especially as it applies to different agenda items. whether that's repealing the "affordable care act," or gutting government funding which trump would need congress to approve in terms of his government efficiency agenda, as he so calls it. so that margin i think is something that will also come into play when he tries to influence congress as well as when members of congress, especially democrats, potentially make their own demands. i'm looking at hakeem jeffries especially in that moment when republicans at some point are going to have to come to house democrats for support on a ranging of issues, whether that's funding the government or anything else. >> yeah. no question there. particularly considering how tiny the republicans' margin is in the house. good stuff. thank you so much.

are you ready to vote for him? >> i give him the benefit of the doubt. i'm ready to be supportive of getting him to that point. >> is he currently drinking or did he say he's not going to drink, touch alcohol? ing to >> i didn't ask him if he's had a drink today or if he's currently drinking. my commitment that i was looking for is that he will drink. he won't touch alcohol. and that he would be ready for a phone call at 3:00 in the afternoon and every hour in between. >> that's republican senator kevin kramer of north dakota yesterday offering some support publicly for pete hegseth. those comments come as donald trump's pick for defense secretary spent a third day on capitol hill meeting with republicans to address years of troubling allegations against him. we will show you what other lawmakers had to say about hegseth's meeting. >> hegseth was going around making the john tower pledge. if i'm secretary defense i will not drink. reporting suggests that the key meeting didn't go the way hegseth's team wanted it to go or the trump team.

have a question slaying over whether he's going to make it through or not. right now most republican insiders and democrats that i'm talking to, and others are talking to on the hill, still believe this is a nomination that will not make it through. >> we shall see. as for the president-elect, he's lashing out at the wall street journal for its reporting on a cabinet pick that withdrew their name from consideration earlier this week. we will dig into that. also ahead, the manhunt continues this morning for the suspect who shot and killed the ceo of united healthcare in midtown manhattan. we will bring you the very latest in that investigation. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's thursday, december 5th. along with joe, willie and me we have a host of way too early, jonathan mayer. most of politics nation,

reverend al sharpton. shall we diving? >> what you think? you can. absolutely. >> point of personal privilege. yesterday we had a good friend of ours on the show. a guy who has been a guest for some time. a guy who, he knows, has been one of my heroes for years now. a great writer, david. he writes for the atlantic. david came on the show yesterday and we are having a good conversation. but we were talking about the fox news employees that actually talk to courtney and other people at nbc news and said that he had drinking too much there. and i was devastated. it was devastating. david flippantly said, he was joking, he said, if you're too drunk for fox news you are very, very drunk and he. we went on with the segment. just let you know how things

work here, i was asking, should we address that or not? if someone has said that about any news outlet we would usually say something about it. two reference the entire network. so at the end, and i want to get the words right, this was said. the comment was a little too flippant for the moment we are in. we disagree with fox news but there's some good people over there. >> a lot are worried about pete hegseth. >> a lot of those are worried about america's national security and they were talking to an nbc news reporter, coming forward, saying hegseth was not qualified. it was said after, the comment was a little too flippant for the moment we are in. we disagree with fox news, we disagree with the people over there. including, of course, those talking to nbc news about their concerns.

this got turned into a column and a headline that said, what was the headline? the sound of fear. that wasn't the sound of fear, that was the sound of civility. in saying that mika had apologized, he didn't apologize. she simply said it was too flippant. i would recommend, if we are at a stage where, like this causes a meltdown, and george conway, another guy that we have on the show, we love george. saying, read this article, it's going to make you very sad but you must read it all. because of the fearful times we are in. well, there's some problem with the times that we are in. >> you can't be fearful. >> you can't be fearful. just because some people have said that we are fearful.

let me tell you something, you can talk to anybody that has worked in the front office of and we see and msn ec over the past 22 years. i tell you, i'm not fearful. if you talk to anybody serve with me in congress they will tell you, not fearful of leadership. now? not fearful. and i will say, i had a wonderful conversation with david. he was supposed to be on today and he said he was going to be on today. we were going to tweet back and forth talking about having him back on today. just to talk through this to say, again, maybe it was the right call. maybe it wasn't the right call. i don't know exactly how to do it after he said, if you are too drunk for fox news you are very, very drunk indeed. let me tell you, something they wouldn't certainly never let in the pages of the atlantic or the washington post. >> this is all about -- >> or the new york times. they never do that. i actually asked an editor over

at the atlantic, when he was so shocked we did. i said, would you allow me in writing a column at the atlantic to say, if you are too drunk for the new york times you are very, very drunk? if you're too drunk for the new york post you are very, very drunk indeed? >> in the context of talking about some of alcoholism. >> some's alcoholism. and people from the news organization were stepping up to help the cause. to get a guy who is grossly unqualified. is that the time to say that? i understand, david, we talked. and david said, it was just a joke. and i said to him, i appreciate that. and who knows? maybe i made the right call, maybe i made the wrong call. i'm really sorry if i made you feel comfortable. we tried to give it enough distance. didn't say his name. we waited for an entire segment. we thanked him and went on. then mika generally talked

about a flippant comment. and i'm telling you, the sound of fear, the apology, none of that is true. but guess what? this is what's been going on now for several weeks. we went down to talk to the president-elect. and people wrote articles that were just false. but you know what we did? we did the corporate thing. corporate said, don't say anything. just keep your head down. what did the royal say? never explain, never complained. we did that. we enjoyed our thanksgiving. you know what? people are upset with some of our guests, some of our friends. we snuck up on them too fast. we should have given them more of a warning whatever. it's. the main complaint was that we called donald trump's rhetoric fascist during the campaign.

and then we went down to have an off the record comment. caswell's does that? >> let me see, from the new york times, washington post. you know what? i even think folks from the atlantic. i think they might be doing that. >> if they have a chance to talk in the background with the incoming president and president-elect. >> yeah. >> they were doing, in fact, somebody wrote during this outrageously stoop -- stupid, immature series of articles that lied time, and time again about us, reporters said, i would be fired. if i had the opportunity to go in and talk to somebody who is incoming president of the united states. ask any journalist at the new york times and in your post. and that's the funny thing, people at the washington post especially. hair on fire media report. how dare they, how dare they. at the same time that the

washington post is doing the same thing. trying to speak to the president on the background. that's what reporters do. by the way, guess what? that's what i've been doing for years. when i speak to middle east leaders on background, some warnock and people. guess what? i do it to get information to get it to you. i bet you didn't know. because i didn't tell you. because it was a background conversation. when i went to the palace last summer and i spoke to micron for an hour in his office about ukraine, about the eu, about the ability of nato. about his problems with united states. i did that but i didn't report it. the only difference between what we did on that visit and what the new york times and

washington post, wall street journal, everybody else is doing. we were transparent and we actually told you. i understand if you don't know how the media works day in and day out. i understand you will be like a, okay, man. that's sunday. for media reporters to lie, to pretend that this is a shock to try to get clips for washington post reporters and columnists, how dare they go see them after they said he was a fascist. that's exactly what the washington post is doing. that's exactly what the wall street journal is doing. that's exactly what the new york times is doing. can we call it? you call it their job. and let me say this, let me say this, two things. you can do two things at the same time. you can say he had fascist rhetoric and still go in and talk to him. you know why do that? to get the read of the man. do you know why i went in? did get the read of the man at a crucial time in eu funding.

and nato funding. do you know why i went to leaders in the middle east who are angry at the united states and i sat there and listened to them attacking me personally? for 45 minutes. because of u.s. policy. you know why i do that? to get the read of the leader. to get the read of where the country is going. so i can come back here and talk to you and let you know what the hell is going on. to give you context, insight and background. do you know that everybody that we have on this show who is reported? it's what they do every day. they speak on background. listen, david, i'm going to say this again. i love david. he's a dear friend of mine. i can even see why david felt blindsided by what we did. and you know what?

that's a call we do. but we do a four hour show. right? and it's going in real time. i had to make the editorial call over the course of about five or 10 minutes. i can sit in the atlantic office going, let's see. let's change this word here. let's change that word. no, i couldn't do that. because that's not the business that we're in here. first of all, a couple things. i want to apologize to david for making him feel uncomfortable. and i wish david would have come on the show today. he said he would come on friday. by the way, bill clinton may tell me something in the background that's going to give me insight on where the democratic party is going or where needs to go.

you will be smarter, and you have been over the last several weeks, because of what we talked about with donald trump for an hour, hour and a half. we get information on where they are going. and i do report that. just like reporters at the new york times, washington post, wall street journal, financial times. just like they do it. and again, if you had to talk to a journalist, we shouldn't talk -- the complaint that we said that he was a fascist, that he talked like a fascist, yeah, he did during the campaign. guess what? >> we were watching. >> guess what? that means it's even more important we go there. that means it's even more important we go talk to people in the middle east, or people in europe. people we disagree with. that's part of our jobs. and we don't do it for ourselves, we do it for you. one final thing, david told me something else. and i really

don't hope you will. actually texted leslie and said, listen, if you can come on , please come on. we really like him. we love the guy. he meets the world to us. i'm so sorry he's the guy that was caught in the middle of this. i wish it had been somebody we don't like and respect so much. but he said something. and i wanted to talk about it for a couple of weeks. i can, i understand the front office. let's just be quiet. >> we respect. yeah. i get that. we saw it. >> we will go through thanksgiving, enjoy being with our families, let it go. and it was dying until this. but david said, one of the things that concerns us is if you are in fear, what does that say about the rest of us? a couple of things. first of all, this is what is

so crazy in this era we are in when democrats are shooting at each other. republicans are shooting at each other instead of coming together. it's your fault, it's your fault. they say, if you are fearful, what does it mean for the rest of us? listen, we are not thrilled with these nominees. we think a lot of them are absolutely horrible kash patel has promised to arrest journalists . that's a problem. but we were fearful and congress when newt gingrich and leadership said they were going to destroy me, run people against. i said, go ahead, make my day. i wasn't fearful on the show.

by the way, i always have republican say, they are telling you exactly what to say. one person did one time. one leader did one time. if you think you can do such a good job, why don't you come here and do the show four hours a day? i'm fine. i'm fine quitting. i'm going to do my show. i'm going to do my show the way i want to do my show. and i say this now to people who watch the show and love the show. let me tell you something, we should have no fear. it's deeply, deeply concerned about constitutional norms. we should do everything we can to encourage those three, four, five republican senators.

to hold the line against nominees that would destroy the pentagon. that would destroy the health of america. that would -- we should hold the line. accept what we accept. hold the line in these other areas. do not show fear. do not be fearful. because we saw what happened in south korea. they only had like 20 years of democracy at their backs. with the wind at our backs that we have, we have like 240 years of madisonian democracy, of checks and balances. we've got people that will not give up the ship. so we need to stand shoulder to shoulder and keep fighting, and have no fear.

show no fear. because as fdr said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. i wanted to say that this morning. what triggered it more than anything else is david's concern. a guy that we love and who loves us. david is concerned that we did something because we are fearful. first of all, first of all, we weren't talking about donald trump. we are talking about fox news. secondly, if we get to our immediate culture where civility is confused for fear, if by simply saying, let's not say that about an entire network. and that somehow acquaints you to -- then we are in trouble. and again, again, let me underline this, they meant nothing by it. it was just a throwaway line.

it was just a throwaway joke. and i do hope he comes on the show to talk about it. but i've got to say, at this point, i'm sick and tired of the nonsense. and i wish we would all just get to work doing the things that we need to do, which is our job, which is talking to people are going to determine where this country goes over the next four years. and to do the reporting and have the people that will come on, as we have done with matt gaetz. as we have done with pete hegseth. as we have done with tulsi gabbard and as we will do for the next four years. that's what we need to do. that's what we've been doing. that's what we are going to do. so maybe, just maybe, everybody can catch their breath, stop freaking out about a loss of one percentage point, and stop having this circling firing

squad that we see the democratic party have. and this media sphere where people are just trying to get clicks. >> to that point, two minor points. again, the meeting that we went to was not kissing the ring or bending any or all of your other ridiculous headlines. it was a serious meeting here quite frankly, if we hadn't told anyone about it, if we had shared it with our viewers to be transparent, and that was our call, because it was a meeting on background, nobody would have known about it. nobody would have. we weren't floundering in there and doing a big show of it. this was a private meeting. one more thing, to those that you were talking about here who were still pushing this narrative and saying this article is so sad and, oh my god, fear is taking over. good job. good job. you are so stuck in your hatred , you are so stuck in your hatred mode that you can't see that you are doing exactly what

negative forces at play here want. which is causing us to fight. we should not be fighting for doing our jobs, for doing with the new york times, the washington post, the atlantic, they are doing right now. and if they are not meeting with the president elect and talking to him then they are not doing their jobs. but we know they are. >> they are talking to them. and i want to say again, -- they are lying to get clicks. they understand exactly what people at their own newspapers are doing. the new york times is talking to trump, meeting with trump, talking to people around trump, meeting with them. after calling him a fascist. the wall street journal is doing it. cnn is doing it.

do we judge cnn for doing it? we don't. you know why? it's their jobs. grow up. the only thing we did that caused this twitter storm, we told you. if you would prefer that we don't tell you everything that we do, that's fine. but we just thought, in this case, transparency was best. as casey cayson would say, on with the countdown. >> let's get our top story this morning. pete hegseth says he will be on capitol hill today to meet with republican senators as he tries to salvage his bid for defense secretary. it will be his fourth straight day on the hill amid mounting allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse and other misconduct. he told cbs news yesterday that

he had spoken to president- elect donald trump, who told him to keep fighting. one of his key meetings yesterday was with senator of iowa. she is a combat veteran who is also a sexual assault survivor. she gave little insight about her sit down with hank seth, the democratic senator was very want about where the former fox news anchor stands. here is the exchange. senator hearns had with -- senator blumenthal. >> senator, will you support mr. hegseth's nomination? >> it was a frank -- conversation. >> did he ask for your vote specifically? >> thank you. >> when he met with matt gaetz , he said he brought up some of the allegations. -- >> it was a very thorough conversation. >> and also frank?

>> any chance you are up for consideration as defense secretary? >> i've talked to five to 10 republicans who have said to me they are just waiting for the right moment to say no to the pete hegseth. and for very good reasons. >> what you think so few republicans, none by my count, have been willing to come out and say they will definitively not support this nominee? >> nobody wants to define donald trump if you're a republican. the power of the presidency, not to mention this president elect, what the retribution might be i think is pretty daunting. i think republicans are reluctant to step forward and be the first one. they are much more ready to advise the president. i would

be surprised if they talk about hegseth by the end of the week or by monday. >> senator blumenthal telling us exactly what's going on in the republican caucus. also, my contacts in the republican conference, of course i can tell everybody that if you would like. they would never talk to me again. i can do that. now let me tell you, there saying basically the same thing. which is, he's not going to make it through. there just aren't enough people to vote for him. -- he's been a champion of women and military. she has talked about being sexually harassed herself. that was a meeting they were hoping that he would be able to get through with her support. and i must say, it was a frank and thorough conversation, is the southern equivalent of, well bless her heart. as one republican said, he's

not going to make it. too late, it's just not enough. and i'm hearing the word that he may be going down to mar-a- lago. and it still looks like one, two or three people, including ron desantis, who may get this position. >> hearing the same thing, i think you're right. senator blumenthal was giving voice to republicans that don't feel like they can say that out loud. at this point he's not going to make that exchange between senator hearns and garrett. frank and thorough conversation. tells you a lot. there wasn't a lot of praise and her comments about pete hegseth. he saying the right things in the halls, seniors are great meetings. in other places, like on social media, keep fighting, never

back down, the left is afraid of me, the left of is afraid of what donald trump was to bring to the military and this country. showing donald trump one last gasp of that fighting spirit. but as senator blumenthal points out, it looks, at this moment, like there are enough quiet republican votes against him that he may not make it. let's bring in allie, who has been up on the hill chasing those senators around as well. what are you hearing about this potential nominee? >> i think your conversation is capturing the tone on capitol hill right now. there does seem to be this air of inevitability. we felt a mood shift in the halls of congress happening earlier in the week on monday when hegseth came back and continued with meetings that he was having with senators, or taking his advice and consent process, of course, quite seriously. but what we are watching, and the gaetz example was the first nomination that we saw start and stop when's nomination itself was pulled, i don't know that it's the right example because of the very specific

profile that gaetz cuts on capitol hill. the fact that he didn't have married -- very many friends to back him up with senators, the fact he had this long string of controversies. the ethics report is still following him, maybe we will end up seeing something happen today on capitol hill as the ethics committee meets once again to figure out whether or not they're going to release this report. but it's not the right example. the hegseth nomination is its own case. in large part because this trail of controversies that we are still seeing reported on, he was having to defend against serious allegations of sexual misconduct well before the rest of our nbc news team was able to put forward a very detailed report about concerns that fox news -- over his jerking habits. the fact that he's now going into these meetings with senators and having conversations promising them that he will be drinking on the job if he is given this defense secretary role, it gives us a

sense of the way that these conversations are going. and they are not focused from a policy and leadership perspective on past things he has said about women serving in the military, for example. instead, they are focused on details of his character. and those are the sorts of things that are harder to explain away on capitol hill. so i think we are watching, in real time, let's consider this the first test of how the senate is going to react to a problematic nominee that, for now, has the president elect backing and watching the way that their maneuvering, not publicly, not airing their grievances on other networks or in the halls with reporters, instead what they are doing is a quiet signaling game saying in the halls that it's a frank and thorough conversation. but what's really happening is a between lines reading and an unofficial count puts this at six republican senators at this point who are likely saying no. that's where we will watch the

senate, it seems, maneuver in a trump washington. maybe not saying no to his face but certainly signaling a behind-the-scenes. >> you're right. senator roger wicker came out with his meeting with pete hegseth and said i have a promising -- with the secretary of defense. as where things are. and we do have to underline, as you said, not as a one-off flippant comment, but in his books, and different interviews, he does not believe women should serve in combat. that does not sit well, obviously, who served in combat. if he is pushed to the side of the next few days, what is looking like the most likely next choice? could it be senator hearns, given her background? is it in fact governor ron desantis of florida who has been floated by several media outlets talking to people around donald trump? what is the next choice look like up on the hill? >> that's what i've actually had senators say to me in the past on background even just yesterday. saying, it's not so much that

they think that the focus should remain on hegseth. many people are viewing's nomination is done , whether or not he has officially been pulled yet were not. the fact that you've got a list of names kind of waiting in the wings, also imagine how awkward it is, not just to have a meeting you know is going to be tense with a senator, but also that senator be in a list of names that could replace you. frank and thorough is the nicest way. i love the comparison to saying it's a bless your heart moment because it really is. when you look at the list of names, you see of course ron desantis is the one that many people were initially drawn to. bill haggerty, the senator from tennessee, he has been consistently on this list of names of people that trump seems to want to get into the cabinet in whatever position. of course a former ambassador, now a senator himself. i do think that there is a view on capitol hill that certainly senator hearns, senator haggerty, these are people who are respected and could be

confirmed in bipartisan fashion. i think someone that knows the hill but might have a little bit of it taller order, sort of explaining some of the things that he's done in florida and how that might apply to a role at the defense department. and then, of course, michael seems to have the respect, not only of his house colleagues but in a sense they could translate to the other side of the capital. i do think that there is a sense, much like pam, that the reception to whoever comes next will be much more palatable and potentially even bipartisan once it actually gets there. but look, once you start saying, okay, i'm going to police nominees because people don't like the profile of the person that i put in to disrupt this agency, that then becomes, do you want to make the pattern? we know that trump doesn't like backing down from things like that. when they start making the first move to pull people, that could be a sign that they are open to pulling people who are controversial in the future. >> right. we have certainly seen that already. thank you so much.

a new york times article this morning. look through it. it adds to his list of concerns specifically. first of all, we have the sexual misconduct, including rape allegations . and then you have financial mismanagement. so these are the numbers that the new york times brought up today. they had an $8.7 million budget in 2008. it .7 million. by four years later, by 2012, it was in debt. as the new york times said, quote, fizzled out. concerned vets for america, at the time, continually spend more money than it took in. and then the last year he was there, it was $37,000 in debt.

that's when these two small events organizations, and on top of that, forget the financial mismanagement. on top of that, you have the new yorker piece that talks about the whistleblower complaints of his activities while he was there. sexual misconduct, public drunkenness, financial mismanagement, these whistleblower reports. and all of that is on top of concerns that a lot of republicans have he just doesn't have the qualification to be secretary of defense. i've got to say, as other people reporting, this looks like a failed pr attempt yesterday as sort of a last gasp. but it looks like the trump transition team is already ready to move on. >> there are a few things at play here. there is still anger on the

trump transition team that hegseth wasn't fully transparent about some of this. in the early stages of his nomination. of course, a trump transition team should also be blamed for its inadequate vetting process. the fact that it wasn't using fbi background checks and the like. the financial concerns are real. these are relatively small organizations that he ran. the pentagon, the biggest in the country. nearly 3 million people work there. and certainly a lot of reports about concerns about his personal conduct. i'm told yesterday that, yes, this is a last-ditch effort to do a media tour to get back on the hill. he will go again today to try to salvage this. but the odds are stacked against him. i talked to a couple of people close to the process that said this is deeply unlikely. they wouldn't be surprised the next couple of days. reverend sharpton, what this does do, if trump pulls it or hegseth steps away, because he's a distraction or however he was to frame it, this gives senators another opportunity to defy donald trump. to say, look, this person is not qualified. i can't support them. do you think this is the beginning of the back bone

being formed? do you think this will give, embolden them, perhaps to insist on said independence going forth? >> i think that we should look at this in the context that maybe some republican senators still want to do what's best for the country. to have someone who clearly never managed anything of this level in terms of you have 3 million enlisted men and women, and staff. the lack of any kind of examples of him being confident enough to handle that should raise questions. and then you have the allegations of sexual abuse, alcoholism and the all. for the senators to stand up and say, we are in a world where we are dealing with ukraine, the middle east, we are dealing with potential problems that could become military engagement for the united states. we need somebody that can handle that. rather than say it's just them

standing up to donald trump. newsflash, the world does not rotate around donald trump. we need to get out of making donald trump the sun and we all rotate around it. people ought to stand up on what they believe with with their elected to do. and that's not based on reaction to trump. still had on morning joe, the latest on the search for the gunmen who killed the ceo of the united healthcare in new york city. including the surveillance video that shows the moment the suspect opened fire. plus, republican senator mitt romney of utah delivers his farewell address. we will play for you some of that speech. you're watching "morning joe." we are back in 90 seconds.

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this morning new york city police are on the hunt for the gunmen who killed the ceo of united healthcare. ryan thompson was shot yesterday morning in midtown manhattan just before he was set to speak at a conference at the hilton hotel. surveillance video shows thompson walking alone from a nearby hotel with the suspect approaches him from behind and fires multiple rounds. the shooter was wearing a jacket, a facemask and a large, gray backpack. then, he fled on foot. he got on a bicycle and went into central park just a few

blocks north. police say he was also spotted at a nearby starbucks just minutes before the attack. a motive has not yet been established. the ceo had been receiving threats recently. let's bring in nbc news national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent tom winter. tom, good morning. what more do we know about the search for this gunmen and about the possible motive here? >> it's a little up in the air right now. according to the new york city police department, a targeted killing. this is not somebody who is looking for any individual to shoot yesterday. this is not some sort of an active shooter. obviously, very clearly, the video shows it. he approaches this individual from behind. he clearly knew which direction this person was coming from, what hotel brian thompson was staying at, what hotel he was going to to speak at this conference and had been in the area. then the still photos, which we

are now looking at, coming from the nypd yesterday and according to people we have spoken with from a starbucks prior to the shooting, you can see, even though he's messed up in the video, that's a pretty clear photo. perhaps not enough for the nypd facial recognition unit. but a pretty clear photo to perhaps help them along or get some tips from the number on the screen. some new information we are getting this morning as well, this individual, who the nypd believes is responsible for the shooting, apparently left behind some writings on the shell casings that police found at the scene. the senior law enforcement official here new york city has been reached on the investigation since the messages on the casings were, quote, defend, deny, and depose. three separate writings written on shell casings. doesn't really help us much with the motive. the idea that this is a professional hit versus somebody who maybe had a motive to do this on their own, may be shifting more to the theory that somebody had a motive to do this on his own.

but it's still far too early to get to the bottom of that and perhaps not until this individual is in handcuffs are they going to be able to do that. they have uncovered a number of items of evidence. right now this individual is not under arrest but there are some very good leads that police appear to be following. that's what we are told and that's the latest on the investigation here as we have been working the phones all day. >> tom, you know the inner workings of the nypd so well. i think a lot of us that live in new york city always marvel at how quickly the apprehend suspects. just because of all the tech knowledge he now available to them and all of the intelligence they can gather so quickly. so what would this process look like, beginning at say, 7:00 yesterday morning when the calls came in? >> sure. immediately, what they are going to do is conduct a video canvas. one of the first things the responding officer does, even before the detectives get there, look around, listen to the 911 call. they will put out very detailed information to nypd smartphones

and will go out over the air. those initial responding officers are going to look for witnesses. they are going to look for anybody that is around with a gun. they are immediately going to look up what cameras are around, what type of information we can get right away, get that to a supervisor and begin to pull the types of video images that we have been looking at, presumably quite a few pieces of video that we haven't seen yet because those have been turned over to law enforcement for businesses in the area. that's what they will do. they will track this individual. then they will also see if they are on nypd cameras and if there's any way the contract this individual through the nypd domain awareness system and the various technologies that they have. all that work is going on. there was a cell phone that was recovered at the scene. they execute a search warrant on that to see if there is information that may be relevant to the specific individual or to the shooting. they also conducted a search of the victim's hotel room and saw there is anything there that can help them with as well.

>> i'm just looking at a couple of things. first of all, i want to ask you about new york city. the cctv across new york city, specifically central park. we know in london there are cameras all over the place in london. i just wanted to ask you about new york city, how it compares. it also, defend, deny, depose on the casings. certainly, that sounds like somebody who, again, we don't want to jump too far in conclusions, but that may lineup with what his wife said yesterday, that perhaps it was threats pertaining to somebody who was denied coverage. any thoughts there? >> i think that's a piece of the puzzle, joe. i certainly appreciate what you're saying there, what you're going with and putting it all together. i've been doing this long enough to know that sometimes a case looks like it's going down. one specific track and you think you're right there. all of a sudden it shifts to something completely different.

and i think that's something the nypd in particular, the current chief detective joe kennedy, preaches a lot to the detectives as far as keep your mind open, you don't know what's happening. could that be writings? they could try to throw police off. something to always keep in mind. as far as the cameras go, joe, the central park has a tremendous amount of surveillance camera coverage. i'm not going to get into areas where they don't have great coverage, it's kind of impossible, given the entirety of the park. but they do have a lot of capability with that. there is, in this country certainly, a constant battle between if we had surveillance cameras of oracle refine this person instantly? some csi type thing. perhaps. but on the other hand, we are americans. we have a right to privacy, fourth amendment, et cetera. there's always that give and take with law enforcement and people are certainly concerned about privacy. >> great coverage and context. tom winter, thank you very much for your reporting this morning.

coming up, steve ratner says the massive budget cuts proposed by elon musk are part of their efforts leading a new government efficiency panel. it will likely prove impossible to achieve. steve joins us with charts on that. next, on "morning joe." checked singlecare? whenever my customers ask how to get a better price on their meds, i always tell them about singlecare. it's a free app. accepted at major pharmacies nationwide. before i pick up my prescription at the pharmacy, i always check the singlecare price. it's quick, easy, and totally free to use. singlecare can literally beat my insurance copay. you just search for your prescription, and show your coupon in the app to your pharmacist. i just show you the coupon and i get this price? that's right! go to singlecare.com and start saving today. you don't stop being you just because

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i want to emphasize the individual federal employees are mostly not bad people, actually. because most human beings are not bad people. to most people people that are federal employees are doing what they do because they believe they are serving our country and i respect that. i'm hopeful it's even going to be good for many of the individuals when they make a transition from government service back to the private sector. >> that was vivek ramaswamy who is part of the newly formed department of government efficiency with elon musk. and he has pushed for making cuts to the federal workforce, insisting, those very cuts will be beneficial to government workers. joining us now, former treasury official and "morning joe" economics, steve ratner. >> steve, let's cut straight to this.

i know you're going to go through these charts. this is something that you want to hear these two guys talking about, how they are going to cut $2 trillion from the budget. it's a joke. and it's a joke because this is something you and i have been obsessed about for very long time, the national debt, gethe deficit under control. just looking at your first chart here, people need to understand, social security and medicare make up about 50% of what the government spends. you had defense and veterans benefits, that's another 20%. see you are up to 70%. you then add debt, and how much it costs to service that debt. that's another 10%. so steve, before they even start talking about cutting these so-called federal employees that are bankrupting us, the united states government has artie spent 80% of its budget on medicare, medicaid, social security, vets, defense

and interest on the debt. i love some of these other numbers. again, forgive me for killing hamlin the first act here. let's cut law enforcement. that's 1% of the budget. let's cut sciences and medical research, we spend too much on that they may be saying. 1% of the budget. transportation, those barrel projects is going to bankrupt us, it's only 2% of the budget. again, i will actually let you explain this far better than i am right now. but this is a scam unless they are going to/social security and medicare and veterans affairs. they are never going to get the $2 trillion. so the need to just stop pretending. >> i feel like vanna white. i'm turning letters appear. >> it makes me so mad. it's so disingenuous.

>> i'm happy to be her letter guy. look, you said exactly right, joe. this is a completely disingenuous, unrealistic, ridiculous idea for the reasons you all said. that over 25% of the budget can really be cut. and even that, you rattle off a lot of programs. and most americans would say that they are really important to them. so you're trying to cut. i can do little bit of math. you are trying to cut $2 trillion but you've only got $1.5 trillion of stuff that you can cut and that would be cutting all of it. now, i would say, trump has intubated about cutting money from medicaid. we will talk right over here about veterans, some stuff on the chopping block. but what musk and vivek ramaswamy have done is they identified about $25 billion of spending, which is complicated, which is not going to get into. they think they can exit cut without congress. but let's just give an example of the things they would like to cut.

veterans healthcare, 119 billion. eliminate healthcare for veterans. we will talk about the impact of all that stuff in a second. pell grants for education, $20 million. headstart, we all know what that is. the fbi? maybe the actually like to cut that. $11 million. by the way, this was zero all of the stuff out. this is eliminating this stuff. federal prisons, the sec and so forth. and all that adds up to $516 billion. and so there's still a long way , a long way from there to trillion dollar target. even if they got all the stuff. and even if people accepted this. so yes, joe, you are right. it is ridiculous. >> so they are headed to the hill today to pitch these cuts. by the time they arrive at the late afternoon the senate will have gone home by then. so they are still learning on the job i suppose. steve, you mentioned the va and nih are targets. talk to us about those cuts and what they mean.

>> i just want to give these examples of how heavy the political left would be. to try to get this done. you're talking about 6.2 million veterans who are receiving healthcare from the veterans administration. and that number, this is a 2021 number, the most recent one that we have. but that number is only going to grow. for example, they passed the packed act, which is to protect veterans who are hurt in burns and things like that. that passed by an overwhelming bipartisan consensus. so imagine the idea you go back then, a year or two later, and you say, i do you pass this thing by a bipartisan consensus. now we want to eliminate it. it just doesn't stand the test of reality. then you talk about the nih. they are truly great organization. funds basically search that the private sector will fund because it's not obvious commercial use. put aside lung cancer, which had a lot to do with smoking, taking up smoking, cessation of smoking.

but it's not just the nih. they played a big role in all these different cancers that have come down, down, down in terms of incidents. from: and -- prostate, lung cancer we talked about, cervix and stomach. all of these cancers have come down. and you have the nih to think for a lot of it. >> no question there. steve, let's turn to chart 3 and four. it's not just the trump administration. for decades now republicans are the ones who blame democrats saying, you are increasing the federal workforce, you are responsible for the blow. the chart shows it's exactly the opposite. >> this really surprised me when we put these numbers together because they have been talking about cutting 50% to 75% of the federal workforce. they are ambitious, if you want. ludicrous, more realistically. but what's interesting about this, two things. first of all, the size of the federal workforce, $2.3 million when reagan came in, is actually only very, very slightly higher today than it

was then, even though the population of the united states has grown by 47%. so these 2.2 million, these are civilian workers, are servicing 50% more people with the same number of government employees. number two, if you look at the red ones, which is where we had a republican president, this is reagan, the famous reagan, government unemployment went up under reagan. clinton, it dropped like a rock with help from congress, as joe will remind me if i don't say that. came up again under george bush , 43. the spikes are covid, the financial crisis, the internet burst and you have some spikes. generally speaking, even under trump, federal employment went up. under trump, 1.0. so the record of the republicans, they talk a good game. but the record of the republicans and actually cutting spending is pretty small. the other thing they are

attacking is federal pay. let's look at the facts on that. . back to 2011, it is true that the average federal worker, this guy in blue here, made about 6% more than his private sector counterpart if you adjust for the different levels of jobs and skills and so forth. congress has held federal pay down now consistently for 20 ow years. the cresult the private sector pay is substantially above federal pay by 8%. the private worker adjusted for skills makes about 8% more than a federal worker. the idea these are government bureaucrats way overpaid is not supported by the facts. >> all right. steve ratner, thank you very much. we appreciate you coming on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," politico's jonathan martin is poout with a new piece entitled "biden white house is discussing preemptive pardons for those in

trump's cross hairs." he'll explain what this means for the president's inner circle.t' transportation secretary pete buttigieg will join the conversation with an announcement nvon protections f passengers stranded by airline disruptions. plus, hours from now, the bipartisan task nforce e investigating the attempted assassination of donald trump will hold its final hearing today. we'll get s a preview from the panel's ranking member, democratic congressman jason crow. we're back in 90 seconds.mo crow we're back in 90 seconds each day is a unique blend of people to see and things to do. that's why you choose glucerna to help manage blood sugar response. uniquely designed with carbsteady. glucerna. bring on the day.

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biden's sucks sesser are president-elect made an important announcement today. >> my new trump fray frances are here and make a great christmas present. i named them fight, fight, fight because they representing winning. we all want to be winning. we have to win as a nation. we want to win as a family. this fragrance is about strength and success and confidence for men and women. get yourself a bottle an don't forget to grab one for your loved ones too. they'll thank you and even smell good. >> right. oh, you thought everyone the election that was going to stop?

he's selling fragrances like j. lo. anyone buying this crap, give the man your atm and pin card number already and get it over with. >> fight, fight, fight? >> this reminds me of jonathan a year ago. it was -- it was failed attempt to make a little bit of money on the side, but remember, essence of lemiere. >> yes. >> couldn't get it. >> not lamare, my face cream. >> didn't take off. >> walk into any bloomingdale's, when you walk through the perfume section, they spray the stuff. right there in midtown sharing his fragrance. not a huge seller, yet. >> i've had -- i've had better ideas. the scent was a mix of sort of dunkin' donuts plus desperation

for the red sox to sign a power hitting left fielder. it hasn't taken off. >> there is the added benefit it kills mosquitos and most other living things. we're expecting rfk jr. to give it his stamp of approval. everyone else is concerned. >> kills mosquitos, apts and friendships. >> yes. >> and threatening to change it to le lemire. >> before we get into this, i have to ask you, about one of the dumbest ideas i've heard come out of baseball's front office is, this golden bat rule. what are we doing here? >> i thought you were saying golden bachelor? >> what are they thinking about, mike? >> well, i think they're thinking of marketing, getting younger people more interested in baseball. this is truly one of the more stupid ideas ever discussed in

major league baseball. here's how it would work. a golden at-bat once a game, so it's the eighth inning your team is one run down, got the bases loaded, you can take your best hitter who has already hit in that inning or whatever, and put him up to bat. that's the golden at-bat used right there. if you're ever going to use it, use it as a fluke in an all-star game but not in the regular season, because jonathan, here's the way you know what would happen. bobby witt jr., kansas city royals are down, bases loaded, put their best hitter up to the plate, gets a single. knocks in the tying run or whatever, but he was hitting for the number nine guy and bobby witt jr. is the lead-off junior. put him back up again? >> i like the idea facing gerrit cole as much as possible. this is a terrible idea. rob manfred mentioned it in a podcast months ago, it's gotten

another wind here. baseball has done a wonderful job the last couple years with the rule changes. the pitch clock has revolutionized the game, revived it, seeing increase in attendance and tv ratings, those are good things. this one a bridge too far and let's hope it's -- >> yeah. i just don't see it. even though i would love to see durant at third, devers at second, raphael, and next year going desoto putting him up to bat, that would be great. let's just play it straight and let soto help us win the world series straight. mike, they're cutting down teams. yankees, met, red sox? >> yeah. toronto in the picture, although i doubt anyone would want to go to toronto because of the exchange rate for players and the terms of the money they make. that would be difficult and toronto's roster will turn over next year. guerrero might not sign again

with toronto. i think it's down to the yankees and metz. i think the red sox are in it, god bless them, but down to the yankees and mets. can the yankees afford to let soto go -- probably not -- can the mets afford not to sign soto -- probably not -- that's the money pitch. it could get to $700 million. crazy money. >> let's go, red sox, come on. to the news now, our top story this hour, pete hegseth says he will be back on capitol hill today to meet with republican senators as he tries to salvage his bid for defense secretary. it will be his fourth straight day on the hill amid mounting allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse and other misconduct. he told cbs news yesterday he had spoken to president-elect donald trump who told him to keep fighting. one of his key meetings yesterday was with senator joni ernst of iowa who is a combat veteran, who is also a sexual

assault survivor and here's what she told reporters. >> it was a very frank and thorough discussion. >> will you support mr. pete hegseth's nomination? >> it was a frank and thorough conversation. >> did he ask for your vote specifically? >> keep walking. >> thank you. >> when you plett with matt gaetz you said he brought up in of the allegations against him. did hegseth bring up anything. >> it was a very thorough conversation. >> were any of your concerns alleviated? >> need to be able to walk. needs to be able to walk. >> up for any consideration as defense secretary, senator? >> and again, sounds like the southern equivalent of bless her heart or bless your heart. the reason why is, again, they were expecting or they were hoping joni ernst would come out and support pete hegseth. it will be awfully hard for her to do that. she's a woman in combat. she's been a champion of women

in combat. he has been against that from the start. and then you just pile up the sexual misconduct allegations including the rape allegation and the police report, the public drunkenness we're hearing from inside of fox news and avenue been hearing for quite some time inside of fox news. you have the financial mismanagement that "new york times" is detailing and you're going to get in here. he starts with vets for freedom, $8.7 million when he starts in 2018. four years later they're in debt and they collapse as he leaves. he goes to another organization, always spending more than they take in, and when he leaves they're $37,000 in debt. and all of that doesn't even start with the first serious hurdle, which is, he's just not qualified -- >> for the job. >> -- at 40 with his background to run the most complicated and

the most powerful bureaucracy of america in the world. >> the pattern all feeds into each other, a pattern of discipline issues or potentially addiction. "the new york times" -- it's not just joni ernst, i mean all the republicans are going to have to look at this and figure out how they could stomach confirming -- >> i don't think they can. lindsey graham said a couple days ago, just doesn't -- >> i don't know. >> -- look like it's going to happen. >> "the new york times" dig deeper into hegseth's history at fox news and leadership at two nonprofit organizations. the paper reports that in december of 2017, mr. hegseth got so drunk at a wedding of a fox news producer that he struggled to stand upright in a men's bathroom. according to two people with direct knowledge of the episode who declined to be named for fear of retribution friends asked the producer who was there

to get mr. hegseth a ride home to make it to the set by 6:00 a.m. they said. hegseth's lawyer told the paper the allegation was not treu. the "times" reports that hegseth's ten years as the head of two nonprofit groups ended with both in financial trouble. at the first, vets for freedom revenues rose sharply under his leadership reaching $8.7 million in 2008. but spending rose even faster. the group fell into debt and then fizzled. in 2012, four years later, it received just $81 in donations, according to financial documents -- >> from $8.7 million to $81. >> the second concerned veterans for america also often spent more than it took in. it was $37,000 in debt by 2016 when mr. hegseth was listed in tax filings as the outgoing

chief executive officer. >> let's bring in senior politico columnist, jonathan martin. love to get your reporting on this. and again, i mean, i would say this is like john tower in '89, but this is john tower -- this is like john tower squared. he did make the tower-esque declaration, i shall not drink if i'm sec def. you look at joni ernst, who is, you know, she's a vet, she's been a champion of women in the military. she's talked about sexual abuse. >> right. >> in the military. you go down the list of things and then the financial -- he took an organization that was bringing in $8.7 million a year and drove it down to $18 a year. and then did the same -- and then you go to the new

yorker piece with all of the whistleblower complaints. these are all things that senators are going to hear in what would be a dreadfully ugly senate confirmation hearing. >> yeah. and it's like with matt gaetz, they don't want to have the hearing. they want to kill it in the crib and never have to cast or record a vote in committee or on the floor because they don't want to have to vote against trump's appointee. classic trump, he names hegseth because he's a guy on tv that trump likes and that's the long and short of it, and then the hot potato gets tossed in the lawmakers of his own parties whose voters love trump, don't want to cross their voters, but don't want to vote for the "fox and friends" weekend co-host to run the u.s. military. that's the whole story of the trump year in gop politics. that said, it's a math issue. you start with collins and murkowski, two likely not going

to support him. mcconnell is going to be uneasy about hegseth on national security. that gets you to three. and then the question, joe, is four joni ernst, four todd young, is four somebody else we're not talking about that could be out there looming? it's just a matter of finding the fourth vote. it's a pretty straightforward issue i think. >> jonathan, as we consider all this, let's talk about your latest piece for politico, biden white house is discussing preemptive pardons for those in trump's cross hairs. president joe biden's senior aides are conducting a vigorous debate over whether to issue preemptive partedens to range current and former public officials who could be targeted with president donald trump's return to the white house. the deliberations touch on pardoning those currently in office elected and appointed and former officials who have angered trump and his loyalist who could face exposure

including members of congress' january 6th committee, adam schiff, and former gop representative liz cheney. also mentioned by biden's aides for a pardon, anthony fauci, former head of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases who became a lightening rod for criticism during the covid-19 pandemic. the president continues who was intentionally focused on his son's pardon has not been brought into the broader pardon discussions yet. what does this look like? what are you pardoning anthony fauci for and liz cheney who have not been charged or convicted of crimes? >> that goes to the heart of this deliberation and why this is delicate because the white house counsel and a handful of aides including the chief of staff are having this debate right now in the west wing, which is do we leave these folks

out in the cold and expose them to kash patel's fbi and donald trump's white house for any number of charges or some kind of, you know, show trial to get a measure of revenge and at the very least make them pay six figures in legal bills to avoid a case, or do we offer preemptively pardons to people who there's no proof they've done anything wrong whatsoever, and, willie, may not want a pardon in the first place. that's a tough call. if you don't do it and patel and company come after these people, you had the chance to give them inoculation legally that's a hell of a thing to regret. at the same time do you want to pardon somebody like liz cheney or anthony fauci, and suggest any kind of impropriety that could only add fuel to the trump aggressors in the first place. it's a real tough nut. >> so you've been at this for a

very long time covering national politics. >> yeah. >> and done it well. >> thank you. >> did you ever think we would be living in an era where we would be talking about preemptive pardons for people like dr. fauci or like liz cheney. >> right. >> aspart of the political process? it's uniminjble. >> it's shocking to right this. the idea of offering people who have not been charged with any crime, there's no hint of committing any crimes, pardons, because the nature of the incoming administration is such that they're pretty open about the idea of pursuing a kind of third world model of where we come in and go after the old guys. now, i can hear what the trump folks are going to say immediately, which is, he's only doing what they did to us, and i think, guys, that's what you'll

hear next year if the trump folks pursue these revenge investigations or indictments of they started first, they indicted trump left and right. we're only keeping the same thing going. you can see it easily right now. guys, that's why this debate is serious in the white house and why they're taking this i think with some measure of sobriety, even though it is an extraordinary precedent to set. >> he's right. that's the argument the team will make. reverend, your take on this. we know when trump was leaving office he considered blanket pardons for folks and didn't follow through. we expect when we walks in the door he will issue a bunch of pardons to the january 6th convicts. he made that promise on the campaign trail and that was going to happen regardless. but what do you think the -- the impact of this would be? if president biden and his team follows through and offers the blanket pardons, we saw what happened when he pardoned hunter biden. how do you think that impacts the national political conversation? how does it -- how is it going

to be perceived? >> i think it will be perceived mixed at best and probably would get a lot of people concerned about what precedent was set. let's not forget donald trump not only talked about pardoning the january 6th people that were doing the insurrection, he called them hostages. >> yeah. >> had them singing as a choir at his rally. in the background people will be mixed in their reaction if biden were to do this. from the civil rights community he ought to be pardoning people like marilyn mosby, the prosecutor in baltimore, jesse jackson jr., the congressman, even i have a brother in alabama who was doing civil work. look at people that need pardons that have come out and done well, served the community. that ought to be the standard. and i think to forecast what people may face i think is

something that should be discussed but i would hope he looks at pardoning people that have maybe made a mistake but turned around and done the right thing. that's what pardons are for. and i think we should not pervert that. >> what's so interesting you read these articles talking about it, people like adam schiff, for instance, who seems to be in the cross hairs, right. >> yes. >> and -- >> nancy. >> liz cheney, nancy pelosi. a lot of people like adam schiff who say -- i will let you say this -- adam schiff says don't give me a pardon. i didn't do anything wrong. if he wants to come after me, come after me. knowing liz cheney i'm sure liz cheney would be the same. go ahead and make my day. come after me for doing my job. make me a political martyr. make me the next president of the united states. here i am. don't give me a pardon for something i didn't do.

>> yeah. and, joe, i think that you're going to see more of that in the coming days, people who say don't preemptively give me a pardon because you're going to suggest i need a pardon for something and i don't want that. please don't do that. here's the sort of backstory though for people less high-profile than adam schiff and liz cheney, people serving in the administration in some kind of appointed capacity, jack smith, but below the jack smith level, looking at the prospect of a lot of money in legal fees potentially if there is any kind of prosecution next year. i think that's a bit of a delicate situation. i talked to some democrats yesterday, joe, who said, you know, maybe the better idea is you create a legal defense fund or you get -- >> exactly. >> democratic donors to commit to paying the legal fees for everybody who would be targeted by the trump administration next year for any kind of political

indictment and you take care of it that way the courts will dismiss the charges, and you absolve innocent folks of paying astronomical legal fees getting the donors in the party to do the right thing. >> i'm glad you brought that up because one of the things we're going to talk about earlier when talking about fear is, you know, democrats and others have to stop being fearful and one of the ways they can do that is, get big democratic donors, get powerful law firms. >> right. >> they could come to an agreement. you talk about the people in the fbi that did their jobs. you talk about the people in the doj that did their jobs. >> right. >> you talk about the people in the d.o.d. who did their jobs. and those people are the ones that, like you said, democratic donors, other billionaires who actually want to do something positive with their money, they team up with great law firms, strong, powerful law firms, and you actually takeaway the

incentive to try to drain jack smith or try to drain some of these other people -- >> right. >> -- who thought y were doing their job following the law. >> any number democratic leaning law firms full of democratic lawyers you can see stepping up and offering to do pro bono work or work to be paid for by, you know, the katzenbergs of the world with other prominent democratic financiers to take care of this. barnicle is right, the fact that we're even having this conversation about how do you approach taking care of these people who are going to be prosecuted, whether it's a preemptive pardon or some kind of massive legal defense fund, does speak to the extraordinary nature of these times. it's the age-old question, joe, do you take trump seriously or literally? because if you take him literally he said he wants to put liz cheney in prison.

so, you know, how do you proceed? it's a sobering, sobering moment. >> well -- >> yes. >> -- those of us who actually believe in the third branch, the judicial branch doing their job -- >> right. >> -- i think you're right. if there are people that would back like people like liz cheney and adam schiff and nancy pelosi, other people financially and then you have big lauchls in washington, d.c., we're not going to let the rule of law be trampled on here, you have people that could fight those fights -- >> right. >> -- and any of these cases would be thrown out. >> it's still a sobering time because donald trump won the election. >> that's exactly why we need people to step up and do that. >> yeah. politico's jonathan martin. thank you very much. his new reporting is online now. check it out. still ahead on "morning joe,"

transportation secretary pete buttigieg will join us with a new announcement for air travelers. plus the very latest on the shooting death of unitedhealth's ceo. new york city mayor eric adams will join the conversation with an update on that and much more. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. if you're living with dry amd,

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time for a look at other stories making headlines this morning. one of russia's highest ranking generals spoke with president biden's top military adviser last week in what "the new york times" describes as a, quote, highly unusual call. the two men reportedly discussed a number of security issues including the war in ukraine and how to manage escalation concerns between the two countries. while russia insists the time is not right for peace talks with ukraine, the kremlin has been mentioning them more often. a manhattan jury spent a second day deliberating the manslaughter charges against daniel penny who is on trial for the choke hold death of a homeless man last year. the 26-year-old grabbed jordan neeley from behind after witnesses say neely started yelling at them, at passengers, saying he didn't care whether he

lived or died. the defense said penny was protecting others from a threat, while prosecutors claim he acted recklessly. scientists say a new artificial intelligence tool is reshaping the way meteorologists can forecast the weather. unlike traditional model, the new technology can predict weather patterns 15 days into the future with, quote, unmatched skill and speed. the company, which is owned by google, says the application will have enormous benefits in saving lives from the worst effects of extreme weather. coming up, the biden administration is building on its newly enacted protections for airline passengers. transportation secretary pete buttigieg joins us with that announcement next on "morning joe."

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how much have you paid people to pull out customers who were in line with a bag that's two centimeters too big? >> well, we recognize this is a hard job and so, therefore, we incentivize them to do that. >> how much? >> it's $10 per bag. >> you appreciate your airline is a disaster. i'm amazed by the attitude of all of you. it's a terrible experience. i say this as a father of three

young children, but i can't tell you -- nobody enjoys flying in your airlines. it's a disaster. >> republican senator josh hawley of missouri, addressing the ceos of major airlines at a hearing yesterday on capitol hill. with commercial air travel now surpassing precovid levels the biden administration this morning is laying the groundwork to further protect strapped passengers when airlines cancel or significantly change flights. under the potential new regulation, airlines would have to pay passengers at least $200 in cash compensation, rebook their next flight at no additional cost and cover meals, overnight lodging and related transportation expenses resulting from the delay or cancellation. let's bring in transportation secretary pete buttigieg with more on this. mr. secretary, thank you for joining us this morning. so these seem to most travelers like common sense solutions to a problem that plagues so many of us with the airports so busy you get delayed, canceled, don't know where to go, where am i

going to stay, where is my next meal coming? how close do you believe you are to getting these implemented? >> well, we have to go through a process getting a lot of public input and data, but this launches a process that i think will lead to more improvements for passengers. there's really two goals here -- make sure those kinds of disruptions are less likely to happen in the first place and make sure you're taken care of when you do. that's been a big part of our push and as we've been putting pressure on the airlines. cancellations rates have improved substantially. this year it's around 1.3%. we know this approach works. making sure there are consequences when you let passengers down and if that does happen, praerngsz better taken care of. what's new here is for the first time we're launching a process where the department would consider cash compensation and other requirements about what the airline has to do in those situations if it's caused by the

airline. we get that nobody controls the weather. but if the airline gets you stuck there ought to be some kind of regard not only for getting you on your way, but also for the cost in terms of your time. i would note that these kinds of policies are something you'll see widely used around the world, but up until now we have not seen them in the united states. >> mr. secretary, it's not often that i would think i would be agreeing with senator josh hawley on much, but i certainly agree with him in the clip we just showed at the hearing. commercial air travel in america for the average flying customer, people like me, is a nightmare. what can we do about the fact that when an airline is delaying a flight comprehensively long, going to be delayed for three hours or whatever, what can we do about getting a cash payment back for the ticket because it has inflicted pain on our time,

on customers' times on family times, but the airlines seem hesitant to say okay, here's a refund? >> well, that's something that we have enacted through our automatic refund rule, and that is taking effect this year and i think we'll make a big difference. the idea here is, if an airline owes you, as they do for a flight that's canceled or delayed past a certain amount, there's a three-hour threshold for domestic flights, longer for international flight, you shouldn't have to fight or send an e-mail or negotiate to get your money back. it should just come to you. we were able to do that. what we're announcing with today's process is you would also get some kind of compensation for your time. there are a lot of places around world where you would get some level of cash and the concept that is in this proposal would start at a $200 cash payment to you in addition to anything else

that you're entitled to. if you are stuck and it's because of the airline. also, requirements around rebookings. they got to put you on the next available seat. if they don't have one after a certain amount of time they have to be ready to put you on a seat of another airline. covering hotels and ground transportation. we've already got enforceable agreements with the airlines with most of the airlines requiring or providing that, but there's never been a rule that sets a floor which means the airlines could change that. this would set a new framework for that. all of that is designed to address the core frustration you're talking about, the feeling so many of us have as passengers that were not being well taken care of. and i can tell you not just as a policy maker, not just as an agency head who fields thousands of complaints into our department but just as a frequent flyer. i will be hoping on a flight here at o'hare. i know how frustrating that can be and we can get results through enforcement,

transparency and better regulation like this. >> mr. secretary, you're laying the groundwork here for these changes, but, obviously, the biden administration is in its final days. you've spoken to donald trump's selection to take your job if he were to be confirmed. does the trump -- the incoming trump administration seem on board with what you guys are putting out there? >> well, we'll have to see what steps they take. i will say this, you know, they have said a lot of things and gone through a lot of motions that are populist. i think that will be tested in many ways and one important test of that will be to see if the next administration follows through on what we have initiated and maintains the rules that we've created in the enforcement practices that we've created to hold airlines accountable. i have seen several airline ceos express their hopes that the next administration will be less passenger friendly and more corporate friendly than we are,

but i don't think that's guaranteed. i think that as that clip showed, there's actually bipartisan interest, bipartisan desire to continue advancing these passenger protections. i am proud that on our watch during this administration, during my time as secretary, we've delivered the biggest expansion in airline passenger rights in the history of the department. i would certainly challenge any future administration to maintain that record and build on it. >> secretary buttigieg, on another issue, the future of the democratic national committee, there are people that have already announced they're running to be the new chair. some rumors that you may look at it. whether you will seek this or not is the first part of my question. secondly, if not, where do you think the dnc needs to be guiding its emphasis now? what direction should it take, being that it only lost the presidential election in less

than 2%? >> so i will not. i'm not entering that process. but, of course, like so many people i'm watching it with a lot of interest. that's about as much as i can say about the party side because i'm appearing as a federal official right now. but certainly something i'm watching as a citizen, something i care about. and one other thing i would note is that from a policy perspective and just as we think about the future of the country, i believe that we not only have a lot of great leaders to work with in washington who i do believe in in the house and the senate, some of them just coming in, having just been elected, some of them i have been working with for the last several years who have been such a support to this administration, helping us get our work done, but also, i hope that we don't overlook what state and local leaders are doing. there is extraordinary leadership out there, so much coming from different figures and different generations on our

side of the aisle, and i really believe that's going to be a part of the way forward. >> transportation secretary pete buttigieg, always good to see you, and thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. we appreciate it. >> same here. thanks for having me on. >> take care. still ahead, the acting director of the secret service will be on capitol hill today to testify about the july assassination attempt on donald trump. democratic congressman jason crow of colorado is the ranking member on the task force investigating the shooting. he joins us next on "morning joe." e.

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the congressional task force investigating july's attempted assassination of donald trump will hold its final hearing this morning with testimony from the acting director of the secret service, ronald crow. the agency's previous director kimberly cheatle resigned ten days after that shooting. democratic congressman jason crow of colorado is the ranking member on the task force and joins us now a u.s. army veteran who served in both iraq and afghanistan. thanks for being with us this morning. just under two hours from now we'll get a lot of look inside this report, a five-month investigation, a thank god unsuccessful assassination attempt on donald trump in butler, pennsylvania. what do you expect to hear today? >> well, good morning to you.

this is the completion today of our five month investigation. this is the most thorough and comprehensive accounting of what happened and didn't happen on july 13th, and then a month later in west palm beach, florida. it is an astonishing breakdown on many levels. that is what we discovered during our investigation. i learned in the army that the essential components of any operation, whether you're talking about law enforcement or military, is training, communications, and command and control. all three of those broke down in really a catastrophic way in butler, pennsylvania. so we're going to hear the testimony from ronald row. we're going to press him on what he discovered and see what he says about next steps and how the service is going to reform this. >> one of the things we heard in the immediate aftermath, congressman, was concerns over staffing, that there just weren't enough men and women to cover all the shifts, the buildings that needed to be covered to protect not only donald trump, but all the people

[ inaudible ]. how much of a factor five months after the investigation do you think that was? the staffing at secret service fell short? >> it was -- it's undoubtedly a factor, right. we are in an environment now where the threats are higher than they've ever been inour lifetime. threats against members of congress are four times what they were just five years ago. the same for our presidential candidates. we have foreign adversaries, countries like iran, threatening current and former officials and taking action to harm them. at the same time, transparency in how we campaign has changed from a decade ago. candidates are actually out a lot more conducting more events, conducting larger events. our campaign season is longer. at a time where the secret service hasn't fundamentally changed both in its structure, in its training paradigm, and its resourcing, the environment that it operates in has fundamentally changed.

that does call for, in my view, a major resourcing shift. >> congressman, obviously, there's a new administration coming in and one of its key promises is really cut the size of the federal government. we know elon musk and vivek ramaswamy have a whole task force dedicated to that. are you concerned that some of their cuts may be to agencies, like the secret service, that could put lawmakers' lives in jeopardy? >> i am concerned about that, but i actually think that's asking the wrong question, right. we have this tendency in washington to talk about, you know, the top line of funding bills, how much money do we need to throw at a problem or how large should an agency be. that in my view is the wrong question. the question should be, what needs to happen? how does an agency need to be structured and how much funding is necessary for it to accomplish its job? so in the -- in the case of the secret service, this is a no fail mission, right. the secret service is protecting our nation's highest elected

officials. it cannot fail. you have to start there. what is necessary to accomplish that mission. then you work backwards in terms of how it's structured, how big should it be, what technology is necessary, and what the funding is. you don't start with the funding. >> so, congressman, let me ask you as i mentioned a moment ago, you earned a bronze star for your service in iraq and afghanistan and you, obviously, know what good leadership looks like in the united states military. what's your view of pete hegseth at this moment as a potential secretary of defense? >> well, there are just so many things to say about pete hegseth. you know, finishes first and foremost he's unqualified for the job. this is america's most important department. it protects our country. it's on the front lines every day against numerous threats facing our country. it's an $800 billion budget. 3.4 million people, 2 million whom are uniformed service members, our sons and daughters,

[ inaudible ] around the country. you can't just be some random person that donald trump likes walking off the street to run this organization. and then on top of that, the allegations of sexual abuse, of alcohol abuse, disparaging comments about women in combat. listen, as we're sitting here having this call or having this discussion this morning right now, there are thousands of women in combat outposts flying helicopters, flying fighter jets, operating advanced systems, protecting us on the front lines and these women are hearing the message that this man who says they shouldn't be doing these jobs is the nominee to lead that agency, that's just unacceptable. >> so, congressman, you've also expressed concern about the potential nomination of kash patel to lead the fbi. what are your concerns? >> yeah. it's a little bit different concern with kash patel and that

is his threats, his outright threats, repeated threats to weaponize the fbi, to take it from an organization whose essential function is to protect america and enforce our laws domestically, train and support local law enforcement, a role not a lot of americans know the fbi does, it provides an essential function to train and support and resource and provide intelligence to local law enforcement agencies. our town sheriffs and police departments around the country. to take from the that and turn it into an entity whose primary focus would be enacting retribution on donald trump's perceived enemies -- that is what he said he would do -- will make us all less safe. he, again, should not be in this role. >> democratic congressman jason crow of colorado, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. coming up on "morning joe," detectives have uncovered new evidence in the

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drink, that he won't touch alcohol and he'd be ready at 3:00 in the afternoon or 3:00 in the morning or every hour in between. >> that's republican senator kevin cramer yesterday offering support publicly for pete hegseth. those comments come as donald trump's pick for defense secretary spent a third day on capitol hill meeting with republicans to address years of troubling allegations against him. we'll show you what other lawmakers had to say about hegseth's meetings. >> and had hegseth was going around making the john tower pledge. if i'm secretary of defense i will not drink. inside reporting suggests that the key meeting with joni ernst which hegseth didn't want it to go or the trump team, so heavy, heavy questions laying over whether he will make it through

or not. right now most republican insiders and democrats that i'm talking to and others are talking to on the hill still believe this is a nomination that will not make it. >> we shall see. >> as for the president-elect he is lashing out at "the wall street journal" for its reporting on a cabinet pick that withdrew their name from consideration earlier this week. we'll dig into that. also ahead, the man hunt continues this morning for the suspect who shot and killed the ceo of unitedhealthcare yesterday morning in midtown manhattan. we'll bring you the very latest in that investigation. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, december 5th and we have jonathan lemire and reverend al sharpton. shall we dive? >> what do you think? >> is that all right?

>> absolutely. >> quite a personal privilege. >> quite a personal privilege. >> yesterday, we had a good friend of ours on the show and a guy who has been a guest for some time, a guy who he knows has been one of my heroes for years now. a great writer david fromme writes for "the atlantic." david came on the show and we were having a great conversation and we were talking about the fox news employees that actually talked to courtney kube at nbc news and said that he'd been drinking too much there and it was devastating. it was a devastating report and david flippantly said if you're too drunk for fox news you're very, very drunk, indeed. we went on with this segment and just to let you know how things work here. i was asking mika, should we address that or not because if somebody had said that about any news outlet we'd usually say

something about it. to reference the entire network. so at the end, and i want to get the words right, mika said this, the comment was a little too flippant for the morning we're in. we disagree with fox news, but there are some good people. >> we are also worried about pete hegseth. >> we are also talking about those people so worried at fox news about america's national security that they were talking to an nbc news reporter saying -- >> coming forward. >> coming forward saying hegseth was not qualified so mika said after the comment was a little too flippant for the moment we're in. we disagree with fox news, but there are some good people over there including those talking to nbc news about their concerns. this got turned into a column and a headline that said that --

what was the headline? "the sound of fear." that wasn't the sound of fear. that was the sound of civility and saying that mika had apologized. mika didn't apologize. >> no. >> she simply said it was too flippant. i would recommend that if we're at a stage where a comment like this causes a meltdown, and i said george conway and another kwa we guy we had on the show -- >> very sad, we must read it all because of the fearful times we're in, well, there's some problem with the times that we're in. >> you can't be fearful. >> you can't be fearful just because some people have said that we're fearful. let me tell you something, you can talk to anybody that's working the front office of nbc and msnbc over the past 22

years. i'll tell you, i'm not fearful. you talk to anybody who served with me in congress, they will tell you, not fearful of leadership. now not fearful, and i will say i had a wonderful conversation with david fromme. he was supposed to be on today. >> trying to have him back on. >> trying to have him back on today just to talk it through to say maybe it was the right call, maybe it wasn't the right call, and i didn't know exactly how to do it after he said if you're too drunk for fox news you're very, very drunk, indeed. that's something they certainly would never let in the pages of "the atlantic," ore "the washington post" or on "the new york times." i actually asked the editor over at "the atlantic" when he was so shocked i said would you allow

me to say if you're too drunk for "the new york times" you're very, very drunk indeed. >> in the context of somebody's alcoholism. >> talking about somebody's alcoholism and people in this news organization were stepping up to help the cause to get a guy who is grossly unqualified to be sec def. david fromm said that was just a joke. i said david, i appreciate that. maybe i made the right call, maybe i made the wrong call. i'm sorry we made you uncomfortable and we gave it enough distance and we didn't say his name and mika generally talked about a flippant comment, and i am telling you, the sound of fear, the apology, none of

that is true, but guess what this is what's been going on now for several weeks. we went down to talk to the president-elect and people wrote articles that just false, but you know what we did? we did the corporate thing. corporate said don't say anything, just keep your head down. what did the royals say? never explain. never complain, whatever. we did that. we enjoyed our thanksgiving, we were, like, eh, people are upset with some of our guests, some of our friends maybe we snuck up on them too fast. maybe we should have given them more of a warning, whatever, it's fine, but guess what? the main complaint was that we called donald trump's rhetoric fascist during the campaign, and then we went down to have an off-the-record comment when guess who else does that? >> let me see from "the new york

times," "the washington post," you know what? i even think folks from "the atlantic." >> i think probably -- on. >> they were doing that. >> if they had a chance to talk in the background with the incoming president or president-elect, in fact, as somebody wrote during this outrageously stupid, immature series of articles that lied time and time again about us, the reporter said i'd be fired if i had the opportunity to come in and talk to someone who was incoming president of the united states. they didn't do it. ask any journalist of "the new york times," and people of "the washington post" how dare they, how dare they? at the same time that "the washington post" is doing the same thing, trying to speak to the president on background and trying to speak to people -- that's what reporters do and by

the way, guess what? that's what i've been doing for years. when i go speak to middle east leaders on background, some who are not good people, guess what? i do it to get information and background to get it to you. i'll bet you didn't know because i didn't tell you. it was a background conversation. when i went to se palace and i spoke to macron for an hour in his office about the ukraine, about the eu and about the ability of nato, about his problems with the united states, i did that, but i didn't report it. the only difference between what we did on that visit and what "the new york times," "washington post" were doing we were transparent and we actually told you. i understand if you know how the media works day in and day out

and you're just, like, watching this show day in and day out. i understand you'd be, like, wow, okay. man, man, that's sudden, but for mead media reporters to lie, to pretend that this is a shock to get clips for washington post reporters and columnists, how dare they go see him after they said he was a fascist and that's exactly what "the washington post" is doing, that's exactly what "the new york times" are doing. >> their job. >> that's exactly what you call it. you'd call it their job. let me say this. you can do two things at the same time. you can say he had a fascist rhetoric and still go in and talk to him. you know why i do that? to get the read of the man. you know why i talk to macron? to get a read of the man at a crucial time of eu funding and nato funding. you know why i went to leaders

in the middle east who were angry at the united states, and i sat there and i listened to them attacking me personally for 45 minutes because of u.s. policy? you know why i do that? to get the read of the leader, to get the read of where the country is going so i can come back here and talk to you and let you know what the hell is going on! >> with context and insight. >> -- and give you context, insight and background. you know everybody that we have on the show that's a reporter? it's what they do every day. they speak on background. now, listen, david fromm, i'm going to say this again. i love david fromm. he's a dear friend of mine. i can even see why david felt blindsided by what we did. that's a call we do, but we do a four-hour show and it's going in real time. i had them make that editorial

call over the course of about five, ten minutes. i couldn't sit and at "the atlantic" office, and let's see, let's change this word. let's change that word. no, i couldn't do that because that's not the business that we're in here. first of all, a couple of things. i want to apologize to david fromm for making him feel uncomfortable, and i wish david would have come on the show. he said he will come on friday. i'll be in little rock interviewing bill clinton so i can't do it. by the way? guess what, bill clinton may tell me something in the background that will give me insight on where the democratic party's going or where it needs to go. i may not be able to quote that on the record, but i will bring it to you and you will be smarter because of it. you will be smarter and you have been over the last several weeks because of what we talked about

with donald trump for an hour, hour and a half. we get information on where they're going, and i do report that just like great reporters at "the new york times," "the washington post," "the wall street journal "and you shouldn't talk to the president if the background and the complaint that we said he was a fascist, that he talked like a fascist. yeah, he did during the campaign. >> we were watching. >> guess what? guess what? that's even more important we go there. that means it's even more important we go talk to people in the middle east our people in europe. people we disagree with. that's part of our jobs and we don't do it for ourselves and one final thing, mika. david told me something else, david fromm yesterday, and i really do hope -- i actually texted him last night, please,

if you can come today, we really like it and we love the guy. he means the world to us, and i'm so sorry that was the guy caught in the middle. i wish it was somebody that we don't like and love and respect so much, but he said something, and i've wanted to talk about it for a couple of weeks and i understand the front office. let's keep it quiet. >> we respect. we saw it. >> we'll go through thanksgiving, enjoy being with our families and let it go and it was dying until this, but david said one of the things that concerns us is if you have fear what does that say about the rest of us? first of all, a couple of thing. this is what is so crazy of this era that we're in where democrats are shooting at each

other. republicans who were never trumpers are shooting at each other instead of coming together and -- and not giving up the ship together. everybody's -- it's your fault, your -- democrats lost by a point and a half. the house is tied and the senate is almost tied, but he said if you're fearful what does that mean for the rest of us? well, listen, we're not thrilled with these nominees. we think a lot of them were absolutely horrible. kash patel, he's promised to arrest journalists. that's a problem. let me tell you something. i wasn't fearful in congress when newt gingrich and leadership said they were going to destroy me, run people against me. go ahead. make my day. i wasn't fearful on this show. by the way, i always have republicans say oh, they're telling you exactly what to say

in the front. no, nobody's once told me what to say here. one person did one time. >> okay. >> one leader did one time, if you think you can do such a damn good job, why don't you come here and do the show. i'm fine quitting. i'll do my show the way i want to do my show, and i say this now to people who watch the show and love the show, people who are fearful and concerned, let me tell you something, we should have no fear. we should be deeply, deeply concerned about the constitutional norms. >> and we are. >> we should be deeply, deeply concerned about mattisonian democracy, we should do everything we can to encourage those three, four, five republican senators to hold the line against nominees that would destroy the pentagon. that would destroy the intel

community. that would destroy the health of america. we should hold the line accept what we accept with marco rubio, but hold the line in these other areas, but not show fear, not be fearful because we saw what happened in south korea, hell, they only had, like 20 years of democracy at their backs. you know the wind at our backs that we have? we have 230, 240 years of mattisonian, democrat see, of checks and balances. we have people that will not give up the ship so we have to stand shoulder to shoulder and keep fighting and have no fear, show no fear because as fdr said, the only thing we have to

fear is fear itself. i wanted to say that this morning and really what triggered it more than anything else was david's concern, a guy who we love and who loves us, david's concerned because we're fearful. first of all, we weren't talking about donald trump. we were talking about fox news. >> right. >> secondly, if we get to a state in our media culture where civility is confused for fear, if i simply say hey, let's not say that about an entire network, and that somehow it equates you to france then we're in trouble. again -- again, let me underline this. david meant nothing by it. it was just a throwaway line. it was just a throwaway joke, and i do hope he comes on the show to talk about it. >> or other things.

>> i have to say, mika, at this point i'm sick and tired of the nonsense and i wish we'd get to work doing the things we need to do which is our job. >> right. >> which is talking to people who will determine where this country goes over the next four years and do the reporting and to have the people that will come on as we have done with matt gaetz, as we have done with pete hegseth, as we have done with tulsi gabbard and as we will do for the next four years. that's what we need to do. that's what we've been doing. that's what we're going to do. so maybe, just maybe, everybody can catch their breath, stop freaking out about a loss of one percentage point and -- and stop having this circling firing squad that we see the democratic party in and this -- this media sphere where people are just

trying to get clicks. >> to that point, two minor points and that was again, the meeting that we went do was not kissing the ring or bending the knee or any other ridiculous headlines, it was a serious meeting and quite frankly, if we hadn't told anyone about it, if we hadn't shared it with our viewers to be transparent and that was our call because it was a meeting on background. nobody would have known about it. nobody would have. we weren't flouncing in there and doing a beg show of it. this was a private meeting on background. >> and -- >> one more thing. to those here still pushing this narrative and saying this article is so sad and oh, my god, fear has taken over. good job. good job because you're so stuck in your hatred. you are so stuck in your hatred mode that you can't see that you are doing exactly what negative forces at play here want which is causing us to fight. we should not be fighting for

doing our jobs, for doing what "the new york times," "the washington post," the atlantic" and what they're doing right now and if they're not meeting with the president-elect then they're not doing their jobs. >> they are. i want to say again and this is not to media reporters who know what they're doing. they're lying and lying to get clicks. they understand exactly what people at their own newspapers are doing. >> and yet they continue. >> this is actually about the fact that "the new york times" is talking to trump, meeting with trump, talking to people around trump, meeting with them after calling him a fascist. "the wall street journal" is doing it. "the washington post" is doing it. cnn is doing it. cnn is doing it. do we judge cnn for doing it? no. you know why? it's their jobs!

grow up. it's their jobs. the only thing we did that caused this twitter storm is we told you, if you prefer that we don't tell you everything that we do that's fine, but we just thought in this case, transparency was best. now as casey casum, that's the countdown. >> we'll talk to our next guest about pete hegseth and the trail of controversies. "morning joe" is back in 90 seconds.

all right. let's get to our top story this morning. pete hegseth says he will be back on capitol hill today to meet with republican senators as he tries to salvage his bid for defense secretary. it will be his fourth straight day on the hill amid mounting allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse and other misconduct. he told cbs news yesterday that he had spoken to president-elect donald trump who told him to keep fighting. one of his key meetings yesterday was with senator joni ernst of iowa. she is a combat veteran who is also a sexual assault survivor. she gave little insight about her sitdown with hegseth and the

democratic senator was very blunt about where the former fox newsstands from lawmakers. here first is the exchange senator ernst had with reporters followed by the assessment followed by democratic senator richard blumenthal. >> it was a very -- >> do you support mr. hegsethee nomination? >> it was a frank and thorough conversation. >> did he -- >> thank you. >> he brought up some of the allegations against him. did hegseth bring up any of these things? >> it was a very thorough conversation. >> she needs to be able to walk! she needs to be able to walk! >> i've talked to five to ten republicans who have said to me they're just waiting for the right moment to say no to pete

hegseth, and for very good reasons. >> why do you think so few republicans, none by my count, have come out to say they will definitively not support this nominee? nobody wants to defy donald trump if you're a republican. the power of the presidency, not to mention this president-elect and what the retribution might be i think is pretty daunting, and so i think republicans are reluctant to step forward and be the first one, but i think privately they're much readier to advise the president that the better part of wisdom would be to withdraw his nomination. i'll be surprised if we're still talking about hegseth at the end of the week or by monday. >> a couple of things, senator blumenthal telling us what's going on in the republican congress, and i could tell

everybody that, and let me tell you, willie, they're saying basically the same thing which is he's not going to make it through. there just aren't enough people to vote for him and i will say the meeting that was the most important meeting and he's been a champion of more than a military. she has talked about being sexually harassed herself. that was a meeting they were hoping that he would be able to get through with her support, and i must say it was a frank and a thorough conversation. is he equivalent of bless her heart because as one republican said, you know, he's not going to make it. he said he needed to hit a grand slam. he may have hit a triple yesterday and too late. it's just not enough and i'm hearing word that he may be going down to mar-a-lago, and it still looks like one, two or three people including ron

desantis or joni ernst who may actually get this position. >> hearing had the same thing, i think you're right that senator plumen that blumenthal who don't feel they can say it out loud at this point. that exchange, the frank and thorough conversation. frank and thorough conversation tells you a lot. there wasn't a lot of praise in her comments about pete hegseth. he's saying the right things in the halls of the capitol. saying they were great meetings and frank and though rough conversations and saying i'm never back down and the left is afraid of me and the left is arc trade of what donald trump will bring to the military and to the country and one last gasp of the fighting spirit, but as senator blumenthal points out, it looks at this moment like there are enough quiet republican votes against him that he may not make it. let's bring in nbc news capitol

hill correspondent ali vitali. >> there does seem to be this air of inevitability and we did feel a food shift in the halls of congress earlier in the week on monday when hegseth came back from the thanksgiving recess and continued with the meetings that he was having with senators who are taking this advise and consent process, of course, quite seriously, but what we're watching and the gaetz example is the first nomination start and stop when gaetz's nomination itself was pulled. i don't know if it's the right example because of the very specific profile that gaetz cuts on capitol hill, the fact that he didn't have very many friends from the house republican conference to back him up with senators. the fact that he had this long string of controversies and the ethics report maybe seeing something happen today as the

ethics committee meets once again to find out whether or not they'll release this report, but the gaetz example is not the right one. the hegseth nomination is its own specific case because of this trail of controversies that we are still reporting on. he was having to defend against serious allegations of sexual misconduct well before courtney and the rest of our nbc news team was able to put forward a very detailed report about concerns at fox news over his drinking habits. the fact that he's now going into these meetings with senators and having conversations promising that he won't be drinking on the job if he's given this defense secretary role, it gives us a sense of the way that these conversations are going and they're not focused from a policy and leadership perspective on past things that he said about women serving in the military, for example. instead, he's focused on details of his character and those are things that are harder to

explain away on capitol hill and we're watching time, let's consider this the first test of how the senate is going to react to a problematic nominee that for now has the president-elect backing and watching the way they are maneuvering and not publicly and airing their grievances or in the halls of reporters, unfortunately. instead what they're doing is saying in the halls that it's a frank and thorough conversation, but what's really happening a between the lines reading and our unofficial web count, willie, puts this at least six republican senators at this point who likely knows, that's how we're going to watch the senate, it seems, maneuver a trump washington and certainly signalling it behind the scenes. nbc's nbc's al i vitali, thank you so much plus the murder of brian

thompson in midtown manhattan and mayory eric adams will be our guest and tom winter will join us with the very latest. "morning joe" is coming right back. "morning joe" is coming right back for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again. ♪far-xi-ga♪ ♪far-xi-ga♪ ask your doctor about farxiga.

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this morning new york city police still are on the hunt for a gunman who killed the ceo unitedhealthcare. brian thompson was shot yesterday morning in midtown manhattan just before he was set to speak at a conference at a hilton hotel. surveillance video shows thompson when the suspect approaches him from behind and fires multiple rounds. the shooter who was wearing a jacket, a face mask and a large gray backpack then fled on foot, got on a bicycle and went into central park just a few blocks north. police say he was also spotted at a nearby starbucks just minutes before the attack. a motive has not yet been established. the slain ceo had been receiving threats recently, but had not

been altering his travel routine, that is according to his wife. let's bring in national news law enforcement and intelligence correspondent tom winter. tom, good morning. so what more do we know about the search for this gunman and about the possible motive here? >> well, on the possible motive front it's a little bit up in the air right now, willie. it is definitely, according to the new york city police department, a targeted kill. this was an individual not looking for anyone to shoot. this was not an active shooter and he was very clearly looking at it approached this person from behind and knew what hotel brian thompson was staying at and what hotel he was going to to speak in this conference, had been in the area and these still photos that we are now looking at coming from the nypd yesterday and according to people we've spoken with from the starbucks prior to the shooting, even though he's masked up in the video, that's a pretty clear photo.

perhaps not enough for the nypd facial recognition unit and a pretty clear photo to get tips of the number on the screen. new information we are getting this morning as well, willie, this individual who the nypd believes is responsible for the shooting apparently left behind writings on the shell casings that police found at the scene. the senior law enforcement official here in new york city was briefed on the investigation and said the messages on the casings were defend, deny and depose. three separate writings written on shell casings. it doesn't help us much with the motive, but the idea that perhaps this is a professional hit versus maybe somebody who had a motive to do this on their own may be shifting more to the theory that somebody had a motive to do this on his own, but it is still far too early to get to the bottom of of that and probably not until this individual is in handcuffs will they be able to do that. they've uncovered a number of items of evidence and right now

this individual is not under arrest, but there are some very good leads that police appear to be following. that's when we are told and that's the latest on the investigation as we've been working the phones all day. coming up, health care on the chopping block. how veterans can be hit especially hard. that's next on "morning joe." al. that's next on "morning joe.

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. and i want to emphasize the individual federal employees are mostly not bad people because most beings are not bad people. for the most part federal employees are doing what they do because they believe they're serving their country, and i respect that. i expect it would be good for many individuals who would make a transition from government service back to the private sector. >> that was vivek ramaswamy who is part of a newly formed department of government efficiency with elon musk and has pushed for making mass cuts

to the federal workforce insisting those very cuts will be beneficial to government workers. joining us now, former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. >> steve, let's cut straight through this and i know you'll get through these charts and when you hear those guys talking about cutting $2 trillion from the budget it's a joke, and it's a joke because this something you and i have been obsessed about for a long time, the national debt and getting the deficit under control, and i guess just looking at your first chart here. people need to understand, social security and medicare make up about 50% of what the government spends. you add defense and veterans benefits, that's another 20% and that's another 70% and you now add debt and how much it costs

to service that debt. that's another 10%. so, steve, before they even start talking about cutting these so-called federal employees that are bankrupting us, the united states government has already spent 80% of its budget on medicare, medicaid, social security, vets, defense and interest on the debt. so i love some of these other numbers and again, forgive me for, like, killing hamlet in the first act here, but let's cut law enforcement and that's 1% of the budget. oh, let's cut sciences and medical research. they spend too much on that, they're saying, 1% of the budget. ag, 1% of the budget and transportation and the pork barrel projects and it will bankrupt us and it's only 2% of the budget. again, i will actually let you explain this par getter than i

am right now, but this is a scam unless they're going to slash social security and medicare and the -- and veterans affairs. they're never going to get the $2 trillion so they need to just stop pretending. >> i feel like vanna white, i'm turning letters and you're pat sajak telling people how it is. >> it makes me so mad and disingenuous. i'm happy to be your letter guy. you said it exactly right, joe. this is a completely disingenuous, unrealistic and ridiculous idea for the reasons you said that only 25% of the budget can even be cut and you rattled off a lot of programs and most americans would say are really important for them and you're traying to cut. i can do a little bit of math. trying to cut $2 trillion, but you only have 1.5 trillion of stuff you would cut and that would be cutting all of it. trump would say trump has intimated about cutting money to

medicaid and veterans have stuff on the chopping block. what musk and ramaswamy have done is they've identified about $500 billion of spending through a complicated, legislative perk which i'm not going to get into, they think they can cut without congress and let's give it as an example of things they would like to cut. veterans, health care, eliminate health care for veterans who will talk about the impact for a second. pell grants for education, $22 billion and head start, we all know, the fbi they would like to cut that and this, by the way, would zero this stuff out and this is eliminating this stuff. federal prisons and the sec and so forth and all of that adds up to $516 billion and so there's still a long way from their $2

trillion target and even if people accepted this. your opening premise is right. it is ridiculous. >> musk and ram sammy aswamy ar heading to the hill to pitch that stuff, and they're still learning on the job, i suppose. steve, you mentioned the va and nih are targets and talk about those cuts and what they mean. >> i just want to give examples of how heavy the political lift would be to try to get this done. you're talking about 6.2 million veterans who are receiving health care from the veterans administration and that number, this is a 2,021 number which is to protect the veterans in burn pits or anything like that. that passed by an overwhelming bipartisan consensus and imagine the idea that you go back a year or two later, and i know you passed this by a bipartisan

consensus and now you'll eliminate it. it doesn't stand the test reality. the nih is a truly great organization and it funds research that the private sector won't fund because there's commercial use for it. pt away lung cancer and the nih is impacted and it's not just the nih, but they played a big role in all these different cancers that have come down, down, down in terms of instance and for colon and prostate, lung cancer, we talked about cervix and stomach and all these cancers have come down and you have the nih to thank for a lot of it. >> coming up, the dow jones opens this morning at a record high. andrew ross sorkin straight ahead on "morning joe." straigh ahead on "morning joe. with liberty mutual. customize and sa—

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some political news. i read that president-elect trump is considering replacing pete hegseth with florida

governor ron desantis as his nominee for defense secretary. yeah. when asked -- when asked why he'd hire ron desantis trump said because it would be really fun to fire ron desantis. [ laughter ] that's why it's all worth it. coming up, can the president-elect's pick for the pentagon salvage his nomination? we'll go live to capitol hill where pete hegseth is facing serious scrutiny. nbc's ryan nobles has the latest straight ahead on "morning joe." straight ahead on "morning joe." ? get back to better breathing with fasenra, an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma taken once every 8 weeks. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems. serious allergic reactions may occur. get help for swelling of your face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. don't stop your asthma treatments without talking with your doctor. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens or you have a parasitic infection. headache and sore throat may occur. ask your doctor if fasenra is right for you.

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us. president-elect donald trump's embattled pick for secretary of defense pete hegseth is back on capitol hill this morning to make his case to republican senators as he tries to shore up support. nbc news chief white correspondent peter alexander has the latest. >> reporter: this morning with his bid to become defense secretary in jeopardy, pete hegseth is vowing to fight on. returning to capitol hill today for another round of meetings with senators. after launching a public campaign to salvage his faltering nomination and detailing his conversation with president-elect trump. >> hey, pete, i got your back. it's a fight. they're coming after you. get after it. >> reporter: hegseth brushing off an allegation of sexual assault for which he was never charged and he said was consensual and blaming trump's enemies for accusations of financial mismanagement and excessive drinking. >> what you see right now with me is the art of the smear. >> reporter: pledging that he

will not drink another drop. >> there won't be a drop of alcohol on my lips while i'm doing it. >> reporter: after his mom calling him an abuser of women before retracting his words and apologizing. mrs. hegseth went on fox news to defend her son, calling him a changed man. >> pete is a new person. he's redeemed, forgiven, changed. i believe he's the man for the job. >> reporter: hegseth has drawn scrutiny for his past comments from women should not serve in combat. lloyd austin praising women in the military. >> everywhere i've gone on the battlefield, i've seen women fighting for america. if i get a little fired up about this, it's just because this isn't 1950. it isn't 1948. it is 2024. >> reporter: two sources tell nbc news trump is already

considering alternatives to hegseth, including florida governor ron desantis, a navy veteran, and iowa senator joni ernst who met with hegseth thursday. >> did he ask you for your vote specifically? >> thank you. >> that's nbc's peter alexander with that report. you had the secretary of defense saying, secretary of defense austin saying about women in combat. the other person who believes that, joni ernst. >> absolutely. >> a lot of republicans actually believe that, too. again, this is -- as you stack up -- >> what year are we in? >> stack up all of the problems he has, you start with the fact he's not qualified for it. and every republican on the hill knows he's not qualified to run the most complex, complicated bureaucracy in the world, especially when you look at the reporting out from "the new

yorker," "the new york times," the fact he ran two vets organizations. whistle-blower reports talking about the fact he ran them both into the ground financially. there's no way if you can't run two small vets groups you'll be able to run the pentagon effectively. then you add on top of that, of course, all of the other charges, the character problems that whistle-blower reports are bringing up. finally, on the alcohol, the question of whether he's a changed man or not, his own employees, people he works with at fox news, most definitely say he's not. this has continued and it continues to be a problem. >> also his mother saying he's changed doesn't deny the very serious allegations against him, saying he's changed actually accepts those allegations and wants us, the united states, the people of the united states and

those who are going to be vetting him to believe that he did some of these things, but he's changed now? >> well, i -- >> listen. >> thanks, mom. >> we obviously change is great and those of us would say -- >> change is great. >> yes, it's great to be changed. it's great to be forgiven. the problem we're hearing here is yesterday a financial that he ever had a trouble with alcohol. and yet he still has trouble with alcohol. he made that john tower pledge. john tower who was driven out of secretary of defense in 1989 which led to dick cheney be ing saying, if i get elected i won't drink alcohol. from everything we're hearing, it's not going to help now. >> as we get farther away from his mother's interview, you just have to wonder. she sent him an email that was

incredibly damaging and made very, very damaging assertions about his abuse of women. and she went on fox news and says he's a changed person. he is changed since then. that's not denying what she said. that's trying to claim he's now not like that. >> let's bring in -- >> but you add all of that up, the serial abuse of women, according to the mother in the letter, saying he did it repeatedly. the claims of abuse in the police report, two whistle-blower reports, what we're hearing from financial mismanagement and two smaller vet groups, that all adds up to a lot of trouble for pete hegseth. let's bring in nbc news cal correspondent ryan nobles. new audio discovered by "the

washington post," pete hegseth describes his alcohol abuse when he returned from war. >> at first nothing can compare and so it's a giant, you know, exhale. usually for me at least it led to a bottle. that's how you manage it. but you can't do that forever, obviously. thank god for the grace of god. without that a lot of guys would never pull through. >> i didn't know that part of your post war story. were you drinking pretty heavily afterwards? >> yeah. i look around at 10:00 today, how about i drink some peers? how about i have lunch and have beers. one beer leads to many, leads to self-medication, leads to i've earned this. don't tell me i can't. >> ryan there he's speaking very honestly. we salute his service to the united states military. there's so many men and women that have sacrificed for this

country. they come back, they had a lot of trouble in adapting and coming back. there, i think, it's very good he was admitting that in 2021. at the same time, we're still hearing reports that he's still having problems. fox news employees reporting that right now. and so many other problems layered on top of that. talk about joni ernst, the meeting and where he's standing right now with a lot of senators, republicans who are quietly saying they just don't think they can support him. >> there were two meetings last night crucial to pete hegseth's -- he also had a meeting with kevin cramer from north dakota, who you can put in the skeptical camp for the hegseth nomination. cramer came out of that meeting last night saying that he wants to give him an opportunity to

prove himself, that he pressed him on a lot of these issues that everyone has been talking about. he specifically talked about this issue of alcoholism and whether or not that's a problem. kevin cramer himself has had alcohol abuse as an issue in his own family. so, it is something he is very nervous about, something he keeps an eye on and he's certainly concerned about the person who would be in charge of the pentagon having that as an issue as well. and kevin cramer told us in that meeting that pete hegseth committed to completely not drinking at all anymore. said he would be prepared to take a phone call at 3:00 p.m., at 5:00 p.m., and not have to worry about being under the influence of alcohol at any time. i think what this podcast that's been revealed from 2021 tells us, and i think it also goes back to mika's point about what his mother said about his treatment of women, he's a changed man, if you listen to

the megyn kelly interview, hegseth says repeatedly over and over again, i don't have a problem with alcohol. i've never had a problem with alcohol. alcohol is not going to be an issue for me as secretary of defense, but then you match what he said in the megyn kelly interview yesterday to what you see in this podcast where he clearly talks about using alcohol as a coping mechanism, as medication for the issues that he was dealing with coming back from war. which he's not alone in that fight. you're right to point out, joe, that thousands, maybe millions of active duty service members come back with the trauma of war and find ways to cope with it. the issue here, though, and i think what most senators are most concerned about, is making sure that they have a clear picture of what the situation is right now. are you no longer dealing with this problem with alcohol? will it be an issue for you if you become the next secretary of defense? one thing kevenl cramer said last night, which was very revealing, he said, are there

going to be any more surprises in ? the one thing we don't like in this business are surprises. there have been so many surprises, and republicans don't want any more surprises, and i think if those surprises keep popping up, it will be very difficult for him to get over the finish line. >> all right. great point. nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles, thank you so much. of course, it's important to remember, mika, that early in this process, reporters were hearing out of mar-a-lago that they were upset by the fact that they were blind sided by these 2017 rape allegations, upset later they were blind sided he had had a police report he had been holding, i think, from 2021, if i remember correctly, upset they were blind sided by that. they were saying even then early on, what else is coming? well, what else is happened, of course, the mother's letter that said he was a serial abuser of women.

problems with alcohol, problems with character. you suddenly have whistle-blower reports talking about him running two vets organizations and being drunk and having to be dragged off louisiana like stripper stages and being passed out and constantly having to be fixed. we heard a couple of days ago from nbc news reporting from numerous employees that he's had over at fox news. just one incident that suggested a drinking problem after another. him having to be dragged out of an event. him having discussions with hr because of alcohol and because of everything else. of course, the fact that it is continuing. you have all of that. i want to circle back and say again, he would not be the first

person that sacrificed war to defend this country that came back with problems that haunted him. it's something those of us who have not been in combat could never understand, but we can understand this, that if he's saying, as he did yesterday, that he's never had problems with alcohol, and then we have one incident after another after another, his fellow workers at fox news, people that he ran vets organizations with, who basically were driven into the ground financially, his mother, all of these other people saying he's had serious problems with alcohol, and he's still denying he's having any problems with alcohol -- >> he's either lying to himself or america. >> it goes back to what i said yesterday. we can be sympathetic for vets

who come home and they're haunted, as he said. i went from war to an apartment in manhattan. it's like, what do i do now? but he needs treatment. he can have our sympathy but he needs treatment, not the nuclear codes. he needs to face up to the problems he's still having. and not be given the nuclear codes. this is simple for republican senators. >> it is. joining us now, long-time political strategist mike murphy and special correspondent at "vanity fair" and host of the fast politics podcast, her latest piece entitled, "this is no time for cynicism." molly, i'll start with you, anyone who's lived enough life knows there should always be room for forgiveness, always room for change and renewal at

the same time, i don't think somebody with pete hegseth, with the challenges he faces should hold the position of head of the pentagon. >> would you not think democrats and republicans in the senate are thinking the same thing especially if you goes out and says, i've never had a problem with alcohol before? >> well, just to speak to my own experiences, i got sober when i was a teenager and i've been sober 27 years, so i -- for me, someone who has written about addiction and has lived firsthand experience, i do think that it's a real issue and real issue for people that have served in the military. there are really fruitful and important conversations we can have about helping veterans when it comes to substance abuse and people self-prescribing for

trauma. i mean, these are all really important issues. they're issues the va struggles with now. you'll remember, there has been just a ton of talk about the danger of fentanyl, about addiction in general. we had this terrible oxycontin situation that swept through the country. addiction is a real problem in american life. there are a lot of different ways to treat it, a lot of different theories. i do think this is a really, really, really important conversation. but, you know, we don't know what his -- what his situation is, but i know for me, it was more complicated than just saying i wasn't going to stop drinking. >> according to fox news, he's still having drinking problems recently. we hope he gets treatment.

if, in fact, he does need that. and hopes he moves past this, but right now, of course, it would be extraordinarily reckless to give him the nuclear codes at this point. mike murphy, i love having you on because like me, you're old. but you remember john tower, george w.h. bush appoints him. dick cheney is appointed and history is compared. compare tower to hegseth. it seems actually, to me at least, they're not even in the same category because hegseth, there's so many different layers of problems. senator cramer said the same thing last night, the sat thing the trump team is saying, what else is out there?

things keep rolling out every day. >> yeah. there's another huge difference. tower was incredibly qualified. he had been an extremely powerful effective chairman of the senate arms committee. so, here you have an incredibly high-pressure job with two wars going on involving american allies, so you add somebody who's not qualified by background and experience. he's a patriot, he served his country, but that doesn't mean you automatically get defense department. we have millions of people who serve the country. add all that pressure to a drinking problem. i hope he gets help for. i mean, my solution is get him the russian ministry of defense because ukrainians would be in moscow in eight weeks. that building is going to eat him alive. i've worked there as a consultant 20 years ago. it's very political. the uniform military, you know, they know how to do their jobs. the worst thing is a civilian dod sec over his head. they will go over his head, they

will give him toy tanks to play with and he won't be effective at a time we need an effective leader. he's no john tower with the struggle with alcohol abuse. i'm sympathetic to him. i hope he gets help. you also remember, you've got tulsi gabbard and the other big national security job, who's no superstar either. you add them together, it's a gaping competence hole. you know politics, joe, mar-a-lago, incoming president trump, they're getting blindsided here. i think kash patel must have done vetting on exit. donald trump doesn't like to be embarrassed. i predict he's not going to make it till monday, which is probably in his own interest. >> yeah. you know, they have seen a trade-up from matt gaetz to pam bonedy. pam bondi has said some things, you can go to tallahassee and talk to a hell of a lot of

democrats who say she hired the best staff, worked with democrats. >> she hired democrats. >> she hired democrats, she hired the attorney general who lost after she won. if you go from pete hegseth to joni ernst, that also -- something like that, that's also a huge trade up. i want to underline something else. this is so important for people that are watching this show. and i would say it's so important for people who want donald trump to dramatically change the dod, intel community, et cetera, et cetera. mike, you pointed it out, i've talked before about bob gates who's better at dealing with agencies than anyone else saying it took 75% of his day to get a step ahead of bureaucrats. he did his job, making sure he took care of vets, vets housing, making sure he took care of supply chains, all the things

you have to do. but i've always known this. i was on the armed services committee in the house that if you walk into the pentagon and, man, even after i had been in the house armed services committee for three terms, you walk around there you just go, man, you talk about byzantinian. so if you're donald trump and you want to change the dod, you can't send somebody in there that has no idea what they're doing. it's not in the army or navy, air force, marine's best interest, coast guard. it's not in america's best interest. it's also not in the incoming president's best interest if he does want to change the dod. >> every three-star and above admiral i met was a senator

level politician. the big war there is the air force versus the navy. we have two air force. one floats. the air force says we need to do ice cream and send soft serve ice cream. you need a master politician to keep the inner scene budgetary control let alone get your agenda done. they will eat him alive, which is bad for trump. >> yeah, they will eat him alive. that will be bad for trump. that will be bad for the dod. there is this bad for america, bad for all of us. jonathan lemire, what he just said reminded me of what -- a marine commandant said about the armed services committee, you have to know be how to deal with the fighting in between the services. guys talked about how the marines were the heroes. navy, they're pretty good.

army, the army do their best. the air force, hell, sometimes i wonder if they're even on our side. that's how intense the inner -- and mike's laughing because he knows. it is -- you're dealing with a thousand different things coming at you at the same time. pete hegseth is not equipped to do that, even with all of the other character issues that people have been talking about for the past three weeks. >> yeah, it's not just about managing the army/navy game in a couple of weeks. it's far more than that. mike, you also alluded to the point that trump is not being well sevened by his vetting process. trump kind of alluded to that on truth social. he was pushing back against "the wall street journal" report that the dod pick pulled out. he said, he didn't pull out. i pulled him out because i did not like what he said to my past and other supporters. we should note that happened in 2020. that's public knowledge, this incident he's talking about

where dea sheriff in florida was actually enforcing covid restrictions and alienating some on the right. we are seeing his transition team has been blind sided by a few of these choices, which is set up people like not just pete hegseth and matt gaetz but kash patel, robert f. kennedy, and that's allowed republican senators to say no. do you think that trend is going to continue? >> i think it is. when gaetz got shot down, trump didn't go after the senators. which i think was smart. but if hegseth goes down, the senators are going to start thinking, how many of these people can we take away before trump looks weak and incompetent. and trump will feel that instantly. you worry about kash patel, he's a real hard-core guy so it's like giving somebody the kgb.

tulsi in the intelligence community, which doesn't like to share with the white house to begin. she's dni. you start wondering how many vetoes the senators think they have before trump explodes. you have 22 republican senators up next year -- excuse me, in two years, two-thirds of the senators up out of 33. they don't want primaries. a lot are in safe seats. if trump goes ape, they'll get intimidated. ideally if it were a secret ballot, i think five would go down. gaetz down already. hegseth would go down. tulsi would go down. kennedy would go down. but it's not. i don't know how far that rubber band can be stretched before they get chicken. >> good to see you. thank you for coming on this morning. >> thank you, mike. with yesterday's deal book summit, amazon founder and washington post owner jeff bezos gave his most extensive comments

to date about donald trump returning to the white house. let's listen. >> i'm very hopeful about this -- his -- he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. and my point of view, if i can help him do that, i'm going to help him because we do have too much regulation in this country. this country is so set up to grow. by the way, all of our problems, all of our economic problems, if you look at the deficit, i mean, the debt, the national debt and how gigantic it is as a portion of gdp, these are real problems and real long-term problems. the way out of them is by outgrowing them. >> let's bring in the host of the annual deal book summit, co-anchor and cnbc "squawk box" and "new york times" columnist, andrew ross sorkin. >> we have been hearing since 1981 that we are going to outgrow the deficit. we are going to outgrow the debt. you don't do that.

we balance the budget four years in a row by cutting, spending, by even trimming the military, by cutting back. bill clinton also did it in '93 by raising taxes. there is no shortcut. and this -- i'll just say bs. this whole idea that, you know, you can grow your way out of a $35, $36 trillion debt, that is just pure nonsense. >> well, i'm not going to say you're wrong, but i do think you have to grow. it's almost impossible to -- >> of course. >> growing is key. it's going to be a balance. you have to cut. there's no question you have to cut. there is not any real appetite, it appears at the moment, with the exception actually, and we'll see with whatever elon musk is doing with ramaswamy

around doge, what the cutting really looks like. >> but the biggest problem is -- >> you have to raise -- >> they're talking about a massive tax cut. a maxes ive tax cut. they're talking about massive increases in defense spending. game over right there. deficits are going to explode, are they not? >> if we have a massive tax cut and we spend more on defense spending, 100%. there's no question. that's straight math. the question is, can -- is there a middle ground, is there a middle place where you can find a way? i spoke to bill clinton yesterday, too, at the deal book summit. can you get back to that? can you get back to balancing a budget and growing at the same time and can you reduce costs without actually hurting the economy? we do have a whole lot of government employees. if you are going to reduce government spending, which is one way you'll be doing that, i

imagine, those folks aren't going to be able to have money to buy things in the economy. so, you have to do it. it's got to be surgical. it's very hard to do it with blunt force. and i think that's the big fundamental question. having said that, i was so surprised that -- maybe i shouldn't be. maybe we're in a honeymoon period. between listening to jeff bezos on the stage, listening to r pichai, who runs google, ken griffin who runs citadel or sam altman, there was a sense of optimism around this regulatory piece. we'll see whether that is enough or not. i was also surprised, i have to say, and maybe we'll say they had to say it this way, but i think there's been a lot of con jekz, speculation around someone like aisam altman or jeff bezos would be worried about elon musk

and the fact they're competitors, whether that would be used in a retaliatory way. they both said they did not think so and actually thought for someone like elon musk, as sam said, it would be un-american. it will be very interesting to see it play out. as the world turns. the soap opera continues. >> for sure. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, thank you very much. we appreciate it. and coming up, we'll have the latest on the investigation into the fatal shooting of united healthcare ceo yesterday in manhattan. new york city mayor eric adams joins us live in studio with an update. we're back in two minutes. we're back in two minutes. liberty mutual customized my car insurance so i saved hundreds. with the money i saved i thought i'd get a wax figure of myself. cool right? look at this craftmanship. i mean they even got my nostrils right. it's just nice to know that years after i'm gone this guy will be standing the test of ti... he's melting! oh jeez... nooo... oh gaa...

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welcome back. new york city police are looking for the gunman of the und health care ceo. brian thompson was shot down before he was supposed to speak

at the hotel. video shows thompson was working alone from a nearby hotel when the suspect approaches from behind and fires multiple rounds. the shooter who was wearing a jacket, face mask and backpack, got on a bike, fled on foot in central park and remapes at large. joining us, new york city mayor eric adams. thank you for being here to provide an update on the shooting. the reporting this morning, nypd confirmed the shell casings found at the scene with these words written on them, deny, defund. they are similar to a book written about the health care insurance industry. is that a possible motive? >> pieces to the puzzle, they are still coming together. no one does it better than the new york city police department. i was briefed this morning by the chief of of detectives and

chief -- deputy commission of operation. we are on the right path. we don't want to do anything that's not only going to impede the investigation, but hurt the prosecution of the person involved. we feel we're moving at a steady pace and will have someone apprehended. >> there was a statement that this appeared to be a targeted shooting, pointing to even the equipment, the suppressor on the gun and the way the gunman was laying in wait. is that still the belief? >> we believe it was definitely, placed on our preliminary review, it was not a random act of violence. we were concerned about that when it was first came to light yesterday. but we don't believe this is a random act of violence. we believe this was clearly a targeted shooting. in all my years of law enforcement, i have never seen a silencer before. so, that was a really something that was shocking to us all. so, we are on the right path and we believe we're going to

apprehend them. >> it comes at the peak of holiday season, christmas tree lit. people visiting new york, you don't believe they have anything to worry about? >> not at all. our crime has continued to drop year over year. our transit system is one of the lowest levels of crime in over 14 years. we're moving 14,000 guns off our streets. we should be proud of the people of the new york city police department how we can have the major gathers, the tree lighting, the thanksgiving parade, israeli parade. this is the safest big city in america. >> if there are any updates we'll bring them to viewers. we want to hit a couple other topics with you. you proceed mossed yesterday a tax decrease for the working class, axe the tax for working

class. tell us about it. >> we always like to attach names. >> it's good. >> it's an important one. not only have we heard through the national election but we hear it every day, everyday working class people in america are hurting. it's becoming just unaffordable. we need to find creative ways to put money back into the pockets of new yorkers. we found ways to do almost $30 billion back into are the pockets of new yorkers. in is the latest of our initiative. $63 million is going to be returned back to the pockets of over 582,000 new yorkers. it's for those making below the federal poverty level. what does that look like? a mother with a child making $31,000 a year, she's going to be eligible for this and this goes directly back into the pockets of new yorkers. >> do you feel the results of the last election where donald trump made surprising gains in new york city showcase that people are simply upset with the working class voters in particular with the cost of

living? >> i've been saying this for years. working class people, when you add this with our earned income tax credit, when you look at how we decrease the metro card for low income new yorkers, you see how we understood from day one that we had to go after working class people and we saw how frustrated they are. they don't see a future for themselves and we have to make sure we address that. >> mr. mayor, last week a judge ruled your federal corruption trial will begin on april 21st, which would be during the midst of your potential re-election campaign. what do you say -- there have been voices, some city officials, asking you to resign saying you wouldn't be able to effectively govern. what do you say to them? >> we continue to bring down

crime. we just passed one of the housing reforms. we have continued to move forward from continuing to make the city safe. our job numbers are the most in our city history, what we're doing in education. we have to be able to move forward. i was elected to run this city. my attorneys will handle the case and i'm going to continue my commitment to do this. >> and you still plan to run for re-election? >> yes. we are clear. this city in two years and 11 months, what we have accomplished, no one thought we were going to do. they stated it would take five years to turn around our economy. we did it in two years and ten months and we continue to be the safest big city in america. i look forward to putting my successors against any candidate running. >> let me ask you about crime. you look at the overall numbers. macro, the numbers do look like they're going down, but there are incidences, obviously, that disturb and concern new yorkers.

a stabbing spree downtown that shook the entire neighborhood. upper west side, crime is going up, random stabbings, random beatings, a lot of concern on the upper west side of manhattan. also let me just ask you, there's crime numbers that show crime is going down and yet people go into cvss, walgreens, and toothpaste is still locked up. that doesn't feel very safe to them. what is the disconnect there? >> well, when you have toothpaste locked up, when you have people placing security measures on their cards, those are similar bells of urban surrender and not only must people be state of but they must feel safe. that's the omni presence of our law enforcement. 1600 new cops will join police commissioner tish. we'll see that omni present.

we immediately saw the deployment of 1,000 new officers because people must feel safe. let's not ignore three areas that are impacting us. random acts of violence, people with severe mental health illness and repeated offenders. that is what we must zero in on. when you look at the three innocent new yorkers stabbed, severe mental health illness, when you look at those committing these repeat offenses, that is impacting us. the police, nypd is doing their job. now we need lawmakers to join us to become a partner in those two areas. >> mr. mayor, president-elect trump has said when he takes office in less than two months now, first order of business is going to be deportation of immigrants who are not here legally. and his appointed border czar has said municipalities who don't cooperate, there will be federal funding withheld and threatened officials might be subject to arrest.

what is new york city, your stance as mayor of new york city going to do with this trump deportation plan? >> i'm looking forwards to sitting down, speaking with the border czar next week. i believe we have a meeting on the 12th. i want to hear the actual plan, how are we going to actually operationalize this plan. i have not been silent on my feeling for those who commit serious crimes in our city and those who are repeated offenders in our city. we're not talking about those stealing apples. we're talking about those shooting police officers, raping women. >> what do you say to residents of the city, their only crime being here illegally, who are living in fear they might be taken from their homes, some long-time homes, because of this policy? >> we're very clear in the city. these cities have laws. i think we went too far by not

cooperating with i.c.e. for someone who is a violent offender. if you have children, put them this school. if you're the victim of a crime, don't be afraid to go to the police. that is what we do in our city. this is a city of immigrants, a country of immigrants and our immigrants have played a major role in the city and we'll continue to give them the support they need. >> people are scared. and you have an opportunity here to let them know that they will be protected. some of these people. explain to us how you can do that. >> we've done it already. national leaders came to the city and saw what we did with asylum seekers. we allow them to get authorization, we went to washington ten times. no one has done it better than new york city. now it's time for the federal government to do what the american people ask for. secure our borders and come with comprehension border reform.

>> one more question for you, mr. mayor. for the president-elect at the dinner a few weeks ago, showed some common ground about how you both have been persecuted by the department of justice. you have been critical to the charges against you where some fellow democrats in new york wonder if you're cozying up to the president-elect, either for pardon or administration job. do you have response to their comments? >> i think if you do an analysis of my life and what i stood for as a police officer, state senator and bar president, you see the consistency. public safety was prerequisite, and i believe in working class people. i have not changed whoever the president may have been at the time. what i'm going through right now, no american should go through that. not only did i state we politicized our doj, president biden stated that, president trump stated that. when you have mothers placed on fbi watch lists for standing up

for their children, something is wrong. we have to be honest about it. we have to do a real analysis and we must make sure that not in this country things like this happen. >> we have to leave it there. new york city mayor eric adams, covering a lot of ground. thank you. >> thank you. coming up on "morning joe," we'll switch gears and take a look at "conclave" which tells the story of cardinals who must elect a new pontiff unveiling scandals. we'll speak to john lithgow and the film's director. they'll join us live in studio about the new thriller. next on "morning joe." on "morn"

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the pope is dead. >> the throne is vacant.

>> what happened? >> they say heart attack. >> you know how rumor spreads and one and a quarter billion souls watching. >> we'll dub lawrence. it seems the responsibility for the conclave falls upon you. >> the supervision of the selection. >> it's a duty i never thought i'd have to perform. >> if i ask a question, they must be shielded from all that may influence their judgment. you understand? >> a look at the new movie "conclave" based on the best selling novel of the same name by author robert harris. the film features it an all-star cast led by academy award nominated ralph fiennes and takes a look behind the walls of the vatican for the most consequential decision processes on the globe, electing a new pope. >> by the way, this is already getting five stars from barnacle, which is the

equivalent of ralph freed -- of rex freed. >> that's pretty good. joining us one of of the film's co-stars, john lithgow and the director and executive producer of "conclave," the academy award-winning edward berger. good to have you both with us on the show. >> it's great to have you on the show. john, i want to start with the duality that's so fascinating. my mom was a devout christian and master in music. she said, joey, if you ever want to lose your religion, just work at a church. and there's this duality here in the movie between the spiritual goals, but also the very human failings and frailties. talk about that friction and how

it really adds such an important dramatic impact to this. >> well, that's a very good question, joe. i mean, it is a movie about the college of cardinals picking a pope, so it's an electoral process and it takes you right into all the maneuverings, the fact that it is men of god, cardinals, all pickering with all of their jealousies and greed and cowardness, all these extremely human qualities, all out on the table, but they are in conclave, sequestered in the sistine chapel. that's the duality you're talking about. that's exactly the right word for the entire transaction. >> and your character seems a bit more motivated by the secular than the spiritual, the ambition, right? >> uh-huh, yes.

if there was a business manager of the college of cardinals, it would be cardinal tremly. he knows where all the bodies are buried, where the bills were paid. you're very ready to suspect him, in my opinion, i mean, he was my character, so i'm very devoted to him and loyal to him. i think he's a very good man. i want you to watch the film with that in mind. >> we shall. coming with no preconceived notions. edward, tell us about the origins of this. it's something the world is used to watching for the white or the black smoke to come up from that chimney, but don't know much else about what happens in the sistine chapel. tell us about how you decided to bring that to life. >> i felt it was a really interesting mysterious process that i wanted to look -- i wanted to look behind the doors about. and obviously no cardinal will ever tell you what happens.

no person high up in the catholic church will ever tell you. but you have your ways of interpreting it, this research you can do. i felt it was a very interesting political thriller. it takes us in a world we haven't seen before. we've seen it in washington. "all the president's men," like that. take a look at nbc, the ceo is gone, the chair is empty, and john and ralph are going to get out their knives to get that job. it could take place in washington, d.c. but, rome, we haven't seen that position. it was an interesting setting. >> edward, you do a lot of book-to-film adaptations. explain to us why. >> well, i felt -- i always feel, you know, a movie is a lot of -- there's a lot of intellectual backbone to it. if there's a novelist, they do tend to spend a lot of times

over their books. they do a lot of research. robert harris knows his way around rome, around the vatican. we profit from that intellectual work that has been done, you know, all that thinking that flows into a book. and that generally has quite a bit of depth, more depth than you can just come up when you write a screenplay on your own. anyway, that's not a general rule. a lot of books have that intellectual depth we benefit from. >> and john, you don't shy away in this film, what we see inside the catholic church. some of the scandals, some of the prejudices, the racial prejudices, the prejudices toward women, and also, of course, the sex scandal that rocked the church for so long.

>> they were all men. they were all flawed human beings. sometimes they forget that about themselves. they think they're above all that. and, yes, you see there's all varieties of behaviors among all these people. among other things, the college of cardinals is a very international group. they speak a whole spectrum of different languages and languages put to work. you hear four or five different languages spoken. we make lots of use of subtitles. that's how realistic the film -- if the film was made 50 years ago, we would be speaking in english, polish, spanish, italian accents. but this is -- edward has been meticulous about making every detail, every granular aspect of this absolutely authentic.

that includes human behavior. >> and i would guess, edward, the greatest challenge of making it as accurate as possible is that it is one of the most secretive processes in one of the most powerful organizations that has had the longest history on earth. how did you peek behind the curtain? how do you take viewers behind the curtain to see this most secretive of processes? >> well, that was a very important aspect of making the movie, of bringing the audience close to this process of showing them all the details. and there's one person -- we had one person basically a professor of liturgy and philosophy help us every day. he knew a lot about the way they vote, you know, the way they hold the ballots, the oath that is said, the prayers that are

said. he knew a lot about it. and there were sort of cornerstones of authenticity that we could hammer into the ground. that was sort of our playing field. and in between, sometimes they ask francesca, how would they do this? he says, well, could be this, could be that. it's free to interpretation. so, we're not claiming anything is absolutely right. we're trying to hit the truth as much as possible. >> flawed human beings and flawed actors at that. >> well, the new movie "conclave" is in theaters nation wide and is streaming now. john lithgow and edward berger, thank you both very much for coming on and sharing it with us. >> thank you for being here. >> take care. >> that does it for us this morning. we'll be back. tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in two minutes. s up the coverage in two minutes. it's time. yes, the time has come for a fresh approach to dog food.

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