the defense secretary pick. he is, of course, facing a very serious sexual assault allegation that he is denying but is certainly a bit of a stain or a distraction -- or he would say a distraction from this nomination process going forward. >> yeah. it is remarkable thing wondering which one matters more for the senate republicans, the personal issues, the accusations of sexual assault, or the substantive ones where it's ideological. thank you for joining us, julia manchester.with us on this frid morning. "morning joe" starts now. >> former congressman matt gaetz withdrew as president trump's nominee for attorney general and puts pressure on trump because there's not much time to find somebody worse. >> he dropped out posting while the moan tum was strong, it is clear my confirmation was

becoming a distraction to the critical work of the trump-vance transition. that is true all of this attention on this sex criminal was unfairly distracting from the critical work of all the other sex criminals who have been nominate good. >> this was a shocking announcement from the trump team, and as you can say, no one was more surprised than matt >> late night show reactions, willie. we'll get through the headlines, but i think you know as a football fan, what i want to be talking about right now. here is "the new york times," gaetz withdraws. "wall street journal," gaetz is out. bondi is picked at doj. >> interesting. >> and "the new york post" still, the official newspaper of record for "morning joe." shut the gaetz. we've been saying that for a year. >> i think they like the picture. >> shut the gaetz.

>> growing up for five years in upstate new york our dream is going out running out just like you in new jersey and when it started snowing would get the nerf football, which by the way, had the consistency of a rock after about three minutes outside in the freezing weather, and we would dream of being like the browns and the steelers, literally the browns and steelers or the vikings and whatever, the -- and in the snow, man. and last night, what a dream for the black and -- >> yeah. >> unbelievable. >> whenever you have to plow the-yard lines you know you're in for a good game. this is a game last night thursday nighter in cleveland in the snow. browns-steelers. cleveland-pittsburgh. all that was missing was john's voice on nfl films. jameis winston diving in the end

zone. it was a mismatch on paper. steelers 8-2, browns 2-8, in cleveland, in the snow. what a catch there. and the browns get the job done. nick chubb scored a late touchdown. steelers couldn't score on their final drive. browns get the win at home in the snow. that is a thing of beauty, joe. >> i mean, you'll remember the old black and blue division in the nfc, was that the nfc central -- no. yeah. i think nfc central and then the afc central. now we have like 87 divisions so i guess this is the afc north. but, yeah, these are like the classic, classic games. really the story here also, steelers, you know, going to end up in the playoffs, they're such an incredibly balanced team. but jameis winston, man, he -- he came in and did what deshaun watson, with all his money and all the baggage, could not do. there's nick chubb. so good to see him running

again. >> yeah. jameis winston has been bouncing around the league. just hugely talented player. had some good early years in tampa, but sort of become an nfl journeyman. now maybe finding a new home in cleveland. he looked good last night as the browns, of course, the dog pound, the fans, the stadium stays filled despite the water. the kind of game those fans like. >> you know how they celebrated the victory. >> that looks cold glue . >> i promise they went out and made snow angels. >> come on. >> they get the announcers to come out and made -- >> we need a reason to spoil. >> along with joe, willie and me, president of the national action network and host of "politics nation" reverend al sharpton, managing editor at the bulwark, sam stein doing "way too early" this morning. president emeritus of the council on foreign relations

author of "the weekly newsletter" available on substack and former congressional candidate in new york's first district john avalon. good to have you. >> wasn't there a patriots game where a snow plow was strategically used employed at the end before they kicked a field goal to win? >> yes, i think so. was it a real snow or baby snowplows and they had to get the marker and then there was the famous vinatieri field goal on the tuck rule game. >> we have a lot of news to get to. >> that is news, mika. this is news. >> that's not news. here's news. donald trump has announced a new attorney general pick. the name is pam bondi. bondi served as the state attorney general in florida from 2011 to 2019. before that, she spent more than 18 years as a prosecutor,

currently a partner at a lobbying firm. bondi has long ties with the president-elect. back in 2016 on the eve of the republican primary bondi endorsed him over picking the candidate from her own state marco rubio. defending the then president in his first impeachment trial. when trump's first attorney general jeff sessions was ousted in 2018, bondi's name was floated then as a possible replacement. in a statement announcing his new a.g. pick, president-elect called bondi an america first fighter saying she will, quote, refocus the doj to its intended purpose of fighting crime and making america safe again. >> and willie, very interesting, dave aaronburg, right now, palm beach's state attorney general ran against pam bondi in 2010

for state attorney general in florida and we're going to have him on later in the show to talk about the new a.g. pick. >> we'll have more on who she is and what she might bring to the job if she's confirmed in just a minute. pam bondi's name came about very quickly yesterday because matt gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for attorney general. gaetz explained his decision writing on social media, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the trump-vance transition. gaetz embroiled in his own scandals facing allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. the former congressman denies those claims. sources tell nbc news at least five senate republicans were planning to vote against gaetz and communicated to other senators and those close to trump they're unlikely to be swayed on gaetz. at least 20 senators were uncomfortable with having to vote for gaetz for attorney general. the former congressman could only afford to lose the support of three republicans to be

confirmed, assuming no democrats would have voted for him. so what happened here? joining us now, congressional reporter for the hill mychael schnell, justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian as well. good morning to you both. michael, let me start with you and how this fell apart quickly. we had heard privately and publicly from senators in the last 24 hours or so they just couldn't get to yes on matt gaetz, that this was the one perhaps nominee they were willing to take down. how did this happen in the end and why did he walk away? >> yeah. well, willie we know former congressman matt gaetz was on capitol hill two days ago, the day before he withdrew his name from consideration and had these meetings from senators and senators seem to be keeping an open mind saying the president can pick whoever he wants for these positions, but we were hearing from the same senators they wanted to see the ethics report into matt gaetz. they wanted to see the

allegations and the information that had been gathered over ruffly three and a half years by the ethics committee. the panel had been debating and weighing whether or not to release that report. this week they declined to release the report. the vote had failed. i spoke to a source familiar with the situation who told me members left that meeting with the understanding that the report would be, quote, ready by the time of their next meeting on december 5th indicating another vote could happen then and a vote could be successful on releasing this report. so i think that with the skepticism among senators having this real possibility of an ethics report coming out, whether it be through a formal vote of a committee, whether it be through a leak from the committee, or right now, there are even house democrats pushing to have a floor vote on forcing this ethics committee to release its report into matt gaetz there seemed to be this concern at the end of the day he wasn't going to be able to wrangle enough votes that his confirmation

hearing would potentially be a spectacle on the senate side. there were some senators saying it would be kavanaugh on steroids referring to that very -- that confirmation hearing bret kavanaugh that grabbed headlines. it was clear that former congressman matt gaetz decided it wouldn't be worth putting him through the next confirmation process, having these headlines, have him step aside. >> now what happens to matt gaetz? does he go back to his congressional seat? was he promised something by president trump to step aside, like filling the senate seat in florida vacated by marco rubio. we'll see. let's look at the new choice from donald trump. pam bondi, attorney general in the state of florida, first female attorney general in that state. a defender of donald trump during impeachment as an attorney and on television. what else do we know about her

and how justice is feeling about this choice? >> well, one reaction from inside the justice department last night was this is matt gaetz with a better legal resume, but the legal res ume i significant because pam bondi was a career prosecutor down there in hillsborough county for many, many years before she was elected florida's first female attorney general. she's prosecuted major cases, murders, death penalty cases and understand how that works. matt gaetz had never really been much of a lawyer before elected to the florida legislature. that's a big difference. and you know, she -- at the same time she is, you know, an extreme maga activist and has tainted her legal career with very strong stands in favor of some questionable things. there was a famous incident back around ten years ago when, if you remember trump university, the for profit university that donald trump ran, was getting a

lot of consumer complaints about being a scam and her office was asked to join a multistate lawsuit and donald trump's foundation contributed $25,000 to her campaign and she opted not to join that lawsuit and his foundation was fined for making an illegal contribution. she served her tenure eight years as florida attorney general and went on to be one of donald trump's impeachment defense lawyers in the ukraine impeachment in 2020. made a speech on the house floor during the trial arguing that tlfts a biden corruption scandal in ukraine and that's why that phone call was okay and she's also raised questions about fraud in the 2020 election, which people think were baseless. so it's a bit of a mixed bag, but people are breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief at the justice department that at least she's a real lawyer and her deputy todd blanche, donald trump's defense attorney, does have a lot of experience with

the justice department and is well regarded over there. net-net people are thinking this is a much better situation than matt gaetz but she is a donald trump loyalist who has also raised questions about weaponization at the justice department and may really cause some trouble over there from the perspective of some of the career folks. >> ken dilanian, thanks so much. rev, look at the headline, yesterday we had been saying on this show that it's like the old midas commercials about when the ethics report and the bad information came out on matt gaetz, you pay us now or pay us later and the later it is, the closer it is to, you know, the more that it's actually in the middle of the new presidency, and i think that's the last thing they, obviously -- he didn't want to see this scandal in the senate probably in january and february. >> absolutely.

i think it was the wise thing for trump people and for president-elect trump to withdraw him now because a long-term spectacle of days and weeks would only damage them even more. take your losses short, let him walk away. he was never qualified. he could not give any reasonable argument as to why he would be attorney general. i talked to people that i know in florida last night that are on the civil rights side, we have a chapter there, bondi is on the right but she is one who is qualified to become attorney general in terms she's handled cases and managed offices and yes, we can raise questions about what she did with trump university, but there's no glaring things in terms of values and morals. you're talking about gaetz with under age sex, money that has been documented that was sent around and to put him in charge

of the justice department made a mockery of the system. so i think it was better for trump, not that i'm a trump person at all, but better for him and certainly better for the american public to get gaetz off the scene as soon as possible. >> and one of the things that dave aaronberg said he ran against her, ran a tough campaign in 2010, said right after she defeated him, she hired him and actually spoke out to republicans who said -- who didn't like it, saying she's good -- he's good at what he does. we need him -- >> which shows maturity, which gaetz certainly lacked. >> all right. then d.o.d. republican senators on capitol hill offering mixed reactions to pete hegseth's police report that revealed new and graphic details about a sexual assault allegation against the former fox news host back in 2017. some defended donald trump's pick for defense secretary, while others voiced concern.

>> pete is going to be a shining star inspiring young men and women not only to stay in the military, pete shared with me texts and messages he's received from his friends thinking of retiring now happy he's there and are inspired to stay. young men and women thinking about serving who will be inspired to join. >> it's a disgrace those allegations are nothing but what you said. allegations that are he said-she said. this is a kiss that case that h dismissed. it reminds me of what happened to breath cavanaugh and it's a disgrace. >> it's a problem given that we have a sexual assault in our military. this is why you have background checks and hearings and go through the scrutiny. i'm not going to prejudge him. >> we're going to note the police did not give a reason but they did not charge hegseth, and he denies any wrongdoing.

michael back to your reporting on this one, i think the issue at hand would be, perhaps, that pete hegseth did not raise this, so they -- that transition team members and others were caught off guard. that's i think that's a hard issue because perhaps raising that this police report exists and this situation happened, might have given them a head's up. i think what happens now -- you let me know what you're hearing in terms of reaction -- okay, what else haven't you warned us about? >> yeah. mika, it's that question of what else is here? because typically when you have these nominees and decisions to make, you have a conversation with the individual and say okay, what skeletons in the closet do i have it know about and what do we have to be prepared to potentially respond to. going ahead now, you mentioned there are questions of are there any other details that can drop out from the story. with matt gaetz now out of the

question and his withdrawing his name from consideration, a lot of folks, reporters and lawmakers on capitol hill, are expecting that scrutiny and that attention is now going to shift to hegseth. in a lot of ways, matt gaetz was taking up the oxygen in the room with his allegations and with his nomination, also just the fact that he is a very polarizing figure, it's no secret in washington, not beloved by his colleagues. with matt gaetz out of the conversation, a lot of folks are expecting the scrutiny to increase on pete hegseth. i'll say one more thing, there was this big question in the capitol of how many of these senators up on capitol hill who aren't the biggest fans of donald trump, people like lisa murkowski, thom tillis, susan collins and others, how many of the nominees would they be willing to tank? how many times would they be willing to vote no? assuming all democrats vote against these controversial figures it only takes four to

quill kill one of these nominations. with matt gaetz who was likely on his way to a failed confirmation vote, that scrutiny of could shift to hegseth and that key group of senators not the president's biggest fans, they could now decide this is where i'm putting my political capital and going to decide to be a maverick of the senate and the nominee i'm going to tank. so, you know, good -- matt gaetz coming out of the spotlight but somebody has to fill that void. it could be pete hegseth, it could be rfk jr., it could be tulsi gabbard. seems like hegseth is starting to get the oxygen. >> the hill's mychal snel, thank you for your reporting. a couple things going on here -- mika alluded to it -- what you're hearing according to the "new york times" the trump transition team is saying okay, the police report says that, you know, they're not going to press charges, but he didn't tell us about this. and then they were blindsided a second time when they found out

about the police report and that he had the police report since 2021 and "the new york times" is reporting -- and i think "the washington post" as well -- that that's what's really right now got them going again. what else is out there? i think, richard, what's interesting is first of all, i read "the washington post" this morning, one of the lessons in the gaetz withdraw was, that the senate was actually doing its job asking the tough questions. this is what's fascinating as look at this. people who spent their entire adult life focusing on strengthening the military and what happens at the d.o.d. and who runs the d.o.d. means the world of them like you, there are also people who committed their entire adult lives to strengthening the intelligence community, the intel community, so i'm just going to say, i

think you can count murkowski, and i'm guessing murkowski and collins out on voting for either of these two candidates for many of those reasons. that means there are two republicans. the question is somebody on the intel committee break because as we know the intel committee is like that last committee, they stand shoulder to shoulder, marco rubio, mark warner. intel committee works together in most cases. are there going to be two republicans from that committee? no. i can't put somebody who is an apologist for assad gassing citizens in charge of intelligence. or is it two people saying we can't have somebody that has no managerial experience running the most complicated bureaucracy in washington, d.c. that's really the question for republican senators right now. >> 100%. the issue is not only whether the skeletons in the closet, it's what's in the closet. these are big, important jobs at

a critical time. you've got nearly 3 million people to oversee, civilian and pentagon military, when you run the pentagon and department of defense that could be involved in multiple conflicts. we can go on and on. this -- that ought to be the focus of the hearings in addition to skeletons, what in this person's background remotely prepares him for one of the critical jobs in the united states at a turning point in history? same thing you could ask about tulsi gabbard. again, beyond -- does she have the judgment and managerial experience to coordinate what is it 17 plus agencies and to present the president of the united states with a realistic -- >> again, even without matt gaetz's scandals all these questions apply to an inexperienced a.g. pam bondi has been an attorney general for the third largest

state in america for eight years. okay. matt gaetz, barely ever practiced law. so again, you've got the justice department -- you have to have somebody that has experience, same with the d.o.d. and same with the intel agencies. but when it comes to the d.o.d. and bureaucracies -- somebody you know who worked for dr. brzezinski, who considered just the best, the best in washington, bob gates, he knew how to work washington better than anybody else, he said about 75% of his time as spent trying to stay ahead of the bureaucracy. here's a genius, and he said it was constant. these people with good intentions, they have their agenda and there are hundreds of thousands of them. even if you go in the morning at

8:00 a.m. and say i'm going to change this policy or change that policy, he's like it's 4:00 in the afternoon and you're still trying to keep up with all the work you have to do. our soldiers don't get food and, you know, all that stuff. so here you have the best at this, saying i may be the most experienced person if the world this was my greatest challenge. that's why you put somebody in experience there. they will be running in circle four years. >> i worked in the pentagon one of my first jobs in 1979 under the carter administration. at one point i was pressing for something to get civilian oversight for contingency planning, a colonel sat me down, you're a smart guy but from where i sit you're christmas help. you're here for a while and going to be gone after the next election. i'm going to be here. this is my career. no way am i going to let you and

other civilians get involved in the intricacies of our defense plan. >> that's a great story. >> that's what the pentagon is like. >> "morning joe" special. >> we're going to be talking about the fact that the republicans added another seat dave mccormick in pennsylvania -- >> oh, my gosh. >> a herculean task to beat casey a guy that used to win by 17 points, talking to you in the next segment about that win, how tough it was for democrats. you knocked on doors and you were out there and ran a great campaign and still an uphill battle. i remember, much older than you, when ronald reagan's people got in and they were saying a lot of things that were very similar to what the trump people are saying now, which is, we're going to completely remake the bureaucracy and wipe these places out. and about six months into it, they're like why did we come here? again, it's a herculean task and

if you want to change a bureaucracy, you better have somebody in place who knows how to fight the bureaucracy. >> to state the obvious, experience matters. having the ability to understand this. when you have a chief executive who wants to set up panels to fire generals, that's where having a loyal test becomes incredibly dangerous. if number one criteria is loyalty to an executive that wants to do things that smack of authoritarian instincts that becomes dangerous. >> what else, we've talked about how shortsighted it is, do you know what happens when you fire a general? you create a legend. when you create a legend you start lawsuits, you start -- you start about a three-year war against this general or that general. it all sounds great. everybody's got a plan. until what does tyson say, everybody got a plan until you get punched in the face the first time. all of these things that people

are flexing about, i'm going to go in, and i'm going to fire this -- you know, you do that, you create a legend, you create a political opponent that has the entire country behind him, and it makes things tougher. >> yeah. >> for sure. stay with us. still ahead on "morning joe," democratic senator bob casey of pennsylvania has conceded to republican dave mccormick. we'll go through those results and what this means for the democratic party moving forward. as we go to break here's a look at the snow plow game joe was talking about at the top of the show. i didn't believe you. >> 1982 the patriots had a most unusual solution to a snowy problem. in the closing minutes of a scoreless tie rookie head coach ron meyer called for a masked man. sa snow plow driver mark henderson responded. a convicted burglar employed at foxboro stadium on a weekend work release program, henderson

cleared the path for the decisive field goal that propelled the patriots into the playoffs. propelled the patriots into the playoffs liberty mutual customized my car insurance so i saved hundreds. 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. 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 ♪ 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 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, annual enrollment ends on december 7th. humana. a more human way to healthcare.

has conceded his race to republican dave mccormick. in a video posted to social media senator casey said, quote, as the first count of ballot is completed, pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge their voices were heard, whether their vote the first to be counted or the last. in response to casey's concession mccormick released a statement that reads in part senator bob casey dedicated his career to bettering our commonwealth, dina, mccormick's wife, and i want to extend our sincere gratitude to senator casey, ter reese sa and their family for dedication, hard work and personal sacrifice. with 99.8% in, mccormick won the race by just over 16,000 votes. the small margin of victory triggered an automatic recount with the results expected out next wednesday. barring unexpected changes, republicans will hold the

majority in the united states senate, 53-47 seats. we can talk about the balance of power and what it means for the incoming trump administration, but in these times we have to say this is what it looks like to wait out a close race. lost by over 16,000 votes. automatic recount. concedes graciously. dave mccormick gives a statement thanking him for his service. in a big win for republicans in the state of pennsylvania. >> this sounds shockingly normal. this is how it used to be. i will say, willie, we talked about it back in what year are we in now -- was it 2022? if you put dave mccormick in, if dave mccormick won the primary, it could have won against fetterman who is a strong statewide candidate but make no mistake about it, dave mccormick winning here, first of all, he is the type of republican candidate that can win a state

like pennsylvania, west point guy, and ran a tough campaign. so -- so give dave mccormick his due, a great republican candidate, but i want to talk about what this means for the democrats. because we had sherrod brown on, and i got to say, i knew a lot of democrats were going to have trouble this year. i didn't think sherrod would in ohio because he was so connected with working class voters through his entire career and got beat. >> yeah. >> here is the second shot across the bow for democrats and working class voters, as you know, the casey family legend in pennsylvania. casey would win -- he won his last race by 17 points. >> yeah. >> white working class voters in pennsylvania loved him, loved his father, stayed with the caseys through thick and thin, and there weren't any close

races. let's look at ohio, pennsylvania, and ask, what does this mean for the democratic party? and i -- we wanted you on to talk about this because everybody i talked to, that followed your race, said you ran just about pitch-perfect race and yet the headwinds for you, for casey, for brown, just too hard to get past? >> the headwinds were tough, particularly you can run ahead of the ticket but only so much you can do that in the case of ohio, brown and casey, that's a, you know, that's an allegheny region problem, white working class problem folks are having in the democratic party. for me the high wind headwinds, for me, people will vote for strong and wrong every time. and i think the democratic party has a strength problem on the issues that matter most. personal safety and economic security. i think those are the

fundamentals. and democrats got to get off defense and playing offense. they can't be the default party of the status quo. i think that's the most dangerous place to be. and i think right now, they are seen that way. people will take a chance if they seem like there are bold solutions on the other side even if it flies in the face of facts. here's where i think democrats in blue states need to actually you need to have a stronger center left standing up against the far right and far left. i think you need to make sure you're dealing with things like the middle-class squeeze, one of the biggest drivers of dissatisfaction going on for decades, the affordability crisis because of inflation and then make sure you're dealing with issues of civic disorder, border, crime, well-intentioned bill that has unintended consequences fix it. if people feel kiv vick decline is going on democrats have to be taking that on and being the leaders of that reform or they will get caught up in a wave. >> at the same time, john, i think you're correct we've got

to see the democrats deal with those issues and go after the working class white, but also the working class -- >> 100%. >> working class black community. a lot of them played -- a lot of democratic candidates an consultants played to the edges and younger vote and ignored black churches and fraternities. who are your solid voters who may be more conservative and concerned about immigration, crime, and other things in a different way, and i think they over engaged some of the things that became trendy, but their base was not energized. you could have won enough votes in philly to make this different for -- >> that's a profound point that actually -- what happened in philly, in milwaukee, what happened the cleveland? you know, i've made a point of going to black churches because i think that's important it's also nourishing, but i think you make the right point which is people got to get past the identity politics of this,

right, and so actually i shouldn't just talk about the white working class, my mother from youngstown, ohio, i think about that region. it is just making sure folks feel like the american dream is accessible again. making sure that the middle class feels like if they work hard and play by the rules they can get ahead. they don't. that's where being the default party that seems to represent the status quo is unsustainable. >> john, sam stein here. >> hey, man. >> good to sea you. >> you too. >> john, and i worked together in a past lifetime. i was talking with chris murphy yesterday about this exact situation and one of the things that we were talking about -- i'm curious what your thoughts are on how democrats should maneuver around this -- you talked about they're perceived as the defenders of the status quo. he agreed that can be an issue. but i think part of the issue here is that trump kind of forces that to happen. by that i mean, you defend democracy when you feel like it's completely under attack and under assault. you defend immy grants when you feel like they're being

scapegoetsds, you defend the pharmaceutical industry when you feel like an anti-vacs is set to host hhs. it's that type of action. how do you maneuver around that. those are worth defending even if you have a reformist mindset. >> i don't think you can let your opponent determine the tune you dance to, right. you need to play offense and get off defense. and i do think that the contrast is with the and extremism that donald trump represents. we're going to be bold and put forward common sense solutions to the problems of everyday people. rebuilding the middle of our politics, the middle of our economy. take a note. look at what that ballot prop that passed in california did, people pushed back on a two-to-one margin on the idea we were decriminalizing low level crime because that created a sense of civic disorder. it's actually a -- pushing back against civic decline is defending democratic norms.

it's building a big tent. you have to be strong on the stuff people care most about. some of the things that hakeem jeffries said, it's the four f, democrats need to be back reclaiming the values of freedom, kamala harris did on reproductive freedom, fairness, cuts both ways, some ways democrats don't want to deal with on the border, the flag and faith. right. reclaiming patriotism, the social gospel those traditions that could reanimate a new democratic party and not just responding to donald trump. that's no way to live and no way to in. >> let's get specific here. so we -- we -- i, i'll talk about myself, talked a lot over the two years about fascist rhetoric. threats of retribution. mika talked about women's reproductive rights. women's reproductive health care. freedom for women to decide what they do with their bodies.

and we talked about that a lot. and after the election, 75 million voters or so said, well, okay, we're focused on the price of gas, price of groceries, whatever. so -- so how do you run a campaign where when you hear rhetoric you don't want to call it fascist, let's say authoritarian. >> i got you. >> however you want to define that, the definitions don't matter, there were threats of retribution, there was the issue of women's reproductive choices and health, rubbing up against, pounding up against t the price of groceries, the price of gasoline. how do you balance that when, obviously, what voters said was, we care more about the price of gas and we care more about the price of groceries. how do you do that? >> at that moment. look, i think life is a struggle

between the urgent and important, right, and for a lot of people the urgent issues they face are ability affordability, right. here's what democrats and about feelings of personal safety. democrats have to get big things right. if people don't feel safe, economically secure, everything else is secondary. >> right. >> that's why democrats got to get stronger on the issues that count most. personal safety and economic security. >> when people say, oh, no, you know, things are safe and that -- >> oh -- >> the southern border doesn't -- something willie, and i have been talking about for four years now, don't let people steal $999 worth of clothes from a store. >> exactly right. >> and say, oh, that shouldn't be a fell in i. >> quality of life policing works. let's stop -- it's got nothing to do with plain clothed divisions or stop and frisk. if you let a brown window not -- broken window not get fixed, you get more of it. people push back and there's

more extremes. a responsibility for the center left in particular, blue state, stand up, get strong, push back against the lib brammism on the left or right and make sure we're not falling into the trap. if people don't feel safe and don't feel economically secure, yeah, everything else is secondary. >> john avalon, thank you very much. come back. >> any time, pleasure. >> coming up, traffic on the platform bluesky is on the rise following the election as many people look for an alternative to x. we'll take a look at that substantial shift on social media. this week joe, and i told you we went to mar-a-lago to meet personally with president-elect donald trump to reopen lines of communication. we heard from many of you wanting to let us know that it was the right thing to do our jobs, we've also faced a lot of criticism about the meeting, largely from folks online. i want to explain our thought process a bit more so this week i went on the daily beast

podcast with joanna kohles and samantha bee to talk about that meeting. here's part of the interview which is this week's morning mika. >> the way i look at it is people are really scared. it's one of the reasons we went in there, people are really scared about donald trump's comments, about political adversaries, a lot of people are scared because of what has happened with abortion. these are issues important to me and in some ways personal to me. but definitely personal to the people i really care about. i don't regret anything i've said during campaign, and i stand by it. i'm also looking at how to do things differently, and i would never turn down an opportunity to gain insight or information, never. >> right. >> so you can listen to the whole interview on the daily beast podcast. it's also available on morning mika via youtube and peacock. it's a long, in-depth conversation really exploring all the contours of this because a lot of people have really

strong opinions and that's fair too. >> do they. >> "morning joe" will be right back. >> i didn't know that. g joe" wit back. >> i didn't know that. [ employees snoring ] anything can change the world of work. from hr to payroll, adp designs for the next anything. speaker 1: at st.ge jude, there's one thing that makes us all family-- finding cures, saving children. speaker 2: in this family, families never receive a bill from st. jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. speaker 3: one in five kids in the us still won't survive cancer. speaker 4: in this family, we won't stop until no child dies from cancer. speaker 2: this holiday season, join our st. jude family. we need you. please donate now. asthma. does it have you missing out on what you love, with who you love? get back to better breathing with fasenra, an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma taken once every 8 weeks. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems. serious allergic reactions may occur.

get help for swelling of your face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. don't stop your asthma treatments without talking with your doctor. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens or you have a parasitic infection. headache and sore throat may occur. ask your doctor if fasenra is right for you.

the virus that causes shingles is sleeping... in 99% of people over 50. it's lying dormant, waiting... and could reactivate. shingles strikes as a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. and it could wake at any time. think you're not at risk for shingles? it's time to wake up. because shingles could wake up in you. if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention.

craig here pays too much for verizon wireless. so he sublet half his real estate office... if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist [ bird squawks loudly ] to a pet shop. meg's moving company uses t-mobile. so she scaled down her fleet to save money. and don's paying so much for at&t, he's been waiting to update his equipment! there's a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to an incredible 70% on your wireless bill. so you don't have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities.

♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." david bowie, young americans, waking you up on friday morning. so, rev, john valon talked about something you and i and willie have been talking about since 2020, and that is, the idea that americans have to feel

safe. if you don't get past that issue you don't win elections. i remember the conversation we had in 2020, the summer of george floyd, we went back this far, and we were talking about the stupidity -- let me say the stupidity as you and willie, and i said -- of defund the police. that movement. and you and i were talking about a "new york times" article in 2020 where city council people in new york city representing the most diverse and in some cases some of the most dangerous neighbors in new york, go, going, defund the sflis no. we need more police on the streets. we need more police in our children's schools. and you always talk about the woke and you've been doing it for four years. people still call me going rev rapid, going against the woke. is this something new after the election? i'm like, dude, where have you been?

he's been talking about this forever because he hears it from his parishioners. >> that's right. i hear it from parishioners and rallies. don't forget, we did the george floyd movement. i preached his funerals. here comes some people outside that comes with this far radical mostly super progressives because they're not progressive, talking about defund the police. that was not what the george floyd movement was about. it was about reforming the police and making the work. we fought to get a black attorney general to be the prosecutor in that case. so when i go to a rally and a black woman raising kids, middle age, says to me, rev, why are you running with people that want to defund the police, and i'm seeing my apartment building broken into? i'm having to explain this to her. that's what john was talking about. is the candidates need to have enough backbone to not only stand up to the far right, but to the far left and say wait a minute, you're not speaking for

us. you're speaking for people that you don't speak to. we do not want crime. we do not want to see the gas that high. and i think that a lot of people become whimpish when it comes to the people on the far left that are speaking on issues that are not speaking to us. we have black police chiefs now. i remember when we had the disturbances in ferguson after michael brown was killed. i preached his funeral. we did marches. and i went in and said to some of the young people you can't riot and burn down the city. it's not going to solve our problems. i understand your rage. i'm as angry as you are. one said to me, reverend al, we can't talk to the man, can't turn it over to the man. i said have you seen the attorney general his name is eric holder. we are the man. we fought to become the man. now we're going to undo what the man can do? you can't have the man go after the police and not also police where we want to be safe in our communities. that's not selling out. that's building up.

>> right. >> this conversation to be continued. thank you so much for that. >> for sure. >> talk about safety, talk about ukrainians how they're feeling right now. this war keeps ramping up. threats against the united states. threats against poland. it seems -- i'm not so sure if this isn't just, again, the prelude to either a much wider war or to negotiations where vladimir putin is flexing his muscles going, , you think this is going to be a move that's going to help you at the negotiating tables. here's my counter move. >> i would put my money on this posturing. shot one medium-range ballistic missile so what. and wasn't a big deal. i seriously put my money this is a prelude to negotiations. we upped our support for ukraine and providing. we removed some of the constraints on what we're providing. putin didn't like it and

reacted -- >> put this in perspective. we allow ukraine to fire missiles deeper into russia. russia fires a missile that can go deeper in. they go after bases in po land, unless i'm totally misreading it he is not going to do that at this point with as many losses as his army has had. >> that's posturing. one serious escalation -- these exchanges haven't transformed anything -- is bringing the north koreans in, that was an escalation. nothing is transforming the battlefield. it was what it was. we're looking after this winter, i think we're kwats possibly going to have -- we'll have a battlefield but a negotiating table. i think we're moving that way. it's not going to be easy. not going to get to peace, to treaties, but could we get to a cease-fire to frozen conflicts that would save lives and allow ukraine to begin to rebuild that is going to be on the agenda.

>> richard haass, thank you very much. we have radek sa core ski to talk about this. >> if you can come back on monday we'll be talking about ukraine and the middle east. >> lot of hot spots. >> it's really -- this is a danger. >> i'm in the neighborhood. >> we hear that. we'll dive into susan glasser's piece for the "new york times" about the lessons of matt gaetz withdraw and what we and the trump world can learn from it. plus we'll speak with someone who has worked with pam bondi. florida state attorney david aronberg and why he says her nomination should give democrats some relief. also the lieutenant governor of new york, antonio delgado urges democrats to let a new generation lead. "morning joe" will be right back. tion lead. "morning joe" will be right back games! ♪♪ dancing in the par... (high pitched sound)

(high pitched sound) (high pitched sound)

a few minutes before the top

of the hour. the social media platform bluesky, a competitor to x, has gained millions of followers in the weeks following the presidential election. according to bluesky, its traffic is up over 500% since november 5th. a trend due in part to dissatisfied liberals leaving the elon musk-owned x platform. let's bring in msnbc contributor pablo torre who is discussing bluesky and x on the latest episode of his podcast pablo torre finds out. >> explain something to me. >> yes. >> why is it -- >> somebody made a fake account. >> lot of fake accounts going on out there. >> threads was supposed to be the replacement for x. >> sure. >> i don't really understand, even though i went on threads, tried it, for some reason i wasn't getting the news feed. >> yeah. >> that i was still getting on x

a year -- since given up on x, but why didn't threads work and why is bluesky now necessary? because threads didn't work. >> joe, first off i am available for tech support, the hours 24 a day, if the settings are off. i'm here to help. what happens periodically is that you're familiar with spring football leagues and xfl, periodically there are attempts to form the equivalent of a spring football league of social media. >> right. >> so this was bluesky and threads, it's an attempt to siphon off the -- >> asking you specifically. >> why didn't threads work? >> why was threads the usfl of online media? >> twitter's origin story is fascinating to me because it involves a saturation of media and celebrity. >> right. >> that created this impression if you get into your phone and log on to the platform you can talk to shaquille o'neal, you

can talk to the president, and threads never replicated that idea of the world's grandest cocktail party where you had access to people you were otherwise always very far away from. but the media component to me is crucial here and leads me to why i've been experimenting with bluesky, despite knowing it has xfl vibes, because twitter became the place where you got your news. >> right. >> the rss feed is a concept. used to subscribe to google reader,es go bless anybody who remembers google reader, you could get "the new york times," cnn, "the washington post," the new republic, across the spectrum. that's what twitter's promise was. the place you can get information. >> as far as information goes, twitter always has been a very, very rough place, right. that said, you get your news feed right -- willie, and i have talked about this, mika talked about this -- >> i need mine fix blood.

>> -- mine fixed. >> i could go in there and in ten minutes i knew what was going on and then i would go to the times and read all the other stuff. >> yes. >> it was -- it was pretty remarkable even though it's always been -- people are like oh, it's an ugly place. it's always been. >> variously miserable, and i loved it, of course, because i watched sports with the world. it was live. >> exactly. >> a place to talk about the games i cover. this is an elon story to me. not a story as much as it is framed as liberals don't want to talk to conservatives, there is some of that on bluesky certainly and the exodus, but it's because elon musk has put his thumb on the scale of curating what we're all seeing and to the point of clicking on links, something elon did was he suppressed any post that had a url, hyper link, that left x. so any article got demoted.

>> oh. >> the very thing that made twitter so valuable. >> yes. >> whoa. >> now let's talk about blue sky. >> yeah. >> bluesky have a chance to be what threads wanted to be. that is the alternative, the pepsi to coke. >> it is free of the incentive structure that elon has instituted and it's not nearly the suppression of links. it's also the fact that elon did something crucial. he installed tweets based on engagement. this was a siren, a lamp for every scammer most to come into twitter and say hey, my way of making actual literal money is to troll, spread misinformation in a literal sense. >> yeah. >> to create anonymous accounts that would actually psychologically provoke response. >> this is very important to know. >> by the way -- >> that's a money story. >> let's talk about -- >> this guy doesn't have that.

>> he needs money. let's horrible but instagram, the algorithms to provoke. people want to know why social media depresses. >> true. >> because the algorithms are meant to make you angry to provoke get you clicking and that's how they make their money, right. >> oh, there's a bit of a tilting at a wind mill phenomena here. we're trying to find the best -- safer cigarette in a sense. >> does bluesky have a shot of succeeding? >> it has a shot without elon's thumb on the scale, i'm getting the sense that i can actually maybe talk to people, talk to my conservative friends, read the thoughts of people as opposed to reading -- >> and get realistic feedback. >> they're click bait farming on twitter now. >> what i love so much about twitter, even though, again, it's always been a rough place. >> sure, sure. >> you go into cage boxing match -- >> we're not all -- >> that said, i could watch the

red sox game and i could tweet out, oh, my god what a great double play and i could look at responses and people that love the red sox would be there. >> humans. >> if i talked about hey, i listen frampton comes alive first time in 30 years, here's my take 30 years later, could get a response. we need a place where people can talk and just have great dialog. >> a town square. to me twitter would be perfect given the alternatives. i would still use as much as i used to if elon wasn't there. it's like he moved into my phone. and now i have to leave. joe, i wish -- i wish we could have discourse. not a place for feedback and discussion anymore. it's place to be fooled into thinking i clicked on an account that's been a parody and i've been scammed. >> before we let you go we have to talk about like the nfl game

of like -- of nfl games this year. i mean, shocking the browns beat the steelers. >> yeah. >> but man the setup. it was so incredible. reminded me of the old afc central games from the 70s and 80s. >> yeah. there's nothing more american than a shanked punt in the snow. truly. like oh, i saw -- >> thomas jefferson said that, by the way. >> that's right. somewhere on a piece of parchment it said that americans must at some point in november get a game that's a total mess. and this was a mess. joe, i always talk to you about how the nfl is a case study in mediocrity. these are teams we like to think that are so much better than the others. i praise the steelers to yours, when the browns come in and nick chubb is back from injury and runs into the end zone and jameis winston can pilot a team through the snow you're reminded that truly, this is a game of

randomness and oblong ball in weather conditions no other sport would subject itself to and the flip of the coin is the glory of the sport. anything can happen. and the week i say to you the steelers look like the most complete team in the nfl, i am completely disproven by the cleveland browns. so yes, this is also true. >> they lose to one of the worst teams in the nfl. >> truly. >> we need more of this, though. >> all right. you can hear -- by the way, the bluesky story and more on today's episode of pablo torre finds out on mettalark media. do you explain why threads didn't work? >> there are so many people on there. it's instagram. it's a different purpose that instagram people are -- >> why is bluesky better? >> it is elon-free and actually about conversation. >> okay. >> pablo torre thank you very much. we appreciate it. four minutes past the top of the hour. little late. very compelling. >> worth it.

>> donald trump announced pam bondi, serveds the state attorney general in 2011 to 2019 and before that spent more than 18 years as a prosecutor. currently a partner at a lobbying firm, bondi has long ties to president-elect trump. back in 2016 on the eve of the republican primary in florida, bondi endorsed trump picking him over the candidate from her own state, senator marco rubio. the 59-year-old later joined trump's legal team defending the then president in his first impeachment trial. bondi's nomination became necessary after matt gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for attorney general. gaetz explained his decision writing on social media, quote, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the trump-vance transition. gaetz is embroiled in scandals facing allegations of sexual

misconduct and illicit drug use. the former congressman denies the claims. sources tell nbc news at least five senate republicans were planning to vote against him and had communicated to other senators and those close to trump they were unlikely to be swayed. >> so, willie, "new york post" talking about the gaetz nomination being withdrawn. all the front page of all the papers. doing the same thing. you know what's fascinate, as i was saying today, "the washington post" talked about one of the lessons of this is republican senators actually stood up and said we just can't do that, including a new senator, an incoming senator from the state of utah which actually has a fascinating new dynamic and you wonder if there's now collins, murkowski, and this new senator from the state of utah who may, again, curb against some of the more

radical selections. >> yeah. as one senator said yesterday, matt gaetz was never going to be attorney general, so the question will be for these republicans, is matt gaetz the line or are they willing to go further? what i've heard from many republicans is that matt gaetz, they felt like they could dispatch with quickly and they did that. they expressed their displeasure with the choice. they expressed very openly and on television their feelings about him personally his lack of qualifications and character, but now matt gaetz to the side, some have said, pete hegseth can't be defense secretary and especially, i hear, tulsi gabbard cannot run the dni. if you want to talk about america first as donald trump does so often, she's very cozy with russia, with syria, so what does that mean for our intelligence if she's running dni. matt gaetz was of concern to republicans but they thought they could mount enough criticism and opposition to get him out of this process and they

have now. and now i think a lot of their focus we'll see if enough senators feel this way, but a lot of their focus is on both tulsi gabbard for dni and pete hegseth at defense. bring into the conversation u.s. special correspondent for bbc news katty kay and state attorney for palm beach, florida, dave aronberg. he lost the democratic primary to state senator dan gel bl ber. bondi would tap aronberg in a newly created post in her office as drug czar where dave focused on the opioid epidemic. good morning to you both. what can you tell us about pam bondi, the new choice with matt gaetz to the side, stepping in the former florida attorney general, a defender of donald trump in the legal sense during impeachment, and also on television, very close to the president. what kind of attorney general would she be at the national

level? >> good to be with you and thank you for bringing up the traumatic statewide loss of attorney general in 2010. pam bondi was running at the same time on the republican side and likes to say that she beat me and then hired me. that gives me too much credit. even though i endorsed my democratic opponent in the general election she still appointed me as drug czar to go after the pill mills, the oepds epidemic and shut down those pill mills that made them the supplier for the country. she reached across party lines. got criticism from her fellow republicans. one story where there was a party leader in southwest florida who got in her face and thought he was -- he could be so bold to put a finger in her face and say how dare you appoint democratic dave aronberg to this position. and then she responded by putting a finger in his face. had my back and loyal.

no one's patsy. loyal to her friends and people who work for her is an explanation of why trump picked her, because she is loyal to donald trump. but this loyalty and love for donald trump, is a real love. it's not a lindsey graham, kevin mccarthy type of love where they praise him in front of his face and fox news and make fun of him behind his back. she's a true believer. she's also someone who believes in the rule of law. she was a prosecutor for 20 years. she was attorney general for eight years, and even though, you know, she engaged in political rhetoric, i do not believe she will be matt gaetz 2.30. she is not going to burn it down. she is not going to put forward fake charges to go after trump's enemies. you'll see john durham investigations, we've become used to that, but in the end i do not think you will see anthony fauci or adam schiff walked out in handcuffs like donald trump and the maga universe wants. >> they can only hope they're

john durham type investigations because it made durham look like a fool when they tried to prosecute the prosecutors and investigate the investigators they were the ones who ended up being damaged politically. katty kay, this is really -- so let's pull back, let's look at not only gaetz but also tulsi gabbard and pete hegseth and just, we had susan on, talking about what this means for the nomination process but for a lot of people in washington, a lot of people going okay, well, in this first test there were enough republican senators to stand up and say no to a very bad pick for attorney general. and now wondering, who's next. a lot of people talking about pete hegseth. i actually think tulsi gabbard will be the one that four or five or six republicans just

can't allow in dni. >> it's interesting talking to people in the intelligence community certainly but also in the national security side, you're right, joe, it is tulsi gabbard that's provoking more concern actually than pete hegseth is. maybe because people feel at the departments of defense can work around pete hegseth, you still have the secretary of state marco rubio a national security adviser who can mitigate what happens at d.o.d. in terms of that position but tulsi gabbard and what i've been told is that one thing she's not particularly famous for is keeping secrets. there's an irony of putting somebody who has that reputation at the head of the intelligence community. back to pam bondi, what was it -- what do you think her ideology is when it comes to the justice department? what is it she wants to do to re shape the justice department? >>. >> you know, katty, i think she's going to pursue trump's

initiatives on immigration and that will be controversial. the mass roundup of undocumented migrants. but she'll pursue strong policies against fentanyl, go after antisemitism and i will applaud her for that. she's not a revolutionary. she's not going to burn the place down. she is someone who has ties to people on both sides of the aisle. she works within the system. and i know there are democrats who are still upset about the pick, but keep in mind sally yates was not waying through the door. you were not going to see an eric holder become attorney general. donald trump made it clear who he was going to appoint and the fact that matt gaetz was rejected shows we have guardrails again and so i think that this pick is about as good as you're going to get from a democratic perspective, knowing that at least she's not going to put forward fake indictments to go after trump's enemies. she'll do stuff that's controversial but in the end she's not matt gaetz.

>> all right. state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave aronberg, thank you very much. one thing we need to look at is the whole trump university the payments and her support of him and we'll be following that part of the story as well. i'm sure that will be talked about, especially during this process. let's bring in the aforementioned staff writer at the new yorker, susan glasser. >> your latest piece in "the new yorker" the explosion of matt gaetz and other early lessons in trump 2.0 and write this. >> trump overwhelms, he exhausts, the first couple weeks of trump redux suggests this will be even more of the case during the second four years in office. yet, it is striking how little having lived through it before provides in the way of wisdom for how to navigate the onslaught once again. tuning out will be the answer for many, i suspect. an understandable response but hardly a desirable one. at least from the point of view

of democracy's survival. remember all that earnest discussion about deplatforming trump in 2021. a certain number of liberals probably slept better at night as a result, but if the assumption was that trump was a spent force in american politics or that excluding him from front pain coverage would somehow erase his political appeal to a large swath of the population, well, that was not correct and, susan, i couldn't agree with you more. >> yes. so susan, it's interesting, there seems to be a balancing act when you talk not only to reporters but journalists covering donald trump where they're saying what you said, he has to be covered every day. you can't ignore it. you can't turn your head from it at the same time, they're also saying and pete buttigieg said this to democrats we have to figure out a better way to do this. in effect, if everything is a

five-alarm fire nothing is a five-alarm fire. how do we best respond and keep things in perspective to keep voters engaged on the issues that matter the most? >> yeah. i think that really is the challenge. i mean it is exhausting. we haven't -- we're not near the inauguration of donald trump and look, i feel like every day i'm having a 2018 flashback where right in the middle of the trump news cycle again and, you know, that was the whole reason i started this column in "the new yorker" in 2018 was because by thursday you couldn't remember what happened on tuesday and this is certainly one of those weeks where that was the case. you know, i defy you to remember all the other wild appointments that donald trump has made just this week stocking his cabinet with a full roster of fox news contributors, you know, i'm glad we're talking about tulsi gabbard again, one of the most extraordinary sort of outside of any kind of norms for american

government appointments i've ever seen. this is someone who not only met secretly with the syrian leader in the middle of the civil war but has repeatedly amplified russian talking points throughout and ever since russia's invasion of ukraine. really remarkable stuff. yet, it's hard to focus on that when you're also focusing on the prospect of matt gaetz as attorney general. i also think that trump has once again failed with gaetz, but he's once again succeeded in a way in redefining what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. the idea, for example, of promoting pam bondi as a long-time supporter of the rule of law when she also was at donald trump's side throughout his challenge of the 2020 election, the first time in american history that we've ever had a president essentially seek to overturn the lawful results of an election. is that really the rule of law that you're supporting there?

i agree with you, joe, the five-alarm fire doesn't work for me, for you, for anybody, but it's our job not to look at outcomes as journalists but to focus on making sure that we're documenting this for history and to give people the context and perspective they need on what's happening. >> got to do it every day. >> susan, at the last point you raised, have we not normalized some extreme stuff, like the fact that bondi did help to lead the charge about -- trump's bogus charges about the election was rigged? because gaetz was so extreme, she seems normal. when in a normal course of things, we would be saying, wait a minute, we need to really dig into your misrepresentations of the vote in 2020. but now she almost gets a free pass because she's not gaetz. talk about how that becomes

problematic. >> yeah. i so agree with you. i think that what trump does is he shifts the contours and defiance the terms of the debate about what's acceptable and not. okay. fine maybe even from trump republican senators can agree serious allegations of sexual misconduct might disqualify you from being the attorney general of the united states. again we've shifted our perspective about what's acceptable and not. i would say to people that looking at trump's potential appointments the next level down in these agency, remember trump is essentially proposing to install a large number of his personal lawyers, people who were fighting the justice department on his behalf, as the people who would oversee it and talks about his agenda at the justice department as seeking to stop the, quote, weaponization of it against him. we saw in doing our book on the first trump presidency, a through line for him has always

been, pressuring those who work for him to seek to use the instruments of the justice department and the fbi on his own behalf. i think that's the question that probably you're going to want to see senators asking directly of all of these appointees. but this is not the republican party of eight years ago. that's the other thing. we're not two weeks into the trump era. we are eight years and two weeks into the trump era. it's a much more compliant party. >> staff writer at the new yorker susan glasser thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. let's take a look now at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. the illinois supreme court has overturned actor jussie smollett's conviction in a case that accused him of falsely reporting a hate crime to chicago police in 2019. the judges ruled the former "empire" star should not have been charged after he entered a nonprosecution agreement with

the state. -- with the state attorney's office. smollett found guilty of five counts of felony disorderly conduct after he told police he was the victim of a brutal attack because he is black and gay. apple says it issued an emergency iphone update that fixes two serious security vulnerabilities. the company has provided limited details but according to "forbes" the issues involve threats posed by malicious content on the web. apple urges all users to update their devices immediately. especially on the iphone and the ipad. >> okay. note to self. >> that is something that needs to be done right now. >> i'm going to -- >> i would like to know more about that. >> on the next story, because i don't understand it at all. >> we know who spent $6.2 million on a piece of artwork that features a banana duct

taped to a wall. investor justin sun the highest bidder. experts say the work was intended to mock the notion of art, having this degree of value. sun who made a fortune in crypto currency plans to eat the banana as part of a unique artistic experience. >> willie, this -- i -- it says cnbc. i think actually this has to be from the onion. >> no. it's real. >> there's got to be something else going on. you can't pay $6.25 million for a banana that will bad to the end of the day and duct tape to the wall. >> just going to eat it. >> a crypto guy so maybe this is a promotional thing for his crypto company. i don't know. there's -- there's going to be another layer to this onion, joe. >> yeah. the other shoe is going -- >> don't make fun of art. >> that's not art. i'm not making fun of art.

>> definitely not art. >> democratic senator chris murphy weighing in on his party's election losses calling on his colleagues to turn their focus back to the working class. we'll read to you some of his messages to democrats. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. orning joe." we'll be right back. having youe like you like it without an audience. ♪♪ [silence] the freestyle libre 3 plus sensor tracks your glucose in real time so everyone else doesn't have to, and over time it can help lower your a1c confident choices for more control of your life. this is progress. learn more and try for free at freestylelibre.us ♪♪

(intercom) t minus 10... learn more and try for free at (janet) so much space! that open kitchen! (tanya) ...definitely the one! (ethan) but how can you sell your house when we're stuck on a space station for months???!!! (brian) opendoor gives you the flexibility to sell and buy on your timeline. (janet) nice! (intercom) flightdeck, see you at the house warming. asthma. does it have you missing out on what you love, with who you love? get back to better breathing with fasenra, an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma taken once every 8 weeks. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems. serious allergic reactions may occur. get help for swelling of your face,

mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. don't stop your asthma treatments without talking with your doctor. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens or you have a parasitic infection. headache and sore throat may occur. ask your doctor if fasenra is right for you. >> democratic senator chris >> democratic senator chris regina king is in our studio looking radiant as ever. don't cover up your glow. ♪♪ flawless. all eyes on you. skin esteem is a beautiful thing. ♪♪ it's our son, he is always up in our business. it's the verizon 5g home internet i got us. oh... he used to be a competitive gamer but with the higher lag, he can't keep up with his squad. so now we're his “squad”. what are kevin's plans for the fall? he's going to college. out of state, yeah. -yeah in the fall. change of plans, i've decided to stay local. oh excellent! oh that's great! why would i ever leave this? -aw!

we will do anything to get him gaming again. you and kevin need to fix this internet situation. heard my name! i swear to god, kevin! -we told you to wait in the car. everyone in my old squad has xfinity. less lag, better gaming! i'm gonna need to charge you for three people. >> democratic senator chris >> democratic senator chris welcome back to "morning joe." we're supposed to do an intro of guests here. >> okay.

>> since we're "morning joe" we have stephanie. >> eddie glaude jr. >> self-introductions. >> analyst host of the 11th hour, great stephanie ruhle and lieutenant governor of new york state democrat antonio delgado, a piece for the "new york times" democrats it's time to say goodbye to our neo liberal era. >> is it mr. lieutenant governor. >> how about antonio. >> we can't do that. >> why not. >> new generation of leadership. i like it. so stephanie, we had a conversation with pablo earlier about -- torre. >> i thought he was madonna status with "morning joe," you say pablo and everybody knows. threads versus bluesky and a lot of people are saying i'm getting off of x, you say they should stay in and fight. explain. >> not necessarily fight.

i hear all the negativity about x. i don't disagree. i don't disagree that elon musk bought x and turned it into a, you know, the social media arm of the maga movement. we all sat in the middle of it during the campaign possibly not realizing like fat chickens getting attacked all day and being part of the maga messaging. the election is over. everybody is getting smarter and better. i'm not sure the right idea is to leave twitter and go to bluesky a friendlier place. then we remain in our echo chambers. i don't think you should stay in twitter every day and battle it out and doom scroll of the hate coming at you. i want to see it and read what's happening there, right. and so i think at least staying in those spaces is important because i want to hear the other things. >> eddie, we had a good talk this week, you were so sweet, you called me up, very kind. >> eddie. >> i said, you know, i -- i

just -- because i've got four kids, we do four hours a day, i just don't go on social media not because i don't respect what people are saying. just don't have time with four kids, four hours, everything else. but you do. like -- and i think -- i'm just saying. >> right. >> you are on x, you're on bluesky. i'm sure you're on threads. >> my first tweet in a year. >> talk about this, like do you stay engaged in the social media platforms because you need to be engaged and outside a bubble or what are you doing? >> it's a combination of things. i called you because i care about you. >> oh. >> even though i disagreed with the gesture. i disagree and still love the people we love. and so in terms of selfish reasons, 300,000 plus followers you don't want to give them up and then there's the conversations. i get attacked all the time whether i'm blamed for donald trump because of my position on

hillary clinton or whether i'm going to be on this show, why did you go on "morning joe" after they've capitulated and surrendered. i'm going to get killed i'm sure on x. >> can i ask you? >> do you think -- >> let me ask you, do you think you're going to be able to make it through the weekend? are you going to be okay? >> i'll pray for you. >> can we lay hands on him. >> he just did. just did. >> so we're good. >> i think part of what i try to do is to try to cultivate a public where i'm able to have conversations in a way that can in some ways widen and deepen the way in which we think about issues. sometimes that's not possible on x. what makes x more complicated than just simply disagreement is he's actually gathering data for his ai. >> correct. >> and so we -- people are leaving not just because of the toxicity of the environment but because november 15 sths, everything you post. >> terms of use. >> is in terms of use and you have to be very, very mindful of that. that's happening in your teslas

as well as walter isaacson let us know. >> yeah. >> so there's other sorts of reasons that people are leaving x other than just simply the toxicity. >> i would say, katty kay, it's -- it's not just the rough and tumble of it, what made twitter so great for me, even when -- it's always been tough. i remember when barack obama was president, you know, you could talk about hey, that -- i'm not sure -- you know, i like that tie. and like you're called a big ot four weeks. it's always tough. people going it's tough and rough. you know, so it's always been rough, katty. my problem right now with x is, the feature that made twitter so awesome, even if you didn't look at comments, the news feed. it was extraordinary. i can't get that news feed. >> no. >> without seeing garbage. >> yeah. >> and just a lot of absolute

nonsense. the thing that made twitter good in the worst of times no longer exists on x. >> yeah. it was efficient. that was what was great. >> yes. >> like you say i don't spend a ton of time on social media, i don't know how people have time to spend on social media when so much of it around you have to be selective and x was great because you knew that if you had five minutes it was the fastest, most efficient way for me as a reporter to catch up on what was happening. i knew that if i could go on x in five minutes i would find out the major news that was breaking. now in ten minutes i'm wading through ads. and garbage. it's not that efficient. i have gone on bluesky. i joined this week. it's getting there. it's not as efficient as twitter used to be for me. it's a little bit move of an uphill battle maybe because i have to get my memory in gear and remember all the people i should be following who are helpful to remember what the news feed is.

maybe it's going to be better. i'm not convinced yet it's as efficient but twitter has lost its helpfulness. >> i think i am. i think i'm going to move my last tweet to somewhere else. it doesn't seem -- it seemed very convoluted with bad stuff, but eddie, my question to you is, isn't it better to disagree face to face on the phone instead of with a keyboard. like why do you need to go in there and get killed on twitter about, you know -- >> whatever you do. >> what we disagree about something we talked about. >> right. >> because those reactions that you're hearing are extreme and based on inaccurate context. >> but i think more important i, as pablo, the aforementioned pablo said, it's actually now set up -- >> the algorithm. >> the algorithm set up like instagram, to provoke and the more you provoke the more money

you make. so why do you want to go somewhere where people are getting paid to be ugly to you and provoke others to say hateful things about you and they turn a profit on that. >> it just happened to you and me. >> it just happened. eddie, and i had a disagreement on television, the conversation started with the two of us saying i love you but and we disagreed about the election and why people voted for president trump and neither of us left feeling bad. >> took a photo. >> feeling better and smarter. two days later, social media had the two of us like we were in a battle royal war like we should never speak again. so they're creating battles. you guys may have convinced me at the end of this. we had a great conversation that three days later the media made us never speak again. >> what's funny a twitter person with three followers and say stephanie ruhle is the devil and

then they'll go headlines, stephanie ruhle is the devil says experts an and go in and they write that about you and eddie in a media blog and that's rechurned. >> and that ends up in my show conversation on monday of like so what are we going to do, guys? isn't that bananas. that's bananas. >> hold on one second. rev. >> the other danger of that, those of us that have public platforms, you read this, one of the reasons i stopped reading twitter i would read something on the way to a speech or on the way to a rally and get up and the whole speech would be let me straighten you out about this. people in the audience are like what's wrong with him? they didn't attack me. i'm talking to some nut that's somewhere in his basement that -- >> 100% correct. >> you got to stop letting that pollute your mind. >> it's an addiction. senator chris murphy of connecticut issued a memo to his fellow democrats why he thinks

they lost the last election and writes in part like many of you i have spent the past several weeks trying to understand what we got wrong and where we go from here. no one including me has all the answers right now. but what we know for certain is that democrats must reclaim our -- >> hold on a second. eddie, you're not looking at twitter are you. >> oh, my god you were checking your twitter 13 seconds later. >> yes. text message. >> we need to take you to twitter rehab. >> it's really -- i think it's time for that to go. >> come on. >> breathe deep. anyhow. let's keep reading. >> like we need the reaction shot. >> completely true. because it's literally true. >> he's texting guy. >> what we know for certain is democrats must reclaim our identity. >> oh, my god. >> as the party of the working class. a populous message of power

deconcentration is a truly unifying message across income brackets and political ideologies. murphy won re-election outperforming vice president kamala harris by four points. this is where we get to lieutenant governor antonio -- >> mr. lieutenant governor sir. >> how is it going. >> is that good if. >> antonio. >> so we always talk about and we've always talked about democrat susan white, working class voters. this year, that's expanded out. it's not just white working class voters. it's hispanic working class voters, black working class voters. not in massive numbers. but in enough numbers. that the democratic party has a real concern. why does the answer -- do you agree with senator murphy this is how democrats reconnect with working class voters? >> yes, i do agree in my op-ed that came out yesterday where i made a lot of similar points in

terms of what's going on with neo liberalism and sort of defined -- >> can you define neo liberalism? >> no -- no -- no problem. the idea that markets should dictate how the people are provided assistance and services and opportunity almost exclusively. the other side of that is the individual takes center stage in the conversation, self-agency, and there's not a sense of collective community. >> this is sort of like -- the -- and the real attacks on the democratic party becoming neo liberal started with bill clinton and robert rubin, whenever you talk about neo liberalism, this started with robert rubin and bill clinton. >> i want to be clear about the contrast, public goods, public education, health care, clean

water, roads, infrastructure, things the collective need to invest in for the collective good. the neo liberal outlook says maybe we can leverage the private market the private sectors innovation and ingenuity for these purposes. the challenge is when the market and the system we have is driven by the profit motive. what happens when the goal is to maximize profit over time it undermines the collective sensibilities. the market moves, right, with an invisible hand. the blids eye to the reality of the people. people for generations now have been persistently caught in the gap of economic opportunity that this design has created and it's growing. right now, 60% of folks right now in this country are living paycheck to paycheck. 60%. the top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 90%. first time in this country's history where the top 1% own more wealth than the entire middle class.

when you talk about why democrats are losing communities it's because economic inequality is growing at an accelerated rate swallowing up our democracy. that is the threat to democracy. >> let's be clear here and we had our good friend kurt andersen on for a week talking about his book, talking about evil geniuses, and the point that i always made as a conservative as a small government like capitalist, is the capitalism works if capitalism has guard rails. but capitalism hasn't had guardrails for a long time. we republicans when i was a republican, we used to always -- about income redistribution. don't want to take from people -- well, the greatest, check it out, it's true, the greatest income redistribution in the history of mankind, womankind, has been the income

redistribution from the middle-class americans starting in 1993, 1994, to the richest 0.001%. this is a country of billionaires and, yes, let me say very clearly, i am deeply concerned about the authoritarian language, about what i called the fascist language, of this campaign, of donald trump. i will tell you, though, that is here and right here is also and we're seeing it before our very eyes not only the rise of ai, but the rise of billionaires untethered. so we now have a capitalist system that has fewer and fewer guardrails and the richest of the rich are making hundreds of

millions of dollars and the market. >> and we say we're the party supposed to help working people. >> let me just say people at home going you're speaking in generalities, the democrats had a chance when they controlled the ways and means committee to do things on carried interest, to do things on making sure that billionaires made -- had to pay as much in taxes as their clerical workers in the back offices and they refused to do it. >> that's right. >> if the democrats aren't going to do it then who the hell is going to do it! let me say this is not -- this is not a generality, i'm not going to call anybody out here, people can google it. but the chairman of the ways and means committee of the democratic party said no on carried interest, said no on making billionaires pay the same and that is why we are here.

>> and joe -- >> what's that? >> it's the reason and the more insidious part or dimension of this you then dress that neo liberal logic with representational politics. you put in front of it a black face, a woman's body, and you think you're actually tracing the conditions of folks. and then identity politics becomes the issue. when we think about the democratic leadership conference why i find some of the critique of kamala harris's offensive and gaslighted, that we lost the white working class. democrats as you noted have lost working class white folk for a long time. >> hispanics, hispanic working class voters too. >> we are saying at the margins. when we talk about the hard hat riot of 1970 what was that in response to. when we talk about reagan democrats what was that in response to?

when we talk about athe forgotten american what was that in response to? when we talk about the triangulation and democrats making the decision coming out of the democratic leadership council that we need to distance ourselves from the base, distance ourselves from unions, distance ourselves from black folk. and then we get the sister soldier moment with clinton where he specific will you has to put jesse jackson in his place and the like. then you wonder, right, when you begin to look at the farther black folk get from the civil rights movement the less likely they're locked into the democratic party. >> then they come in and want that. i remember '92 when the dlc al gore, bill clinton was running, jesse jackson, rainbow coalition, i was head of the ministers council, i lived through it, same argument, they blame identity politics, but then they were coming with this, as you bring up now, not putting any kind of boundaries on what we're dealing with in terms of big business which is the

lieutenant governor's dealing with. so you deregulate everything, allow things carried interest all of that by democrats, dlc types, and then you blame the identity politics that you didn't work with and then you -- >> rev, you and i, we talk about this, and what we need to talk about is as you and i have said for years, there are -- there are people on the far left specifically white progressives on the far left, that talk about identity politics but don't want to talk about what you hear from the pews that is, i want to be safe when i go to cvs. i want my children to be safe -- no, there are no, buts there. and if you put a but there then -- >> that's right. >> you lose everybody. >> you lose everybody. >> let's be clear, that's -- there's nothing racist about saying that a child should be able to walk to school safely. >> there's nothing racist about that. >> nothing racist about it.

>> >> you're talking about people who use identity politics for people they don't identify with. you have to identify with people that want crime dealt with and at the same time want to see workers' rights put front forward. there's not one or the other. it's both and the same. people that want a job, people that want an open economy don't want to get mugged on the way to work or not -- >> final word. >> i want to be clear about something. the fastest growing class of people in this country are working poor, whether you're black, white, latino. >> exactly. >> i served in upstate new york in congress the eighth most rural congressional seat in the country the vast majority of my district 90% white, 7% -- 7 points trump won by. i know ain't white poor pain, black poor pain, latino poor pain, it's growing. it's accelerating. >> so when you talk about -- >> that is only a factor that is only a factor because we stopped focusing on the issues that are

really affecting every single person in this country in a real significant way and democrats are supposed to be the ones who carry the flag on this. the other side can get away with it. that's not their flag. our flag is labor. our flag is equality. our flag is is is and needs to stay that way otherwise our democracy. >> right. >> is going to continue to be undermined in a meaningful way and we'll become an oligarchy. >> that's what we're doing. ask a question then, that's what we're doing. so if people stopped voting for democrats in this last election because they weren't work for the working poor, what republicans are poised to do right now is demolish this. we are going into -- in -- we're walking right into corny capitalism right now. >> we're there. >> we're walking into a deregulation bonanza. >> we're there. >> the people know we're there. people voted for is we're done

with the established parties, republicans and democrats. people look at trump like he's a republican. he's not. he wears that uniform but he actually gave that party a gift because he allowed them to extend their life and their acceptance among the general public. the people are done -- >> by the way. >> with both of these -- >> that is so important to say. because donald trump is not a republican. >> no. >> he is -- he has sort of filled this independent -- >> become the vessel of people's pain that's misguided to some extent you can argue that any way you want, but the fact is people look at this individual outside of that two-party aspect and they say to themselves, you know what, we don't know what's going on right now, we don't understand why our pain persists, we don't understand why it's getting worse, we know that this individual here is really kind of feeding into that anger, kind of making sense in terms of saying what needs to happen and change, it might not happen but you know what, we've

waited around quite a while and haven't seen anything. >> they're open to the idea of an elon musk -- >> why not -- >> before we go, let me ask you this question, this is -- this -- my political hero is bobby kennedy and one of my -- one of the most moving scenes of any book that i've ever read is at the end of the book, they're talking about bobby kennedy's body going down the tracks from new york down to washington, d.c., and the author paints this beautiful picture white working class voters on one side of the tracks, black working class voters on the other side of the tracks, they were all holding signs, same sort of signs, all waving the same american flag, and the author said as the train went past, the two sides turned around and went home. >> exactly. >> and they have never come back together again. the question is, and you're the

future of the democratic party, you are the new generation of the democratic party, how do democrats bring those people back together to those tracks. white working class voters, black working class voters, hispanic working class voters, asian working class voters muslim working class voters. how do they do it? >> it's not just the issues. issues matter. we've talked about those issues. it's also the love. and the passion and the showing up in our communities and leading from that place that people understand is a human level and rolling up your sleeves and working and understanding what's going on and bringing folks together, together in a real meaningful way. the fact is, it's very easy going back to the discussion about echo chambers and social media, we are ripped away from each other right now, trapped in these cocoons and fed all of these divisive narratives that pull us apart. leadership, leadership pulls people together.

leadership puts a spotlight in all these different dynamics. my old district had 5,000 family owned farms. i didn't grow up working on a farm, but you better believe i learned what it meant to work on a tarry farm. the more i talked to folks who worked on small farms and how big ag is exploiting their realities it sounded an awful lot familiar to the struggles of folks who work in the urban centers of our state and country squeezed out, teamsters by the way, teamsters who go to the bathroom on their trucks because they can't take pee breaks because the monopoly that is says you don't have time to do that. get out there and work. exploitation continues. you connect those farmers with that pain of those teamsters with the people who work in those warehouses who say you know what how do i get by, food on my table every day connect that pain and do something about it and you speak to the heart and say let's do it. you keep staying to it. and you don't bow down to those

who say, that's a little too much. >> reverend all the people said. >> amen. >> amen hallelujah and amen. >> antonio delgado, thank you very much for being a part of this really important conversation and for writing the piece is in "the new york times" right now and stephanie ruhle, as always, thank you so much. >> you're speaking to my heart, my good npz. >> the 11th hour at 11:00 p.m. on msnbc. we have to get to our next guest. this is an important guest because on the same day russia launched what vladimir putin called a new type of missile at ukraine, a spokesperson for russia's foreign ministry also threatened a new anti-u.s. base in northern poland calling it a target for potential destruction. joining us now is poland's foreign minister radek sikorski, he was in the minister of national defense and thank you

so much for coming on. we apologize for the delay. we very much want to hear from you this morning. joe? >> so if you could, let us know how you're reading the latest threat from russia? we spoke with richard haass, someone you know very well, earlier, and he thought it was more vladimir putin posing but how much of a direct threat to you and the people of poland take his latest actions? >> we don't know the details of the missile that was used against ukraine, but it's one of many escalations using drones, north korean mercenaries, waves of rocket attacks against the electricity grid. putin is trying to pulverize ukraine, cause a wave of millions of refugees in winter time. maybe because he thinks he needs to show that he has a strong

hand before any negotiations. but his economy is beginning to disintegrate. some of his troops are beginning to dessert. his cards are not as strong as he wants us to believe. >> radek, we know that people in ukraine have been watching and in poland have been watching what's happening here in the united states. when you look at the moment the people that donald trump has nominated to serve on the foreign policy side of his cabinet, what's your reaction in terms what it means for your country and for neighboring ukraine. >> well, thank you, katty, for the invitation to comment on internal american politics, but, of course, i won't take the bait. we will work with the trump administration, whoever is in charge. poland is actually an icon for donald trump's previous demands. we are spending 4.7% of gdp on defense next year. we are buying tens of billions

of dollars worth of american equipment. and we urge the european pillar of nato and the european union to take defense seriously. so i'm hoping for a good relationship between poland and ukraine and the united states. >> mr. foreign minister, can you explain to americans who are maybe having breakfast this morning getting their children ready for school, how poland has basically become what west germany used to be? you all are on the tip of the sphere. you are america's -- i would say most important ally right now. when you look at defense against russian aggression, can you talk about the importance of that relationship and what -- where we need to move to together as two countries over the next several years? >> joe, you showed that missile defense base that we just opened in poland, i signed the

agreement with condi rice in 2008 and it would be capable of taking down the kind of missile that the russians launched at ukraine. we also have about 10,000 u.s. troops in poland, including at the logistical hub for ukraine through which over 90% of the equipment reaches ukraine. >> and so -- and final question, as we look at the conflict against ukraine, the war against ukraine, the invasion into ukraine, can you tell me about the polish people. early on the polish people welcomed ukrainians with open arms. >> millions. >> it's an extraordinary story that history will rewrite many times. i'm wondering, is there a fatigue in poland? is there a fatigue around

eastern europe at the length of this war? do you believe that a settlement, a negotiated settlement, is in the best interest of the region? >> i'm proud of the people of poland that we took in millions of ukrainian refugees without a single refugee camp. we took them into our homes. and we still are home to about 1.8 million ukrainians. and if needs, we will do it again. the only people who really are entitled to feel not just tired but exhausted by the relentless russian attacks by the war crimes, by the stealing of children, by the deportations are, of course, the brave people of ukraine. and i hope that whatever the decisions in the next u.s. administration takes, we will give them the resources to continue their resistance because i think putin will be readier to settle on fair terms in about a year.

>> all right. polish foreign minister radek sikorski thank you so much for coming on this morning. we really appreciate your insight. we'll speak to you again very soon. >> thank you so much, mr. foreign minister. >> also a powerful documentary is highlighting the brutal realities of life for ukrainians amid their fight for freedom against russia. the porcelain war is a ukrainian language film and features english subtitles and opens in new york city theaters today. the documentary follows the lives of three ukrainian artists who chose to stay in ukraine and fight against the deadly russian invasion in a quest to preserve their homes and culture and amid the chaos and destruction, the trio continues to produce their art in a patriotic show of defiance. here's part of a trailer.

[ speaking in a global language ] >> joining us now co-director, writer and editor of the film brendan bellomo and slava leonyev, a ukrainian special

forces soldier. wow. it's great to have you both here. >> thank you all so much. looks extraordinary. brendan, e had the foreign mince terp of ister of poland o actually written about the long history of russians causing immeasurable pain, horrific pain, stalin to the ukrainian people. talk about this latest chapter in russia's aggression against the ukrainians and just the sheer evil of it. >> well, as slava has shared in the film and talks about this is not only russia looking to take over ukraine, this is a genocidal war, when they first ade they killed artists and attacked universities. the resistance that's occurring

there is not only to defend their nation, to defend their families to but to make sure their culture is not destroyed. culture is at risk because when democracies are attacked, that's what people go after. >> and part of trying to extinguish people to, of course, reduce the footprint of its culture and its culture involves its art. tell us about -- first of all, "the porcelain war" and your role in it and what you're trying to do. >> we're trying to focus it on beauty. on beauty because all war looks same, all destruction looks same, much more important to show what may be destroyed, beauty of our nature, our culture and beauty of our people, my friends, regular sudan people who came to army to defend their homes, their freedom, to defend democracy,

and they feel the responsibility of the face of history. >> wow. >> so this is wonderful juxtaposition in the film, in the scenes that we saw of beautiful scenes of landscape and war, of people making art and the ugliness of violence. what are we seeing in terms of the artistic response to the effort to wipe out ukrainian culture? >> slava and his wife create porcelain figurines they record the story of their lives. by making these, staying behind in ukraine, this is active resistance, an act to say their stories matter. and i wanted to empower slava and anya to tell their story to the world. this is something they felt they weren't seeing in the news. it's about defiance and beauty and hope. this concept that resistance is possible. you can defend your culture by beginning to create art, and we wanted to make sure that was something that they could share. so we actually created an

impromptu film school so they could take their instincts as artists and channel that into cinema and record their own lives. >> slava, what gave you the internal strength, you and your family, to stay there and fight? many of us that were involved in movements are motivated by different things? what motivated you, at great risk, i might add, to stay there and fight? >> we was prepared. in crimea we understood what kind of war will come to us because this, for me and my wife and friends, was a decision we make it before. >> the documentary film "porcelain war" opens in theaters today beginning in new york city followed by a nationwide rollout in the coming weeks. co-directors brendan bellomo and slava leontyev, thank you for coming on the show.

>> thank you so much. >> thank you for what you've done. >> and the reviews are nothing short of extraordinary. thank you for getting this message out. we're going to sneak in a quick 90-second break. still ahead requesting the daily beast's" david on trump loses matt gaetz for his ag. ney manag, but we're different. (other money manager) you can't be that different. (fisher investments) we are. we have a team of specialists not only in investing, but also in financial and estate planning and more. (other money manager) your clients rely on you for all that? (fisher investments) yes. and as a fiduciary, we always put their interests first. (other money manager) but you still sell commission- based products, right? (fisher investments) no. we have a simple management fee structured so we do better when our clients do better. (other money manager) huh, we're more different than i thought! (fisher investments) at fisher investments, we're clearly different.

former florida congressman matt gaetz withdrew today as president-elect trump's nominee for attorney general. this puts a lot of pressure on trump, because now there's not much time to find somebody worse. >> he dropped out on social media posting, while the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the trump/vance transition. that is true. all of this attention on this sex criminal was unfairly distracting from the critical work of all the other sex criminals who have been nominated. >> this was a shocking announcement from the trump team. and as you can see, no one was more surprised than matt gaetz. >> late night show reactions. willie, the -- i know we're going to get to the headlines -- but i think you know as a football fan what i really want to be talking about right now. but here is "the new york times." gaetz withdraws. "the wall street journal," gaetz

is out, bondi is picked at doj. >> interesting. >> and "the new york post" still the official newspaper of record for "morning joe," shut the gaetz. we've been saying that for a year. >> i think they like the picture. >> oh, okay. shut the gaetz. growing up for five years in upstate new york, our dream is going out, running out just like you in new jersey, and when it started snowing, we would get the nerf football, which, by the way, had the consistency of a rock after about three minutes outside in the freezing weather, and we would dream of being like the browns and -- literally the browns and the steelers or the vikings and whatever. in the snow, man, and last night what a dream for the -- it was unbelievable. >> whenever you have to plow the yard lines, joe, you know you're

in for a good game so the players can see them. a game last night, a thursday nighter in cleveland in the snow, browns/steelers, cleveland/pittsburgh. all that was missing was john's voice on nfl films. jameis winston diving into the end zone here. it was a mismatch on paper, the steelers came in 8-2. the browns 2-8. it was in cleveland in the snow. what a catch there. and the browns get the job done. nick chubb scored a late touchdown. the steelers couldn't score on their final drive. the browns get the win at home in the snow. that is just a thing of beauty, joe. >> i mean, you'll remember the whole black and blue division in the nfc -- was that the nfc central? no. yeah, yeah, i think nfc central. and then the afc central. now they have like 87 divisions so i guess this is the afc north. these are like the classic games. really the story here, also, the

steelers, you know, will end up in the playoffs. they're such an incredibly balanced team. but jameis winston, man, he came in and did what deshaun watson, with all his money and all the baggage, could not do. nick chubb, so good to see him running again. >> yeah. jameis winston has been bouncing around the league, just a hugely talented player. had some good early years in tampa, but has become an nfl journeyman. and now maybe, maybe, finding a new home in cleveland. he looked good last night as the browns, of course the dog pound, the stands, the stadium filled. exactly what those fans like. >> mika, do you know how they celebrated the victory? >> that looks cold. >> i promise they went out and made snow angels. >> come on. >> even some of the announcers went out. >> we need a reason to smile. along with joe, willie and me,

we have the president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton, managing editor at the bulwark, sam stein doing "way too early" for us, president emeritus on the council on for relations, richard haass, and former congressional candidate and new york's first district, our friend john avlon joins us this morning. good to have you. >> sam, wasn't there a patriots game where a snowplow was strategically used, employed at the end before they kicked a field goal to win? >> yes, i think so. was it a real snowplow or a baby snowplow and they had to get the little marker? and the famous vinatieri field goal after -- why am i blanking -- the tuck rule game. >> exactly. >> thank you so much. our sports correspondent, sam stein. >> we have news to get to. >> that is news.

>> here is news for you. donald trump has announced a new attorney general pick. the name is pam bondi. bondi served as the state's attorney general in florida from 2011 to 2019. before that she spent more than 18 years as a prosecutor. currently a partner at a lobbying firm. bondi has long ties with the president-elect. back in 2016 on the eve of the republican primary in florida, bondi endorsed trump, picking him over the candidate from her own state, senator marco rubio. 59-year-old later joined trump's legal team, defending the then president, in his first impeachment trial. when his first attorney general, jeff sessions, was ousted in 2018, bondi's name was floated then as a possible replacement. in a statement announcing his new ag pick, president-elect trump called bondi an america first fighter saying she was, quote, refocus the doj to its

intended purpose of fighting crime and making america safe again. >> pam bond ibondi's name came because matt gaetz withdrew his name for attorney general. gaetz wrote on social media, it is clear that my confirmation waunfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the trump/vance transition. gaetz, of course, embroiled in his own scandals, facing allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. the former congressman denies those claims. sources tell nbc news at least five senate republicans were planning to vote against gaetz and had communicated to other senators and those close to trump they are unlikely to be swayed on gaetz, at least 20 senators were uncomfortable with having to vote for gaetz for attorney general. the former congressman could only afford, of course, to lose the support of three republicans to be confirmed, assuming no democrats would have voted for him. so what happened here?

joining us now congressional reporter for "the hill" mychael schnell, justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian as well. good morning to you both. mychael, let me start with you and how this fell apart so quickly. we had heard privately and then publicly from some senators in the last 24 hours or so that they just couldn't get to yes on matt gaetz, that this was the one, perhaps, nominee they were willing to take down. so how did this happen in the end, and why did he walk away? >> willie, we know that former congressman matt gaetz was on capitol hill two days ago, the day before he dropped out -- he withdrew his name from consideration, and he had these meetings with senators. and senators seemed to be keeping an open mind, saying that the president-elect deserves to pick who he wants in these positions and let them have their say and defend their nomination, but we were also hearing from those same senators that they wanted to see the ethics report into matt gaetz. they wanted to see the allegations and the information that had been gathered over

roughly three and a half years by the house ethics committee. now the panel had been debating and weighing whether or not to republic lease that report. this week they declined to release the report. the vote to release the report had failed, but i spoke to a source familiar with the situation who told me that members left that meeting with the understanding that the report would be, quote, ready by the time of their next meeting on december 5th, indicating that another vote could potentially happen then and a vote could be successful on releasing this report. so i think that with the skepticism among senators having this real possibility of an ethics report coming out whether it be through a formal vote of a committee, whether it be through a leak from the committee, or right now there are even house democrats pushing to have a floor vote on forcing this ethics committee to release its report into matt gaetz. there seemed to be this concern at the end of the day he wasn't going to be able to wrangle enough votes that his confirmation hearing would be a spectacle on the senate side.

some senators saying it would be kavanaugh on steroids, of course, referring to that hearing for brett kavanaugh that grabbed a lot of headlines. it's clear the trump campaign -- rather, the trump transition team and former congressman matt gaetz decided it wouldn't be worth putting him through the next few weeks having these incessant headlines. instead having him step aside and put somebody else up for the job. >> what happens to matt gaetz? does he go back to his congressional seat? was he promised something by president trump? we'll see in time. ken, let's look at the new choice, pam bondi, attorney general in the state of florida, the first female attorney general in that state, a defender of donald trump during impeachment both as an attorney and on television. what else do we know about her and how justice is feeling about this choice? >> well, one reaction i got from

inside the justice department last night was this is matt gaetz with a better legal resume. the legal resume is significant, willie, and guys, because pam bondi was a career prosecutor down there in hillsborough county for many, many years before she was elected florida's first female attorney general. so she's prosecuted many cases, murders, death penalty cases. she understands how that works. matt gaetz had never really been much of a lawyer before he was elected to the florida legislature. so that's a big difference. and at the same time, though, she is an extreme maga activist and has tainted her legal career with very strong stands in favor of some questionable things. there was a famous incident back around ten years ago when, if you remember trump university, that for-profit university that donald trump ran, was getting a lot of consumer complaints about being a scam, and her office was

asked to join a multistate lawsuit. and donald trump's foundation contributed $25,000 to her campaign and she opted not to join the lawsuit. and his foundation was later fined for making an illegal contribution. look, she served her tenure, eight years as florida attorney general. she later went on to be one of donald trump's impeachment defense lawyers in the ukraine impeachment in 2020. made a speech on the house floor during the trial arguing that there was a biden corruption scandal in ukraine, and that's why that phone call was okay. and she's also raised questions about fraud in the 2020 election, which people think were baseless. so it's a bit of a mixed bag. people are breathing a sigh of relief at the justice department at least she's a real lawyer and her deputy, todd blanche, donald trump's defense attorney, does have a lot of experience at the justice department and is also well regarded over there.

net, people are thinking this is ach in better situation than matt gaetz, but she is a donald trump loyalist who has raised questions about weaponization at the justice department and may really cause some trouble over there from the perspective of some of the career folks, guys. >> nbc's dilanian, thanks so much. rev, the headline, obviously yesterday we had been saying on the show it's like the old idas commercials when the ethics report and the bad info came out on matt gaetz, you can pay us now or pay us later. the later it is, the closer it is to, you know, the more that it's actually in the middle of the new presidency, and i think that's the last thing they obviously -- they didn't want to see this scandal in the senate probably in january and february. >> absolutely. i think it was the wise thing for the trump people and for

president-elect trump to withdraw him now because a long-term spectacle of days and weeks would only damage them even more. take your losses short, let him walk away, because he was never qualified. and he could not give any reasonable argument as to why he would be attorney general. i talked to people that i know in florida last night on the civil rights side. we have a chapter at the national action network. bondi is on the right, but she is one who is qualified to become attorney general in terms of handling cases, has managed offices and, yes, we can raise questions about what she did with trump university, but there's no glaring things in terms of her values and morals. you're talking about gaetz with underaged sex, money that has been documented that was sent around, and to put him in charge of the justice department made a mockery of the system. so i think it was better for

trump, not that i'm a trump person at all, but it was better for him and certainly better for the american public to get gaetz off the scene. >> and then there's dod. republican senators on capitol hill offering mixed reactions to pete hegseth's police report that revealed new and graphic details about a sexual assault allegation against the former fox news host back in 2017. some defended donald trump's pick for defense secretary while others voiced concern. >> pete is going to be a shining star, inspiring young men and women not only to stay in the military. pete shared with me texts and messages that he's received with his friends who are thinking of retiring who are now happy that he's there are inspired to stay. young men and women who are thinking about serving will be inspired to join. >> it's a disgrace those allegations are nothing but what you said, allegations that are he said/she said. this is a case that has been

dismissed, dredging up something to try to smear, discredit a candidate. it remind me of what happened to brett kavanaugh. it's a disgrace. >> it's a pretty big problem given we have a sexual assault problem in our military. this is why you have background checks, why you have hearings, why you go through the scrutiny. i will not prejudge him, but, yeah, it's a pretty concerning accusation. >> okay, so we're going to note the police did not give a reason but they did not charge hegseth, and he denies any wrongdoing. mychael, back to your reporting on this one, i think the issue at hand would be perhaps that pete hegseth did not raise this so that transition team members and others were caught off guard. that's, i think, a hard issue because perhaps raising that this police report exists and this situation happened might have given them a heads-up. i think what happens now, and

you let me know what you're hearing in terms of reaction, is, okay, what else is there? what else haven't you warned us about? >> yeah, mika, it's that question of what else is here, because when you have these nominees and decisions to make, you have a conversation with the individual and say, okay, what skeletons in the closet do i have to know about? what do we have to be prepared to potentially respond to? but going ahead now, you mentioned there are questions of are there any other details that can drop out from this story? also, with matt gaetz now out of the question and him withdrawing his name from consideration, a lot of folks, reporters and also lawmakers up on capitol hill, are expecting that scrutiny and that attention is now going to shift to hegseth. in a lot of ways, matt gaetz was taking up the oxygen in the room with his allegations and nomination, and the fact he is a polarizing figure, somebody who, it's no secret in washington, is not beloved by his colleagues. so now with matt gaetz out of the conversation, a lot of folks are expecting the scrutiny to

increase on pete hegseth. i'll say one more thing. there was this big question in the capitol of how many of these senators up on capitol hill who aren't the biggest fans of donald trump, people like lisa murkowski, thom tillis, susan collins and others, how many of the nominees would they actually be willing to tank? how many times would they be willing to vote no? assuming all democrats vote against these controversial figures, it only takes four to kill one of these nominations. now with matt gaetz out of the question, who was very likely on his way to a failed confirmation vote because of all the controversy surrounding him, that scrutiny could shift to hegseth and those -- that key group of senators who are not the president's biggest fans, they can now decide this is where i'm putting my political capital. this is where i'm going to decide to be a maverick of the senate, and this is the nominee who i'm going to tank p.m. matt gaetz coming out of the spotlight, but somebody has to fill that void. it could be pete hegseth.

it could be rfk jr., it could be tulsi hubbard. >> the hill's mychael schnell, thank you for your reporting. democratic senator bob casey of pennsylvania has conceded to republican dave mccormick. we'll go through those results and what this means for the democratic party moving forward. and as we go to break, here's a look at the snowplow game snow was talking about at the top of the show. i didn't believe you. >> okay. thank you. >> 1982 the patriots had a most unusual solution to a snowy problem. in the closing minutes of a scoreless tie, rookie head coach ron mirer called for a masked man. a snowplow driver, mark henderson, responded. a convicted burglar, henderson cleared the path for the decisive field goal that propelled the patriots into the playoffs.

and over time it can help lower your a1c. ♪♪ this is progress. learn more and try for free at freestylelibre.us ♪♪ hi. i'm damian clark. i'm here to help you understand how to get the most from medicare. if you're eligible for medicare, it's a good idea to have original medicare. it gives you coverage for doctor office visits and hospital stays. but if you want even more benefits, you can choose a medicare advantage plan like the ones offered at humana. our plans combine original medicare with extra benefits in a single, convenient plan with $0, or low monthly plan premiums. these plans could even include prescription drug coverage with $0 copays on hundreds of prescriptions. plus, there's a cap on your

out-of-pocket costs. most plans include dental, vision, even hearing coverage. there are $0 copays for in-network preventive services, and much more. get the most from medicare with a humana medicare advantage plan. call today to learn more. remember, annual enrollment for medicare advantage plans ends december 7th. humana. a more human way to health care. incumbent democratic senator bob casey of pennsylvania now officially has conceded his race to republican dave mccormick. in a video posted to social media senator casey said, quote, as the first count of ballot is completed, pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote is the first to be counted or the last. in response to casey's concession, mccormick released a statement that reads in part, senator bob casey dedicated his

career to bettering our commonwealth. dina, mccormick's wife and i, want to extend our sincere gratitude to senator casey, terese and their family for their hard work and sacrifice. with 99.8% of the vote in, mccormick won the race by just over 16,000 votes. the small margin of victory triggered an automatic recount with the results expected out next wednesday. barring any unexpected changes, republicans will hold the majority in the united states senate 53-47 seats. so, joe, we can talk about that balance of power and what it means for the incoming trump administration. but in these times we have to say this is what it looks like to wait out a close race. he lost by only 16,000 votes. automatic recount. he concedes graciously. dave mccormick gives a gracious statement thanking him for his service in a big win for republicans in the state of pennsylvania. but this is how it's supposed to work.

>> okay, this sounds shockingly normal. this is how it used to be, and i will say, and, willie, we talked about it back in -- what year are we in now? was it 2022? you put dave mccormick in. if dave mccormick had won the primary, he could have won against fedderman, who was a strong statewide candidate. dave mccormick winning -- first of all, he is the type of republican candidate that can win a state like pennsylvania, a west point guy, and ran a tough campaign. so give dave mccormick his due, a great republican candidate, but i want to talk about what this means for the democrats, because we had sherrod brown on, and i have to say, i knew a lot of democrats would have trouble this year. i don't think sherrod would in ohio, because he was so connected with working class voters throughout his entire

career and got beat. here is the second shot across the bow for democrats and working class voters. as you know, the casey family legend in pennsylvania. casey would win -- he won by 17 points. white working class voters in pennsylvania loved him, loved his father, stayed with the caseys through thick and thin, and there weren't ever any close races. he has lost now, and let's look at ohio. let's look at pennsylvania and ask what does this mean for the democratic party. we wanted you on to talk about this because everybody i talked to that followed your race said you ran just about pitch perfect race, and yet the headwinds for you, for casey, for brown, just too hard to get past. >> the headwinds were tough this

cycle, i think particularly you can run ahead of the ticket, but a but there's only so much you can do that. in the case of ohio, brown and casey, that's an allegheny region problem, a white working class problem that a lot of folks are having in the democratic party. for me, i think the head winds fundamentally, i kept thinking of one of my favorite quotes from bill clinton. he said, people vote for strong and wrong every time. and i think the democratic party has a strength problem on the issues that matter most, personal safety and economic security. i think those are the fundamentals, and democrats got to get off defense and play offense. they can't be the default party of the status quo. i think that's the most dangerous place to be. and i think right now they are seen that way, and so people will take a chance. if them seem like there are bold solutions on the other side, even if it flies in the face of facts. and here is where i think democrats, particularly in blue states, need to actually have a stronger center left standing up against the far right and the far left.

i think you need to deal with things like the middle class squeeze, one of the biggest drivers of dissatisfaction going on for decades, that the affordability crisis because of inflation kicked into even higher gear, and then make sure you're actually dealing with issues of civic disorder, the border, crime. if you have a well-intentioned bill that has unintended consequences, fix it. but if people feel the civic decline is going on, democrats have to be taking that on and being the leaders of that reform, otherwise they will get caught up in a wave. >> but at the same time, john, i think you're correct. we've got to see the democrats deal with those issues and go after the working class white but also the working class community. >> 100%. >> i think a lot of them played, a lot of democratic candidates' consultants played to the edges, the younger vote, ignored black churches, black fraternities. who are your solid voters who may be more conservative and concerned about immigration, crime, and other things in a

different way. and i think they overengaged some of the things that became trendy but their base was not energized because you could have won enough votes in philly to make this different. >> and that's the profound point that actually -- what happened in philly? what happened in milwaukee? what happened in cleveland? i made a point of going to black churches, because i think that's important. >> it's where the voters are. >> it's also nourishing. you make the right point. people have to get past the identity politics of this and so actually i shouldn't just talk about the white working class. my mother is from youngstown, ohio. i think about that region. it is just making sure folks feel like the american dream is accessible again, making sure the middle class feels if they work hard and play by the rules they can get ahead. right now they don't. being the default party that seems to represent the status quo is unsustainable. >> john, sam stein here. good to see you, bud. >> you, too, buddy. >> john and i worked together in the past.

i was talking with chris murphy yesterday about this exact situation, and one of the things that we were talking about, and i'm curious what your thoughts are on how democrats should maneuver around this, you talked about they are perceived as the defend erps ers of the status q. he agreed that could be an issue. part of the issue here is trump kind of forces that to happen. by that i mean, yes, you defend democracy when you feel it's completely under attack and under assault. you defend immigrants when you feel they're being scapegoated. you defend the pharmaceutical industry when you feel like an anti-vax person is set to host hhs. it's his actions that cause that type of reaction where you end up being the defenders of the status quo. how do you maneuver around that? those things are worth defending even if you have a reformist mind-set? >> i don't think you can let your opponent determine the tune that you dance to, right? you need to play offense and get off defense. and i do think that the contrast

is with the chaos and extremism donald trump represents. the contrast is, look, we're going to be bold and put forward common sense solutions to everyday people, rebuild the middle. the middle of our politics, the middle of our economy. we're going to actually take a note. look at that ballot prop in california. people pushed back on a 2-1 margin on the idea we were criminalizing low level crime because that created a sense of civic disorder. so i think it's actually pushing back against civic decline is also defending democratic norms. it's actually building a big tent but you have to be strong on the stuff people care most about and i think about something hakeem jeffries said but could have said even more and not take it as a mantra, the four fs. democrats need to reclaim the val uls ues of freedom, fairnes which cuts both ways in some ways the democrats don't want to deal with on the border, the flag and faith. reclaiming patriotism. reclaiming the social gospel.

those traditions that can reanimate the democratic party and not just responding to donald trump. that's no way to live. no way to win. >> i want to get specific. so we -- we -- i -- i'll just talk about myself -- i talked a lot over two years about fascist rhetoric, threats of retribution. mika talked a lot about women's reproductive rights, women's reproductive health care, freedom for women to decide what they do with their bodies, and we talked about that a lot. and after the election, 75 million voters or so said, well, okay, we're focused on the price of gas, the price of groceries, whatever. so how do you run a campaign where when you hear rhetoric that you don't want to call it fascist, let's just say authoritarian. whatever you want to call it. >> i've got you. >> however you want to define

that. the definitions don't matter. there were threats of retribution. there was the issue of women's reproductive choices and health rubbing up against, pounding up against, the price of groceries, the price of gasoline. how do you balance that when obviously what voters said was we care more about the price of gas and we care more about the price of groceries. how do you do that? >> at that moment, look, life is a struggle between the urgent and the important. for most people the urgent issues they face are about affordability, and here is where democrats, and about feelings of personal safety. if people don't feel safe, if they don't feel economically secure, everything else is secondary. >> right. >> that's why democrats have to get stronger on the issues that count most. >> how condescending when people say, oh, things are safe and,

oh, the southern border -- something willie and i have been talking about for four years now, don't let people steal $999 worth of clothes from a store. >> exactly right. >> and so, oh, that shouldn't be a felony. >> quality of life policing works on stuff like -- it's got nothing to do with stop and frisk, frankly. it's about saying, look, if you let a broken window not get fixed, it encourages more broken windows. when you decriminalize low level crime, you get more of it. people push back and elect extremes. there's a responsibility for the center left and particularly in blue states to stand up, get strong, push back against the liberalism on the left and the right and make sure we're not falling into that trap, because if people don't feel safe and they don't feel economically secure, everything else is secondary. coming up, the politics of high prices. our next guest is looking into the president-elect's plans for the economy and the real cost of doing business under donald trump. that conversation is just ahead on "morning joe."

at bombas we make the most comfortable sock in the history of feet so comfortable you'll wish you had more vist bombas.com and get 20% off your first order when i was younger my calling was to play football. but as i grew older i realized life isn't about how many people you can knock down. it's about how many people you can lift up. at ram, our calling is to build game-changing trucks. so when you find your calling... nothing can stop you from answering it. right now, during the ram black friday sales event, get $5,000 total cash allowance on the purchase of most 2025 ram 1500 trucks. hurry to your local ram dealer today. if you have generalized myasthenia gravis, picture what life could look like with vyvgart hytrulo, a subcutaneous injection that takes about 30 to 90 seconds.

for one thing, could it mean more time for you? vyvgart hytrulo can improve daily abilities and reduce muscle weakness with a treatment plan that's personalized to you. do not use vyvgart hytrulo if you have a serious allergy to any of its ingredients. it can cause serious allergic reactions like trouble breathing and decrease in blood pressure leading to fainting, and allergic reactions such as rashes, swelling under the skin, shortness of breath, and hives. the most common side effects are respiratory and urinary tract infections, headache, and injection site reactions. it may increase the risk of infusion-related reactions and infection. tell your doctor if you have a history of infections or symptoms of an infection. talk to your neurologist about vyvgart hytrulo for gmg and picture your life in motion. on chewy, save up to 40% on holiday gifts for your pet. like their favorite treats, toys and food. the best presents. at the best prices.

for the best pets. for low prices for holidays with pets, there's chewy. regina king is in our studio looking radiant as ever. don't cover up your glow. ♪♪ flawless. all eyes on you. skin esteem is a beautiful thing. ♪♪ ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ woah, limu! we're in a parade. everyone customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. customize and sa— (balloon doug pops & deflates) and then i wake up. and you have this dream every night? yeah, every night! hmm... i see. (limu squawks)

only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ make this christmas the year you go all-in on joy. at balsam hill, celebrate with one of our beautifullly crafted, life-like trees. for a limited time during our black friday sale, save up to 50% off plus free shipping. and start making memories at balsamhill.com

earlier this week joe and i told you that we went to mar-a-lago to meet personally with president-elect donald trump to reopen lines of communication. we heard from many of you wanting to let us know that it was the right thing to do, our jobs, we also faced a lot of criticism about the meeting largely from folks online. i want to explain our thought process a bit more. so this week i went on "the daily beast" podcast with joanna coles and samantha to talk more about that meeting. here is part of the interview which is also this week's "morning mika." the way i look at it people are really scared. it's one of the reasons we ent in there. people are scared about donald trump's comments, that little

adversaries, a lot of people are scared because of what has happened with abortion. these are all issues that are important to me and in some ways personal to me, but definitely personal to the people i really care about. and i don't regret anything i've said during the campaign and i stand by it, but i'm also looking at how to do things differently, and i would never turn down an opportunity to gain insight or information. never. so can you listen to the whole interview on the daily beast podcast. it's also available on "morning mika" via youtube and peacock. it's a long, in-depth conversation, really exploring all the contours of this because a lot of people have really strong opinions, and that's fair, too. >> do they? >> "morning joe" will be right back. (luke) homes-dot-com is a new, elevated home-shopping experience.

it's the only site that always connects you to the listing agent. feels like a work of art! (marci) what about the app? (luke) uh-oh! (marci) wow! went all in on gold. (vo) ding dong! homes-dot-com. we've done your home work. ♪ ♪ ♪ something has changed within me ♪ ♪ it's time to try defying gravity ♪ ♪ ♪

coming up, has donald trump already lost his grip on total power? david rothkopf explains how the matt gaetz debacle sends a clear

message to the president-elect. "morning joe" is back in a moment. 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 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, annual enrollment ends on december 7th. humana. a more human way to healthcare.

career. ♪♪ now are you sick at all of the

color green? >> no. green happens to be my favorite color. i was like, this is just an excuse for me to keep buying more green. >> for cynthia erivo, green is the color of the season. >> i love your shoes. >> thank you. >> they're fabulous. >> thank you so much. >> she has been dazzling in emerald on red carpets and now on the big screen. >> are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? >> in director john chu's musical "wicked" erevo farce as elphaba the wicked witch of the west. >> you're green. >> i am. >> in a tale about what happened in oz before dorothy arrived. do you remember the first time you saw yourself in the mirror? >> yeah. >> and what that felt like? >> it's surreal because it made

it very, very real, and it was all of a sudden, oh, she's in the room, this woman we've been thinking of and imagining now exists. >> the british born erivo has been dreaming about the role originated since her days at the royal academy of dramatic art. ♪ as we work hand-in-hand the wizard and i ♪ >> what was your relationship with the broadway show and the material? >> by the time i was 25 i decided to take myself on a solo date to "wicked" in london and fell in love with the story and with these characters and elphaba because of how different she was and how outside she felt. i just wish i could -- >> what?

you wish what? >> we knew the film was being made. i asked no one to tell me. i really wanted to be a participate of part of it but i didn't want to be hurt by not being asked to come in so i just waited. and when it finally came my way i was rearing to go. >> the director walked out of the room and he said we found elphaba. >> it blows me away to hear that. i knew i had given everything i could. you never receive until you know. >> are you able to block out of your mind the expectations people may have about it? >> you have to. everyone happens an idea of who she is and what this role means to them. all i can really do is tell the truth of the story in front of me and hope that people connect with that version while still being very conscious of what has been and what's come before. >> so you've done your time on

broadway. >> i have indeed. >> good to be back in the community? >> it is. it always feels a bit like home. >> rivo is no stranger to these streets. she starred in the revival of "the color purple" before making her name in hollywood with performances that include an oscar nominated lead role as harriet tubman. >> god has shown me the future and my people are free. my people are free. >> back home in london erivo's proud mom is downright giddy about "wicked." >> she can't wait. she asked, when is the premiere? when can i come? what should i wear? i need to get my outfit together. it just so happens she managed to pick pink and green materials to wear. >> amazing. >> so sweet. >> pink goes good with green. >> goes well with green. >> it so does. >> pink is for glinda, the good witch, played by grammy winning

pop star ariana grande. >> the first time we meet she comes to my house, we just talk. we were on my floor just chatting. the second time we get together is at jon's house. he has a dinner. and then dinner finishes and we all gather around the piano, and that's the first time we sing. and that, for us, is a really big moment because we can really do this together not just as actresses but as singers, too. ♪♪ >> this truly was a collaborative effort with you two. >> it couldn't have been any other way. i think both of us also knew we wanted more than just this working relationship. we wanted to build friendship outside of it, which is what we have now. >> i love the idea, and i don't know how common this is on other projects you've done, texting each other at the end of a long day, you were great today. >> sometimes it would just be, i love you. we function like that every day now. we really like building and cultivating a real relationship

outside of work. but because of that our work, i think, was fortified because of it. >> i think it's time, cynthia, for you to see. >> okay. so insane. >> how cool is that? what do you think when you see that? >> it's just a huge, huge moment. >> there's another one here as well. where we get both of you. >> like walking through here seeing all of these billboards and movies, you don't know it can ever be you and then it is. thank you. >> there are so many iconic songs, of course, "define gravity" perhaps the most famous among them. ♪ when you and i defying gravity ♪ >> to say i'm defying gravity while defying gravity is just one of the most meaningful things to me in this moment

particularly because it feels like to be in this place now feels a little bit like defying the odds. >> as an actor you're so mplished, but does this feel to you like a leap? >> yeah. it feels like a big leap for me, a big moment for me, and i'm really proud of it. this has been a ride. ♪♪ >> "wicked" from universal pictures premieres in theaters nationwide today. still ahead on "morning joe," our next guest won a tight race for one of new york's congressional battlegrounds. democratic congressman tom suozzi joins the table in the fourth hour of "morning joe."

i was out on a delivery, when i came across a snake... a rattler. fedex presents tall tales of true deliveries there we were, driver versus reptile. our battle was legendary. (♪♪) wait a second. you don't own a pet snake, do you? phew maybe now my friends will believe me. if this is what we did for one delivery, see what we can do for your business. fedex. what are folks 60 and older learning these days? new perspectives! ♪♪ how to fix things. ♪♪ fun recip... (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound)

(high pitched sound) regina king is in our studio looking radiant as ever. don't cover up your glow. ♪♪ flawless. all eyes on you. skin esteem is a beautiful thing. ♪♪ when a tough cough finds you on the go, a syrup would be... silly! woo! hey! try new robitussin soft chews. packed with the power of robitussin... in every bite. easy to take cough relief, anywhere. chew on relief, chew on a ♪ robitussin ♪

holy [ bleep ]. i didn't see that coming. i mean, like, yes, he was the ultimate troll, and people have

the opportunity, they can freak out over things and respond. and if you want to do that, you don't have to -- you better pace yourself, though, because it is not even thanksgiving. and we don't have to react and take unserious things so seriously that the world is going to spin off its axis the way it is right now. >> democratic senator john fetterman in pennsylvania, reacting to matt gaetz withdrawing his name from consideration to become attorney general. president-elect donald trump has chosen his new attorney general, nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander has the very latest. >> reporter: this morning, president-elect trump quickly turning the page on his first failed cabinet pick, former congressman matt gaetz, selecting former florida attorney general pam bondi. bondi, an experienced prosecutor, was twice elected as florida's ag, trump particularly praising her work combatting the opioid crisis. bondi helped amplify trump's false claims about the 2020 election. >> we have won pennsylvania and they're not going to take it

away from us. >> reporter: nbc news learned at least five senate republicans were hard no votes on gaetz's nomination. many demanding the release of an ethics committee report, including allegations he paid women for sex. and that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl at a party in 2017. according to a source familiar with the matter, there was a second alleged sexual encounter with the same 17-year-old and another woman. gaetz has denied the accusations and no charges were filed against him after the justice department investigated similar allegations. also this morning, new questions about trump's pick to lead the pentagon, pete hegseth. monterrey, california, police releasing a report detailing a woman's allegations she was sexually assaulted by the former combat veteran turned fox news host. according to the report, the woman said she met hegseth at a hotel, and at one point blacking out, alleging he took her phone and blocked her attempt to leave the hotel room. and that she remembered saying no a lot. >> the matter was fully

investigated and i was completely cleared and that's where i'll leave it. >> reporter: the report does not exonerate hegseth, but instead gives conflicting accounts of the incident from hegseth and his accuser. authorities have not said why he was not charged. hegseth later paid the accuser as part of a confidential civil agreement. hegseth has earned more support than gaetz among republicans. >> i believe he's going to be just fine. >> reporter: new headlines on trump's pick to lead health and human services. rfk jr. after cnn published audio from kennedy's radio show in 2016 where he praised a guest's writing on trump's supporters. >> you write about trump, the way you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to let a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much smaller group of opportunists. >> and we have john heilemann and special correspondent "vanity fair" and host of "fast

politics podcast," molly jong-fast, and co-founder and ceo of all in together, lauren leader, and david rothkopf and congressman tom suozzi of new york. this is the morning of a thousand stars here. tom, i'm fascinated by the congressman -- fascinated by the democratic party what happened this election, but i got to hold for one second, because we have david rothkopf who has written a column that is appropriate to the peter alexander piece. and, of course, david, you're welcome to also talk about where you think democrats need to go moving forward. but, first, let's start with your piece, where you talked about the nomination of gaetz ending was actually, well, perhaps some guardrails being put up in the second term. what do you say? >> well, i think the important

thing now is that we sort of move away from our free-floating nightmare of what donald trump might be, and start dealing with the reality of donald trump, where it is sometimes concerning and it is sometimes dangerous. and that requires focus. it also requires understanding what the constraints are on the ground. we worried trump would have no guardrails, but in the past few weeks we have seen and since the election that his margin of victory was pretty small, that the margin by which the republicans control the house is smaller than it was, that the margin of republicans controlling the senate is just three or four votes, and so a few people going the other way can change the way things turned out. and that's what we have seen in the gaetz case, and before that we saw trump's pick to lead the senate, rick scott, be defeated by john thune. we have seen mitch mcconnell

say, nope, we're not going to do recess appointments, you're going to have to go through the senate. and we have seen some real pressure on his other candidates and it is by no means a certain thing that hegseth or tulsi gabbard or rfk jr. are actually going to sail through this and trump's not going to get to be the i can do whatever i want president that he wanted to be. and there are other finally checks and balances out there. you talked about them earlier in the show. things like markets, and businesses. and some of the plans that trump has are things that they are not going to react well to, and that's going to put pressure on him, and we already have seen that too, with this treasury secretary pick. he hasn't been able -- howard lutnick wanted that job, he's over at commerce now and trying to get somebody who is going to be acceptable to wall street, not because he's feeling charitable to wall street, but because he knows he needs the

support. >> right. we have talked about bill clinton this morning already and robert rubin, there is that famous part in the woodward book about the first couple of years of -- or the first year, actually, of bill clinton's presidency where at some point he wants to expand programs, expand spending, greenspan comes in and says, no, you can't, the bond markets are going to go crazy, it is going to tank your presidency, and bill clinton, like, yells, wait, are you telling me that my presidency is going to be held hostage to the markets? and rubin goes, yeah, or greenspan goes, yeah, that's exactly what i'm telling you. and, by the way, he raised taxes, then republicans came in and cut spending, and we had four years of balanced budget. so, you're right, some of the outward pressures actually sometimes end up doing great things for america, but, david, i want to follow up on something and i would love for everybody here to talk, we're not going to

have commercials this entire hour, sorry, comcast overlords. but i think this is the most -- one of the most important questions that democrats face right now in a second donald trump term. and it is not about ideology. we'll always have the debates on ideology and my position is, yes, i think the democratic party should move to the center, that shouldn't surprise anybody, i'm a conservative. but we'll have those ideological debates. and at the end, it is not so much about ideology as it is connecting with voters. but you said something that i heard -- i was going to say mayor pete, secretary pete buttigieg say yesterday that we just played a clip of john fetterman saying earlier that mika said on monday, which is, we can't set our hair on fire every time. if everything is a five alarm fire, nothing is a five alarm fire. we have to learn from our first

eight years of donald trump. so, easier said than done. but i love what you said about, you know, the things we have to balance. could you go a little deeper on that? i would love to hear from the table. >> yeah. look, i think if we take the threats that trump poses seriously, then we need to keep a cool head, focus on them, understand what our leverage is, understand who our allies are, you know. if trump wants to go and deport 10 million people and that causes chaos in the streets, it is also going to cause problems for small businesses. so, they may be the allies. and it will cause problems for big businesses. they may be the allies. it is going to cause problems in specific republican-controlled districts. those people may be the allies. the markets may be the allies. we have to understand that and come up with a strategy for each of the things that we think is a problem. but, you know something, just to wrap up, you know, i was

listening to your show as i was driving in here to the studio, and your discussion earlier about inequality, growing inequality, cuts right to the core of it. democrats have an opportunity. they need to listen to trump and set the narrative by explaining to people who are in the working class and in the middle class that every single day from now on trump's doing something to hurt them. and we need to explain it in a way that resonates with them and where we're in a real dialogue, understanding what is most important to them. but the biggest ally democrats have right now is that trump's agenda is antibusiness, antigrowth, antiworker, pro inflation against all the things they thought they were electing. so let's communicate that. let's take back the narrative. >> all right. the daily beast david rothkopf, thank you so much.

his latest piece available to read online right now. congressman, the same question to you. how do we move forward as a country? how do democrats move forward in what is a 50/50 nation right now, but in a nation where democrats have gotten more disconnected from working class americans across the board. >> i think what you said, what david said is right. we need to calm down, take a deep breath. it is not even thanksgiving. as fetterman said in your piece before, trump does not take office until january 20th. we need to calm down and think coolly about what's going on and democrats need to stop saying how could you vote for donald trump and start asking, why did you vote for donald trump, and figure out what it is that we missed that we lost the presidency, we lost the senate, we lost the house. we got to take a deep breath. we have to listen to the people. you talked about bill clinton earlier. i love bill clinton. >> he listened. he listened. >> he talked to people, regular people.

i remember when trump first got elected, i took office when trump first took office and it was a big post mortem, what happened, 50 people in the room and a union guy said the democrats used to show up at the bars and the church picnics. we don't see them anymore. we don't talk to the people. we got to talk to the people and listen to the people. what are the people saying? in in my district, trump won by 19,000 votes, i reversed that and won by 10,000 votes. they're talking about the border. they want us to secure the border. my father is a first generation american, my father was born in italy. i'm very supportive of immigration. but the people want us to secure the border. people are concerned about public safety, especially here in new york state. we have to listen to what the voters are saying and as david said, when talking about the middle class, let's remember, the minimum wage in 22 states in america is $7.25 an hour. if you make $10 an hour and work 40 hours a week and 50 weeks a year with two weeks vacation,

you're making 20 grand a year. $15 an hour, 30 grand a year. you're going to buy a house, educate your kids, pay for health insurance, retire without being scared? whether you're a left wing progressive or right wing conservative, everybody in america should believe that in return for working hard, i make must have money so i have a decent life. >> you make a living wage. left wing democrat or right wing republican, that reminded me, we had somebody on the show earlier this week going after aoc, we can't be the party of aoc. wait a second, aoc saying what you're saying. she's asking people in her district, okay, i would love to know, and it is not accusatory, why did you vote for donald trump and vote for me? because that doesn't make sense in the political sphere. and that's the question. so, why don't you answer that question? why did people vote for donald trump and vote for you? >> it is different for different people, okay. if you're a building trade union

guy, you're a carpenter, electrician, steam fitter, you're economically doing okay in my district. you're doing well. it is not the economy per se. but you don't like the culture wars. you don't like the identity politics. you don't like not supporting law enforcement, you don't like the border not being secure. if you're a person who is not doing well economically, you're concerned about the same cultural identity politics stuff, but you're also concerned about the fact that i can't get by and my family, and i can't afford groceries. it is not a one size fits all. we need to listen to the people and respond to the people. my voters are not on social media. they're on social security. >> exactly. i want to borrow that line. hold on one second. >> that's a good one. >> have you trademarked that one? >> no. >> you know it is so fascinate what you say about different voters and especially working

class voters, caring about the social issues that democrats don't think they care about, because -- and, again, it depends who it is. because for so many people, we were talking about democracy, we were talking about authoritarian -- let me just say me. that's what i was talking about. that's what concerned me. what concerned mika was reproductive rights. and we talked about that a lot for millions of americans it was the price of gas and the price of groceries and public safety. public safety. and if you can't walk into a cvs store without the toothpaste being under lock and key, that may be a leading indicator these crime stats that i talk about, that everybody talks about, going down, it is not really hitting the voters where they live. >> when i ran for my special election in february, i took the seat that george santos was -- >> congratulations. >> we all thank you. >> so, i wanted to talk about

the border, because that's what people were telling me. the border, the border, the border. every expert i talked to, every consultant, they said don't talk about that, that is a republican issue. i said that's not a republican issue, that's an american issue, that's what the people are talking about. i'm working on bipartisan solutions to secure the border, treat people like human beings to address the problems we had for such a long time. i'm building a coalition of businesses, badges and the bible, trying to get people to work together on a coalition as david was saying, where can we find the unlikely allys? people don't want to see chaos related to mass deportations. businesses don't want it, law enforcement doesn't want it. >> so, lauren, sao let's take an issue that is very important to you, very important to mika, very important to millions and millions of americans. and that's reproductive rights. which actually comes down to supreme court justices for the most part. i think it is good for not just

democrats, everybody to understand that a lot of times people don't vote on that issue, so you take care of the issues that you hear about when you knock on doors, whether it is public safety, whether it is inflation or whatever, you get to influence these issues that matter the most to you, but not before you do what you hear about when you knock on doors. that's not to say there aren't so many people that care about reproductive rights. i'm saying, though, as we always say here, two things can be true at one time. >> right, and they were two things were true in this election, right? you had all these ballot initiatives that won in places where trump also won. that's the reality of this election. there was a lot of zigzagging around the ballots for people in ways that i think we, none of us really anticipated. look at arizona, any of these places. so where people have those opportunities to kind of do both, right, to vote to secure their freedoms, they did, they chose to do that, it was clearly very animating for a lot of women. but for, you know, then there is

the 1.5% marriage than trump gi by. and she did talk about the border and hempstead, like an issue important to her constituents. i wanted to just take issue with one thing from before. it matters. i wanted to come back to t it. he said we need to explain more to voters about -- no, this is the problem, we keep trying to explain to voters and tell them why they're wrong about things. they didn't understand the economy was better than it is. that's not a thing you can explain. you either feel it or you don't. so, i think this is part of it. like, we do need -- we need to diversify in a serious way our political consultant class outside of, you know, all my friends from the cities. we do need people from around the country. and last thing, my friend adam fresh was saying to me

yesterday, campaigning in colorado, the dignity, dignity, which is i think really what you're talking about in terms of wages and, you know, the quality of life. people want to be treated with dignity. that is, like, a baseline that we have to figure out how to do better. >> 60% of americans do not graduate from college. >> exactly. >> people that don't graduate from college can have great lives and great jobs and we need to be supporting them and treating them with dignity and respect and the worth that they have. in america, all men and women are created equal. that's what we aspire to all the time. >> you talk about instead of explaining to voters, having voters explain to you. when i ran my campaign, i knocked on 10,000 doors. i would tell you, after knocking on 6, 7, 8 doors, you know this, i didn't -- i never took a poll. i never spent a dime on polls and they kept saying you need to know what your -- i said i know what they think. i'm knock on doors. they're telling me what they think and when i hear the same

thing over and over and over again, like, i don't have to explain to them what's important, they have explained to me what's important. and the second thing is, one of the best bits of campaign advice i ever got, i got from a guy who said, listen, here's the deal. go into a room, don't talk to people, sit there and listen and keep listening. and if you are really smart, take out a note pad and start writing down what they say, and when they walk away from you, they will say, that is such a smart articulate young man. it is listening. >> yeah. one of the questions for democrats is, like, what to listen to. because if you think about the experience that we just went through, the last time there was a competitive democratic presidential primary was the 2020 primary. i think that now looking back on it, whether you're someone who worked for kamala harris or someone who worked for the democratic party you would say

fairly that in that moment, in 2019, that the online discussion, what was happening on twitter and other social media platforms was the loudest voices in the democratic party and they were far to the left of where the center of the democratic party is. >> we said that in real time in 2019, you and i on this show, we said they're listening to twitter. and they're getting disconnected from where even the voters in the democratic party are. >> and it was notable in that cycle that in the end the person who won the democratic primary was joe biden, the one person who wasn't listening to that, his campaign was not connected to that the at all. and you go to south carolina, even after his collapse in iowa and new hampshire, he never really -- except for one poll dropped below bernie sanders in south carolina because black voters in south carolina were, like, we need to beat donald trump and we're focused on who is the most likely person to win

against this guy. and they looked at joe biden and thought that was him. this is the question i'm asking, though, as we go forward, this is not to get into some stupid fight on that platform or any other platform, it is the case that it is unrepresentative, the conversation there, just as it is way more toxic and right wing on those platforms that doesn't represent where the mainstream of the republican party, it is also left of where the democratic party is if you go out and talk to not just the party in general, but primary voters are further to the right than the twitter conversation. so who do the democrats listen to now? they didn't have anybody to listen to in 2024 because biden was presumed to be the nominee. and there isn't the infrastructure that got built up ahead of obama and clinton, the infrastructure particularly that got headed up when clinton came in, where should we -- how do we change the party, we lost three consecutive presidential elections, that doesn't exist anymore. dnc is weaker than it has ever

been. those institutional framework is not -- doesn't exist, and the main place where you hear democratsspeaking en masse is how do you figure out who to listen to and channel this discussion productively because everybody in the party has an opinion about what we need to do to fix the party but that conversation can turn into rebel and chaos in is not a way to channel it. >> i'm curious if you can speak to -- there are not many democrats elected at this point. democrats failed to take back the house. there are not that many people in power. we are in a real crisis moment in american life, right? self-proclaimed autocrat is about to take the reins of power. how are you going to protect us? how are you going to protect the american people? >> when something crazy is proposed by donald trump, as he tried to in his first term, wanted to get rid of affordable care act, get rid of protections for daca and dreamers, you got to resist, fight, go back.

but at the same time you have to say, okay, what can we work together on, where can we find compromise to try and move things forward to make our country better? people don't want to hear that all we're going to do is resist all the time and fight all the time. the people want us to resist when necessary, but work together whenever possible. >> i've written about that and i absolutely agree. if everything is a crisis, then nothing is a crisis. you are going to be facing real crises. how are you guys preparing? the house, very slim majority, the republicans. you have real opportunity there. and mike johnson, in the last session of congress, was unable to pass anything without democratic support. >> can i add something? when you have congressmen and women, three or four even, because margins are going to be so low, that decide they want to run for governor, the state of new york -- for instance, or governors of other states, or

senators, and then suddenly that three-vote margin becomes enough and people will say to the leadership, you guys got to tune down the crazies on -- in the back benchers and we're seeing that at the senate. we're going to see that in the house as well. >> i think it is an opportunity. it is a chance for us to move forward. when i first came back to congress after my special election, there was a massive bill for ukraine, israel and taiwan that johnson was not putting on the floor because marjorie taylor greene was threatening she was going to kick him out if he did put it on the floor. i was the first democrat who came out and said, mr. speaker, you put that on the floor, it will pass overwhelmingly bipartisan, number one, number two, if marjorie taylor greene tries to kick you out, i'll vote to keep you as speaker. that's what ended up happening and democrats actually saved his -- i don't want to be the speaker now, but he's going to be. >> you have to do more of that. >> i was the vice chair of the problem solvers caucus, 25 democrats and 25 republicans. how do we get people to meet

every week to find common ground, where can we work together to get things done? the border is a big opportunity. there are a lot of republicans and certainly all the democrats who are terrified of the idea of mass deportations. it will be bad for the country, it will cause chaos, bad for business, breaking up families, it is inhuman. we can't say we're going to oppose deportation of criminals. so where can we work together to find common ground? >> you just brought item. what i'm hearing from republican senators, what i'm hearing from republican house members what i'm hearing from republicans across washington, d.c. is that as fraught as this discussion is, this is actually the first place that democrats and republicans can find compromise and focus on the criminals, because the republicans i talked to say we don't want pictures of mothers and babies being torn apart like eight years ago. that wasn't good for us. we lost the 2017 elections and the 2018 elections because of it.

so, some of these issues that sound the most fraught, i think you just hit on it, that's an issue where hakeem jeffries, mike johnson, and everybody else can get together and go, let's focus on the really bad people, get them out of this country, right? >> back to what you said, back to what john said, listen to the people. you'll have the confidence to stand up and say what you think is right instead of just listening to the noise and the twitter sphere and from the experts. if you talk to the people, and give the people what they want. john f. kennedy wrote a book called "profiles in courage" after 175 years in american history. eight people were in the book. so we got to have the courage to stand up for what we know is right, despite all the outside pressures. part of that courage will come from talking to the people. >> i'm glad you brought up john f. kennedy. john heilemann, 61st anniversary of the passing of john kennedy,

the asass sassination of john kennedy and so many historians look at that day as a dividing line between the old america and the divided america. >> well, yeah. i think -- i mean, obviously it is a moment -- >> especially in the '60s. >> the certainly the atmosphere of d d d ebuliance and optimism, and all of that, just the chaos of the '60s is the -- throws open the door to that. i think the -- we still had a relatively normal partisan politics up until really until you guys showed up in '94. >> thank you. >> good job. >> which is really what -- i

don't know about you personally, but on both sides there was some of that. but i would say the republican revolution '94 ushered in a different kind of politics around bill clinton. and i would say just to go back to bill clinton about the other conversation we were having, you know, a very good op-ed in "the new york times" where he talked about another danger, not just about twitter, democrats listening to the groups, organized interest groups and trying to please the groups all the time has led the democrats into a bad place and what bill clinton did and there are lots of things that are objectionable about his strategies and tactics, but the notion of -- if you call it a sister soldier moment, you get this discussion of if it is racist or not, i will say this, if you don't build itself in a way where it can take on its base sometimes, where it says things, that the interest groups that support it, disagree with, that bill clinton

did it, barack obama did it, the best republicans have done it too, not talking about trump here, built his own thing, but george w. bush, always maximum politics. you had to turn to your base and not engage in hippie punching, but to basically confront your base and say you're wrong. you're not where the center is for our party. i have to -- we have to build a coalition around the center of our party and you are not the center. so excuse me, we're moving on. that's another important thing that we have to think about. >> we have to leave it there. i will only say that in '94, that yeah, things got heated. i will only say, if you ask bill clinton this, he with ill tell will tell you that too, despite that, bill clinton and republicans balanced the budget four years in a row for the only time in 100 years. they passed welfare reform. they passed regulatory reform. and together democrats and

republicans voted with each other a hell of a lot more than you would ever believe. and bill clinton, for him, that's a real source of pride for him that, yes, we fought like hell. they tried to impeach me and run me out of office and yet i could still talk to newt gingrich on the most difficult day and we can work for the betterment of the country. so, kind of -- >> time to get back in the solutions business. >> exactly. congressman, thank you so much for being with us. we hope you come back. >> yeah, definitely. >> okay. coming up, a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning including the move by a number of universities to eliminate tuition for some students. we'll tell you what the criteria is for that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. for that. u'yore watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. s to play f. but as i grew older i realized life isn't about how many people you can knock down. it's about how many people you can lift up. at ram, our calling is to build game-changing trucks. so when you find your calling...

nothing can stop you from answering it. right now, during the ram black friday sales event, get $5,000 total cash allowance on the purchase of most 2025 ram 1500 trucks. hurry to your local ram dealer today. to me, harlem is home. but home is also your body. i asked myself, why doesn't pilates exist in harlem? so i started my own studio. getting a brick and mortar in new york is not easy. chase ink has supported us from studio one to studio three. when you start small, you need some big help. and chase ink was that for me. earn up to 5% cash back on business essentials with the chase ink business cash card from chase for business. make more of what's yours. ♪ who knows what tomorrow will bring ♪ (dog whines) ♪ but as for me ♪ (knock at door) ♪ i'll wait and see ♪ ♪ and maybe it'll bring my love to me ♪ ♪ who knows ♪ ♪ who knows ♪

liberty mutual customized my car insurance so i saved hundreds. with the money i saved i thought i'd get a wax figure of myself. oh! right in the temporal lobe! beat it, punks! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ ♪♪ at bombas, we dream of comfort and softness. which is why we make the best socks and slippers in the history of feet. ♪♪ visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order. hi. i'm damian clark. i'm here to help you understand how to get the most from medicare. if you're eligible for medicare, it's a good idea to have original medicare. it gives you coverage for doctor office visits and hospital stays. but if you want even more benefits,

you can choose a medicare advantage plan like the ones offered at humana. our plans combine original medicare with extra benefits in a single, convenient plan with $0, or low monthly plan premiums. these plans could even include prescription drug coverage with $0 copays on hundreds of prescriptions. plus, there's a cap on your out-of-pocket costs. most plans include dental, vision, even hearing coverage. there are $0 copays for in-network preventive services, and much more. get the most from medicare with a humana medicare advantage plan. call today to learn more. remember, annual enrollment for medicare advantage plans ends december 7th. humana. a more human way to health care.

♪♪

♪ i want to fly ♪ all right. there it is. >> molly will tell you, when she was young and in new york, her parents would bring her down to general electric, we're going to pollute the hudson christmas tree and little kids would go there and then ice skate on the oily hudson river. now we have the comcast commerce christmas tree, much cleaner. >> yes. >> and little kids go to the comcast commerce christmas tree and they go there and then they're charged up with the spirit of christmas and they go, mom and dad, can we get your credit card, we're going tothe nbc store. >> yes, we would go to the tree and we would say, oh, this tree pollutes. exactly. >> great. >> the scaffolding raised its

game this year. all right, time for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. vaccine rates for the flu and covid-19 are low so far this season, joe. >> i'm going to get mine. >> okay. this weekend. the cdc reports an estimated 35% of u.s. adults have gotten the new flu vaccines and nearly 18%, the new covid vaccines. >> i will tell you that i -- when my kids were young, and going to school, i always got it because it was the only way to do survive and i stopped for a while, got the flu badly, started back. >> many unvaccinated adults reported they intend to get their shots as joe does. "the wall street journal" has an interactive feature showing how passenger planes are sharing the skies with ballistic missiles. >> i don't want to hear about this story. >> one example from october, a commercial flight in iran was still taking off as that country launched a major strike on israel indicating that airlines weren't aware of the imminent

danger. the flight from amsterdam to dubai passed close enough to launch sites that passengers could see the missiles in the sky. >> i don't want to hear that. >> bitcoin neared a record 100,000 for the first time yesterday as crypto exchange traded funds continued to rally amid investors anticipation of the incoming white house. the administration will be more crypto friendly, we hear. bitcoin has surged more than 40% in the last two weeks. >> i need the person who is the biggest expert on this to explain it to me because i don't understand. bill maher, talking to mark cuban about how bad crypto is for the environment and i don't understand that. why does it take so much -- so much computing power and, you know, why does it pollute as badly as it does? >> tom knows this.

>> tom runs a crypto bit mining outfit in upstate new york. >> you're processing everything that has gone before on the black blockchain. it is a constant regeneration of everything that is there and it consumes an enormous amount of energy and we have enough issues on the grid with data centers and cloud infrastructure and nvidia chips and all that that it is one more thing that creates an electricity crisis that we have to solve. >> okay. >> but you can make money. >> can't we do both? bill clinton said we can be pro environment and pro economy. what do you want to do. >> nbc's chuck scarborough signing off a record-setting 50-plus year run. slow clap. his final broadcast on december 12th, score borough, not this scarborough, started in 1974

anchoring the 6:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. newscasts and a letter to the newsroom, and he reflected on fundamental principles of accuracy, objectivity, and fairness in the free press. what a run, what a ride, what a -- i love local news. i think it is so important. and what a commitment. >> a figure of my past. >> iconic. >> let's say a couple of things about chuck scarborough. i will offer my apology to chuck. >> you should. >> i started watching in the mid-'70s in upstate new york, and everybody is, like, are you related? we're not related. my first name is his first name. it is a total mess. so when i came here in to scarborough country, when he communicated with me, he said, i think i'm getting a lot of emails for you and i don't know. my life used to be a lot more

peaceful. then the next thing that happened was i walked into the office and said, hey, joe, they called about your trip to greece. and what should we do about it? i go, trip to greece? i'm not going to greece. cancel it. >> oh, no. >> chuck scarborough's trip, i think. the third thing, though, i heard it all the time, that guy, everybody loves him. and, like, as big as he got, i always heard from people who would have to drive him from place to place, he refuses to sit in the back seat. he wanted to sit in the front with them and talk to them and say, how is everything going? what am i missing? what is important to you? come on, man. this guy -- >> universally beloved. but not like you. >> not like me, no. >> not a polarizing divisive figure at all. >> not at all. >> confusing for a lot of time, your email -- you had one email

account for a while that was charles joseph scarborough and always, like, that's why some people got confused. >> his name. >> i know. but still, you know, charles and chuck and -- >> what a legend, though. what a legend. anybody who is watching this, this show right now, he's been a part of their life for 50 years, and just excellence. >> i came to nbc 35 years ago and he was a real veteran then. and -- >> amazing. >> he chronicled the life of new york from generation to generation. >> he sure did. absolutely. >> and joining us now, editor at large at "newsweek," tom rogers, latest op-ed called "amid inflation one way to make prices right". tom always has ideas. >> we're going to ask you about what everybody is asking around here about, and that is the comcast spin-off, to put all the cable companies outside of the

cable -- what do you call it? so they're going to move it outside of the main comcast business, we think it is a great idea. andrew ross sorkin, everybody he's talking to, thinks it is a great idea. what do you think? >> well, i founded a couple of these channels and i consider them my babies in some sense. and as i said, on andrew's show the other day, i think the kids are going to be all right. i think this is a great move, actually. it gives cnbc, msnbc and the other cable channels that are going to be part of this spin-off the ability to be the core priorities of a new company. a new company that will have real cash flow, it is going to be well capitalized. this isn't going to be something that as many spins are of big companies, they spin off something with a lot of debt to get debt off their balance sheet, that is not going to be this at all.

this is going to be something that is going to give the cable channels the ability to have the resources to grow and expand and not be centered solely in the cable world, which is diminishing and you got to do something to create a future here. but the news audience in the cable bundle is still a very vibrant audience. and that audience is going to be around for a while, in the cable world, but you got to figure out what's next. >> the most important part of this is, of course, i think this network, cnbc, still making a ton of money. and instead of it going into theme parks and laying cable in bismarck, you have this spin-off where the companies make the money -- that's what wall street demands, right? so, you have to set aside the company, they make money, they reinvest in you, they reinvest

in this content, regardless of whether it is going to be on linear tv, whether it is going to be on youtube, wherever it is going to be. >> absolutely. i mean, look, it is a big company that has the olympics, has the nba, has peacock, a lot of priorities where a lot of money has to go to be in a separate company that can get priority focus and this is something that i think creates a lot of opportunity from employees. there is a lot of anxious employees, what does it mean? is this going to be not good for us? really good because if you are the priority, you get the resources, you can grow and expand, there is more future for what employees want to look to. >> and, by the way, again, for everybody listening, as tom said, these are his babies. he started a couple of these networks, it is very personal to him. >> now to your piece, the price could be right, go. >> all right. well, you've been talking all morning about how you can talk about democracy all you want, but at the end of the day, it was gas and groceries that

really connected in terms of the most salient issue in the election. and price gouging as the answer to that just didn't fly as to what kamala harris tried to sell. so, i started thinking, what could be done here? and i was thinking, you know what, elon musk pontificates a lot of things, but what he really knows is a.i. and how to engineer systems. and we could create something here that input every grocery price, everywhere in the country, gas prices, drugstore prices, general merchandise, retail prices, and create a way for people to actually figure out the cheapest possible way to buy things, because it is remarkable to me, all you have to do is go down the street, and you see gas station, big red neon signs, $3.79 a gallon. a couple blocks further, $3.09 a gallon. i don't see a difference between

the people who go to the gas stations and $600, $700 a year and what is it that has people not going to where they can get the cheapest prices? good rx, a way to get drug prices, cheaper than your employer plan, cvs, 40% off coupons all the time. most people don't touch them. all kinds of coupons from supermarkets. people don't touch them. huge amount of breakage, people don't take advantage of discount. too much mental energy to figure out how do i really save money. >> so after the election, we had a discussion on butter. and, you know, the average price at that time was, like, $4.50. mika talked about $7. >> whole foods. >> at whole foods. and i made a joke about, you know, why are you buying -- the average price is $4.50. willie said, if you go to walmart, it is actually around $3, maybe $2.75, which goes to

your point. and then somebody sent me a picture from publix, it was $9. you have a range from $2.75 to $9. what you're saying is so important for people that are fighting to make their paychecks go longer. >> and donald trump loves jaw boning companies. if he wants to jaw bone, jaw bone about putting all your pricing information together so we can get some transparency. it is too much mental energy. nobody goes through newspaper inserts anymore to check prices. that's like going to the yellow pages which nobody does anymore and if we had an a.i. system that you could put in your list, this is what i buy every week, and here is where it is the cheapest and you don't have to go to multiple locations. you have instacart, they'll do the shopping for you, they'll go to multiple locations and bring it to you and you can take advantage of it. elon musk instead of pontificating about the independence of the fed, he could really help build something like this and it doesn't need to be a government-run thing like obama

care's medical insurance site was. this can be in private hands. but it is doable it would really save consumers money and i think it is the kind of thing that we should really think about because the president of the united states really can't affect grocery prices. >> now new mental image, tom rogers clipping coupons. >> there we go. i love it. >> the new piece online -- >> cvs coupons all the time. >> use them for prescriptions. they're a pain, but they cut it down by, like, 50%. >> the new piece online now. tom rogers, thank you very much. welcome news for college students. four universities have introduced free tuition programs for undergraduates who can meet certain income requirements. the university of texas system is set to offer in state students from families making $100,000 or less free tuition starting next fall. at the massachusetts institute of technology, undergraduates from families making less than $200,000 will be able to attend tuition free.

students from families earning less than $75,000 will be able to attend carnegie mellon university tuition free. and brandeis university will cover tuition from students, for families with incomes of less than $75,000. that is welcome news. coming up on "morning joe," our next guest is putting a new spin on the story of frankenstein. jc chasez from the pop group nsync is here, in studio, with his new album. and as we go to break, a moment from this week's country music association awards in nashville. ♪ even something as small as an apple ♪ ♪ simple and somehow complex sweet and divine ♪ ♪ perfect design can escape to the architect ♪ >> how great is she? >> oh, my gosh. her voice is angelic. kacey musgraves performing her song "the architect" this

weekend on "sunday today," willie features his recent sit-down with the 36-year-old texan who has transcended country, while earning a reputation as one of the best songwriters in all of music. that is this sunday on "sunday today" over on nbc. we'll be back here in just a moment with more "morning joe." a moment with more "morning joe. o the listing agent. feels like a work of art! (marci) lovely. what about the app? (luke) uh-oh! look what i did. it's ringing. hello? hello? (marci) they can't hear you. (luke) hello? (marci) because you glued a frame over the microphone. (luke) i think i've glued the frame over the microphone. (vo) ding dong! homes-dot-com. we've done your home work. ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ the black friday sale is now on. visit sandals.com or call 1-800-sandals - hi, i'm steve. - i'm lea. and we live in north pole, alaska. - i was noticing my hearing was not so good so i got hearing aids. my vision was not as good as it used to be, got a change in prescription. but the thing missing was my memory. i saw a prevagen commercial and i thought, "that makes sense." - i observed the changes in steve's memory and i thought i should try that too. - after taking prevagen, i just didn't have to work so hard to remember things. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. i was out on a delivery, when i came across a snake... a rattler. fedex presents tall tales of true deliveries there we were, driver versus reptile. our battle was legendary. (♪♪)

wait a second. you don't own a pet snake, do you? phew maybe now my friends will believe me. if this is what we did for one delivery, see what we can do for your business. fedex. let's go boys. the way that i approach work, post fatherhood, has really been trying to understand the generation that we're building devices for. here in the comcast family, we're building an integrated in-home wifi solution for millions of families, like my own.

connectivity is a big part of my boys' lives. it brings people together in meaningful ways. ♪ ♪ ♪ you made me what i am standing right here ♪ ♪ you left me to die ♪ ♪ made in your image i am your son ♪ ♪ i'm the flesh and blood you neglected ♪ ♪ tell me tell me ♪ ♪ tell me tell me ♪

♪ tell me tell me ♪ >> wow. >> grammy-nominated musician and founding member of the pop group nsync jc chasez singing the song "how do you sleep" off his new album "playing with fire" co-created with jimmy harry. the 16 track project is bringing the story of frankenstein back to life with sweeping melodramatic balds infused with pop and classical music, all told from the per spektsive of various characters in the franken sign saga. i need to know what this outfit is. >> this is my take on beige, yeah. >> is it suede? >> no, this is vegan kind of vibe here. >> very good. >> tom heilemann -- >> there is -- >> you left him speechless. so many obvious questions here. one is, like, we always wonders what happens to the guys who were in defining boy bands of an

era. it seems like broadway would be a natural. this is an album, trying to turn this into a broadway musical. i'm surprised there is not more of a legacy of boy band veterans ending up on broadway because the theatricality of 'n sync ino you think about it that way? >> look, everybody's journey is different. broadway is full of actors. but when it comes to the music side of it, yeah, you see performers make their way to broadway. i think it is just everyone has different goals and different dreams and this is actually one of mine and so it is the stage of life, i'm fortunate enough to be able to put an idea out there. >> why are you spine inspired b frankenstein? it is not the most obvious. >> what i loved about it, actually to say, hey, you know what, frankenstein, the musical, it sounds insane, actually. >> yeah.

>> but i loved the idea. mary shelly wrote something, you know, and started a conversation really, maybe not started it, but fan the flame of conversation in 1818 about humanity and technology. and the responsibility that you have to have when you make something. and so i just love the themes because they're so relevant today. we're talking about a.i. and we're talking about all these things about how we have to think about these things, when we make these things and create these things. and so when we went into write our version, jimmy and i went in to write our version of this, we thought, oh, we're going to write the story about humanity and technology, and what we found when we really went through the material and mary shelly's material and what we came to the conclusion of was this was actually a father and son story, and it was all about humanity. it doesn't matter what technology comes along. it never takes away your humanity. >> and, molly, for a woman

writing this in 1818, that -- >> incredible. >> that is a story in and of itself. to see the technology, twisted, 1818, it is mind blowing what she did. >> a lot of great feminists, novelists out there. i'm curious about reinconvenience. you were famous when you were young and you survived that. >> i survived it, yes. >> many people don't. and then you managed to change your career into something different. you talk can you talk about that? >> look, i was inspired to do this. and i think that, you know, when you do what is true to yourself, like there is an opportunity there. and, you know, i'm still song writing. always song writing because music is a passion of mine. this just kind of was the thing that opened my eyes up in a different way. this is actually the second musical i've written with jimmy. but this is the first one that i

think worked as an album, and so this is our way to kind of bring everyone into our world, to show them maybe as an appetizer of what we're thinking, in terms of the story. >> i'm going to ask you a really deep question. we have 90 seconds left. i wish we had two hours on this. i'm curious, and i always ask this of people that survived stardom at a young age, sounds like a weird thing to say, but it is not really because you're very young and you get everything you want. >> yeah. >> it destroys so many lives, so many musical heroes of mine. >> sure. >> what centered you, why are you here making this incredible music? and why are you -- i'm serious, among the living, and being really productive? >> everybody's journey is different, right? so i will say that i have been very, very fortunate. my family was a very strong grounding presence in the moral of who i am.

and so to have an awareness about how fortunate i am and not take it for granted about the experience that i've had, family has been huge, and really it is. surrounding yourself with people that you think are good, like, focus on the good. don't, you know, it is like, you can smell when something is off, you know? and you can see -- you can see -- now sometimes you can't. look, everybody has gone through some -- look, we went through something as a band, we were kind of, you know, told one thing and another thing kind of took place. and we learned from that. and i think those experiences were helpful in the growth, but, again, i think my family first. >> the new album "playing with fire" streaming now wherever you get your music. grammy-nominated musician jc chasez, thank you for coming on the show this morning. and good luck with this. it looks amazing. that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. g. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now