this commerce role was actually i think a sense of relief to some extent because they are hoping that a kevin warsh, one

of the deputy governors on the federal reserve, might take the role, mark rowan, another name who runs apollo group is now having meetings with president-elect trump. i think wall street and corporate america looking more for folks like that to take that role. the question now is whether there could be a sort of good cop, bad cop system that takes place as it relates to sort of the economic program going forward. for example, howard lutnick is a big proponent of tariffs, talked about it very openly and very aggressively. most of the classic wall street folks, the kevin warshes of the world, the mark rowans of the world are not -- don't have the same kind of appetite for tariffs. and so the question is, is there some -- some kind of good cop/bad cop system where you're going to use howard lutnick to go after tariffs, but the treasury secretary doesn't? i don't know how tenable that is going to be. and i think finding somebody who

is acceptable, if you will, to the markets and the global economy, who also is -- and preferences the idea of tariffs, i think it is a very hard unicorn to find. >> let's talk about comcast. and the networks that we work for. obviously we are paid by comcast. so, people can take into consideration that. you told me a couple of weeks ago, i was skeptical, you said this makes a lot of sense. i get a lot of calls yesterday afternoon, early evening, from a lot of people, who don't work for comcast, who said, you don't understand, this has nothing to do with anything but money. this makes sense for comcast, the stock is going to go up, this makes sense for the cable companies that are spun off. because they want to get as many cable companies together. and they want to build that up

and streamline it and figure out how to really make money, even if in the age of cord cutting. >> look what happened here in the age of cord cutting, there is a real headwind we know about and that is coming at every kind of linear cable channel in the business. having said that, currently right now, these businesses, msnbc, cnbc, produce extraordinary profits. extraordinary profits. hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more so. but that money, today, is not being reinvested in msnbc and cnbc and sci-fi and usa. it is not. it is going -- you can say it is a comcast money heaven. so the question is, if you could take that money that is coming off of these channels and invest it in the businesses as an independent entity what that business ultimately looks like. could you use that money to make other acquisitions, could you make investments in the business

itself? that is the big question. and the markets today don't really allow -- meaning investors don't really want comcast making e ing ing additi investments in the cable industry because they think it is a tough, challenging business. if you can put it in its own bucket where you can make those investments, that might make more sense long-term and puts a renewed focus on those assets. there is a lot of things going on inside the big comcast world, peacock is one of them, the cable business is another, and it is not always clear that these channels have gotten that kind of focus. part of this is a focus story as well. >> we have been seeing that now for 25 years, people talking about the death of television, the death of linear television, everybody writes about it every day. i remember reading one of my favorite business books, "fools rush in," about the deal, and anotheral aol at the beginning was, like

this is the future. they talked about how quickly changed that changed. that happened in deal after deal after deal. television is the new television. michael wolf wrote that book. and television is still the new television, despite a lot of serious economic headwinds as you said. >> there is no question. tv has -- has a massive future. it is really just a matter of the distribution mechanism and the economics of what that distribution mechanism ultimately looks like. and getting from here to there. i think it is going to feel less so for this entity, for a lot of the cable tv, it is going to feel like the newspaper business. there are, you know, a lot of losers, but you look at "the new york times," my other employer, there is a lot of success on the other end. it is a matter of trying to figure out how you get from one place to the next. i think this probably puts these

channels in a better position to do that. >> i think one of the bigger pieces of news on television/streaming, we talked about how well comcast did this with the olympics, but disney actually turning a profit on streaming, that's actually -- that is a big breakthrough for this entire venture, that has really, really had a big media focus on how they could do that. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, thank you so much for being with us, greatly appreciate it. coming up, the latest developments in donald trump's hush money case and what will happen to the sentencing now that he's been re-elected. we're back with "morning joe." . we're back with "morning joe." (vo) memory and thinking issues keep piling up? it may seem like normal aging but could be due to a buildup of amyloid plaques in the brain. the sooner you talk to your doctor, the more options you may have. learn more at amyloid.com.

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after all that went on in the manhattan district attorney

agreed to postpone sentencing for the 34 felony counts he was convicted in may until after his term as president, if at all. he did say we would get tired of all the winning, in fairness. four indictments, 34 felonies, an insurrection, the fake electors, the find me the 11,000 votes call, the classified documents in the mens room, he got away with all of it. it is like shawshank without the redemption. >> jimmy kimmel there. and the prosecutors in new york have told the judge who presided over president-elect trump's criminal hush money trial that his sentencing should be postponed. its future in real question. joining us now to help us sort through it, former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. and state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave aronberg. joe, this is the second time this has been delayed. >> yeah. and "new york post" talking

aboutal alvin bragg. we on this show said this is the weakest case, at times critical of this case, and alvin bragg's office called us, you may have this wrong, what is fascinating is this is the one case that actually, as you said before, that actually got a conviction against donald trump. >> not just a conviction, joe. this is the only case that ever went to trial of the form criminal cases. >> why is that? >> part of it has to do with the fact that alvin bragg, as a state prosecutor, was not mired in some of the controversies that apparent beset the department of justice. if you read public reporting about the trump investigations at the department of justice, there were all sorts of barriers there. there were differences in opinion about how to investigate them, there was apparently resistance on behalf of the fbi, for example, in doing the search at mar-a-lago that merrick garland eventually authorized. and he was the first person to ever authorize a search of a former president's personal

residence. it was no small feat to authorize that. but alvin bragg removed from all of that is an elected district attorney, who is not bogged down by the inner politics of the justice department, and simply put his head down and started investigating something that his predecessor cy vance had already taken a look at. they had a compilation of evidence already, they further and deepened that, and he was the first to indict and that's not, you know, that has something to do with this too. >> dave aronberg, we hear so many people talking about how there are no checks and balances on the trump right. and the biden justice department actually it is funny because if you went back and looked at how much merrick garland got slammed for being too slow, too plotting, too careful, too this, too that, merrick garland is very unpopular with a lot of democrats because he did take his time, he was prudent before he moved.

>> joe, good to be back with you. yes, a lot of criticism from the right and the left from merrick garland, from the left he's too slow. from the right, weaponized the justice department. this is the same merrick garland who dropped the investigation into matt gaetz. that was started under bill barr. the one who ended up prosecuting his boss, president joe biden's son, to see if the next attorney general for donald trump thinks with doing that. he would be sent to gitmo real fast. all the criticism about the weaponization of the justice department is nonsense. and they're trying to say, during the campaign, that joe biden was pulling the strings in the state case in manhattan and in atlanta, in fulton county. as a state prosecutor, myself, that is also nonsense. we don't have communication with the white house. in fact i if the white house wanted to go after donald trump, they would be calling me as the prosecutor of overseas mar-a-lago, i can assure you i didn't get any phone calls from the oval office at any time. i didn't get invited to a

hanukkah party up there. the thinking that joe biden is pulling the strings on state prosecutions is garbage, just as merrick garland is a political ag, also garbage. >> lisa, when we look at these cases, there is so much information that the public has not seen, will they ever see it? >> i don't know which cases we're talking about -- >> the plethora of legal cases against donald trump. >> i think that we will eventually see special counsel reports from jack smith. whether or not those reports, molly, contain information that is not already in the public demain is domain is hard to say. a lot of the information in the report about the mar-a-lago investigation would be classified and redacted if it is included at all. so it is not clear to me whether the special counsel reports will be revelatory, but they will be done and i think they will be released before donald trump takes office. >> we'll be watching for that in the weeks ahead. msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin and state attorney general for palm beach county, florida,

dave aronberg, thanks to you both. coming up next on "morning joe" -- >> my whole family suffered. i would die for united ireland. >> that's a look at the new fx series "say nothing" which dives into the murder and mystery surrounding the period of conflict in northern ireland known as the troubles. the show's executive producer patrick radden keefe joins us next on "morning joe." we're back in two minutes. oins next on "morning joe." we're back in two minutes. not managing your diabetes really affects your health for the future. the older you get, the more complications you're gonna see. i knew i couldn't ignore my diabetes anymore because it was causing my eyesight to go bad. for my patients, getting on dexcom g7 is the biggest eye opener they've ever had. i couldn't believe how easy it was.

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my mother and father were both proud members of the ish republican army. >> have i told you girls how to make explosives. >> we were catholic. it was a segregated society. everything went to the protestants.

>> you're not going to school. >> i had that the whole time. you might be missing your chance to win this war. >> we wanted to be doing what the boys were doing. >> what are the boys doing? >> farm raising. >> we are liberating funds for the irish republican army. mother superior. >> that was a look at the new fx limited series "say nothing," based on "the new york times" best-selling nonfiction book by author patrick radden keefe. it follows a group of young members of the irish republican army focusing on two sisters as they navigate their way through the troubles. patrick joins us now. he serves as executive producer on the fx series and is also an award winning staff writer at "the new yorker," a brilliant book, one of the best i've read in a very long time.

talk to us about translating it to the screen. >> so the book came out in 2019 and at the time i didn't even know that it could translate possibly. but i knew a producer, brad simpson, who had done a series, "the people simpson," vexing issue of race and the pitch to me was come on board, work with us. so i spent the last five years getting this thing made and i'm really delighted for the results. >> it is so fascinating, seeing that clip. it reminds me of a dear friend who was raised in the troubles in northern ireland, irish catholic, and she said her -- her brothers, she said, her brothers were all members of the i.r.a. they never told their 4'11" mother because they feared her more than the i.r.a. >> say nothing. >> say nothing. it was a way of life. it was a battle for what they

believed was their very soul. >> i think part of what we're trying to do in the series is show what were the circumstances be like for you, if you were a young person, in your teens and early 20s, ingliving in a syst where you think there is a lot of oppression, injustice, deeply divided society and it flips over into violence, what do you do? and to take the long view of that. so it starts as a thriller and ends as a tragedy. we're trying to reckon with the costs of that kind of radical -- >> yeah. will you give us a little bit of a sort of sense of what this means in history and sort of the lessons from this? >> i think that the -- you have this interesting situation in northern ireland, six counties on the island of ireland, still part of the uk, still are today, a lot of discrimination and oppression of catholics living there during the 1950s, 1960s. it boiled over in the late '60s, early '70s. there is a huge amount of

violence. in some ways, some images would be familiar to us in america today. you have peaceful protests, tear gas, militarized police on the streets and a lot of people asking themselves, what is the best way to kind of get from this place we are today to a better future for this country. sometimes making good decisions, sometimes making bad ones. what we want to do is tell a dramatic story that looked at the whole spectrum of choices that people made under that kind of pressure. >> the reviews are extraordinary. joins a band of brothers in the pantheon of great historical adaptations, not a higher compliment as far as i'm concerned. i want to talk about, we were fortunate enough, 25th anniversary of the peace in ireland which nobody believed would happen. talk about how far from that to 25 years ago, and how it just seemed unimaginable and talking to my friend, she was angry, part of her was angry that, you

know, martin mcginnis had shaken hands with the queen and then she goes, oh, we have got to move on. it is crazy. >> it is. this is the thing. so, 1998, good friday agreement ends the troubles, this grinding 30-year conflict. and it is a diplomatic miracle. that was a conflict that nobody thought would end. >> it was a miracle. >> the thought it ended is extraordinary and should be celebrated. but you can also acknowledge it is kind of a cold peace. even today, it is a cold peace. you have very divided communities in northern ireland. and they're not killing each other in the streets, something to celebrate. what is the perspective of these young people who joined the i.r.a. in the early 1970s and did awful things in the name of united airland, d ireland, how evaluate looking back, the choices they made as young people? wait a second, i did