gaetz, nobody wants to go home and defend them. you know, i think it is possible that they do the same kind of thing with one or two more of these nominees. you know, gabbard seems to have upset some people in the senate. you've got hegseth, you know, had allegations against him, you know, for sexual misconduct, denies them, and at the same time, you know, there are republican women senators in particular who have been, you know, pretty tough on that issue. joni ernst from iowa comes to mind immediately. so, we'll have to see what happens with these nominees. i wouldn't put a number on it. i would hesitate to say, well, gaetz has gone, so that's it, or there is only one more they can get. they have learned the lesson that if they stick together behind the scenes, they don't have to vote on the floor. >> more of trump's picks during that blitz of announcements on friday. more conventional, perhaps some of the health choices raising eyebrows, but those are the ones we mentioned here who could come

under real scrutiny now. jonathan allen, jonathan, thank you as always. and thanks to all of you for getting up way too early with us on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. she is very unqualified and potentially compromised and there are questions about whether or not she is a russian asset. >> do you believe she could be a russian asset? >> i think that she is someone who is wholly backing and supportive of putin. and i worry that she will not have america's best interests at heart. >> that's democratic and combat veteran democratic senator combat veteran tammy duckworth. obviously expressing some concerns about tulsi gabbard. there was fierce pushback on that. and questions of whether there was evidence of it or not. regardless, there is still a couple of picks, a lot of picks this weekend, something for

everybody, something for everybody to complain about, something for everybody to be happy and however you want to put it, a lot of picks this week. but you look at tulsi gabbard, you look at the dod pick, those right now from what we're hearing are the two that people are the most concerned about that are out there. >> yeah, we're going to go through all the picks and hear what some key republicans are saying as well. also ahead, we'll have an update on the ukraine war. now, the incoming trump administration is impacting the conflict right now. plus, it wasn't quite barbenheimer, but it was still really good weekend at the box office. we'll have more about the "wicked" and "gladiator 2" battle. >> "wick edtator" or something, i don't know. >> they're doing something with it, we don't know. we don't know what the word is. this monday morning, november 25th. with us, the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire, president of the national action

network and host of msnbc's politics nation, reverend a. sharpton is with us, president emeritus of the council on foreign relations, richard haass is here, the author of the weekly newsletter "home and away" available on substack, nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard with us on set, and co-founder and ceo of axios jim vandehei joins us this morning, also author and nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. the whole group. >> i've known jim vandehei for a quarter of a century now. >> he's a nice guy. >> ask about joe, what do the kids on the street say? the kids on the street say joe is a uniter, not a divider. i'm not going to talk about the new york giants in front of richard haass, i will not do it. i refuse to do it. we will also not talk about alabama until we talk about it way too much. alabama humiliated. but i want to talk about a most

important football game of the weekend, maybe of the past decade, it happened this weekend, prospect park. the super bowl of flag football. we take it to our prospect park flag football super bowl correspondent jonathan lemire. >> we couldn't get through the crowds. >> we could not get through the crowds. we were trying to come out. tell us what happened. >> we are running out of room to hang championship banners at our house right now. >> the lemire household. john wooden, he had his room, nothing compared to you. >> nothing at all. prospect park, muddy, cold, wind whipped, still some smoke in the air from the brush fire last week. but my oldest, his team did in fact defend their flag football championship 13-6, rocked by a day after my youngest also went back-to-back. so we have two champions this

weekend, in the house. i, as you imagine, i'm pacing the sidelines, a nervous wreck throughout. couldn't even watch, both teams pulled it out in the end. >> they're playing the university of alabama next week. alabama, seven-point underdog. >> they will beat alabama. >> what's up with the giants, man? what's up with the giants? >> where do i start? massive mistake in the quarterbacking over the last five years, investing way too much in daniel jones, no backups for him. they got rid of saquon barkley who had a career game last night, watching a gifted player at the top of his game is actually something else. >> look at baker go. >> playing one of the -- one of the best safeties in football. general manager and the coaches lost control of the team, the giants are done, stick a fork in them, they're done. they need to be broken up and started over. >> all of alabama's coaching

staff, here is the problem, they haven't figured out the forward pass yet. they will do -- they will do you proud. >> okay. can we do the news? >> that was the news. >> that kind of was the news for a lot of people. the prospect park packers. we'll talk about the green bay packers soon. >> i look forward to talking to jim vandehei about what he's been doing lately, which i think is amazing, including a speech, a fiery speech. >> he was mad. >> yes. president-elect donald trump filled out his core cabinet positions as well as several other top spots in his administration. trump has chosen scott bessent as treasury secretary, wall street billionaire who is an advocate for deficit reduction and deregulation. he has also supported extending trump's 2017 tax cuts. trump named -- >> now, we got $36 trillion national debt, and if you extend those tax cuts, by the wealthiest americans, that's only going to cause the deficit to spike.

so, again, there is a challenge there. they're going to have to figure out if he really -- if he holds both of those, that's going to be huge challenge. i don't think you can get there with the $36 trillion debt, but we'll see. >> also trump named brooke rollins to lead the department of agriculture. a conservative lawyer who served as domestic policy chief during trump's first term. after leaving the white house, she became president and ceo of the america first policy institute, a group that helped lay the groundwork for a second trump administration. former pro football player scott turner is trump's pick for hud secretary. turner ran the white house opportunity and revitalization council during trump's first term. he also is involved with the america first policy institute. trump's choice for labor secretary is republican congresswoman lori chavez-deremer of oregon. she is a staunch union ally and

one of only a few house republicans to support major pro union legislation. the president-elect also named russell vogt who was co-author of the project 2025 to lead the office of management and budget. it is a role he held during trump's first term. vogt also advocated for the president to have greater control over government agencies such as the fcc and the securities and exchange commission. trump selected former republican congressman dave weldon of florida to lead the cdc. weldon is a medical doctor who has been critical of the agency and its vaccination program. he is also pushed a long debunked claim that a preservative used in some vaccines is linked to autism. >> we have a lot to talk about here. i went to congress, i've known dave for a long time. i want to talk first of all, and then we're going to talk about

this is not an ideologically pure cabinet by any stretch of the imagination. michael beschloss yesterday told "the times," one of the more ideologically, if you want to call it diverse and consistent, whatever you want to call it, vaughn, we're going to let somebody much smarter than me figure it out, the best way to describe it, i want to talk about one pick that conservatives are really angry about. and that is the labor secretary pick. first of all, why are they angry. secondly, why did he select -- why did he select somebody that the base would be so upset about? was it a payback to the teamsters? >> that's a question because during the campaign, he went to michigan and campaigned as this idea of pro -- not necessarily union, but pro worker, and this is where democrats had a field day, they said he's not actually at union shops, fast-forward, suddenly he's picking labor

secretary from the pacific northwest, former congresswoman, who has been much more defensive of labor unions, teacher unions, somebody who -- even after you did very well with union voters. >> correct, absolutely. and now this is an affront, again, this is the reposturing of today's republican party that donald trump can face the criticism from some on the right, but it is his party now and this labor secretary, there is no reason to believe she's not going to pass with democratic support. >> and michael beschloss, that's the thing. "the new york times" in the article where they quoted you just basically said, hey, this is not a conservative republican party. this is not a moderate republican party. this is donald trump's republican party. it is what he says it is. and you were quoted in there talking about how these picks, you cannot line them up ideologically. talk about it. >> well, they're not robots. everything donald trump led us to believe during the campaign

was that he wanted to be a strong president, and a successful president, and a lot of that rhetoric suggested he would have identical robots in the cabinet and among his aides. but if you look at history, what is the lesson of history, the lesson of history is strong and successful presidents almost every single one that have people in their entourage cabinet, and in their white house, who argue with one another. do that in front of the president. tell him what he doesn't want to hear, and the essential quality here is a president who listens to all that. classic example in history was george washington who you would think did not need any advice at all. his secretary of the treasury was hamilton. secretary of state was jefferson. they argued with each other all the time about things like the size of government, how you finance it, george washington benefited. in modern times, you know, you know this case particularly, joe, under ronald reagan, george

schultz and weinberger argued about is gorbachev serious, what should we do about the cold war, should we increase defense spending or lower it, reagan hated the conflict, but he learned from it and it made him a stronger president. >> and jim vandehei, axios wrote a similar article this past weekend talking about how it is hard to see a throughline with a lot of these picks. some of them very, very right wing. the labor secretary left of center and most conservatives say very left wing. then you got rfk jr. who is all over the place, ideologically. several other picks. again, just sort of random and all over the place. >> because it is a very different republican party. it is not a conservative party anymore. it is, as you said, the donald trump party. he sees a real opportunity to continue to grow the party, a

big part of that is working class voters, whether or not he agrees with everybody on the specifics of the union debate, he went with somebody who traditional conservatives would hate, this person would never make it into a george w. bush cabinet per se. but under a trump world, they will. and i don't -- he doesn't care if people don't like any of these picks. he doesn't care if you don't like their personality, their background, the key unlike most people enjoys conflict. i think he often incites conflict, he loves it to play out in front of him so he can ultimately be the decider. it keeps him being unpredictable which he likes and he thinks that gives him a stronger governing hand. and so there will be all kinds of conflict, publicly and privately. that is the nature of the trump operation. >> all right. jonathan. >> so, i think that's right. first of all, trump in his first term really almost enjoyed the fight around him at the oval office. he would write in bring in aide

the desk and pit them against one another. that's what he would make a decision from, he would hear people and then decide. often the last voice he heard would be the one that would carry the day. here at the union pick this is him trying to remake the party. this is him trying to bring in more of the working class voters. union voters. he spent a lot of time courting that vote in michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, other places this time around and was able to have not just the benefit of union votes, but a couple major unions did not offer endorsements, seen as tacit victory for him at the time. this is sort of paying off here. and we have seen some extreme, you know, right wing picks and other very conventional ones. his choice for treasury secretary, you point out the inconsistency with the debt perhaps, but most felt like that's a conventional pick. >> make no mistake, every banker, every person on wall street we talked to over the past couple weeks said this guy will calm the market. so, yeah. no, i said what i said only because i'm obsessed with

deficits and the debt and a huge decision to make, which you'll want to talk about, you know, tax cuts and what -- how you pay for those tax cuts because we learned time and again, they don't pay for themselves. but, no, the treasury secretary, wall street, banks, the markets, they're all very happy. >> yeah. and will sail through. no expectation of any concern there whatsoever. and a number of his picks friday night were in a blitz. we had a couple dozen came out in a few hours on friday. some of the health choices raise a few eyebrows. for the most part, conventional picks met with some acclaim on both sides of the aisle. >> let's talk about tulsi gabbard for national intelligence. it may face an uphill battle when it comes to her confirmation, particularly among republicans on the senate intel committee. gabbard is set to visit capitol hill next week to meet with senators regarding her nomination. she is expected to face scrutiny for comments she made appearing

to echo russian disinformation and a 2017 visit to syria where she met with president bashar al assad. take a look at what republican senator james lankford had to say about her nomination yesterday. >> does anything about her concern you? >> well, we'll have lots of questions. she met with bashar assad. as a member of congress, we'll want to get a chance to talk about past comments she made and get them into full context, so, sure, there is comments that are floating out there, but we want to be able to know the rest of the story. >> the pregnant pause. >> or delay. >> the answer. now, tammy duckworth said something off the top that i, again, there is no evidence outwardly that what she said is true, that she is an agent. but, not that we know of yet, but you talk to one senate

republican on the intel committee after another, they will all say, she's way too close with assad, she's been an apologist for a guy who killed 500,000 people in his country, and used weapons of mass destruction against civilians, gassed them, and that, yes, she does. it doesn't appear that she, like, repeats kremlin talking points. she repeats kremlin talking points. you can line it up. so, again, you heard a democrat expressing her concern. but what she said is what you hear republicans say, and what you hear past republican intel agency heads saying all the time, that this woman cannot be confirmed and i find it very hard to believe that mitch mcconnell, susan collins, lisa murkowski and one member of the intel committee will not vote her down and say try again. >> let's remember what this job is. director of national intelligence, the coordination function over 17, 18

intelligence agencies. also, joe, this is the person who oversees the daily preparation of the single most important intelligence document that the president sees. the presidential daily brief, the pdb. this person as a result has to be an honest broker. people have to know that they are getting not what he needs to here, not what he wants to hear, she's not coloring it, she's not shaping it too much. i think she has an uphill fight to prove she will be an honest broker. >> with all we're seeing around the world, ukraine particularly, with the feeling she's too close at best to putin, isn't it really a very, very uphill battle for trump to convince the public, even if he gets by the senate and you say there may be a challenge there, to bring in gabbard when we're looking at a direct confrontation. we're not talking theory here. we're looking at a direct war with ukraine and putin's russia. >> you got that.

you got ukraine and putin's role there, the aggression continues. brought 10,000 north koreans there, talk of more. russia has become the biggest assister of north korea's nuclear missile program. so we got that. in 2026, this new administration, all the nuclear arms control expires. we have to reset the table with russia on the future of arms control. the stakes are enormous here. >> most of the picks we talked about this morning that have been made are going to sail through. a couple that are not. one, of course, is tulsi gabbard. the other is the dod person pete hegseth -- did i say that right? >> hegseth. >> hegseth. i'm going to get that right. pete hegseth. it is interesting who you talk to on capitol hill what republicans, one group will tell you that gabbard would be the most dangerous person to america's national security,

others would tell you it is pete hegseth who would be simply because, you know, he's in line for, you know, nuclear codes and -- >> very large organization. >> one general told me he's the second most powerful man in the world, whoever the dod sec def is. you better have somebody who knows what they're doing. >> and that can pass an fbi background check. >> i wonder what you're hearing and the math is pretty simple. they can't lose collins, murkowski, mcconnell and one more. i find it hard to believe that those three are going to put either of these two people into the most important positions in u.s. government. >> i think the concerns are much deeper at the defense secretary level because, yes, when you're running intelligence, doing the pdb, there is a lot of people involved in that. a lot of the senators feel like there is going to be a lot of smart voices with views much

different than gabbard does on intelligence, on russia, trump wanted somebody who has different views on russia that might be closer to his. that's why she's the pick. but when you're running the defense department, you're running the military, at a perilous time, that's the one that mitch mcconnell cares most about. we're about to have to transform from a land-based warfare operating system to space-based in a time when there is a ton of volatility between us and russia, us and china. my guess is that will get the most attention. if i had to pick the person most vulnerable, i think it is him quite easily. >> that's what i was hearing also. jim brought up problems with russia, problem nuclear confrontation there, problems with china, continuing rise in china, problems with iran. right know they are defenseless. the air defenses are down. if israel decides they want to start another regional war, wants to start a regional war with them and wants to go after another target after iran, keeps

attacking them, you have the possibility of the regional war there. and most republican senators are, like, are you -- you got to give us a secretary of defense. and there is the feeling, i will say also following what jim said, i have heard from several people, you can contain tulsi gabbard in the intel committee. i don't think it is that simple. but, yeah, i have been hearing what jim just said time and again. it is the dod, it is the secretary defense, second most powerful person in the world. this guy even without all the baggage, even the fact he lied or withheld from the trump administration or the transition team, they say he's just not qualified to do this important of a job. >> yeah, and also i was talking to republican hill staffers the last couple of days and with matt gaetz withdrawing, that spared republicans having to actually put their name to a no vote and there is a sense they can only do that once or twice, but able to ve their fire, and pete hegseth seems like the most

likely candidate to get the no vote from senators. there was real questions raising about the trump transition team not using the fbi for background checks. we had republican senators, lisa murkowski, expressed concerns about that over the weekend. they're trying to do it with private investigators who would not have nearly the access to criminal information that the fbi would. you're plugged in with the trump team. is there any sense they would reconsider their position, bring the fbi in, in light of the accusations against some of the most prominent picks? >> they say we're engaging with the gsa about signing the memorandum of understanding, but for three weeks in now and there has been a concerted decision not to do that. of course, as mika was suggesting, questions about tulsi gabbard's fbi background file, talking about kash patel, somebody who could run the fbi himself if trump gets his desires and wishes. this is where if you are donald

trump, there is a concerted understanding, recognition you may not want to know what is in the fbi files of some of these individuals. because the nucleus of people who donald trump trusts in their fealty and loyal to him is so small now, nine years on, you see some of these picks, these are individuals who he believes would take his orders in the white house and who he knows would obey those orders. that group of people, it is so small here in 2024. >> if they can't pass the fbi background checks, you do have republican senators saying, on the record, kind of carefully, but behind the scenes, saying, wait, we're going to have the second most powerful person in the world, who has got, like, the nuclear -- we're going to let him run the department of defense if he can't even pass an fbi check? >> they stop matt gaetz. will they stop pete hegseth? will they stop tulsi gabbard? that would be the biggest declaration of the republican

party that we have seen that there are some of these senators, bill cassidy, todd young of indiana, will they take a stand? it is not just legislation, it is the budget. >> you named two people right there. bill cassidy and tom young, both serious legislators. they care very deeply about america's national security. and there is another guy i didn't even -- i didn't even put on that list with murkowski and collins and mitch mcconnell right there. i don't think he can get from where he is to a yes vote on a guy that can't pass an fbi background check and is not prepared for that position. >> you said the two key words, national security. for a long time, the republican party was the party of national security. and republicans were all over the place on social issues, economic issues, whatever. national security, so i think this might be a different test

and it could be very difficult for this group. >> and michael, let's talk about, i wonder, when is the last time america has been in such a dangerous position globally? i will say after the election, what i said before the election, the united states is the most powerful country in the world, relative to any other country in the world since 1945. the election results don't change anything. that doesn't mean we don't have the country that has the most nuclear weapons threatening to use the nuclear weapons if we push too hard on ukraine, that doesn't mean we aren't in for a regional war in the middle east if things -- if things don't get cooled down very quickly. when historically, when is the last time the international stage was this fraught? >> well, as you're looking at a moment, maybe the late 1940s when the soviet army was marching through europe and harry truman, as you have well written, joe, responded by

building nato and by expanding american defense instituting the marshall plan. you have a president who has wonderful advice. who did truman had? tchison at his side. even a great president like truman needed strong voices from the beginning of the time that they came into office. and that's the lesson here. the other thing i'm really inspired by is republican senators seem at least at this moment a little bit more eager to push back on donald trump where they think that he may have acted too quickly. that's something perhaps we didn't expect. one quick historical lesson, lyndon johnson, in his entourage, had almost no one who had the guts to tell him this expanding war in vietnam is going to be a loser, going to wreck the country, going to wreck the presidency. that voice came from of all

people johnson's party leader in the senate, mike mansfield who hated the war, thought it was a loser and told johnson this again and again and again. you really need these dissident voices, either in congress and preferably or combined with in the president's entourage. >> well, and like you said, the senate already has shown that they're not willing to give up their -- the constitutional prerogative of advise and consent. and we learned during the first trump term, an attack against one federal judge is an attack against all federal judges. when he attacked the george w. bush judge, and then he attacked a liberal federal judge, you had conservative judges from the federalist society ruling against him time and time again. so the federal judges are there as well. so that's fascinating. presidential historian michael beschloss, thank you very much.

i want to ask -- >> michael said an interesting thing, truman had dissident voices. other people later on, the difference in the trump administration, he's the dissident voight.ce. you don't need dissident voices, you need more traditional voices that will things like nato has worked, u.s. foreign policy for the last several decades has actually succeeded, he brings the dissidence. you need traditional voices who might argue we have been well served by what we have done in the world. >> he had that in foreign policy the first term. didn't like it. looks like he has some of that -- >> marco rubio. >> i guess marco rubio, right. there is a guy, again, head of the intel committee that worked very well with democrats on the intel committee. i stand corrected. really quickly, kari lake, you've been covering -- arizona is your beat. what do you think is next for her? >> i don't think she's going away. she's not going to be in the u.s. senate for six years. >> do you think she'll work in

the trump administration? >> i would be surprised if they didn't welcome her in, in some capacity. if she hadn't run for the u.s. senate, she would be been press secretary for him. once somebody loses two times, it is tough to see where she fits in. >> i have to ask you about arizona in general. i've always said americans aren't that ideological. arizona, which, of course, people look at the presidential race, oh, democrats lost arizona, arizona voted for four democratic candidates for senate in a row. for the first time since the '50s, they have sent somebody there and ruben gallego, left of center and he won. what do democrats learn from arizona? >> you learn the exact same lethat kyrsten sinema learned, mark kelly politano in 2000 learned, if you're somebody that reaches a broad scope of people, and you don't alienate them, and you have somewhat of this independent libertarian streak to you in which you

recognize that you want the successes of all your communities, i think those are the messages that have worked in arizona, and by and large you can take that to georgia, john otsoff, ruben gallego demonstrates that better than a lot. >> i think one thing that has not been discussed a lot on this show and on politics nation that he had no blacks in his cabinet, he's now appointed turner who is the head of hud. i heard a lot of people ling me over the weekend on the radio show, saying that's the same hud job that we have with ben carson. is that trump's black job. he's following someone who gave us a black vice president, a black -- a woman on the supreme court, so he really didn't give anything to the small number of black men that increased his vote. i hope that that's something

that he deals with and that people look at. and at the same time, do i think what he did with the labor secretary is something that surprised even me the most, the most ardent trump critic probably on this show. >> tim scott's absence in this cabinet. >> and tim scott, he appeared to be overlooked and they work overtime. >> nbc's vaughn hillyard, always great to have you on the set with us. thank you for your reporting. still ahead on "morning joe," the latest from to overseas as israel and hezbollah trade more attacks amid ongoing cease-fire talks. plus, one republican senator makes an impassioned case for continued support of ukraine. >> did you see that? >> we're going to play a long portion of this. it is really, really engaging. pouring cold water on the idea of negotiating a peace deal with a tyrant. "morning joe" is back in 90 seconds. a tyrant "morning joe" is back in 90 seconds. han is 22 years old. he's not just a pet, he really is a part of our family.

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all right, 33 past the hour. time to take a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. for seven straight months, the number of drug deaths in america has dropped, thanks in part to education efforts and expanded treatment. also at play, the strength of the drug seems to be dropping.

fentanyl potency is on the decline as mexico cracks down on cartels. the u.s. also expanded the availability of overdose reversal medications like narcan. a former county treasurer in arizona admits to embezzling $38 million in taxpayer funds. >> how do you do that? >> federal prosecutors say it was stolen over a ten-year span. the money was used to buy vacation property, cadillacs, rvs and luxury home furnishings as shown in this image. santa cruz county is looking for ways to recoup the millions that were meant for the public. >> how do they let $38 million slip through their hands. >> $38 million, whoo. also, "wicked" soared to the top spot at the weekend box office. universal's adaptation of the popular musical brought in $114

million. that makes it the third biggest domestic debut of the year. and the best opening by far for a broadway to film adaptation. "gladiator 2" solid second with $55 million, a bit behind expectations. the ridley scott blockbuster, which stars denzel washington comes a quarter century after the original. all right, jim vandehei last week -- he's here, right? last week you were awarded the 2024 fourth estate award by the national press e with axios's mike allen, so congratulations. the award recognizes journalists who made significant contributions to the industry and you have, specifically you and mikey were awarded for your work that has revolutionized how audiences consume news and we have some of the remarks you

made during your acceptance speech. let's listen. >> i hate this debateeficiary o country. like some [ bleep ] from wisconsin who can start two companies, be up here, win an ard with award, sit next to mikey, there is something about it, there is something about freedom, capitalism, the animal spirits of democracy, but at the core of that is maybe transparency, maybe a free press, maybe the ability to do your job without worrying to go to jail, maybe the ability to sit in a war zone and tell people what is actually happening so they're not just looking at distortion matters. it matters profoundly. it is why -- it is not like we just love getting up at 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, we do it because we love it. we do it because it matters. the work that we do matters. everything we do is under fire.

elon musk sits on twitter every day or x today saying, like, we are the media. you are the media. my message to elon musk is [ bleep ]. you're not the media. you having -- [ applause ] you having a blue check mark, a twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn't make you a reporter anymore than me looking at your head and seeing you have a brain and telling you have an awesome set of tools makes me a neurosurgeon. what we do, what journalists do, what you did in mississippi, what al jazeera does in the middle east, you don't proclaim yourself to be a reporter. like, that's nonsense. like being a reporter is hard. really hard. you have to care. you have to do the hard work. you have to get up every single day and say i want to get to the

closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism. you don't do that by popping off on twitter. you don't do that by having an opinion. you do it by doing the hard work. >> yeah. come on, slow clap, everybody. first of all, i got to say, extraordinary content. it needed to be said. it continues to need to be said when all of the garbage that is flying around on social media, lying about reporters, lying about the hard work they do, lying about the hard work editors, lying about everything up and down about not only their alternative set of facts, but alternative set of facts about what people like you do. and i love how you connected reporters in mississippi in the 1960s to reporters fighting for their life to get the story out in the middle east today. jim, it was very powerful.

very powerful. >> very good. >> even if we had to bleep you more than we would if we ran a dave chappelle concert. still good. >> mild mannered. >> he preached it, though. the cadence. >> let me just say, this is so important right now, more than ever, is because critics of the press are feeling more empowered than ever to lie more than ever. i had friends for years going, oh, you know, i'm so lmed by the news. where do you get your news then? epic times. oh, oh, you get your news from a website run by chinese -- by conspiracy theorists in a chinese religious cult. that's where you get the -- no! social media people lying every day, every hour, every minute about the news. what you do matters.

what "the new york times" does matters. what "the wall street journal" does matters. what jonathan lemire does matters. what "the financial times" does matters. what msnbc news and msnbc reporters do matters. it matters. >> and it doesn't mean there aren't things that we get wrong. and the reason i was hopped up at the speech, i listened to so many reporters who feel like the industry is going to hell, nobody trusts them, they're demoralized, we don't have time to be demoralized, we don't have time to whine, we have to do our job. there is an information war out there and there is still tens of millions of people that depend on great reporting and it is our job to make sure we create viable businesses around it, and that we really do try to get to the closest approximation of the truth, maybe do a little bit -- maybe be more curious than condescending, more fearless than foaming at the mouth and i think if we can do those things,

i think we can win back people who are skeptical. the entire social media ecosystem, a lot of the things you mentioned, they feed off of all of us, us trying to get to the closest approximation of truth. people just like, they need to calm down. there is a lot of your viewers who wish that sometimes, like, everything was just, like, boom, boom, boom on one side. we have to bring people facts. we have to bring people clarity. and hopefully report insights so they can make better decisions and understand a very, very complicated world. >> by the way, we got great viewers. and you know what our viewers are, they're family. we got a family that understands because they have been around. you have a family that follows you that understands because you've been around. "the new york times" has a family, "wall street journal," these places that have great reporters, right, they don't need to worry about what happens over the next five minutes or the next five weeks, the next five months because you print truth all the time.

and like you said, this is what gets me. somebody pops off on twitter or some other social -- and they lie. they make mistakes. you know what the cost of that is? nothing. they do it again. in fact, it helps them because algorithms are rigged, so you stir up and the more you can get people angry, the more followers you get, but also now it is monetized to help you. >> the more you hate, the more you make. >> there you go. >> that will go viral. >> i like that. but, jim, here's the deal i explained to my friends that go into the gutter and get disinformation. i say, there is no cost for them lying to you. but if jim vandehei has a reporter that gets it wrong, well, they're editors. if "the new york times" gets something wrong or "the wall street journal" reporters get something wrong, editor after

editor after editor after editor and they check it and they make sure it is right, they make sure it is double and triple-sourced and still sometimes they get it wrong. and so then what happens? they either retract it or most likely they get sued if they don't retract it, right? so, there are checks and balances there that you don't find in the gutter when you're on social media just following algorithms that lead you to liars. >> and it is easy to take one case of something being biased or one case of something being wrong and saying therefore everything "the new york times" writes or axios writes is wrong. and what i tell people is just read "the wall street journal" or axios or the financial times or "the new york times" every day, and use your own eyes. do you feel like they're trying to get to the closest approximation of the truth with every story and that most of the

time if not aalmost lmost all o time they do? if they do, you can trust it as a news source. that doesn't mean you can't give yourself time to get riled up because you have ideological views or other passions, but if you take away truth and you take away reported truth or common facts from the equation, i honestly believe the whole american experiment goes under. you might love or hate a free press, but there is a reason this democracy, this country has thrived in a way that none others have, and i believe and will forever believe that a free press sits s s at the center ot and sometimes reality is reality and facts are facts. >> it is. jim, this weekend, the second greatest thing to come out of wisconsin, the first i saw a castle in wisconsin made completely of cheese. but after that, jim vandehei, number two. and what i always say is to my friends, i don't trust the press anymore because they have been

listening to donald trump undermine the press and elon musk and everybody else, i go, you know what, murdoch owns "the wall street journal." read the -- you don't want to read "the new york times." i'll read it for you. you read "the wall street journal." that's a murdoch paper. look at their reporting. if people don't -- if people think that rupert murdoch's "wall street journal" is a left wing pro deep state newspaper, they're beyond help. at some point people have to want to know the truth. if they don't want to know the truth, well, then go ahead and walk around ignorant. again, if you won't even look at "the wall street journal," then, yeah, there is a problem. >> axios co-founder and ceo jim vandehei, we got to go, go ahead. >> a movement in this country to teach kids in high schools media literacy and they can navigate the space. it is an important part. >> jim, you're a hero. >> great job.

the packers won easily too. so there you go. coming up, a quick break from politics to recap the biggest stories from college football. paul finebaum and pablo torre will take us through all of it. "morning joe" back in a moment. t "morning joe" back in a moment do your dry eyes still feel gritty, rough, or tired? with miebo, eyes can feel ♪ miebo ohh yeah ♪ miebo is the only prescription dry eye drop that forms a protective layer for the number one cause of dry eye: too much tear evaporation. for relief that's

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♪ it's time to try defying gravity ♪ we would love for you to be our elphaba. we want you to be our glinda the good. ♪ ♪ seven yards. darnold, going up top early and finds addison and addison

bouncing off the tackler, down the sideline, addison down, inside the 10! >> the fewest ten play drives in the nfl. they're going for it all! they got it all! >> jacobs, no shot. barreling forward. touchdown, again, number three for jacobs and green bay! >> goff hands it off. gibbs to the outside, to the end zone, touchdown. >> and more consistent, but right there, sealer beats -- >> tagovailoa to waddell, touchdown! >> mayfield steps up, he's going to run it. mayfield at the 5, trying to get in and he does! touchdown! and what a run for baker mayfield! >> murray keeps it. murray being chased by witherspoon, for wilson, off target to kobe brian and there

goes kobe brian, a house call! >> down to 47 seconds left. mahomes, out of the pocket. mahomes on the run. takes a look around. oh, mahomes is still going! slips away for a huge gain. >> line drive to turpin and bounces through his legs. here it comes. devonte turpin spinning free, here he goes! fastest man in the nfl, devonte turpin takes it all the way. touchdown, dallas! >> i don't get how that one spin made every single commander fall to the ground but it did. incredible run back. the 90-yard fourth quarter kickoff return of the dallas cowboys, the commanders would answer with the field goal and then this 86-yard touchdown reception by mclorne that should have helped send the game to overtime. they're happy. they're happy.

they're happy. >> oh. >> and then a weird ending in a very long time. there you go. look at that. okay. that was a -- pablo torre is here. pablo, one of the craziest endings of an nfl game in a long time. >> i don't know how many great teams there are in the nfl this year, but we have spectacle. one thing that -- >> why are you not entertained? >> if you're a commanders fan, i think you thought it was safe to watch games like this. jayden daniels, new ownership, new name, renovations to the building, all of it is supposed to feel different and then you tune in to a game where there are 31 points scored in the last three minutes or so. and extra point. for those who -- i don't know if i should explain extra points so pedantically to the audience. >> sure. >> it is just dotting the i.

if you want the statistical rate, 96% of the time you drill the extra point. it is the easiest thing in sports. >> crazy. >> and here it is. we have the 86-yard pass and you miss this, this is when it feels like i need to go back into my burrow and not watch. >> speaking of not watching. let's get a shot of this "new york times," and the question is, look, jets fans, giants fans, sad fans, look at the tale of two cities. new york and philadelphia. it seems to me, you said it before, i completely agree, that the giants and the eagles connected. and at the same time going in two completely different ways. >> richard, i think of richard when i watch the giants just be themselves at this point. just fire daboll. the giants last week, daniel

jones gone. they release him. they're in total disarray and go into this game against the bucs and it is baker mayfield against tommy devito. i don't want to pa edantically again explain tommy devito. when baker goes and does stuff like this and mocks the backup's backup that is now starting for the giants, you wonder how did they get here? at a certain point, you swingle the camera back over to philly, in contrast to this, in philly, that's why the guy who was your star running back who is running into the end zone as baker is for the bucs, you used to have the mvp candidate saquon barkley doing stuff like this. >> this guy should be mvp. >> the franchise record, 255 yards rushing, plus another 40 something on the ground, 300 yards casually on offense for

you. this is -- let him go. >> when i was growing up, when richard was growing up, running backs were the stars, not so much the quarterback. but running backs were the stars, right? and that weirdly enough it is quarterbacks and wide receivers. barkley is breaking that rule right now. that guy is the differencemaker in philadelphia. >> there is a little shift back toward running backs this year. derrick henry in baltimore. most particularly saquon barkley who should be the mvp this year. maybe josh allen after the big play last week. we also saw stellar running backs in detroit and green bay yesterday. and like suddenly, as wonderful as the lions have been this year, packers behind them. >> if you're not tracking this as i am, these are three playoff teams. the packers are 8-3. in third place. the vikings just beat the bears. >> preseason picks not looking

bad. nobody picked the jets. the lions and the chiefs. >> thank the lord that none of us were so delusional to think that the jets -- >> well, paul finebaum, we're not talking college football yet, let's talk about the chiefs and the panthers, not a lot for the university of alabama to be excited about. yesterday, we had a lot to be excited about when we looked at this, this game. we finally saw bryce look like the quarterback in the nfl we knew he could be. >> joe, bryce young did what he was paid $30 million to do, he led a team to what was hopefully a winning drive. they ended up scoring with about two minutes to go, got the two-point conversion and, of course, they handed the ball over to patrick mahomes. and we saw what happened. >> handed the ball over to mahomes with a minute and a half left. you just knew he was going to win the game because that's exactly who he is. and that's why he keeps winning super bowls. but bryce actually, you know, i never have been a fan of letting rookies play in the nfl the

first year. sit them. at least for half a season. let them see the pace. but nobody does that anymore. they draft somebody, throw them out on the field and usually hurts them. bryce controlled this game, he controlled the offense. we don't have to watch this. and bryce -- you can tell, bryce on the sidelines for two, three, four, five weeks helped him look at the game from the sideline and understand, okay, that's what i need to do in the nfl, that's how things are different in the nfl. the pacing, the speed, the quickness, the skill. i mean, it made a difference, didn't it? >> it made a tremendous difference and, listen, he was cast aside. they were talking about trading him, getting rid of him. but in the end, he showed great resilience. i ask to ask you a question, are we filibustering here talking about -- >> yeah. >> the elephant in the room here? >> sad. >> pathetic, but, you know, it

is always easy to blame the quarterback, right? and i will blame the quarterback getting paid $30 million a year. i will not blame a kid, i'm sorry, old enough that if you're in college, i call you a kid, i'm not going to blame jalen millrow when oklahoma has coaches that are smart enough to stop the run, they have to figure out a way to get him competent, to get him -- this is the second half after he was shut down the entire first half. the thing we know about jalen is, his confidence goes up when he's running, he can start passing well, the coaches say that. this is an offense, alabama offense that their offensive coordinator doesn't have a theory and incapable of adjusting in the middle of the game. you think if oklahoma ran the ball 30 times, they would go maybe we should stop him from running around the edge. you know, jack and i would watch the game, i go, all right, he's going to -- i swear to god, he's going to fake the handoff and run around the left end.

did it time and time again. i'm telling you what, these coaches, especially the assistant coaches, no, i'm dead serious, they will be good coaches one day. but that will not be in time for the university of alabama. they don't belong there. they're not good enough to be there. we have an offensive coordinator, time and again, that actually doesn't understand that you can throw to your tight ends in the same, like, four, five, six yards down the field, split the seams, spread the defense out, open up the running, i mean, paul, this is obvious stuff. this is obvious. and i don't know how they got this bad. this is -- we remember the mike shula era. i was at alabama when they were 5-6. right? we are there again. and, paul, this is a sad thing, it is not going to get any better until you have coaches that know how to play in the

s.e.c. >> i cannot remember a time in a big game, by the way, everything was on the line, alabama wins in norman, beats auburn, which will be -- they are already a double digit favorite, they go to the s.e.c. game, in the playoffs, a shot at a national championship and they threw it all away and i don't ever remember a an ill prepped team, i blame the head coach, we all know what he had to take over, but he was left one of the two or three or four best teams in the country and he's thrown it all away. >> usually people say don't follow a great coach, which makes a lot of sense. but in this case, and i hate to be this way, this is the best it is going -- i'm serious. this is the best it is going to be. he has nick saban's players.

and he's getting beaten this badly by a 1-5 team in the s.e.c. and he seems like a really nice guy. and he seems really -- hold on, hold on! he seems really -- >> that's a bless your heart type of thing. >> no, it's not. >> this is the south. >> he seems very zen, most of the time. that's awesome. guess what, that's what i want in baseball coaches. right? that's what i want in baseball players. when you have to stay zen, because of all the failure, you don't want that in the southeastern conference. so, what is alabama going to do? are they going to sit there and be polite and let this program tank over the next two or three years? are they going to make a change this year? >> joe, they're not going to make a change. >> okay. well -- we'll be having the same conversation next year, but go ahead. >> no, it is not going to

happen. and they will go to a good bowl game in florida that nobody will care about. good recruiting there. and i think the same thing will happen because -- and it is not fair to compare him to nick saban. nobody is nick saban except for maybe bear bryant but this is where we are with alabama. >> i'm not knocking the guys. i'm not. they're ill prepped. he was not prepared to come into the s.e.c. i never thought he was prepared -- >> we're a little late. >> i don't care if we're late. we're talking about the most important thing in america, alabama football. paul, you guys, let's talk about the other games and teams that are actually going to be in the playoffs. why don't we start with you, pablo. ohio state and indiana. >> oh, sure. >> which one doesn't belong? >> i like how ohio state is a pallet cleanser for you. >> sorbet. >> ohio state, the theory of their case is they have one of the best offenses and one of the best defenses and sometimes you get a school like indiana that

hasn't played this level of competition. and so when you evangelize on behalf of the s.e.c., know the reason you can do that is because there are teams like indiana that go up against ohio state and get exposed immediately. the playoff picture, look, sometimes, you know, the duke mayo bowl, that's a delicious bowl for -- >> paul, let's talk about the s.e.c. and another crazy game, ole miss, which we are all sure after georgia was the best team in football, nick saban said best team in college football, the gators handed it to them. let's talk about that game. and talk about who is good enough in the s.e.c. to take it all the way now? >> i still think georgia, maybe the best team in spite of a couple of losses. texas has not played a very good schedule. >> not impressed. >> what you get from the s.e.c., you'll get three scores,

tennessee has now in the playoffs now because of what happened the other day. georgia and texas. i want to go back to the ohio state game for a second, though. did you see caleb downs 75-yard punt return, he was at alabama last year, can you imagine how he would have felt in a situation like that. he's probably the biggest defection, from alabama to ohio state. ultimately, this great league that i cover and you love, joe, we thought maybe five schools would make it. right now three. the only possibility of more is if texas a&m wins this epic game against texas and then they go to the s.e.c. game and texas gets in and perhaps texas a&m winning there. that's the only way. it was one of the -- i have not seen a day with more carnage in the s.e.c. and, by the way, penultimate weekend before thanksgiving, we call it cupcake weekend, it is usually when nothing happens, but even though oregon is number one, ohio state

will beat them in -- at the big ten championship game. penn state and indiana, you mentioned that, joe, i think indiana would finish about eighth or ninth in the s.e.c. >> can we keep those games up? put up this list and now i know this last week, as neil young would say, i've done this before, but i want to go through these. paul, maybe it is just me. if oregon plays in the s.e.c., i saw how they played in wisconsin, how they struggled. ohio state, they're a good team. texas, i'm not so impressed. if georgia gets an s.e.c. championship, they lose again. penn state, don't get me started on how badly penn state would do -- >> they can't win a big game. >> they never won a big game and they would lose four to five games in the s.e.c. same with indiana. and notre dame, i know i'm going to upset my friends, but seriously, how long was the

charade continuing? it has been going for 40 years now. stop putting them in the top ten. they humiliate themselves like alabama does. miami, you know, i thought miami was weak until i saw how bad alabama was. and suddenly cam ward is a guy that can change a game in an instant. i can't figure out ol' miss. who can. and so there you go. pablo, would you like to add anything? >> what i like is mika is hearing this for the second time in -- i like how joe has turned this into an episode of paul finebaum's radio show. he's a caller, the next phyllis, god bless her soul , this is joe's time. >> reclaim your time, paul. >> reclaim your time, paul. give us the best two teams in college football that you want to see in the championship game?

>> i think ultimately we're going to see georgia play ohio state. that would be a great game. >> whatpablo? >> i hate to disagree. >> paul, have fun on your show. >> espn's paul finebaum. >> hold on a second. paul, you have said i was in large part responsible for bringing nick saban to alabama. i want you to pass along the word, if you want to win again, and i know nobody wants to do it, bring lane kiffin to alabama and we'll win a national championship in three years. no, no, let me tell you something, i said this while they were searching and they got us a guy that didn't know the s.e.c. you may not like lane kiffin. >> you know, joe is responsible for bringing saban. i said that -- i'm not making it up. it happened had you not done what you did. i'm appointing you as the voice of the s.e.c. to start the alabama coaching search today. >> you bring lane kiffin to

alabama, we will win a national championship within three years. and he will be at the top. we will be in the championship game for the next six years. it is that simple. you know what? as i said about the ag pick, you can pay me now or you can pay me later, but you better do it now because we're going to keep losing. other than that, i got nothing to say. >> thank you very much. and one final sports-related headline for you, dominican baseball star rico cardi has passed away at the age of 85, known for his immense talent, his major league career was derailed by injuries and health setbacks and including tuberculosis, but he managed to play until he was1,677 hits ande runs. he had the best season in 1970. carty won the national league -- >> the batting title with the

braves, had a .366 average. he became -- get this, this is a fantastic stat, he became the first person to be written in to the all-star ballot because nobody saw him coming. >> nice. >> rico carty, written in. steve garvey was the only other one, like in '80, whatever year that was. rico carty, a real hero of my brother and me in atlanta in the '70s. >> his passing was confirmed by mlb and the braves. host of pablo torre finds out, pablo torre, thank you. >> what are you talking about next? >> tomorrow, an episode about how to tear down a goal post. if anybody was wondering, it is not a joke, we have a step by step guide that we have not legally endorsed for the record, but we will explain. spoiler alert. >> just in case you're bored over thanksgiving weekend and want to go to a football game, pablo will tell you how to spend

your -- >> up next, one of our next guests argues the democrats are in trouble, this man can save them. we'll tell you who that one person is. dig into donald trump's foreign policy proposals as president biden looks to protect his national security priorities before leaving office. we'll speak with richard haass about that next. we're back in 90 seconds. th rics about that next. we're back in 90 seconds

♪ ♪ ♪ something has changed within me ♪ ♪ it's time to try defying gravity ♪ ♪ ♪

welcome back to "morning joe." jonathan lemire, reverend al sharpton, chard haass still with us. joining us for the conversation, donny deutsch, and april ryan, she's an msnbc political analyst. >> good to have you all. we want to pick up on a conversation we started on friday, the incredible conversation about the path forward for democrats in the wake of this month's election. among antonio delgado, who implored that his party refocus on the working class. and joe weighed in as well. take a listen. >> 60% of folks right now in

this country living paycheck to paycheck. 60%. the top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 90%. first time in this country's history, the top 1% own more wealth than the entire middle class. you talk about why democrats are losing communities, it is because economic inequality is growing at an accelerated rate that is swallowing up the very essence of our democracy. that is the real threat, by the way. >> 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 in the market. >> and let me just say, people at home going, okay, 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. and if the democrats aren't going to do it, then who the hell is going to do it? >> i'm about as upset about that as alabama football. let's bring in right now the contributing editor to the atlantic, kurt andersen, the author of two recent "new york times" best sellers, one of them "evil geniuses: the unmaking of america," i think we had you on for a month straight on that. the thing is, kurt, and we talked about it at the time, can i see kurt, please? i know how the book looks. >> good. he wants people to -- >> i know. buye geniuses," it is incredible. the thing is, we're talking about the problem with the deficit, right? i think i personally think along with everything else that we

have, two huge challenges of people on focus, one, a $36 trillion debt because when we go off the cliff, it is working americans that are hurt the most, and, two, the fact that there has been a massive redistribution of income since the 1980s from working class and middle class americans to the richest .001%. and until we take care of those two things, we're going to continue to have our social fabric tearing apart. and you talk about how this has been a long time coming. >> yeah, joe. it has been 50 years coming. and the thing is that -- that happens in the 1970s, two things happen at once, which is to say the rich corporate right, the republican elite, people i call evil geniuses, had built this

new counter establishment, and they kept the eye on the rise and for the party which is no taxes.the grover norquist pledg, less regulation, across the board, less regulation, we don't like unions, reagan, bust the unions, we're good. the democrats meanwhile, the new democrats, like gary hart, were saying most of the new democrats that the stars of the '70s and the '80s were saying, yeah, the new deal is over. the whole new deal thing is over. and by extension the democratic party's connection with working people and labor unions is over. pretty much. so, pretty much you have the democrats and republicans do become the same -- close to a uniparty as they were being charged economically.

culturally conservative republicans and the white working class, nonworking class, they're the same in terms of how they treat -- material gangs and social safety nets and all the rest, but we like the same stuff and the same people. so, i'm with them. >> yeah. kurt is freezing right now. you're not. i can see you, you're not buffering right now, rev, we'll go to you quickly. what i was saying in the clip was, you know, everybody complains about the trump tax cuts. waited for the wealthiest of all americans. not for working americans, not for middle class americans, not for small business, but for the richest americans, they got the biggest benefit from it. the question is, when democrats were in charge of the ways and means committee, you know, they could have fought on carried interest, they could have fought on making sure that the top top .001% didn't get even richer, and they just didn't do it. >> no, they dropped the ball.

and at the same time, dropped the large segment of the voting public that trump came along and appealed to even though his policies were the opposite of that. and a lot of it was that i think that there was the cultural divide where they were playing one side, the democrats, and not realizing the same people that were suffering from this economic policy of taking care of the wealthy and dealing with the carried interest and others, the people that were suffering there in appalachia were the same people that were suffering in south side or west side chicago. and if we could bring those people together that was a winning combination. but people felt they were not being heard. so therefore they went for what they considered was rebellious against being shut out and they were really being shut out by the same people that they felt were listening to them, the democrats in my opinion failed to make that connection, which

was real. >> so also with us, economist at the london school of economics, daniel chandler, the author of the book "free and equal, eye manifesto for a just society." he rode a piece for "the new york times" entitled "democrats are in trouble, this man can save them." tell us about who can save the dems. >> they do a good headline. so, you know, in a way it might surprise you because the person who i think can save the democrats is a philosopher rather than a politician. the person that my article is inspired by and the same is true of my book, the philosopher john rolls, the towering figure of 20th century philosophy and revolutionized liberal thinking. this is not historical intellectual, it is political, and i think what you get from

rolls is a hopeful and constructive vision of what, you know, a more fair and just society would look like. and picking up on the conversation so far, i really agree with most of the -- all of the discussion so far, but most of it is -- the discussion is mostly diagnostic. a analysis of how and why they have ended up where they are, where they lack a kind of constructive vision of where they want to go and in a sense that's where my article and my book picks up, it tries to say that the future of democratic party rests not on just assembling the biggest possible anti-trump coalition, but on kind of reclaiming their soul, finding a sense of what it is that they stand for, and i think rolls can help them do that and we need to connect abstract philosophy you get from thinkers like rolls with practical ideas

for how we can transform america's political and economic institutions for the better. >> and april ryan, that's a lot of people saying -- wait a second, why are democrats losing working class white voters, why are democrats losing working class hispanic voters, why are democrats losing some working class black voters, especially black men? overstated about black men, the degree, there is no doubt there is a trend that democrats are losing a lot of people that have been their base for a long time. why do you think that is? >> tone deafness. tone deafness. at this point, you have to think about this. politics is personal and it is also pocketbook. this is not new, though, for black america, for latino america, for those who are underserved. think about the 1960s. think about the march on washington with dr. king. think about if robert kennedy sr. and dr. martin luther king were to live, they would have

dealt with issues of poverty. one thing i did ask robert kennedy jr. at the debate in philadelphia after the debate in the spin room, i said, what if your father and dr. king had lived, they were dealing with the issue of poverty. who is the president that would deal with that issue more donal. which was surprising to hear that as democrats are thought to be the ones that deal with this. they are imploding now because of this, because of the tone deafness, that so many people have told them about that they didn't listen. >> donny, three weeks since the election. >> three weeks, wow. >> the democratic soul searching is well under way. the tone deafness, you know, and as the rev noted, the democrats, not all, but have done some policy work to help those people, but the people who need it, and yet they don't believe it, they don't see it, they don't accept it and certainly democrats could do more and there is an impulse to go through the change candidate,

which donald trump fashioned himself to be. in terms of the messaging,not just a one way street, we're hearing you, what can they do better? >> messenger versus messaging. ronald reagan, bill clinton, barack obama, donald trump. they had and have the ability to turn to voters and say, i feel your pain, i'm going to solve your problem, regardless of the case of donald trump that he is equation, he is one of the rich guys, he has the ability, it is the way a person communicates, how they connect. we can talk all we want about policy. i guarantee if you look up on the democratic platform it was all there, all the message was there. we need the democrats need a transformational figure, that figure that can connect so we can talk all we want about messaging that is off, they have the better messenger. >> richard, i don't think agrees with the trump -- >> let me say one thing. the great ladder in american society is not necessarily

redistribution, a lot of this conversation doesn't leave me wildly comfortable. it is opportunity, it is making the american dream real. you want to do it? how about improving the quality of public schools? that is the principle ladder in american society? when did they talk about public education and the answer is they can't. why can't they? because of teachers unions. >> public education going to override inflation and immigration and -- >> but those -- >> the gut issues? >> the answer is you want to talk to the american people that's the way we make opportunity real in this country. i'm happy about tax and carried interest, but get serious about opportunity. >> i am a capitalist. i'm a proud capitalist. but i'm a proud capitalist with guardrails that capitalism used to have. and i understand people don't want to talk about income redistribution. i'm not a big fan of income

redistribution. i'm not a big fan when the income is being moved from middle class americans to billionaires. and that has been happening for four decades. really three decades in earnest. you talk about ronald reagan a lot, but really it started with democrats in the '90s, the rubin democrats, when suddenly it was hard to tell the difference between republicans and democrats. and carried interest matters. the fact that billionaires -- just continue to get richer and richer and they pay a lower tax rate than their clerical workers, that matters. and what i'm -- i'm not talking about winning elections. i'm talking about rebuilding the middle class of america. so if gas prices go up 10, 15, 20%, whatever it may do over the next couple of years, they can afford it without wondering how they're going to pay for the

groceries. >> yeah. capitalism was working just fine from the end of world war ii through the '70s and that's because all the votes, more or less, were rising together as we prospered. that ended. and that ended because your former party with the complicity of a lot of democrats concentrated on changing that. now, chris murphy, the senator from connecticut has had great interviews recently in which he says as more than a diagnosis as daniel reverse what they have d which is democrats, harris, all of them, you know, spent 80% of their time with these fine tuned wonky policy things, here's the plan. and they're civil and they're pearl clutching mitt romney-esque in their style, which kind of can't go on. instead of having 80% about your

policy wonk details and 20% of, like, hey, i'm angry, there is a rigged system, this year, reverse that and do what donald trump does, but also make good on the deliverables of that, right? to the economic populous, real economic populous, which they have moved to, which they're becoming, but then with the message and the messengers that, you know, become the message. whether it is john fetterman, whether it is bernie sanders, whether it is anthony delgado, whether it is -- we can name them. jared goldman in maine, if they're left or moderate, doesn't matter if they can win by being and seeming kind of walking the walk as well as talking the talk. >> so, daniel, it is not just the united states where the party in power lost. we have seen in democratic nations throughout the globe where incumbents have either

lost or their party has been dramatically weakened. what are some of the lessons that could apply in those capitals as well? >> yeah, you know, i think you're right that the challenge of the liberal democracy is a global phenomenon too. in a sense, the struggle that mainstream progressive parties like the democrats in the states and also the labor party in the uk or the social democratic party in germany, i think the struggle that they have this is that they haven't had a vision, a positive vision of their own with which they can counteract the rising authorizes of authoritarian populism and just coming back to the conversation so far, i think part of the problem is this very narrow focus on redistribution, the redistribution of money is the solution to all of the problems with capital as we know it. i think part of what is so appealing is he recognizes economic justice is not about money, it is about whether

people have opportunities for self-respect and dignity, chances to contribute to economic life and, you know, and to participate in communities and i think once you recognize this broader vision of what economic justice is about, you see the kinds of policies we need and not just about taxing and redistributing. and i think they would point toward the bolder economic ideas that i think kurt was just suggesting that we need. that would be things like massive investment in vocational education, so in the uk people have a life-long entitlement now which gives them equal access to grants, whether vocational or in the academic sphere, we could also look at policies like putting workers on the boards of companies, so they have a genuine say over how the companies are run. and i think the final thing which, you know, to be fair, president biden moved in this direction, but i really harnessing the power of industrial strategy to create good jobs, and i think, you know, this kind of collection of much bigger bolder policies that try to change the structure of our economic system are not just

to tweak around the edges or compensate people for its failings through shifting money around, it is that kind of vision that we need if we want to restore people's faith in capitalism and liberal democracy and counter the threat of authoritarian populism. >> daniel chandler, thank you very much. his piece for "the new york times" is available to read now online. and kurt andersen, thank you as well. his book "evil geniuses: the unmaking of america" is a "new york times" best-seller. >> kurt, come back for another week or two. >> april is staying with us. a few other stories making headlines in here, a couple from connecticut is accused of stealing about a million dollars of merchandise from lululemon. why? how much can you wear? >> it is probably like one small bag of stuff, it is so expensive. according to court records, the couple and their accomplices hit stores in five states. investigators say their scheme involving adding security tags

to items already purchased to create a distraction which would allow others involved in the theft ring to walk out of the store with several items. it seems luke a lot of work and also you don't get much because they're so expensive. >> we got 38 million in arizona, the lululemon robberies. >> all right. >> cats, dogs. >> two notable passings to tell you about. legendary game show host chuck woolry has died. woolery was the original host for "wheel of fortune," when it premiered in the late 1970s and 1983 he became the host of "the dating show," him a household name. several years after leaving tv, he became the host of a popular right wing podcast. woolery was 83 years old. and alice brock, who was made famous by has died at the age o.

the song tells of guthrie's trip to visit brock and her husband during thanksgiving. guthrie does more talking than singing while telling a story about his arrest for littering that threatens his eligibility for the vietnam war. brock helped write the first half of a song which became an anthem of the antiwar movement. and still ahead on "morning joe," we'll get to republican senator mike rounds' new comments about standing by ukraine, even as donald trump vows to end that war with russia. plus, we're going to dig into more of trump's most controversial cabinet picks, pete hegseth and tulsi gabbard. and what the path forward is for them, what it might look like. "morning joe" is coming right

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all right. welcome back. 38 past the hour. jonathan chait has a new place for the atlantic about pete hegseth entitled "donald trump's most dangerous cabinet pick" and jonathan writes in part this, hegseth may be no less nutty

than any of trump's more controversial nominees, and given the power he is likely to hold for 2 million american military personnel, he's almost certainly far more dangerous than any of them. and his three most recent books, hegseth puts forward a wide range of misguided ideas, vaccines are poisonous, climate change is a hoax, george floyd died of a drug overdose and was not murdered. the holocaust was perpetrated by german socialists, that the entire basic design of the u.s. public education system is the product of a century long totally successful communist plot. a defense secretary with a tenuous grip on reality, who cannot differentiate foreign enemies from domestic political opponents and who seems to exist in a state of permanent hysteria is a problem that the united

states never had to survive -- has never had to survive. the main question i was looking to answer when i started reading hegseth's collected works is whether he would follow a trump command to shoot peaceful protesters. after having read them, i don't think he would even wait for the order. >> okay, that's some strong words from jonathan chait. we'll get him on the show this week to talk about it. i think it is going to be on tomorrow. richard, the concerns that jonathan expressed, again, concerns by democrats in the senate, also republicans in the senate, the more writings they hear about, about civil war, about all the things that jonathan chait wrote up right there, about women, not just in the military, but women outside of the military, the more deeply concerned this morning, tulsi gabbard was number one in the list of concerns. i think that is shifting now to

pete hegseth. >> the reason it is shifting is because when you think about the fitness for someone of one of the top jobs, you look at the individual, you multiply it times the importance of the job. and hegseth is up for a far more important job because secretary of defense, you got nearly 3 million civilian and military employees, we're in a world of -- active conflicts and two geographies, could have one in a third geography, we face a moment where a lot of our defense industrial base is equa military is no longer technologically ready for this moment in history. this has become a pivotal, pivotal job. this is why god invented public hearings. you want to get the stuff out and -- >> i was at madison and -- >> go ahead. >> no, that's why. you want all this stuff out there. my guess is ultimately the court of public opinion will do this guy in.

>> jonathan's piece, april, talking about how this nominee hegseth would be before the command be ready to come down on peaceful protesters and as you know many of us were at the forefront of that and young activists, do you think that will come up in the hearings and does it disturb you that they're blatantly nominating some people that clearly would go beyond the boundaries that we have seen in terms of not only protests, but in many other areas, aside from the fact that he has certainly questions about his management skills and some accusations of sexual misconduct. >> reverend al, you know, you hit the nail. it is like peeling an onion with every layer you tear up. and at the article that really made me think he cannot

differentiate between foreign enemies and domestic political opponents, we saw this across the street from the white house, when donald trump wanted to push back those who were legally and under the constitution demonstrating for their rights about george floyd. and you are not supposed to use the military against peaceful protesters who are concerned, just showing great concern and wanting to show -- be the court of public opinion, to change the mind of the president on this issue and others. if this man is the man of war, if you will, could be possibly the head of the department of -- the man of war, you got diplomacy at state, and the man of war at defense, if he is believing and espousing some of these conspiracy theories, it is greatly concerning. it is just like being the president. you have to have a sober mind,

you have to be able to see the foundation, because anything, anything that he does can affect not just the nation, but the world. it is very concerning. >> absolutely. republican senator -- so sorry. >> i wanted to ask jonathan. tell us about your reporting on this. >> the hegseth pick is now the one that the trump team feels less confident about. in part because he wasn't, i'm told, fully transparent about this accusation in 2017, the sexual assault case in california, the accusations that he didn't fully tell them what was going on. and that secondly, as we talk about earlier in the show, now that matt gaetz has pulled out, there is a sense that there are fewer republican senators, we ticked through them earlier, mcconnell, murkowski, collins, tillis, young, the rest, who have great reservations about hegseth with his controversial beliefs, and also his lack of experience, his lack of experience managing anything, particularly a bureaucracy of 3 million people that they're not sure he should be at the head of

the dod. no sense that the trump team is waffling, that he'll pull this back, but he has expressed to in some anxieties about this pick and he was even willing to fight more for gaetz than he would for hegseth. we'll have to see how this plays in the days ahead. this is, again, someone, i mean, this is one of the most important jobs in government, you know, there is a lot riding on this pick. do you -- do republicans have a chance to draw a line and say, no, not for us? >> i don't think he's going to get through. if you look at the picks, treasury, a solid pick, state, solid pick, commerce, a solid pick and the picks out of the box. maybe i'm too hopeful, i don't think he gets through. i think this is a -- i think this is a harbinger if he does get through, we have a rough four years ahead of us. i mean, this one -- there is a lot of tells in this one. >> yeah. only because it is so dangerous. he is the second -- the sec def is the most powerful person probably on the planet. >> yeah. >> also because of the insurrection act, not just the

policy consequences, it is here at home also. if you have protests over deportations, there will be real questions about the use of the military in that context. >> republican senator mike rounds is dismissing the idea of negotiating a peace deal between russia and ukraine. that's been the key plend the wt on friday, during the halifax international security forum, rounds broke the incoming administration stance, saying the kremlin cannot be trusted, and more aid needs to be given to ukraine in order to show america's strength and prevent a wider war. here are -- is part of the senator's comments. >> i just feel so frustrated that we have not been able to provide them all of the equipment that they need, and all of the weapons systems that they need in order to respond to absolute tyranny coming from russia, a neighbor who has absolutely unjustly invaded

their country. and it has been done after a time in which russia was one of the guaranteers of their safety from 1994 when they gave up the nuclear weapons that they had and they did it because they thought all of us would defend them in that decision. and now here we are, this many years later, with putin, the aggressor, looking at us as literally hundreds of thousands of his own people die on the front line as cannon fodder and as he inflicts huge, huge amounts of damage and destruction in a neighbor, in an innocent neighbor, who wanted peace, & and i wonder why we haven't done more than we have. do you believe that this tyrant, if you offer him a part of a

free country, do you think he's going to stop? do you think for one second he's going to turn around and walk back in and say, okay, but we most certainly have our freedom now, we have been defended by this, we have everything we need, or do you think he's going to look at that and say, we're russian strength? i think that's what happens. i think the best thing in the world that we can do is make our commitment to ukraine, allow them to participate in deciding whether or not victory is actually achieved, and whether or not russia would continue to support a tyrant as the body bags continue to come home. i fear, as much as i would love to say that there is a path toward a peaceful resolution to this by negotiating with this tyrant, i suspect that we may be deceiving ourselves. >> and so, jonathan, this is -- we're back to the future here, and the first trump term, donald trump would say things that

caused great concerns to other republicans regarding russia, regarding putin, the held sinki press conference. then you had the republicans in the senate, with senator rounds, senator todd young, senator marco rubio, some of the toughest sanctions against vladimir putin and mike pence would go overseas, also talk tough on russia and it looks like we're probably in a repeat for that, because i don't see todd young backing down, i don't see a lot of these other republicans, senator rounds backing down at all. >> two sides to that coin. trump as you said publicly whether on twitter or in news conferences would be pretty soft and complementary about putin. and russian at times, seeming like he was echoing russian propaganda about afghanistan and the like, but yet people in his administration were often very tough on russia, and certainly the senate. that was not only the senator you mentioned, that was where

lindsey graham, one of his closest allies would break with trump on russia and there is a sense that that could be setting up here again with this current senator. >> what are your thoughts on senator rounds and the best path forward for this country and the senate republicans like senator rounds who want to be tough? not just senators, but house members, chairman mccall had some very tough words about russia this weekend. >> the senator was half right. we ought to be tough but realistic. we ought to be stalwart in our support for ukraine, but ukraine is not going to liberate all its territory, if we're tough, then we send putin the signon his si. he can't outlast ukraine or the west. we got to get commitments for arms. that's how we set up, not peace, we're never going to get peace, but set up a cease-fire. and i don't want to destroy ukraine, see it destroyed in the name of trying to save it. i want to see ukraine survive, i

want to begin to the rebuilding and let's get a cease-fire. >> like korea. >> 100%. >> all right. donny deutsch, thank you so much. april ryan, thank you as well. april's recent reporting is entitled "as biden makes his first trip to angola, uncertainty looms for africa with incoming trump presidency." april, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," from school, desegregation, to the civil rights movement, to black lives matter, our next guest is examining the last century of civil rights, activism and the role young americans have played in shaping our democracy. we're back in two minutes. in shaping our democracy we're back in two minutes. for up to 60% off gifts that say i get you. etsy has it.

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welcome back. 54 past the hour. our next guest traveled across 30 states to document the nationwide protests in the summer of 2020, calling for justice after the death of george floyd. her trip took her all the way to the west coast, where a protest led by young teens sparked calls to highlight the history of black youth activism in america. that book "resist: how a century of voting of young black act visits shaped america" is out now. and author rita omokha joins us now. we have the book here. i'll say it again "resist: how a century of young black activists shaped america," tell us about the book, a 32-day, 30-state journey, what did you learn and what does the book tell us about american democracy? >> that's a lot. >> that's a lot. >> thanks for having me. yeah, i am so fortunate that i got to travel the country in

2020 after so much was happening, you know, george floyd was killed, and it put this laser focus on race relations. i really wanted to travel across the country, have that conversation and see how people were navigating that time. and it was important that i stumbled upon a protest that was led by young people. and as i followed them, i was mesmerized by how they knew they could speak up in this moment, they were acutely aware of the plight before them. that led me to the question of how do they know that they can even protest, and it is a simple question, but as a nigerian immigrant i have moments where i come across things like that, how is this even happening. that was a question that forms resist. resist looks at 100 years of black people, black young people and their allies who have been at the forefront of fortifying, safeguarding democracy. and it teaches us that democracy is really young.

democracy is still evolving. and because of that, it is so fragile. and as we're entering this second term with trump, it is even more fragile. it is under attack. and i think we really need to pay attention to history and have that be our best teacher. >> as we look into it, heading toward the second trump presidency, what -- any surprises or anything you learned along the way? >> i think overarchingly i learned that freedom wasn't free. someone fought for it, someone died for it, someone bled for it and that's why we're all here today. we're inheriters of this democracy. it is up to us to continue to safeguard it, to protect it and also all the young people i cover in the book, they're lesser known, but they were extremely audacious, they knew how to use their voice to speak up. and i think we can learn from that. we can understand that our voice is our weapon. because back then, you know this very well, reverend, back then, all they had was their voice. and they used their voice as

that weapon to speak up. >> one of the things, rita, i think is important about your book is that the younger activists throughout history became later those that stuck the older activists and had to create institutions for them because dr. king was not 30 years old. later became the older guard, even though he never lived to 40 and used to call him the old guard. jesse jackson, john lewis started, we were the young outsiders and then we saw after george floyd a lot of young activists, some of which i brought to national action network. talk about how some of the young activists are there, but other stays in the movement and actually will be the ones to resist during this age of donald trump. >> i think for so many people that i've been talking to, young people, older people, i think one thing that everyone is

turning to right now, especially those of us, myself included, who are struggling through this time, who have 2016 ptsd, one thing that people are trying to glean some kind of hope in this moment is to turn to action, turn to activism. what is a baseline definition of activism is just doing something that leads to social or political change. i think right now we can learn from these young people who they had nothing, but their voice. but they turned to action, the turned to activism and that led to some kind of accountability. i think right now we can all learn from that. >> all right, the new book is entitled "resift: how a century of young black activists shaped america." rita omokha, thank you very much for coming on the show. >> thank you for having me. still ahead on "morning joe," washington correspondent for "the new york times" peter baker will join us to discuss the political capital he says donald trump is wielding by falsely claiming he won the

election in a, quote, landslide. we're back in 90 seconds. quote. we're back in 90 seconds

who is wholly backing and supportive of putin and i worry

that she will not have america's best interests at heart. >> that is democratic and combat veteran democratic senator combat veteran tammy duckworth. obviously, expressing some concerns about tulsi gabbard. there was pushback on there and whether there is evidence of it or not. regardless, a lot of picks this weekend, something for everybody. something for everybody to complain about. something for everybody to be happy. however you want to put it. a lot of picks this week, but you look at tulsi gabbard at the d.o.d. pick. those, right now, from what we are hearing, that people are the most concerned about that are out there. >> yeah. we will go through all of the picks and hear what some key republicans are saying as wellte ukraine war. the incoming trump administration is impacting the conflict right now. plus, it wasn't quite

barbanheimer but a good week at the box office and more about the "wicked" and "gladiator 2" battle. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." they are doing something with it but we don't know what the word is this mondthe host of "way to early," jonathan lemire. president of the national action network and host of msnbc "politics nation" reverend al sharpton. richard haas is also with us. von hillyard is here with us on the set. cofounder and ceo of accessias is jim van dah heim. >> i've known jim a quarter century now. >> he is a mild and nice guy.

>> they say if you ask about joe, what do the kids on the street say? josie uniter and not divider and i will not talk about the the new york giants. we will not talk about alabama until we talk about it way too much. alabama humiliated. i want to talk about a most important football game of the weekend. maybe of the perhaps decade and it happened this weekend, prospect park. the super bowl of flag football. we take it to our prospect park, flag football, super bowl correspondent jonathan lemire. >> we couldn't get through the crowds. >> we could not get through the crowds. we were trying to come out. tell us what happened. >> we are running out of room to hang championship banners at our house right now. >> the hall of champions. john wooden had his room.

it's nothing compared to yours. >> nothing at all. prospect park, muddy, cold, wind-whipped and smoke in the air from the brush fire last week. my oldest, his team did, in fact, defend their flag football championship in a 13-6 rock fight. my youngest the day before went back-to-back so we have two champions in this weekend in this house. as you can imagine, i'm pacing the sidelines! a nervous wreck throughout! just couldn't each watch but both teams pull it out at the end. >> they player the university of alabama next week. alabama a seven-point underdog. >> they will beat alabama. >> what is up with the giants, man? what is up with the giants? >> where do you start? massive mistake in the quarterbacking the last five years and investing way too much in daniel jones and no backups for him. they got rid of saquon barkley who had a career game last night.

watching a gifted player at the top of his game was actually something else. >> look at baker go. >> one of the best safeties in football. general manager and the coach has lost control of the team. the giants are done. stick a fork in them. they are done. they need to be broken up and started over. >> why don't you hire all of alabama's coaching staff? now listen. here is the problem. they haven't figured out the forward pass yet. other than that, they will do you proud. >> can we do the news? >> that was the news! >> that kind of was the news for a lot of people. let's talk to jim vandehei about the green bay packers. >> i think what he is doing lately is amazing and including a fiery speech lately. president-elect donald trump has filled out his core cabinet peaches. he has chosen scott bessen as

treasury secretary. he has also supported ing rump's 2017 tax cuts. >> there is a rub. we got 36 trillion national debt. if you extend those tax cuts for the wealthiest americans, that is only going to cause the deficit to spike. again, there is a challenge there. they are going to have to figure out if he really -- if he holds both of those. >> yeah. >> that is a huge challenge. i don't think he can get there with a 36 trillion debt but we will seal. >> rollins is a conservative lawyer who served as domestic policy chief during trump's first term. after leaving the white house, she became president and ceo of the america first policy institute, a group that helped lay the groundwork for a second trump administration. former pro football player scott turner is trump's pick for hud

secretary. turner ran the white house opportunity and revitalization council during trump's first term. he also is involved with the america first policy institute. trump's choice for labor secretary is republican congresswoman laurie chavez of oregon. she is a staunch union ally and one of only a few house republicans to support major pro union legislation. president-elect also named russell voight, who was co-author of the project 2025 to lead the office of management and budget. it's a role he held during trump's first term. he also advocated for the president to have greater control over government agencies such as the fcc and the securities and exchange commission. trump selected former republican congressman david weldon of florida to lead the cdc.

he is a medical doctor critical of the agency and its vaccination program and pushed a long debunked claim that a we have a lot to talk about here. i went to congress for a long time. i want to talk, first of all -- i went to congress for a long time. i want to talk, first of all -- then we are going to talk about, like, this is not an ideologically pure cabinet by any stretch of the cabinet. he told "the times" one of the more ideologically, whatever you call it, von, we will let somebody much smarter than me the best way to describe it. i want to talk about one pick that conservatives are really angry and that is the labor secretary pick. first of all, why are they angry? secondly, why did he select somebody that the base would be so upset about?

like a payback to the teamsters? >> i think a good question. during the campaign, he went up to michigan and he campaigned as this idea of pro -- not necessarily union but pro worker and democrats had a field day saying he is not at union shops and he is picking a labor secretary from the pacific northwest and former congresswoman who has been much more defensive of labor unions and teachers unions. >> with the union voters. >> correct. absolutely. now this is the reposturing of today's republican party that donald trump can face the criticism from some of the right, but it's his party now and this labor secretary, no reason to believe she is not going to pass with democratic support. >> michael, that is the thing. "the new york times" in an article where they quoted you, just basically said, hey. this is not a conservative republican party. this is not a moderate republican party. this is donald trump's

republican party. it is what he says it is. and you were quoted in there talking about how these picks, you cannot line them up ideologically. talk about it. >> well, they are not robots. everything donald trump led us to believe during the campaign was that he wanted to be a strong president and a successful president and a lot of that rhetoric suggested that he would have almost identical robots in the cabinet and among his aides. if you look at history and what the is lesson of history? the lesson of history is strong and successful presidents almost e that have people in their entourage cabinet and their white house who argue with one another and do that in front of the president. tell him what he doesn't want to hear and the essential quality here is a president who listens to george washington you think

would not need any help at all. jefferson was secretary of state. they argued with each other all the time about things like the size of government, how you finance it. george washington benefited. in modern times, you know this, joe, under ronald reagan, george schultz and weinberger argued is gorbachev serious? what about the cold war? should we increase the spending or lower it? reagan hated the conflict but he learned from it and it made him a stronger president. >> you and mike allen wrote a similar article this past weekend, jim, but how it is hard to see a through line for some of these picks. the labor secretary is left of center and most conservatives would say very left wing. then you've got rfk jr. that is just all over the place ideologically and several other

picks. again just sort of random and all over the place. >> because it's a very different republican party. it's not a conservative party any more. as you said, it is the donald trump party. he sees a real, i think, opportunity to continue to grow the party. a big part of that is working class voters, whether or not he agrees with everybody on the specifics of the union debate. he went with somebody who traditional conservatives would hate. this person would never make it into a george w. bush cabinet per se, but under a trump world, they will. he doesn't care if people don't like any of these picks. he doesn't care if you don't like their personality or their background. i think he, unlike most people, apologize conflict. in fact, i think he often incites conflict. he loves it to play out in front of him so he can ultimately be the desired. it keeps him being unpredictable when he likes and he thinks that gives him a strong governing hands. there there be all kinds of conflict and some publicly and privately and that is the nature

of the trump operation. >> i think that is right. first of all, trump in his first term almost enjoyed the fight around him at the oval office. he would bring in aides around the desk and have them pit one against one another and that was west wing jockeying and he would hear from people and decide and often the last voice he heard would be the one to carry the day. this is him trying to remake party and bring in more working class and union voters. he spent a lot of time courting that vote in michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, other places this time around and was able to have not just the benefit of union votes, but a couple of major unions did not offer endorsements which was seen as sort of a task of victory for him at the time.me. sns sort of paying off here. we have seen some extreme, you know, right wing picks and other very conventional ones. his choice for treasury secretary, you point out the inconsistency with the debt perhaps. but most felt like mistake. every banker, every person on

the streets we talked to over the past couple of weeks said this guy will calm the market. i said what i said only because i'm obsessed with deficits and the debt. a huge decision to make which i know you'll want to talk about tax cuts and what -- how you pay for those tax cuts because we learned time and again they don't pay for themselves. but, no. the treasury secretary -- wall street, banks, the markets, they are all very happy. >> yeah. and will sail through. no concern there whatsoever. a number of his picks friday night in a blitz. we had a couple of dozen came out in a few hours on friday. a few eyebrows. conventional picks met with some acclaim on both sides of the aisle. >> coming up is richard engel who is live this morning in the capital of ukraine. he has the very latest on that country's fight for freedom when "morning joe" comes right back. n "morning joe" comes right back

let's talk about tulsi gabbard, president-elect trump's pick. gabbard is set to visit capitol hill next week to meet with senators regarding her nomination. she is expected to face scrutiny for comments she has made appearing to echo russian disinformation and a 2017 visit

to syria where she met with president bashar al assad.assad. take a look what the republican senator james langford had to say about her nomination yesterday. >> reporter: does anything about her concern you? >> we will have lots of questions. she met with bashar al assad. we will want to know the purpose and direction of what that was as a member of congress. we will want to get a chance to talk about past comments and get them in full context. comments out there but we want to know the rest of the story. >> a pregnant pause. >> or a delay. >> the answer. tammy duckworth said something off the top that, again, there is no evidence outwardly what she said that she is an agent but not that we know of yet. but you talk to one senate republican on the intel

committee after another. they will will all say she is way too close with assad. she has been an apologyist. it doesn't appear that she, like, repeats kremlin talking points. she repeats kremlin talking points and line it up. again, you heard a democrat expressing her concern but what she said is what you hear republicans say and what you hear past republican intel agency heads saying all the time that this woman cannot be confirmed and i find it very hard to believe that mitch mcconnell and susan collins and lisa murkowski won't vote her down and say try again. >> let's remember when this job is. director of national intelligence is the coordination function over 17, 18 intelligence agencies. also, joe, this is the person

who oversees the daily preparation of the single most important intelligence document that the president sees. the presidential daily brief, the pdp. the person, as a result, has to be an honest broker. people have to know -- the president to use the old line what he needs to hear and not he wants to shear and she is not coloring or shaping it too much. i think she has an uphill fight to let people know she will be an honest broker. >> in ukraine, particularly, with the feeling she is too close, at best, to putin, isn't it really a very, very uphill battle for trump to convince the public, even if he gets by the senate and you say there may be a challenge there, to bring in gabbard, when we are looking at a direct confrontation. we are not looking at theory but a wall between ukraine and russia. >> you have ukraine and putin's

role there and she brought 10,000 north koreans there and talk of more. russia is now the biggest sister of north korea's nuclear missile program. in 2026, the new administration the start agreement expires. we have to reset the table with russia on the future of nuclear arms control or we could find ourselves back in a situation worse than the cold war so the stakes are enormous here. >> most of the picks we are talking about will sail through but one will not. one, of course, is tulsi gabbard. the other is the d.o.d. person pete hegseth. and it's interesting who you talk to on capitol hill what republicans, one group would tell you gabbard is the most dangerous person to america's national security. others will tell you that it's pete hegseth who would be simply

because, you know, he's in line for, you know, like, nuclear codes. >> very large organization. >> one general told me, he is the second most powerful man in the world, whoever the d.o.d. is so you better have somebody who knows what the hell they are doing. >> and can pass an fbi background. >> and can pass an fbi background check. i want to know what you're hearing. the math is pretty simple. they can't lose collins, murkowski, mcconnell and one more. i find is thard to believe those three are going to put either of these two people in the most two important positions in the u.s. government. >> i think the concerns are much deeper at the sucket level.ecre. a lot of people are involved in that and a lot of the senators feel there will be a lot of smart voices have views much

different than gabbard has on russia and trump has views on russia much closer to his and why she is the pick. when you're running the military at a perilous time is the one mitch mcconnell cares most about. a ton of volatility between us and russia and us and china. my guess will get the most attention if i had to pick the person who is most vulnerable, i think it's him quite easily. >> that is this past weekend and what i heard also. jim brought up problems with russia, possible nuclear confrontation there and problems with china and iran. right now they are defenseless. their air defenses are down. if israeli decides they want to start another regional -- wants to start a regional war with them and go after another target after iran keeps attacking they will. you have the possibility the

regional war there. and most republican senators are like, you got to give us a secretary of defense. there is a feeling, i will say also following what jim said, i have heard from several people. you can contain tulsi gabbard and the intel committee but i don't think it's that simple but, yeah, i have been hearing what jim said time and again, it's the defense, second most powerful person in the world. this guy, even without all of the baggage and each the fact he lied or withheld from the trump administration in the transition team, they say he is just not qualified to do this important of a job. >> i was talking to republican hill staffers the last couple of days. matt gaetz withdrawing that spared that senators have to put their name for a no vote and they can only do that once or twice and able to save their fire and right now pete hegseth seems more likely to get the no

vote from senators. i heard there are questions raising about the trump transition team not using the fbi for background checks. we had some republican senators, lisa murkowski expressed concerns about that over the weekend that they are just trying to do it with private investigators who would not have nearly the access to criminal information that the fbi would. you're plugged in with the trump team. is there any sense they would reconsider their position and bring in the fbi in light of the accusations of the more prominent weeks? >> i've been asking the last three weeks and. we are three weeks in now. there has been a concerted decision not to do that. of course, as mika was suggesting questions about tulsi gabbard's fbi background file. you're talking about cash patel who could run the fbi if donald trump got his desires and wishes.

this is where if you're donald trump a concerted understanding recognition you may not want to know what is in the fbi files of some of these individuals. because the to trust him is small now nine years own awe he see some of these picks. these are individuals who elbow would take his orders in the white house and who he knows would bay those orders. that group of people, it is so small here in -- >> if they can't pass the fbi background checks you have republican senators are saying, on the record, kind of carefully, but behind the scenes, saying, wait. we are going to have the second most powerful person in the world who has got, like, the nuclear -- we are going to let him run the department of defense if he can't even pass an fbi check? >> they stopped matt gaetz. will they stop pete hegseth and tulsi gabbard? that would be the biggest declaration of the republican party yet we have seen that some

of these senators, bill cassidy and ty young in indiana. it's a budget. >> i haven't brought unfortunate bill cassy or todd young. todd young cares very deeply and senator young from indiana cares very deeply about america's national security. it is sort of his obsession. so there is another guy i didn't even -- i wouldn't each put on that list with murkowski and collins and mitch mcconnell right there. i don't think he can get from where he is to a yes vote on a guy that can't pass a fbi background check and is not prepared for that position. >> you said the two key words. national security. for a long time, the republican party was the party of national security. republicans are all over the place on social issues, economic issues, whatever. national security. i think this might be a different test and it could be very difficult for these people.

>> coming up, the landslide that wasn't. peter baker is sizing up donald trump's victory and what it says about the president-elect's claims of a mandate. straight ahead on "morning joe." " 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

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i wonder when is the last time america has been in such a dangerous position globally? i will say after the election, what i said before the election, the united states is the most powerful country in the world relative to the rest of the world from 1945.

the election results don't change anything but that doesn't mean we don't have the country that has the most nuclear weapons threatening to use those nuclear weapons if we push oo hard on ukraine and doesn't mean we are in a regional war with the middle east if things don't get cooled down very quickly. when historically is the last time the international stage was this fraught? >> well, as you're looking at a moment, maybe the late 1940s when the soviet army was marching through europe and harry truman, you have well written, joe, responded by building nato and by expanding american defense, and also by instituting the marshal plan. that shows you need a president who was wonderful device. who did truman have? he had dean atchison at his side and george marshall, the secretary of defense. even a great president like truman needed these strong

voices from the beginning of the time they came in to office and that is the lesson here. the other thing i'm really inspired by is republican senators seem at least at this moment a little bit more eager to push back on donald trump where they think that he may have acted too quickly. that is something perhaps we didn't expect. one quick historical lesson. lyndon johnson in his entourage almost did not have the guts that the expanding war in vietnam will be a loser and wreck your presidency and that came from johnson's party leader in the senate mike mansfield who hated the war and thought it was a loser and told johnson this again and again and again. you really need these dissident voices either in congress or preferly combined with in the president's entourage. >> like you said, the senate has already shown that they are not

willing to give up the constitutional prerogative of advice and consent and we learned during the first trump term, an attack against one federal judge is an attack against all federal judges when you taub the george w. bush judge and he attacked a liberal federal judge. you had conservative judges from the federalists who were from the federalist society ruling against him time and time again. so the federal judges are there as well. so it's fascinating. michael beschloss, thank you. >> thank you. >> truman had dissident voices and later on, lbj, rather. the difference in the trump administration, he is the dissident voice. what you need in the trump administration is not so much dissident voices per se. you need more traditional voices who will say things like nato has worked and u.s. foreign

policy the last several decades has succeeded and you need some dissident voices who might argue we have been well served by what we have done in the world. >> you add that and foreign policy the first term and he didn't like it. looks like he has some of that. >> marco rubio. >> you're right. there is a guy, again, out of the intel committee that worked very well with democrats on the intel committee so i stand corrected. really quick. arizona is your beat. i'm curious. what do you think is next for kerry lake? >> i don't think she is going away. she won't be in the u.s. senate six years. >> do you think she will work in the trump administration? >> i would be surprised if they didn't welcome her in in some capacity. i think if she had had not run for the u.s. senate she could be a press secretary for him but once somebody loses two times in that fashion it's tough to see where she fits in. >> arizona in general, i've always said americans aren't that ideological. arizona, which, of course, people look at the -- say oh,

democrats have lost arizona. arizonans have voted for four democratic candidates for senate in a row. what, for the first time since the '50s, they have actually sent somebody there and ruben gallego won. what do democrats learn from arizona? >> you learn the same lesson that krysten sinema learn. you don't alienate people and you have a libertarian street to you which you recognize you want the successes of all of your communities i think those are the messages that have worked in arizona and you can take that to georgia, john -- i think examples outside of arizona and i think arizona has people like ruben gallego have demonstrated that. >> on "politics nation" the

point is raised he had no blacks in his cabinet. he has now appointed turner as the head of hud. i heard a lot of people calling me over the weekend on the radio show saying that is the same hud job we have with ben. is that ump trump's "black job"? he had a woman in the supreme court over the pentagon among other things. a small number of black men that increased his vote, i hope that is something that he deals with and that people look at. and, at the same time, what i did with the labor secretary is something that surprised even me the most -- trump critic on the show. coming up, will pam bondi follow through on this?

>> the department of justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. the investigators will be investigated because the deep state, last term for president trump, they were hiding in the shadows, but now they have a spotlight on them and they can all be investigated and the house needs to be cleaned out. >> that is donald trump's nominee for attorney general speaking last year on fox news. nbc news david roe joins us with his latest reporting on the doj when "morning joe" comes right back. doj when "morning joe" comes right back for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again. ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ♪ far-xi-ga ♪ ask your doctor about farxiga.

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of the other stories e ing headlines morning pr . seven straight years the number of drug deaths has dropped thanks to expanded treatment. the play is the strength of the drug seems to be fentanyl potentsy on the incline. a former county treasurer in mits to embezzling $38 million in taxpayer funds. >> how do you do that? 38 until? >> over a ten-year span. the money was used to buy vacation property, cadillacs, rvs and luxury home furnishings as shown in this image. they are looking for ways to recoup the millions that were meant for the public. >> richard, how can they let $38

million slip through their hands? >> wow. also, "wicked" soared to the top spot at the weekend box office. universal's adaptation of popul musical brought in $114 million and best opening for a broadway film adaptation. "gladiator 2" in second place with $54.5 million and a bit behind up, to hear our next guest tell it, quote, winning everything is stupid. james carville joins us with on the aftermath of the presidential election when "morning joe" comes right back. presidential election when "morning joe" comes right back skin esteem is a beautiful thing. ♪♪

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♪♪ all right. jim vandehei, last week -- he is here, right? >> yeah. >> last week, you were awarded the 2024 fourth estate award by the national press club, along with axios the great mike and. the award recognizes those who have made significant contributions to the industry and you have, specifically you and mikey were awarded for your work that has revolutionized how audience consume news and we have some of the remarks you made during your acceptance speech. let's listen. >> i hate this damn debate about, look, we don't need the media. like, it is not true! think about what makes this -- i love this country. i'm a beneficiary of this country.

like, some [ bleep ] from wisconsin who can come and start two companies and be up here and win an award and sit next to mikey and i'm a beneficiary of it but there is something about the country. there is something about it, right? there is something about freedom, capitalism, the animal spirits of democracy but at the core of that is maybe trana free press. maybe the ability to do your job without worrying to go to jail? maybe the ability to sit in a war zone and tell people what is actually happening so they are not just looking at distortion. it matters profoundly and it's -- it's not like we just love getting up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning doing this every single day. we do it because we love it and we do it because it matters. the work that we do matters. everything we do is under fire. elon musk sits on twitter or x today saying we are the media. you are the media! my message so tee lon musk is, bull [ bleep ]! you're not the media!

you have a blue check mark, a twitter handle in 300 words of cleverness doesn't make you a reporter any more than we looking at your head and seeing you have a brain and telling you you have an awesome set of tools makes me a damn neurosurgeon, right? what we do, what journalists do, what you did in mississippi, what al jazeera does in the middle east. you don't proclaim yourself to be a reporter. that is nonsense! like, being a reporter is hard! really hard! you have to care. you have to do the hard work. you have to get up every single day and say i want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without fear or favoritism and you don't do by popping off on twitter or by having an opinion. you do it by doing the hard work. >> man. come on, so happy.

first of all, i got to say extraordinary content. it needed to be said. >> yeah. >> it continues to need to be said. when all of the garbage that is flying around on social media, lying about reporters, lying about the hard work they do, lying about the hard work editors, lying about everything up and down about, not only their alternative set of facts but alternative set of facts about like what you do. i love how you connected reporters in mississippi in the 1960s to reporters fighting for their life to get the story out in the middle east today. jim, it was very powerful. >> really good! >> very powerful. even -- >> watch the whole thing. >> even if we had to beep you more than we would have if we ran a david chappelle concert. >> i liked it. mild-mannered. >> cadence.

ordain. >> let me say why this is so important now more than ever is because critics of the press are feeling more empowered than ever, to lie more than ever. i've had friends for years going i'm so overwhelmed by the news. i don't read the news. where do you get your news then? at "the times." oh, you get your news from a website run by chinese -- by conspiracy theorists by a chinese religious cult. people in social media lying every day, every hour, every minute about the news. what you do matters. what "the new york times" does matters. what the "the wall street journal" does matters. what jonathan lemire does matters. what the financial times does matters. what nbc news and msnbc

reporters do matters. it matters! >> and it doesn't mean there aren't things that we get wrong. the republican i could hopped up at that speech was i listen to so many reporters who feel like the industry is going to hell and nobody trusts them and they are demoralized. we don't have to whine. we have to do our job. there is an information war out there and tens of millions of people that depend on great reporting and it's our job to create viable businesses around it and that we try to get to the closest approximation of the truth and maybe be curious than condescending and more fearless than foaming at the mouth. i think if we can do those things, i think we can win back people who are spectacle. a lot of the things you just mentioned they feed off of us trying to get to the closest approximation of truth. i think people need to calm down. i know a lot of your viewers

wish that sometimes, like, everything was just like, boom, boom, boom, on one side. like, we have to bring people facts. we have to bring people clarity. and hopefully report insights so they can ultimately make better decisions and understand a very, very complicated world. >> and coming up, how the markets are reacting to donald trump's pick to lead the treasury department and what we know about billionaire hedge fund manager scott bessent. next on "morning joe.""

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molly jong-fast is here. trump has rounded out his cabinet picks. the transition will focus on getting his choices confirmed. hallie jackson has the latest. >> the trump team beginning to turn to a new phase in the transition, possible confirmation fights for the president-elect's top picks including his choices for secretary of defense pete headset and director of national intelligence, tulsi gabbard. gabbard, accused of amplifying russian propaganda. >> i think she's compromised. russian -controlled media called her a russian accent. >> >> it's interesting that anybody has a different political view is being classed -- cast as a russian accent. >> she met with bashir thought.

pete headset is expected to be questioned over california police report detailing a woman's sexual assault allegation, which he denies. >> i was completely clear. >> officials have not said why he was not chargedin 2023. he's also in the spotlight for comments that women should not serve in combat roles. >> we would have an an effective military that was not capable of deployment if we were to pull out all the women and say you cannot be in combat. >> the policy is set by the president of the united states, not the cabinet members. >> the latest revelations prompting questions about

vetting for mr. trump's cabinet picks and apparently skipping the traditional fbi background checks. >> why wouldn't we get these background checks for the most important jobs in the united states government? >> i don't think the american public cares who does the background check. they care about seeing that mandate that they voted on delivered. >> will actually, i would rather the fbi investigate people that have the most important positions in the world than barney fife. and i think most of americans are with me, why the world would you not want the fbi to look at the background of people who are in the military chain of command and will have a say in whether the united states launches nuclear weapons or not? i can tell you, bob gates tells the story time and time again about the night that dr. burzynski got the message that the soviet union had launched incoming nuclear missiles towards the united states. and he said he sat downstairs while his children including mika, and his wife, work upstairs because he knew they would all be dead in 15 minutes. but they called around, they made the right choices, they

realized that actually, it was a false alarm and the country of the world was saved because you had people like dr. burzynski, because you had people like general odom, because you have people like bob gates that were making those decisions. it might be good to make sure that the person that's in the line of that chain has a background and has the experience to make the tough life or death decisions that would impact the world. let's bring in chief white house correspondent peter baker, presidential historian doris goodwin and national security editor, david road, his latest reporting for nbc news is on the ag pick, pam bondi and her past without to prosecute the bad prosecutors who indicted trump.

that sounds kind of like a former prosecutor from connecticut, what was his name, who was the guy who launch the attacks and made a fool of himself? >> durum. >> investigate the investigators. >> it didn't go well for him. he had a great reputation, ended up making a fool of himself. i don't know that they actually want to repeat that. doris, i want to go to you. i'm sure not only because your presidential historian but because you're so much smarter than me. i'm sure you have much more instances like i just expressed, about dr. burzynski, when dr. burzynski was called and said nuclear missiles are coming in from russia, what do we do and they called around, called around, made the right choice, and there are other examples when they mistook shadows on the clouds i think

it may have been for another nuclear attack, talk about how important it is to have the right people around the president for life or death decisions that could impact the entire planet? >> well you know one of the things that reagan said when he was choosing his cabinet is he had three criteria, one was loyalty, the conservative ideology, the second, was competence, and the third was integrity, and that's only got to look for. competence is huge given the size of these departments but the other thing that i'm just thinking about when we talk about those questions that bondi had put forward, the possibility of investigating the investigators and prosecuting the prosecutors, two presidents would tell, this is a bad thing to do to have retribution. lincoln would say, everybody

was going for him, the radicals were saying, hang the confederate officers, hang the confederate generals. he said we've had too much hate, this was when the union was about to win the war. i just want to go forward and then he said with now is toward none and charity toward all. and then you have adams, who in his administration, really went after his opponents, the journalists who were militias against them, the 1798 alien sedition act that trump is referencing, was used to put them in jail and it did not turn out well for items in fact the public hated it and he lost the election in large part because of it. they didn't want to see them rounded up and jefferson comes in and greatly, he heals everything by starting the whole administration with adams was a federalist, he was a republican and said we are all federal's, we are all republicans, and he said in a sense, let's look for stability, let's look for magnanimity, and if retribution becomes the name of the administration, it will end badly. >> are we going to talk about some of the cabinet picks, but first, jonathan and i have been talking this morning about how there's been this focus on

tulsi gabbard, it seems to have been shifted to republicans over the past 35 days, to the dod selection, pete had, and a growing understanding of just how powerful that position is, how important that position is, and how dangerous it would be to have somebody that does not have experience in managing anything. >> i think the trump approach here is basically the swarm approach, he threw out so many different people, many of who are controversial or would be problems with confirmation, they're likely to get the vast majority through because in the end, the senate will be able to pick off one, two, maybe three at most and the rest managed to get in. people like john radcliffe was considered to be too controversial in the first trump term and the senate republican said let's not have him be in charge of intelligence and he said fine, we will put grinnell in there as an acting dni and said hey, let's confirm radcliffe after

all, this time he's being put up for cia, nobody has a problem. instead, you are right, they have to decide, are they going to take on rfk jr., p texas, because they can't take on all of the ones that might be, you know, problematic in one fashion or another. heck seth is the one right now that people seem to be focusing on. he would be in charge of a two million-member armed forces service, the most powerful military in the world and even what he admits to doing, even though he denies that he assaulted this woman, he says that he had an adulterous affair, that under the uniform code of military justice would get you in a lot of heat, if you are one of the generals or officers who will be reporting to secretary had said. >> you know, with people who support them, they will say he was in the military, he did

lead in the military, and i will tell you, even his strongest detractors will say, he had a good war record, the first part of the war record and then he became the solution and started saying deeply troubling things to a lot of people who served with him but, again, you've got 2 million, civilians, maybe up to 3 million people that you are managing and for no experience, administrative experience, in peacetime, managing anything of a significant size, i mean the pentagon will just eat up anybody that goes over there and doesn't understand how it works. >> he served in the military and even his detractors thanked him for his service but he came on trump's radar screen for two reasons. one, he advocated for some of

his fellow soldiers who were accused of war crimes and secondly, he was on fox news. of the trump cabinet selections, nine of them, nine of them have been either former fox news hosts or contributors and headset as the one who right now, is getting a lot of attention. the idea that he simply has no experience managing anything, remotely decisive that the pentagon but also, that he was not for right with the transition team about some of the details of the sexual assault allegations from 2017. >> that's their concern, he wasn't straightforward about a police report, he wasn't straightforward about several things, the trump transition team says it's causing them concern. >> they are wondering if there's more to come and this reiterates, the shortcoming of their own vetting and background checks because they are not using the fbi. they are relying on private investigators. >> let's talk about pam bondi,

this is somebody that i knew, in florida, somebody that even republicans that are now sort of never trumper say we should work with republicans, there were complaints of that, so especially in the state of florida, a bit of a sigh of relief. okay, this is not matt gaetz, it's not close to gates, but you, you dug into her record and you found some troubling statements about retribution. >> yes, and it's true, she is experienced, she's actually been the state ag for years and was a local prosecutor, the

problem is that she join in on fox news to this rhetoric from trump. she said the prosecutors will be prosecuted, this was last year and said the bad ones, trying to catch herself and that she said the investigators will be investigated. >> by the way, let's underline again, that's what durham did. it was humiliating, it wrecked his reputation. again, this is such a losing proposition, not only is it bad for america, but it's also, it's bad for the people launching the investigation against the investigators because it brings up the underlying charges. >> f, and you're right, john durham's investigation, he went all over the world and he checked out everything, bill barr looked into the 2020 election fraud, did inside of the issue is, she also talks about the deep state, i've written a book on this but there is no deep state. if you think there are too many bureaucrats in washington, there's a deep bureaucracy anyone to cut the size of government, that's fine, there's no secret cabal of fbi people and cia people or doj

people under biting democratic elected presidents. >> what is so fascinating, people always said, tom burch would say the cfr, i would say they can't even get a ham sandwich right, they can't even get an order at lunch right, and the fbi, all you have to do is go back to 2016. it was comey that elected trump and by the way, again, this deep state conspiracy, people in the fbi office in new york, most of them, a lot of them low to hear lori -- hillary, they load trump, they couldn't even get there conspiracy theories together because they didn't have them. they've been deeply divided. all of these intelligence agencies are deeply divided. >> don't get me started on james comey. i'm curious, david, can you talk about, so many of these cabinet pics, they catch

trump's i because of what they say on fox news. do you think she does have a lot of experience, pam bondi, do you think that she is, is there any information to get the sense that she is the person she is on fox news or do you think she is the person she is in the job? >> that is the test, that's what donald trump tested his nominees, so john durham did this and came up with nothing. what will pam bondi two, todd blanche, the deputy ag he's a former prosecutor. the feeling is that bobby and blanche won't break the law if they don't have to. they don't have immunity. only the president has immunity. but it's an information war, as we said earlier and it's donald trump that wants to say to anyone who dares investigate him, i will investigate you. i will prosecute you. this is about chilling accountability. >> does this remind you of the house of american activities. >> this is why this is such a

test for our system, a test for congress, the press, i couldn't agree more about the press, more compassion, less, conversation. >> national security emperor david road, thank you so much. let's bring and another person who's deeply thoughtful, speaks in a low voice, always calm, james carville. he is the subject of a new documentary, carville, winning is everything, stupid. so james, we've got peter baker here, and he has written an article about this so-called landslide. i think we've got to look at two things real quick. and i'd love your input. it's like a point and a half race, the blue wall states were around one percentage points. this was a tie, it broke to

trump by 1%. and yet, donald trump picked up and 149 out of 50 states. you look at where the country went, just about everywhere, it was more conservative this year than it was four years ago. so, i almost feel like saying, like when i say well it was close to being a tie, that almost tells democrats, everything is fine, you don't have to worry about it, no. no. democrats lost ground everywhere. so, 2 to 3 weeks later when everybody has had a deep breath, what is your thought on what happened, what lessons democrats should take from it? >> for small, i read the article and it was quite good. while it is true to say, this is not a landslide, it's also true to say that democrats were off by six points.

we lost by one, whatever it was. it was a troubling election for democrats and i think peter suggested, let's just continue on the way we are going, no, we don't do that. and my most optimistic thing about the democratic party is there's just so much potential talent in it. i hope that these people go out and start writing in 2028, right after the 26 midterms. it was not a landslide but it was a troubling election for democrats. >> let's highlight a couple of troubling things. texas is a state that democrats have been making great gains in, barack obama in 2012 may have lost it by 14 points, got closer in 16, got closer, it was down to 5 to 6 points?

and that was in 20 and now it's up to 14 and florida looks like it's lost forever. you look at the map and you start asking the question, where can democrats pick up senate seats in 2026? and i can't find a whole lot of places outside of north carolina and maine. >> well, let's start, back in march, i said i thought the democratic campaign culture had too many preachy female. if you look at the mail vote, no one since november has come up and set a thing to me. primarily, we have a large problem with males, and i'm not just talking about white male's like you and i, i'm talking about males all across, and we need to address that. and we don't need to be shouted down by washington liberal groups, or npr, we've got to say we have a male problem and we need to get to work on it.

and i think we can. our campaign was, you know, joe biden didn't give harris much operating room. i'm a little defensive of them, but for god sakes, when you ask a question, what would you do different from the president to two thirds of people don't think is doing anything wrong, do me a favor, come up with an answer and i think that was very harmful but, yeah, we lost a lot of ground with the males and we don't need to sweep these things under the rug, we need to expose them and talk about them and discuss them. >> peter, when we look at your article and a feeling of a lot of experts, that it was not a landslide, clearly wasn't. is this, are we running the risk, let me put it that way of

democrats relaxing saying well we didn't get beat that bad or should they be as carville is saying, looking at whatever it was, if it's under 2%, how do we make up that 4%, who are we not talking to, where we not talking enough about the lunchbox issues, were we not talking about what groceries cost enough, where we not talking about people's concerns that would have not hurt their base because their base is concerned about those issues, too, we buy groceries, too, in the black community or latino community, so which way do you think democrats are going to read that they were close but they should relax because they could have won? >> i think you make a lot of good points, and to be clear, the article wasn't meant to say that democrats didn't have anything to worry about. they have plenty to think about, no question. they couldn't beat a guy who had been convicted of 34 families who was found liable for sexual abuse, business fraud, whose companies were found guilty in a criminal conviction of tax cheating. a guy who tried to steal the

last election, they could it be a guide to place issues of race and sex and so forth, that is a real weakness for democrats, if you can't beat a guy who is as flawed as donald trump is, at least in the traditional sense of politics. that doesn't seem to apply to trump and he obviously has a connection to a significant part of the population that democrats have not figured out how to unlock. my articles about going forward about how trump is trying to's and -- spin the 1.6 percent margin as a landslide but in his interest, it's in his interest to claim that he's this great landslide winner like he was reagan or lbj because then it gives him more influence and makes him more powerful in washington and allows him to sort of you know

pressure congress to follow his lead on appointments or legislation. that's why he's going around using the word landslide but no historian who looks at it would call it that. >> thank you so much. greatly appreciated. it's always a danger to over read your quote, mandate, even when it's not a mandate. doris, you're the perfect person to ask about this and i'm going to take you to your historical spot that you know the best. i just want to read this preface really quickly. going down to a devastating defeat in november. most observers understood the american right had been rendered apolitical footnote perhaps for good.

he has wrecked his party for a long time to come. it's not even likely to control the wreckage. the new yorker, the election has finished the goldwater school of political reaction. by every test we have, declared james macgregor burns one of the nation's most esteemed scholars on the presidency, this is surely a liberal ethic of the late 19th century, was a conservative one and he goes on to say many people said, the two-party system itself, finished. now, goldwater's landslide was a massive landslide and yet two years later, the reagan revolution begins in california and let's talk about, you can find one election after another, where overplaying one's hand leads to a massive backlash. >> and you know what's really interesting, joe, lbj won by 15 million votes, he could say to mr. trump, that is a real landslide, but he knew right from the start, that wasn't

going to last. he took his staff together and said okay, i won by 15 million, 2 million of those were just because they didn't like goldwater so they're not mine. i'm going to have a fight with the press, another 2 million and then almost anticipating you said and i might have to send boys to foreign lands, so you get your off the ground and get that program through as soon as it can. the incredible thing that happened was in 1955, he got almost all the great society through, medicare, medicaid, civil rights, voting rights, immigration report, national foundation of the arts and the summer just before the congress came to a close, he escalated the war in vietnam and that would begin the beginning of the end of all of that momentum which showed up in the city six election but just as you also said, the republicans picked themselves up and they went out and had a conservative think tank and figure out where we were going and reagan wins the election in 1966 and by 68, the

democrats are out of the congress. so you are absolutely right, we have these rhythms in the united states, they go up and down so you can't have too much arrogance which the republicans might have and you can have too much, oh no, what did we do wrong and figure out, just move forward for the democrats that have confidence that this was not one of those elections that was realizing. and that's what baker's article shows and that's important, it's not a matter of philosophy that has to be changed, it's a matter of approach i think, and how you deal with listening to the people who are hurt in the society. history helps us in this regard, to take ourselves not too seriously and move forward as everybody is saying. >> i will say the remarkable thing about lbj in 64 and 65, when he did what he did and 65, he wasn't quote, overplaying his hand. he knew, and he said that he had probably lost the south for democrats for a generation. he did it anyway, and that as

robert frost would say, has made all the difference. doris, thank you so much. jonathan, democrats are trying to figure out, what do we do and it's a was like okay, yeah, you know, you lost by 1.5 percentage points, you lost these three states by 12 one half percentage points, you don't want to overreact and yet, it's such a massive problem in middle america. it's deep red and getting deeper by the day. >> some of the trends are working against them. we've talked about how some of the top strategists in the party, they felt like this might have been the last election where pennsylvania was a swing state. it's starting to look like ohio. the margin is not that big but there are long-term consequences

james carville, so let's go to you for some advice to your party, what should the approach be right now in terms of looking at these next two years, ahead of the midterms. how much should we look at across the aisle and how much should be about pure resistance? >> i'll go back to my friend brandon out, what he said, there were two things we could have run on that we didn't and one was raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. it passed in missouri. the other thing we should have run on was raising taxes on incomes above $400,000. in a serious way, and talking about giving young people, taking this money and putting in mortgage relief fund so young people can buy a house. you know, this thing is going to fall under its own weight, their already having an altercation down there at mar-a- lago, everybody has tattoos. i think this is going to

continue. so we've got to come up with their own way to do this. but let's make the play, america needs a raise, let's give them a raise, what's wrong with that? >> that's a great bumper sticker and i will say, it's probably better bumper sticker than everybody's got a tattoo. give america a raise, james carville, as always, go tigers. >> thank you, guys, i appreciate it. >> we want to mention doris's latest book titled leadership journey, how for kids became president. it is available now. >> a must read. let's take a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning, service workers at the charlotte douglas international airport in north carolina have gone on strike this morning, at the start of what's expected to be the busiest week on record for

holiday travel. workers are protesting what they say are unlivable wages and sites the inability to afford basic necessities such as food and housing. most are under $19 an hour with the union says is well below a living wage for the charlotte area. meanwhile mcdonald's will be extending its five dollar meal deal. as well as adding even more value options in the new year as the fast food giant tries to win back customers who were turned off by rising prices. the chain is also pumping $100 million into marketing and franchise support as it tries to recover from a recent e. coli outbreak tied to its big mac burgers that killed one person and second over 100 more across the country. also the mcrib is about to come back. a spotted pig named odie has become a regular at one senior living facility. the one-year-old pig brightens

the day of the 122 residents. the 50 pound giuliana pig is fully vaccinated and trained to use a litter box. he walked the halls on a leash and is reportedly an instant stress reliever for anyone who interacts with him. miko knows all about pet pigs, as john oliver reminded us back in 2018. >> she might get mad at me but i'll give you one last look at her tummy. >> put the pig down. put the pig down! put that [ bleep ] takedown! i understand the mistake, you go to pick up your pig and to your surprise and a burisma, the . reacts to your embrace by's screaming like a banshee,

you learn your lesson and you never, ever, do it again. >> i'm going to make a guess -- gif. >> what are you doing, mika, first thought, that's not how gif's work. they are silent and they tend not to be heavy on the pig torture. >> we need to bring the pig back tomorrow. >> yeah, maybe. it would be an interesting morning, let's put it that way. >> we will leave it right there. coming up, will change topics and bring you the latest on the war in ukraine were after days of escalation, many are wondering how the incoming trump administration will

impact the ongoing conflict. we will bring you a live report from kyiv, straightahead. you are watching orning joe. we will be right back. right ba. standing the test of ti... he's melting! oh jeez... nooo... oh gaa... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪

as we turn to news from overseas, israel's defense forces carrying out large-scale airstrikes in the suburbs of beirut. hezbollah militants are known to operate out of the neighborhoods that were struck. the idf issued sweeping evacuation warnings for the area ahead of the offense. according to the times, yesterday's strikes were designed to pressure hezbollah into accepting a cease-fire deal on favorable terms. both sides have pledged to keep up their attacks on negotiations . prior to the strikes, hezbollah fired more than 200 projectiles into israel. the barrage was one of the largest since hezbollah began attacking the country last year after the october attacks. israel's military reported that some of the projectiles were intercepted by their defense systems. we turn now to the latest from ukraine, where the conflict is entering a decisive phase according to poland's prime

minister. ukraine and nato will meet for emergency talks tomorrow after russia launched an experimental hypersonic ballistic missile that had us escalated the war. for the latest, let's bring in chief correspondent richard engel, live from ukraine. good to see you. what is the latest there? >> reporter: so this war is intensifying, and the two sides are playing now missile brinksmanship, allowing ukraine to use them in russia, russia firing this hypersonic missile saying the first launch was just a test and more will follow. and, it seems like biden and president zelinski and putin are all trying to prepare themselves, trying to lay the groundwork for the arrival of president-elect trump, and that means on the battlefield, and escalation on almost every kind,

in the last 20 forms, russia fired missiles at the city of kharkiv, and 145 drones in cities across this country and that was just overnight. with more attacks overnight in ukraine and in russia, this war is escalating rapidly. but is this all a race to the finish? ukrainian intelligence are examining the wreckage of a new type of high-speed nuclear capable missile that putin launched last week. ukrainian officials confirmed, it flew 11 times the speed of sound, too fast, for ukraine to shoot down. putin called the launch a test and a response after president biden authorized ukraine to fire american wetime. , zelinsk

all escalating it seems, to secure stronger positions before president-elect trump takes office. >> if i'm president, i will have the war settled in one day, 24 hours. >> this weekend, trump's pick for national security adviser mike walz, signaled a new policy is coming. >> we need to bring this to a responsible and -- and said. >> we joined a group of soldiers who call themselves the witches of bucha, now taking up arms. in a forest outside kyiv, they are training in close combat, fully expecting one day russian troops will make another push for kyiv. >> 90% of this unit are women. many of their sons and husbands are fighting on the front lines, so they have stepped up, volunteering, to defend the capital. >> valentina, the soldiers only

released their first names, is a grandmother, her son and son- in-law are on the front lines. >> president-elect trump says he will wrap up the war in a day. do you have confidence in that? >> i don't believe this war can be stopped with a negotiation, she says, putin can't be trusted. in 3 to 5 years, he'll come back. >> there is an impression in the united states that if ukraine were just to accept a peace agreement, that if it were to accept the loss of roughly 20% of its territory, territory that has been unable to gain back by military means that the war would be over and somehow putin would be placated and it wouldn't be nearly as expensive for the united states. that's not the way they see things here. they believe that yes, a peace deal is coming and they may have to make painful concessions and give up roughly 20% of the territory to russia, but in exchange, they want

security guarantees, they want more weapons, they want the ability to defend themselves so that in a year, three years, five years, whatever it is, this doesn't just happen again. >> richard engel live from kyiv, thank you for your reporting. next, president-elect trump has made his pick for the next treasury secretary, despite elon musk calling the selection a business as usual choice. we will get wall street's reaction to the selection of scott bessent. that's next, on morning joe. joe. 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

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all aboard! come with me to meet the wizard. why couldn't possibly. this is your moment. i'm coming. if you think that's something to see, wait til you see this. ♪ ♪ you're good. -very good. a live shot there from lower manhattan which of course includes wall street, and they are paying close attention, trump's nominating wall street billionaire scott bessent for secretary of treasury. the top fundraiser is an advocate for deficit reduction and deregulation but he's also supported extending trump's massive 2017 tax cuts.

thanks to you both for being here. andrew, give us the first reactions here, this was announced friday. the markets, waking up this morning, what does wall street think of mr. bessent. >> wall street likes him. wall street thinks he's serious, he understands investing world, he understands economic issues, they don't consider him to be an outlier, if you will, relative to others. they think he's a serious person, so, at the moment, the markets have continued to go up, in fact, more importantly maybe, the bond market has signaled that they are less worried about inflation, one of the things that people have been complained about was the prospect, and i think there is still a meaningful concern

about it, the prospect of inflation as a result of these tariffs but one of the things that scott bessent has said over the past couple of weeks now is that if tariffs are brought on, they should be used as a negotiating tool and b, they should be thought about in a more thoughtful manner than just doing it on a widespread basis and that has given some semblance of competence. what will be interesting, though, is there was a knife fight, as you know, we saw a break out over the past week between all the folks trying to jostle for this job including with howard let nick who will be the commerce secretary, he will be responsible for those tariffs, so we could see a good cop and bad cop situation and also maybe fighting within this administration around some of these big financial and economic issues. >> trump has shown a willingness to defy his best friend elon musk on a couple of pics. christine, andrew talked about the wall street things, let's talk about the impact on main street, for average americans particularly with the inflation tariffs. >> wall street likes this pic

clearly, because they expect he will do tariffs slowly but he would do tax cuts quickly, so for millions of americans, that's important because we have a tax code that is essentially going to sunset. so people need to have resolution. in terms of inflation, goldman sachs today, with a new forecast for next year for its baseline assumptions for inflation, it says, because of tariffs, you will have higher inflation, if you had 10% universal tariffs, you would have a full percentage point higher for the personal consumption expenditure. so tariffs will add to deficits, that's i'm sorry, to inflation, that's what the experts think. in terms of deficits, scott bessent is somebody has an eye to fiscal sponsor billy that has been missing in the republican party for some time

now. another reason why there is enthusiasm on wall street. >> and there is an expectation that he will be confirmed without issues. our thanks to you both. next up, you know her from the hit tv show, this is us. now she's taking her talents to the stage. actress susan watson stars in a new play with the title, the blood quilt. she joins us straight ahead, right here on morning joe. ans 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

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welcome back, the powerful new play, the blood quilt, is garnering rave reviews after making its off-broadway debut. it focuses on four sisters, who reunite in their home state of georgia to create a family quilt to honor their mother, who had recently passed away. but when they gathered to read their mother's will, what they learned, threatens to tear them apart. the question then becomes, can their blood quilt keep the

family together? joining us now is the actress, susan kelechi watson, she plays one of the four blood quilt. thanks for being here with us. so let's start with, what drew you to this story which clearly has themes that will resonate with a lot of people. >> you know, i think she's just a really prolific writer, and i followed her work for the past 10 years now and i've been a fan of it. and it's a powerful piece that i believe gives real story and real heart to a black family of women, and i love that it takes time with each woman and gives them their own storyline and takes the time to really carve out real characters that feel

like real life, and i wanted to be a part of that. >> this is a story about inheritance, right, talk to me about, i feel like, inheritance, and the younger generation grappling with older generations, letting them down. talk to us about that theme. >> the theme of inheritance, you know, you've got to think about this family who hasn't had much in the real value of what they have is in the quilt, the quilts that have been passed down from slavery and people have woven their lives, people pieces of their clothing, their history, their pain, into these quilts and this has become a sense of family pride but now because of the families need to pay the taxes on the home that the mother left, neglected, this has become a resource like how do they turn this source of inheritance into something monetary that maybe they can get out of debt with. so what does it mean to give up legacy in order to survive? and that has been, i think, an issue that a lot of people have

had, what happens when you don't have the means to sort of hold onto the things that are dear to you and you have to actually let them go in order to survive. >> how much in there, susan, you know that black families like any families, are not monolithic, everyone has their own ambitions, goals, even different memories. it's thanksgiving weekend, we all remember things differently. but how important is it that the quilt also reminds them of their value of what the forefathers and parents did for them, while they try to waive monetizing this because on the one hand, you realize your richness by the people that survived to present you and on the other hand, you have immediate needs. >> and that exact sort of juxtaposition is realized in the play between the oldest sister clementine and the

younger sister, amber. she has less of a connection, she has moved on with her life and would sooner forget what she's been through with the family and move on into the more modern, you know, world of like, being a lawyer and all of these things that have become priority in her life and you have an older sister, who has stayed in the islands, and who has a deep connection to the family, the history of the roots, and it means everything to her. it's those different perspectives of what does this mean, they both see value in it, she sees value of keeping it and she sees value of selling it but they both see the value. it's two sides of this coin and then need, is really what takes precedence, it's like what needs to happen for this family to survive and that is eventually having to let go of the quilt, which is really sad, but then, you think well then what happens? then the world is sort of able to experience the great thing that their family, this great

legacy that the family has left. >> a powerful story and you can see the blood quilt at lincoln center's newhouse theater, that's right here in new york city, through december 29th. actress susan kelechi watson, susan, thank you very much. we appreciate you being here. that does it for us this morning, coverage picks up here on nbc -- msnbc in 90 seconds. ere 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,

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