choice for the president. this is change. when there were areas of push back and concern and protests, you're not seeing that. that could change. but it would be unexpected to see a huge march the day after trump's inauguration. >> christopher ray was his choice. that is not what the fbi director post is supposed to be about. i could not agree with you more. managing editor, sam, we appreciate it. thanks to all of you for getting up way too early. getting up way too early.

currently stands for pete hegseth, doldrums pick for defense secretary. he was in washington again yesterday morning with republican senator and two of the president-elect other controversial cabinet picks. on the hill they were there as

well. we will have more about those key meetings. we will also have reaction from lawmakers, who donald trump said should be jailed for their role in investigating a january 6th attack on the capital. plus, the very latest from syria . including an inside look at the present were toppled dictator bashar al assad held and tortured those who opposed his regime. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, december 11th. we will begin this morning with our top story. the man accused of killing united healthcare ceo brian thompson, fighting extradition to new york. that decision was made during the hearing he is facing charges for forgery and carrying a gun without a license. mangione was arrested in the commonwealth on monday, ending a five day manhunt. a judge denied bail for the 26- year-old suspect. he is now

expected to remain in custody at a state prison in huntington . before his hearing yesterday the suspect shouted this to reporters. the manhattan district attorney's office. >> what's that mean? it's lift expense. >> you now seek to extradite mangione to new york city and governor kathy hochul says she supports . prosecutors have charged mangione with second- degree murder, forgery and three gun offenses. >> we are learning more this morning about the potential motive behind the killing of united healthcare ceo brian thompson. when police arrested mangione on monday they found a three page handwritten note pick senior law enforcement officials tell nbc news the document had fewer than 300 words and included a note to law enforcement.

it reads, quote, to the feds, i will keep this short because i do respect what you do for our country. to save you a lengthy investigation i state plainly that i was not working with anyone. the ratings also included an apology and a line that reads, in part, these parasites had coming. new york city police now looking at whether the shooting was a culmination of the suspects troubles, calling the murder a possible symbolic takedown in the fight against, quote, corporate power games. according to people that knew him mangione had suffered a powerful back injury and stop connected with friends and family. police also believe mangione admired the unabomber and echoed his own concerns about technological advancement. -- positive review of the terrorist manifesto on "good reads" the site earlier this year. let's bring in nypd deputy commissioner of operations, kaz daughtry.

good morning to you both. chief, i will start with you. i said the other day, we've become spoiled in the city because you guys move so quickly when a crime happens. we have become accustomed, because of the work you do, the cameras that we have in the city, to those quick apprehensions. this went on for a few days. you talk about, from the moment of the killing, the murder of brian thompson, how this investigation played out for you? >> the detective had a multitude of evidence. this would explain the process. you are talking about the gun ballistics and forensic evidence. the laborious task of tracking cameras to the hotel. getting those pictures out. a tremendous amount of work they were doing. when you think about it, at the end of the day, getting the picture out, good old-fashioned detective work to the community. think the press for getting it out and the couple of employees

and citizens from mcdonald's raising the alarm to call the police department a young rookie cop, anthony mcdonald's, approached the murder with a gun . how this all played out, it was a great job for detectives in the community and the media at large, it was a nice team effort. >> deputy commissioner, something we've been talking about since yesterday as you had that clear shot, photograph where you pulled down his mask very briefly and talked to the clerk about amsterdam avenue. this is the shot, right here. that's a pretty clear shot of his face. so the question we had yesterday, when we heard all these family members and people that he went to college with talking about their shock and surprise, did you all hear from anyone over the last several days since that photo went out who knew him who said, i know who that is? >> yes and no. let's talk about the photo went out, first of all. as well as our police commissioner.

while she was briefing, he was briefing the police commissioner. she said, this photo, we've got to get out immediately. she said, somebody is going to know it. she gave the authorization to put that photo out to the media. tip start coming in, about 400 tips that came in. so we are still setting these tips. and i want to say to your viewers, if anyone has any information, please call 18 had -- one 800 577 tips. we stopped a lot of work to do. >> it's not your job, your job is to enforce the law. i just want to ask the question this way, would your job be made easier, with the nypd's job be made easier if there were more cameras up in this city like in central park? it seems like he had the trail, he goes into central park, and then nothing. would it make sense to also have cameras positioned so we could have followed him? >> there's a multitude of cameras in the city. private

businesses, ceos, police cameras, even central park has cameras on the outskirts. that's how we track them. the detectives tracked him from the park to the hotel. what we do so well. again, it's so hard to track video. it takes time. boots on the ground. video copulations are the key to success here. and that's what happened here. so there are a lot of cameras on the streets of manhattan, as you well know. sanitation has them. >> the city has them. like london, for instance, has cctv all over the place. right? >> they do. but i tell you, we have a tremendous amount of cameras in the city. it will always take more. but there's more than the public really knows here. again, just the boots on the ground, going building to building, tracking this person across the city. and you put the video out from the cabin now with the eyebrows. that was key here. these detectives are working 24/7. >> to williams point, did you

guys hear from his family and friends? this is a very clear, i mean, these pictures are pretty clear if you know this person. wouldn't you recognize them? >> the picture you showed before of him standing outside of the hostel, if you saw me, but mother saw me, my dad saw me , like i said before, i think there's 400 tips that came in. we are still setting those tips. thank god for the customer that was in the mcdonald's. thank god. >> where were the parents? where was the family? where were the fraternity brothers? >> i think, again, postarrest investigation here, all these things will be asked and answered in time. like we said, when the picture went out, thought process from everyone was like, if someone knows this person, hey, that's john.

and that will all come out. there's still a lot of work to do here. there really is. >> i know the investigation is in its early days. please speak more about motive. writings that were found with his individual when he was apprehended. it does seem like at least some of it against the healthcare industry. you have a sense on whether this was solely targeted toward this company? why united? was he looking at other companies? >> our intelligence bureau, the fbi and detectives in the manifesto, we will figure out what everything means. at the end of the day, he clearly had -- toward the healthcare industry. this was targeted toward one person. the motive on the surface is what it is. but when you dive deeper into it maybe some of those questions will be answered. a lot of work to still be done here until we figure entirely went one on here. >> deputy commissioner, just gleaning what we can from these writings, he had a back surgery that was painful. that stuff is not a motive to kill someone. i'm sorry he had a bad back

surgery. do you worry about the lien is asian of the sky that we have seen in some reaches of the internet and even spilling out into the public, where they view him as, i don't know, a hero in some way because he's going after someone that runs a healthcare company that they perceive as being unfair to other people. does that concern you, copycat kind of stuff here? >> it does concern the agency and it does concern the commission that raise that point. but this guy is not a hero. he's not a hero. if you have issues with somebody we don't go out there and commit violence. cold-blooded murder on our streets. that's not something that we will tolerate. and i don't think he's a hero for that. >> let's follow up on the weapon that was found. the idea that it was a ghost gun. particularly, manufactured in a 3-d printer. tell us what a challenge that poses to law enforcement because those are so difficult to trace. >> a ghost gun come you can trace it. there's no serial number. you put it together with a 3-d printer. in terms of an investigation, if it went on, we would never

be able to track that firearm because it has no serial number. detectives will take it to the lab and test fire it. we will take ballistics from the gun and match up with ballistics at the scene and we will see that the comparison. so that will be done as part of the postarrest investigation. >> what can the public do right now during this phase to help you guys do your job better? >> like i said before, i would like the public to call for tips. even though we have all these tips coming in, the detective bureau has to put together a good case to present to the district attorney's office. this guy will be back in new york city. and he will face time. i hope he faces time. he will face a jury and judgment of his peers. >> when you look back at the last three major instances in the city, there's a key point. three people stabbed in the city and killed. what happened? a civilian followed the bad person.

a person robbing the store and shooting. a civilian followed the bad guy and alert our cops. we stopped that. the other day, again, a civilian for mcdonald's workers. we say all the time, see something, say something. the public's eyes and ears are false multiplier for public safety. always go with your first reaction. because guess what? it's normally her right reaction. if you see something, say something. keep safe, get involved a little bit. those major events, the public health, the public safety. it's a key point to make here. >> i want to end with a general question for friends that come here. i was talking to somebody yesterday who moved here in 1988. bad timing.

1988 to 1991 were pretty tough years as far as crime and quality of life goes. so things are obviously so much better than they have been in the past. we still hear about crime. give us a review of the way you look at the situation in new york city. it seems that if you look at the macro, the crime rates are going way down from where they were two or three years ago. we saw people asking the question, why can't i go and get a toothbrush and it's not locked up behind plastic or something? where is new york city from y'all's perspective, since you are the one on the street every day? >> post all the changes that came about 2020 but didn't really hit us until 2022, there is a market adjustment and crime. since then, we are bringing crime down slowly. it's coming down. violence is coming down. but we have to come down fast enough. when you have a record number of enforcement and crime is coming down the question is, why? and goes to your second point.

repeat offenders. if they were dealt with properly in the city. >> why are they? 30 or 40 arrests. and they keep getting thrown back out onto the street. and a lot of these people, with little health problems. they should be on the street. >> let's talk about the subway. the 30 individuals that were arrested for assaulting mta workers. out of the 30 that were arrested they have a combined arrest of over 1100 total arrests. there's a small group of american minorities. individuals in the city, individuals that are responsible . >> well intended. people should be sent to jail for stealing a bag of chips and can't make $100 bail. but we need some slight adjustments to discovery laws so that das have more time to process these cases. that occurs, this problem can

come down immensely. well-informed trick still needs more adjustments, people to the table. and if you do this, to your point, we will come down faster to repeat offenders in our community that will be out of our community and we can still get everything we want in the process. public safety is key around the city. if we don't have public safety we are in trouble. >> all of us, we thank you guys for the incredible work that you do. we are so grateful, day in and day out, for what you do and for all the police officers, law enforcement officers, detectives's represent. thank you. >> nypd chief of patrol and nypd deputy commissioner of operations, thank you both very much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe" we will get to pete hegseth's day on capitol hill as he looks to win over key centrist republicans and his fight to become defense secretary.

we will also talk about where cache patel and tulsa gabbert stan this morning. we are back in 90 seconds. do your dry eyes still feel gritty, rough, or tired? with miebo, eyes can feel ♪ miebo ohh yeah ♪ miebo is the only prescription dry eye drop that forms a protective layer for the number one cause of dry eye: too much tear evaporation. for relief that's ♪ miebo ohh yeah ♪ remove contact lenses before using miebo. wait at least 30 minutes before putting them back in. eye redness and blurred vision may occur. what does treating dry eye differently feel like? ♪ miebo ohh yeah ♪ for relief that feels ♪ miebo ohh yeah ♪ ask your eye doctor about prescription miebo.

18 past the hour. a live look at the capital. pete hegseth will continue meeting with republican senators today. in hopes of building support for his bid to become defense secretary. he is set to sit down today with senator susan collins of maine after meeting yesterday with senator lisa murkowski of

alaska. both are moderate republicans whose votes could decide whether or not he is confirmed as the leader of the department of defense. here is what senator murkowski had to say about the meeting. >> how was the meeting? >> did you learn anything that swayed you at all? >> i had a good exchange with mr. hegseth. i had a good exchange and we will see what the process bears. >> what did you learn? >> he's got probably at least half the senate that he's going to visit with. he's got a process that's going to involve full vetting for the administration and then, ultimately, a committee. >> and we ask your questions with the sexual assault? did he answer sexual assault allegations? >> that works a little better.

>> that's better pick >> a little bit better pick >> john says, take the stairs. >> that was better. remind me, these answers on pete hegseth, from people i don't want to run for it. reminds me of like a football coach. nick said it once, trust the process. it's all about we are going to take it to the process and see what's happening. we are doing two separate things. everybody is scared to death to cross donald trump. mainly his supporters on twitter. but everybody said the same thing. behind-the-scenes there are six or seven hard nose for a lot of these candidates. the they are saying, trust the process. who knows? maybe he goes to a really ugly hearing and gets through. i think right now we should say, trust the process means, trust the process.

let it run its course and see how the votes end up. >> the word from palm beach is that he has momentum. they feel more confident about him right now. but he still not there yet. murkowski, yesterday, very careful wording. trust the process. we expect that he will get a fair hearing. it's this thing that we heard from john yesterday, yes, they are not outright saying no. but they are also not saying yes. they are not there yet. they are going to let this play out and see what the revelations may come up at this point. also, the people that i talked to on the last 24 hours say that numbers about the same. still about six republicans who aren't there yet to vote yes. also, center richard blumenthal doing public service. seemingly, this is the third or fourth time where he has gone before cameras and said, no, i have been talking to republican colleagues. he doesn't have the votes just yet. so far the trump team think they will keep him. >> was not get numb to the reality here. the people that we are looking at right now is woefully ill-

equipped to become secretary of defense. does not have any managerial experience that would allow him to run the largest and most complex, the most important, critically important bureaucracy in the united states of america or the world. as the middle east dissolves and melts down, as a war in eastern europe threatens to move towards a nuclear confrontation or a world war. that's where we start. and then you start stacking up one allegation after another, where the allegation is about financial mismanagement. whether the allegation is about a chronic abuse of women. that allegation, of course, underlined in a letter his own mother wrote to him. whether you're talking about taking successful va organizations and running them into the ground, whether you're talking about claim, after claim, after claim of the sort of inappropriate behavior that

joni claims to be a champion of stopping united states military. and speaking of so many other women, willie, that have made heroic contributions to the united states of america through armed combat. he still, sounds like a hard to on women in combat. this is not the 1950s. and again, take all of that and put it to the side. the fact that any senator could stand up and confidently say, yes, pete hegseth is exactly the sort of person that should run the dod, that says so much about the complete lack of responsibility that the senators that are saying this publicly are taking in their

extraordinarily important jobs. >> and you are hearing the senators comments in the day where she sounded more open to pete hegseth. perhaps some fear some have suggested because people from donald trump circle are intimidating the senators and say, if you vote against these pics we will primary you. i would like to think that joni or susan have more confidence in their relationship with voters in their home states okay, you want to run a primary, let's do it. i'm still going to vote when i think is right and not given to those. donald trump does appear to be treating these very, very important pics like ambassador choices. i like pete hegseth. he was nice to be on fox. this is a very, very serious job . running a massive bureaucracy. >> of course, also pretty outrageous. >> right there's that too.

to your point, in many ways the character questions as pete hegseth and many of these others have overshadowed the conference problem. yes, there are huge questions about character with senator tammy duckworth, who lost both of her legs in combat. she said, hey, pete, how do you think i lost my legs? in a bar fight? i lost them in combat. so he's trying to parse that statement and say, of course women should be in the military. everyone agrees on that. but he won't go as far pick >> he will say it. because he's against it. >> turning to patel. he is trumps pick to head the fbi. he was back on the hill yesterday for a second straight day of meetings. the telnet with key republican senators thom tillis, lindsey graham and mike lee. all three have signaled they will support patel's nomination. senator graham posted this photo on social media after the meeting, endorsing patel's nomination. writing, he promised to get the fbi back on its original mission of protecting america. and with the days of the fbi

leadership having their finger on the scale politically will be over. >> was he going to arrest members of the press? >> nothing. >> because they didn't support the stop the still conspiracy theory. >> and put the shoe on the other foot. can you imagine if joe biden, barack obama or someone else had nominated someone who said, we are going to arrest members of the media at fox news or newsmax over democrats. please pick >> locusts descending from the sky pick >> we know exactly what happened. tulsi gabbard also continued her senate meeting yesterday. trumps choice to become director of national intelligence had scheduled visits with tom cotton and jim reach, along with senator elect bernie marino. some of the concerns about gabbard, due to a secret meeting she had in 2017, and now deposed president bashar al assad. marino brush that off, told reporters after his meeting, gabbard said she, quote, serves as the pleasure of the president. so this is ultimately president

trump's foreign policy, not any one member. >> know if i say more? is that what he's saying? as well our psychic >> can we get him a constitution to read? maybe he's new to the senate but maybe you should read the constitution. they have the right to advise and consent. and when somebody is a puppet for a sod were prudent, just look at what they say. yeah, advise and consent. still supposed to be alive and well in there. >> we heard from ted cruz yesterday. president trump won a mandate. he's president of the united states. he deserves to have his people put in, which totally ignores the advice and consent. ted cruz had to be reminded that he voted against many, many of joe biden's pics to be in the cabinet. >> is a deeply shocking revelation here. this is how this works. we know that donald trump won by about a point and half. yes, republicans have control

the senate and the house. slim margins. they are treating this like it's a landslide and that the senate should just be a rubber stamp for whoever trump wants. there are few republicans that have balked at that. at least privately. and we will see if they do so publicly with some of these pics. mitch mcconnell is one. mcconnell took the full yesterday. his office says he is okay. mcconnell, rakowski, the ones that we talked about the most. with our other senators that might weigh in on pics. others have real concerns about the fbi director of choice, patel, and certainly tulsi gabbard, joe and mika, who with syria front and center in the news, many have said this is not the right one for this moment. -- on the american presidency. historian, you look across the globe in the middle east. it also in eastern europe. things are more fraud now than ever before. yes, a sod is gone.

yes, iran is beaten-down. there are a lot of positive signs. of course, the russians continue to just take massive casualties. the ruble is falling. there are great opportunities. there are also other opportunities for chaos that could lead to world wars. a prospect, i would think, not only of people on the hill, but also across europe. the prospect of having somebody like pete hegseth or tulsi gabbard in two of the most important foreign-policy positions in america and the world, it has to be chilling for our allies. and also for many republicans on capitol hill. >> yeah. the world has not gotten calmer since donald trump was elected. that's a fair assessment. i had a chance on sunday night to be at an event here in washington. there are a lot of senators there.

i asked a couple of them what they thought of tulsi gabbard's pick, given what had happened in syria over the weekend, hours beforehand. and they kind of rolled their eyes and shook their heads in some kind of dismay. there were democrats amongst them. this is going to be a challenge for them. we don't know what more material may come out of syria in connection. are there documents there that could be damaging to her? she is somebody who has, on several occasions, sided with the point of view of america's adversary. she was already under scrutiny the. but now the events in syria have per her even further under scrutiny and the timing of that will be very interesting. but you got these other controversial pics as well. my understanding is that senator from north dakota has to think, how can i protect some of my senators? you can't have all of the same senators go out and say, no, against all the pics. so he's coming out with some kind of a rotation scheme. maybe if tom votes against one

of them, maybe if jodi votes against another, maybe if somebody votes against one of them the thinking is that they could probably get rid of four, that includes matt. >> by the way, this would happen all the time in the house where somebody would say, i cannot vote against five of these bills. i take these two, you take those two, you take that one. and there is a rotation. >> that make sense. >> you go back to your district, you go back to state, yeah, i voted against one of the elections. but i voted for 15 of them. 15 out of 16, that ain't to be a bad. -- too bad. >> mike barnicle, another part of this is of course the actual hearings that these nominees will have to go through. i would think, for some of these nominees, they would be especially brutal. especially pete hegseth, given what we know already.

>> you know, the senate used to be described as the greatest deliberative body in the world. i don't think you can apply that description to the united states senate of today, given what we are dealing with. we have a group of people, three people that were just mentioned here. in these cases, competence is the issue. look at the middle east. is syria on the verge of becoming a failed state? or is it a failed state already? the german government is in a state of near collapse. the french legislature has been disbanded and they are going to have another election probably this spring. ukraine. what's going to happen with ukraine? all this depends, partially, on two of the nominees. doing their jobs competently. they can do their jobs competently because they are

not fully qualified for those jobs. and yet, they are nominated for those jobs. so it's going to be up to the united states senate to stand up, advise, consent and then vote. we are going to find out which senators have the courage to do absolutely the right thing in defense of the united states of america. >> john, this is an early test in the second trump administration of the united states senate. seeing before he gets into office how far he can push many of the senators. how much control do actually have over these men and women? and they are going to show him, in the case of matt, they say that is too far. is wondering now, can i push the part of to put tulsi gabbard as the head of dni? someone, in the most generous description, sympathetic to put. sympathetic to people like a sod. can i push them to put patel in charge of the fbi to carry out and settle my grievances and seek retribution on my behalf?

he seeing how far he can push the line in this moment. it will set the tone for the rest of this four years. >> yeah. -- volume for reason. there was a huge amount of material to work with. you know, if you want to know where the congressman is going to be, shows the primary electorate. the president or vice president are the them only people in the elective political system or elected by more than a district or more than estate. it puts an extra neri burden on that office. not just because of the powers it has, but because of the base it must deal with. the divided sovereignty as to govern from.

and so that's why character, as i was saying, character matter so much. you know, it's not the institutions that we keep hearing about. the institutions are going to prevail. it's not to the senate. it is senators. it's not the courts, it is judges. it's not the people, it's individual voters. what i would say to folks who are concerned about gabbard, rfk, patel, is if you have any way to register your voice with a senator, do it. because you have to incentivize the courage it's going to take. and it is courage, because this is their world. the courage it's going to take for them to say no to the incoming president. it's important. i must have gotten on the wrong

list. i got a text yesterday from a maga group that said, please call a certain republican senator and say, thank you for supporting president trump. i didn't run to the phone. they are good at this. the loyal opposition needs to be too. >> you can look at who is up in 2026 and see which republican members are going to be most concerned about running afoul of the maga base. it's a good instruction, as john thune is looking at what members can actually step forward and help say for the department of defense, and say the intel community. a lot of that is probably going to have to do with the fact that you look at the people who are up in 2026 and understand that they are going to be worried about their primaries first. two of those names, susan collins and thom tillis would be two that would normally be

the first to oppose some of the worst of these pics. >> yeah. and susan collins, repeatedly doing so interstate, reflecting her ability to do that. thom tillis is somebody that john thune is worried about because it's a frontline state. north carolina obviously went for donald trump this time around. the republicans want to make sure that it stays in the republican column. and even that might be in tom's instincts as somebody who has been pretty independent and not necessarily, particularly maga, i have heard, to resist more than one of these pics. that is where i think john thune is trying to make sure that tillis, in particular, is not out there more than once on one of them. it was interesting that you did here tillis support one of these pics. perhaps he's just going to get one of them to say no to. >> we want to close by

remembering mississippi businessman clark reed, who developed the republican party in the state and across the south, beginning in the 1960s. he has died. he was 96 years old. he was chairman of the mississippi republican party from 1966 to 1976. at a time when democrats still dominated the region. he is credited with helping president gerald ford when the 1976 republican nomination when, during the convention, delegates were divided between ford and california governor ronald reagan. and remembering read, there is no more significant figure in the development of modern day mississippi republican party than clark reed. our state has lost a giant. >> we lived in mississippi in

the late 60s, early 70s. i think there were two republicans in the entire state. gil carmichael and meridian. and clark reed. john, you knew him well. the one thing we have not said, most importantly, he's a father of julia reed. taking the republican party from nothing to a dominant force in mississippi, which is tough. i think you would probably tell you, raising julia was more difficult. but you wrote and absolutely beautiful, touching tribute. it reads in part, this. handsome, charming. >> he spoke in a way best described as a drawling mumble. he was big, consequential, fascinating. he was the only president at the creation of republican south, he was one of its creators. and his politics seems quaint now. never in extremist. he believed in an america that was engaged in the world.

you can disagree with clark. but his motives were not petty, but patriotic. not reflexively partisan, but civic minded. in 1957 he married julia brooks, known as judy. she had been pre-engaged in the matter of the time to another man. a fellow student at vanderbilt university. he did not move with this batch until, during a phone call with judy, he heard a dog barking in the background. when he learned that the vanderbilt boyfriend had given judy a puppy he hung up. a dog, he thought, is a serious thing. so reed drove to nashville and proposed. the house became a kind of conservative salon, a stopping off point for visiting politicians and journalists. many of whom were brought over to be vetted with little to no notice. judy reed became expert at

whipping up scalloped oysters made with ritz crackers when her husband called from the airport to announce that bill buckley or cheney was coming over in a few minutes. into his 90s he would be working the phones, weighing in with republicans and journalists across the country. with brown bags of bourbon and wine, he hosted a flow of it is sitters. he could hold forth at some length on subjects ranging from the agrarian thought of andrew little and robert penn warren to the virtues of the large plastic clips that sealed opened but unfinished bags of potato chips, to the details of the perjury trial. senators, congressmen and governors depended on this political pioneer for counsel and leadership. karl rove said, he had a broad smile, a twinkle in his eye, and a talent for friendship. he made politics not only consequential, but interesting

and fun. the light that brings many a political back room and convention hall is gone. >> john, you have expressed in the past, said many things that he had said, some of which we will not repeat here. a dog is a serious thing sticks out in this beautiful, beautiful bit. tell us about your friend. >> thank you. let's point out, the most formidable women any of us know went to madeira school. >> of course. >> julia reed and our leader. he was from missouri, born in ohio. part of the delta, the northern part of the delta.

was at a military school in tennessee. very much wanted to fight in world war ii. was a little too young. became a businessman in the delta, building green bins and scaring birds off of fields. and got interested in politics in the 50s. voted for eisenhower in 1952, which as you know, was the first time a lot of southerners actually allowed them to do that since the civil war and reconstruction. what's important for us, clark learned delegate counting and precinct cutting and thrusting. he loved all of the pettiness of politics. he was russell kirk, edmund burke kind of conservative. his way into politics was not just mindless competitiveness. that was the idea, the ideas

that maybe the state did not have all the answers. america needed to be standing strong against fascism and communism. he was someone who came to the arena with a creed. and in that he believed that there should be a two-party system. remember, the democratic party had a total monopoly. one of the reasons jfk was in dallas in 1963, remember, was to bring peace. not between democrats and republicans, that wasn't where the race was. it was between the liberal democrats and the conservative segregationist democrats. and clark, a liberal newspaper editor there, wanted to break the power of the conservative democrats. he became this remarkable powerbroker and also had a lot

of fun doing it. >> historian john meacham, thank you. coming up, bill belichick is an eight time super bowl winner. as an nfl coach. what can he translate that success to college football? pablo will weigh in on that potential move, next, on morning joe. playing games! ♪♪ dancing in the par... (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound) ♪ i have type 2 diabetes, but i manage it well. ♪ ♪ it's a little pill with a big story to tell. ♪

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we heard this week that bill belichick is interviewing for college jobs. can you imagine him coach in college? >> obsolete not. i think there's a lot of things can do. obviously instrument is. even showing his personality. getting out there on the recruiting trail and dealing with all these college kids. >> imagine? >> imagine bill on the couch recruiting an 18-year-old? >> we really want you anyway. we will figure out if you play. >> you love seeing those three together. >> it warms the heart. tom brady imitating his former coach with his teammates rob, adelman, talking about recent reports that bill belichick is in talks to become the next head football coach at the university of north carolina. let's bring in the host msnbc contributor, pablo. always great to see you. i understand that he wants to

get back into coaching. it's who he is, it's all he's ever been. but is this the job that brings bill belichick back on the sidelines? >> you know, i go back to 80 last fall, joe, member, nick and bill belichick retire from there prospective purchase within 24 hours of each other. right? the greatest nfl head coach, eight super bowls, the greatest college head coach. and nick left his job because it's like this new game in which have to pay players and there's a gm managing a salary cap. i can't do this anymore. he went into living rooms, he dominated them. he said, i'm out. >> he said, i'm going to recruit one time. i'm not going to create -- recruit your pick >> exactly right. so he's like, i'm out of here. and bill belichick was like, you know what? one year later i want what sabin gave up. and it's fascinating. north carolina, john, it's not a marquee job. but it is a job. the guy clearly wants to prove that he can do it. >> the thought here is he so desperate.

he's open about it. to get the all-time nfl wins record. second place. probably about 2 to 3 more good years in order to do that. delays the pursuit of the winds. i admit, i am deeply skeptical of this. i wonder if his reputation took such a hit at the end that it didn't help and he feels, there may be nfl jobs open at the end of the year and i'm not getting any. >> is not. i do like the idea. some part of me likes the idea of bill belichick on a college campus. maybe teaching a class. sort of like taking a step back. >> is a possible he just lets coaching and wants to coach? >> there's no question that he loves coaching more than anything. has unappreciated podcasting and broadcasting nearly as much. i do think there's some aspect of, he's here to prove something. >> why can't one of the greatest football coaches of all time get a job in the nfl? >> is interesting on this level too. bill belichick, when he left

that perch, was the last remaining dinosaur in this sense. he was the head coach and the general manager, the head of the front office and running the football team. and in college football right now that is not the case. right? there is no job like that. there are gm's now. so bill belichick is basically singling to everybody, including the nfl, i don't need power over both departments. i'll any power over the senate. you can take the house. i will be the guy doing the on- field stuff. he submitted a 400 page, you can use the word bible, maybe manifesto depending on your mileage of this. your confidence and expense. this feels like a training wheels version. >> so does this go back to the fact that when he was going to go to atlanta he actually got worn off of atlanta by robert kraft, who said he's going to bring in his own people and you don't want any part of them? is this something executive pablo saying? which is, hey, listen, i understand.

>> different game now. >> it's a different game. higher the new me in the nfl later. >> effort from people in the organization, the action got really toxic at the end between craft and belichick. there was a sense that he was even trying to submarine his chances to get a coaching job elsewhere in the nfl. belichick has said that he wants to coach now. and he still agree on the field coach. >> no question. >> it's his role as a gms of the last couple of years in new england. and i was not, it seems like this venture into media here was in part effort to give himself a personality to sort of say, look, i'm not this curmudgeon who fights with robert kraft. i can be a friendlier face and just coach. >> brady is like that too in that way. this is a bit of a tenderize me, put me in the spotlight, make me more relatable. but bill belichick, i talked to high-level college executives right now and they're like, we don't believe that belichick,

as brady was alluding to, can be the guy that understands a player who is even more irresponsible than nfl players. >> exactly. the patriot way when you do that. >> nick sabin could walk into any living room and say, if your son comes and works with me, and gives his all, i'm going to give him the best shot in the nfl. bill belichick actually say, i've been to the nfl. i know what it takes. and your son, north carolina, best shot to get. >> the problem nowadays is that kid your recruiting comes to chapel hill. he goes and belichick's office and says, what can you offer me to stay? otherwise, i'm going to south carolina. he's got to recruit that kid all over again. mike barnicle, you have covered and known everybody around the patriots, including bob kraft,

bill belichick, although for many years now. do you really believe he would take a college job that is not the alabama job for example? >> i believe that bill belichick is a lost soul without a coaching job. i do not believe that he is a college football coach or will be a college football coach. he would have no idea how to put up the portal. a young athlete walking in to see him after his freshman year, saying, i've got a better offer from notre dame, would not know how to do with that. i think he is intent on eclipsing the record of the national football league. but his problem there is and the owners. the general managers, head of football operations. because all you have to do is take a look at the last five draft years of bill belichick's tenure in newington. could he draft? it was all him doing it. he controlled everything. they were all terrible drafts.

and that will have an impact in any future nfl job that he might be offered. >> one little thing to keep in the back of your mind. bill belichick started as an assistant coach for the new york giants. they are a mess right now. i love brian gable. but he may not be long for the world. bill belichick is circling. with that in mind in new york. >> why not? >> that record is a real thing. everybody thinks he's going after a pick >> he has real animosity toward the jets. he won't be going there. think of a few jobs that could be open. jacksonville, maybe. there are a few others. the giants to make a lot of sense. though, i would hate to see it personally. >> pablo let's talk baseball. juan soto, 765. $765 million, 1 million years, whatever it is to the new york mets, the yankees offered 760. he took 5 million more. what's your take?

>> i've switched gears on this. i was initially very mad that steve karlin, one of the 100 richest people in the world, was a better steinbrenner than the heirs to steinbrenner. this is what the yankees do. we overpay with the players that we want. and now realizing, this was a massive overpay. and my rationalization is, we dodged a bullet. john is already making noises that sound like he did not believe my coping mechanism. you can afford so much else now. >> you are making a point. >> let me join you pick >> there we go pick >> the coping mechanism. as a company. all the red sox fans in my house are saying we want them, we want him, we want them. when we saw 765 we were like take him, take him, take him. i'm telling you, that is an existential daniel jones type campbell. obviously soto is not diligence. but i'm saying. >> albatross around the neck of

a franchise. >> the entire franchise on one player. it's a dumb move. and i've got to say, we wanted max. he's not worth that. again, we are now talking about overpaying people so much. we know something about this. you know, we paid a guy 100 something million dollars and he started falling off of bikes and rolling down hills. you can't gamble your entire franchise on one player. it's a dumb move. >> is the most money ever paid to an individual athlete in the history of our planet. i don't know with the gladiators at the coliseum made for inflation. >> not the same. >> when you look back, this is peak sports. for a dh, by the way. a guy that's only going to do this one thing for 15 years for 765 is a bit mind blowing. happy reading. >> jonathan would say the same

thing if we were being honest. you.we 765. >> it's a huge overpay. ohtani who hits and pitches. juan soto can only hit. can't even field. >> mike barnicle, panic in red sox nation, i sent a text threaa with you last night about one of our good friends melting down. and then i talked to my son last night who was not melting down but was not a happy man. and basically said the red sox have to stand up and deliver. they can't keep being sort of the also. what are you thinking about the sox right now? who are they targeting? who are they going to get? >> i don't know who they're going to get. let's simplify think. free agency. is soto an overpay? sure to everyone other than steve cohen.

you know what you need to get at the market. you go in, you pick things off the shelf and you check out. that's the way you get players. you go into the market, look at what you need, you pick one out and you go and check out. but you got to check out with a big, big number. now the red sox, the red sox will be fine. they're going to be fine. and our old friend theo epstein is also down in dallas working this week for the red sox. i'm very confident the red sox will pick up part of what they need. they need a lot. they need pitching. and they need a right-handed bat, but i think they're on the road to at least a playoff team this summer.m >> you look skeptical. >> i hope mike is right. the ownership group obviously has not spent much in recent years. they said this year will be th different. mike is right. they need just not one starters, two starters, a ready bat. they have a lot of work. >> willie, sam kennedy said at the end of the year, we belong at the top of the division. we're going to get back there. there is no ambiguity there.

so i suspect they're going to go. >> more fun when the red sox are good. i can say as a yankee fan, makes october fun. i don't think it's just coping. i loved juan soto. he was so fun this year. s i sat in the bleachers with my son. turned around and talking to the fans, say two outs.ts 765. now three quarters of a billion dollars freed up to get a left-handed pitcher. i wish soto good luck but it's too much. >> pablo, on your recent episode of your podcast. >> yes. >> you ught on a pulitzer prize art critic to analyze the recent stat ewes of sports figures. >> i harken back to the greco-romans. not since that era have we valued statues in sports quite like this. dwyane florida's own, was honored in such a way. >> whoa. >> this is why they produced --

>> it's sol-o. >> ithat's exactly right. >> not a great statue. we had art critic who has no idea who dwyane wade is to weigh in on this. he didn't love it, spoiler alert. cristiano ronaldo, the bronze standard, a tremendous piece of folk art. he loved this one because it just felt bleeped up and super crazy. that is a quote from the pulitzer prize winner. joe, how do we honor these people? nick saban, of course, was a coach and a statue at the same time. >> also you love -- >> that's weird. >> statues of all the coaches. they're like 5'3". >> and of course we culminated, by the way, this exercise with another sculpture we surprised the pulitzer prize art winning

critic with. i don't know if we have a little footage. >> butter. >> hey, you may recall the art of butter sculpture. >> state fair. ur>> in honor of the great stat fairs across the heartland. we took it to washington square park, butter me, who is just a little more attractive than me in a way that is disturbing was very popular. so popular, in fact, he may have contracted some things allegedly. this guy, this guy was just a big fan of the show. and these individuals -- this was just unprompted, by the way. mp>> what did you with it? do you have it somewhere? >> the post-credit scene of the episode is gory. i want to warn you. he met a fate that i believe churned out pretty impressive. >> you were doing so well. >> thank you terrible.

>> great segment. >> you win in the margerin. >> still ahead, members of the committee who investigated the january 6th attack are saying about donald trump's stated desire for them to go to jail. we're back in two minutes. o min. liberty mutual customized my car insurance so i saved hundreds. with the money i saved i thought i'd get a wax figure of myself. cool right? look at this craftmanship. i mean they even got my nostrils right. it's just nice to know that years after i'm gone this guy will be standing the test of ti... he's melting! oh jeez... nooo... oh gaa... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ jen b asks, "how can i get fast download speeds while out and about?" jen, we've engineered xfinity mobile with wifi speeds up to a gig, so you can download and do much more all at once. it's an idea that's quite attractive.

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and some piece of mind. see why millions of families have trusted care. go to care.com now this is something that happened at an auto dealership in sandy city, utah. >> this was not an accident. you see the man ram a gray subaru right through the glass lobby and smash into the front desk. the man brought the car in sandy this morning. he got home, had some technical or mechanical issues and wanted to return the vehicle. the vehicle was sold as is and the dealership would not take it back. the driver said if he didn't get his money back he would drive through the front door and it

looks like he followed through on that promise. >> i think we just found trump's new secretary of transportation. >> i was wondering where that was going. welcome to "morning joe." jonathan lemire, katie cay still with us. joining us the conversation president of the national action and host of "politic's nation" also with us nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard. right to the news at the top of the hour, seven past the top of the hour, thanks to sports. several former members of the house january 6th select committee are pushing back against president-elect's trump's suggestion they should be jailed. here is what trump said on "meet the press" followed by some of the reaction from former committee members. >> cheney was behind it and so was benny thompson and everybody on that committee. >> we're going -- >> for what they did. >> yeah. >> honestly, they should go to jail.

so you think liz cheney should go to jail? >> for what they did. >> anybody that voted in favor. >> are you going to direct your fbi director and attorney general to send them to jail? >> not at all. i think they'll have to look at that. i'm going to focus on drill baby drill. >> there's nothing we did as a january 6th select committee that violates the law. just because you disagree with the work of the committee is no way to threaten those members of the committee with jail. >> i don't think the incoming president should be threatening his political opponents with jail time. that's not the kind of talk we should hear from the president in a democracy. nor do i think that a pardon is necessary for the members of the january 6th committee. >> i did my job. i think the other committee members all feel we did our job. we upheld the rule of law.

we talked about the importance of peaceful transfer of power. but we also highlighted everything that the former president did along the way to stop that. and to prevent that, including threats to his own vice president. >> jonathan, i think your reporting on my reporting shows that people close to donald trumright now are saying he's not interested in retribution, still sort of mouthing off because that's what he said on the campaign. he's not going to back down that quickly. that said, the threat is out there. and it's very -- it's out there. and when you see these members talking, you know, it shows you it's one thing to say something on a campaign trail, to level those threats, those unconstitutional, illegal threats on a campaign trail or interview as a punch line. it's quite another when these people are talking back to you and saying, what we did was legal. seriously? how does that -- and this is the thing. we need to keep asking, how does

that end for donald trump when he tries to put benny thompson in jail? when he tries to put any of those members in jail? adam kinzinger in jail for doing their job, first of all, and not doing anything illegal. >> whatever agenda trump wants to put forward or deals he wants to make were all to be derailed if he were to do this. there's no sense of what crime they would be charged with, first and foremost. there would be certainly an uproar if he were to certainly try to arrest journalists or lawmakers. look, he has said, though, from day one, his first major campaign speech, retribution is what he was running on. and we have learned we have to largely take him at his word. yes, people in the trump world are saying, no, no, these are campaign promises he has to mouth them. we also know, vaughn, he has many times bended the knee to his base. that he has taken -- been afraid of their anger. when he's promised something to them and they expect it. he has to say, look, i promised

retribution, i promised the january 6th committee members would be arrested. what does he do? what does the base do if he doesn't follow through? at the same time, no -- i didn't hear any republican lawmakers speaking out to defend their colleagues who have been threatened with arrest. >> if you look at kash patel, knows exactly what donald trump wants because he's been campaigning on it for the last two years, even before he started running for office. kind of like on january 6th. donald trump wasn't necessarily right outside of the capitol with his first up in the air saying go and attack. but everybody knew implicitly what donald trump wanted them to do that day. and that was to stop the certification of the vote. and for all of these nominees he is putting forward from pete hegseth trump for months now has been putting on social media ai majs of nancy pelosi and barack obama, liz cheney in orange jump suits. he has called for the military tribunal of barack obama. the jailing of jack smith. so donald trump at this point,

he doesn't really have to say much more. all he has to tell is kristen welker, yeah, they should be investigated. that's exactly what his people are going to do because he's been telling them that's exactly what he wants. >> that's the reason kash patel is there because of the things he said on podcasts and other places, he's a guy who will carry out donald trump's retribution program. there is complicating factor for donald trump, rev, our judicial system. there has to be a charge. what are you charging benny thompson with. there are judges and juries who will listen to evidence and this will go through a process if it actually happens. but this is another case like pardoning the january 6th convicted felon. is he really going to open the jails and let people who beat up cops out into the streets? and what would be the -- he's still trying to be president of the united states and run a country and all that would hamper his ability to do it. >> it would definitely hamper his ability. you have to first start with that whoever donald trump

nominates to be the district u.s. attorneys are people that usually have more of a background than some of those he's putting forward for his cabinet. and do you think people that have done 30, 40 years of service in the criminal justice arena wants to throw all of that away on some bogus indictments and bogus cases, when the root of the accusation is that there was an attempted insurrection and stopping of the certification of the election. let's not talk about something that didn't warrant a congressional investigation. we're talking about people who tried to literally overthrow an election, or at least stall the certification of it. and the act like that is suspect i think is un-american. the country stands for a democracy, you're supposed to investigate those that try to interfered with the democratic process. >> so short-sided two for three reasons.

bad for the country, bad for congress, bad for donald trump for three reasons -- first reason is, it would get in the way of any legislation that anybody wanted to do. to get anything done, which he has said time and again, he wants to get a deal with democrats on immigration. that's number one. number two, it would actually draw attention back, draw attention back to january 6th. now, as we get further and further away from january 6th, people started believing, you know, the propaganda around january 6th, donald trump was pushing on the campaign trail. but at the time, 20 million people saw it. people were riveted by the testimony. people were deeply concerned by what happened. donald trump's poll numbers go down. i think the last thing you want to do is actually draw people's attention back there. and finally, the third thing is,

if you arrest liz cheney, benny thompson, you name it, whomever, you make them political heros. one of the reasons many people believe donald trump got re-elected president of the united states is because he was sitting at a defendant's table all summer and it made him a martyr. and so, if he turns around and makes let's say liz cheney a martyr, he only makes her stronger, only makes her more powerful and only makes it more likely that she's the next president of the united states. >> i heard the same reporting that he doesn't actually want to go back. he doesn't want to put these people in jail. which makes it a little curious that he's appointed kash patel to lead the fbi because i think kash patel is somebody that would like a campaign of retribution. there's a little bit at the end of that clip there that is getting less attention and that is the drill baby drill bit. i think donald trump's a lot of the executive orders we see on day one and the early days will be around business and rewarding his business cronies.

this is going to be an extraordinary boom for oil and gas industry, for donald trump's billionaire friends. i mean, as one republican put it to me, if they found there was oil under the washington monument, they would be drilling on the washington mall. and there will be nothing off grounds. i think that he doesn't necessarily want to have the distractions from that. he has his priorities on immigration, which i think will be the big social policy push. and then it will be a lot of business policy and a lot of m & a activity and a lot of deregulation which will satisfy the very many billionaires who he's being advised by. >> we're drilling more than any other country in history. >> it will be even more. >> and you keep drilling and you keep pushing up the supply, and the demand actually stays equal. and suddenly you're looking at oil under $70 a barrel and you have oil companies that will say

no mas. not going to do that anymore. at some point it stops making economic sense for them exploring and drilling if, again, the cost is deflated. that's the direction we're going in if there's even more drilling in the future. socovered kari lake through the years. what do you know, ambassador to mexico? >> late last night there was somebody else who was just nominated to be ambassador of mexico. looks like she won't get that role. it's still a question of what she is going to do next. matt gaetz got an oam position. there is a question for kari lake. >> kimberly foil is going to greece. >> at a time in which her fiance -- >> reporting that her relationship with donald trump jr. has come to an end. and now that she will be off to athens apparently. there's your consolation prize. vaughn, also talk about kari

lake being floated as one of these possible maga threats a primary. she has ties to iowa and bandied about someone who could take on joanie ernst there, 0 for 2 right now. >> she grew up in iowa and campaigned before donald trump technically was running for president, campaigned in iowa with her own kari lake campaign events. i think joanie ernst, this will be the test. has somebody in waiting willing to go to bat against joanie ernst, i believe in kari lake. will donald trump under the pressure of somebody who is not bowing to appeasement and flattery joanie ernst is, will he try to primary her? all this talk of looking toward the future is only as good as your willingness to work with republicans who are not willing to just ultimately bend the knee to whatever your desires are. >> nbc's vaughn hillyard, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. so new reporting in the bullwark, details growing sense of confidence within the gop and trump's team that not just some

of the president-elect's most controversial picks will be confirmed but all of them will be. a senior aide to a republican senator told the bullwork, quote, trump has all these guys. it's all over but the shouting. joining us now, the reporter on the story, the bullwork's marc caputo, mark barnacle back with us as well. mark, tell us more about what you're hearing? >> depart from vaughn's remarks is to joanie ernst plays a big role in this discussion. as she started to appear to oppose pete hegseth, the maga base came out strongly in opposition to her. they called for a primary really not donald trump's transition team. and suddenly she started to look around and realized, oh my, this might be a mistake. and started to, let's say, thaw her opinion or warm toward pete hegseth for defense secretary. at the same time, tom cotton, the arkansas senator took a

different approach and essentially told the conference, look, i expect everyone in our conference to support the republican president's nominees and confirm them. so, those two separate senators tell the story of what the senators in the body politic face, which is get on the trump train or get tied to the tracks. and all indications right now from a lot of the senators there are that they're on the trump train. to tom cotton's point, by the way, he researched this and said that since clinton's presidency, there were only two no-votes from a president members of his own party against his own nominees. so, the argument that they're making both the trump transition team and the republicans who support him is that you must vote along the lines of what the president wants, what donald trump wants, because that's history. that's what we do. >> wow.

>> so, marc, let me ask you a broader question about all of this because very few people can read the mar-a-lago tea leaves better than you can. so donald trump has an instinctive and dark genius. it's why he's president of the united states again. but do you think within the trump circle and with trump himself, has anyone realized a couple of things, the past is the past. is it going to be revenge or results that the presidency will be all about. will it be about hurting people or helping people? what's his instinct on all of this, do you think? >> i don't know. what i would do is to go to the recent past in the way in which his campaign was run. his campaign was run in such a way where he had very professional people in charge who gave donald trump sort of the room to be donald trump and do what he wanted to do.

i called it the maga serenity prayer which is they accepted the thing that they couldn't change. serenity to accept the thing that they couldn't change which is the fundamental thing of donald trump. they did try to change all the other things to sort of, let's say, minimize the damage of some of his bad decisions. but, what they didn't do if they didn't leak, they didn't undermine him, they didn't try to countermand him and i think there was some gentle persuasion and discussions we never heard. if that structure holds true and this is an if, then i think this white house will look a lot more like the campaign where you had the professionals in charge who did professional things to help win and it will look a little less like the house of horrors that a lot of critics see. those are ifs. in trump's favor and the favor of people who hope that this white house won't be dysfunctional, the person who master minded that maga serenity prayer fueled campaign, who is the campaign co-manager, susie

wiles, is the chief of staff. we have to wait and see. >> marc, back to the picks just for a minute here. you voted senior aide to a republican senator saying this, quote, trump has all these guys. it's all over but the shouting. unless the unexpected happened, trump is getting his picks. my boss, this senior aide to the senator says, is very popular in his state. a choice between him and trump, he's going to lose and he's going to lose badly. so does someone like senator joanie ernst hear the footsteps of the potential primary challenge really someone who has won a couple of times in her state, popular there, lisa murkowski, susan collins, these are popular senators who won many times in their state. do they really fear a primary enough to vote for people they know are wholly unqualified for their jobs? >> good question. joanie ernst in that story i reported there according to a trump senior adviser who was informed of this from an intermediary who was told by ernst when this blow-back

started and apparently it was organic, how do i make this stop? basically ernst was already in the sort of no mas mode, i don't want to deal with this. so she started to move toward hegseth. murkowski and collins, collins occupy a different position. this is a numbers game. the trump transition team is not interested in bipartisanship. he won, they feel. they feel it's a mandate. yes, that can certainly be disputed. but there are 53 republican senators. and so, the way they look at it is they just need to get 50 votes because jd vance will be the vice president, that will get them to 51 and they win. what does that mean, they can only lose four. so they're trying to get 50 plus one. if anyone stands in their way and can exact retribution on them and make them pay, they will. but ultimately this is a team that's focussed with its eyes on the prize and that means getting his cabinet picks confirmed. rfk starts next week, by the

way. his touring, his meeting with senators on the hill. that's going to be quite a scene. politico is reporting that he will have trouble there. the people that i've spoken to in the senate still think he's going to make it. but you know, we have a lot of ball to play and a lot of time until january 20th when the new president takes office. >> i was just going to say, we're talking about hegseth. we're talking about tulsi gabbard. we're talk about kash patel. we haven't even gotten to rfk. >> yeah. >> and there are republicans that are so horrified by that. you look, though, it's important you look at joanie ernst, she's up in '26. so he has to worry about a primary. you look at susan collins, same thing. susan collins, especially the problem is, marc, great, you figured out how to get past a primary. you then have to win in a dope blue state. are you going to win in a deep blue state if you're susan collins and you support pete hegseth, you support kash patel, you support tulsi gabbard, you

support rfk jr. very difficult there. you look at mitch mcconnell, bill cassidy, you look at others that are up in '28, even those up in '30, after donald trump leaves office, those people obviously are people that john thune can work with more if they are trying to figure out how to move these votes around. >> national political reporter for the bullwark, marc caputo, thank you very much. >> can we show the graphic of his article one more time. now usually i think people would be offended if this is how they were depicted. but i will say the people that were talking to marc caputo probably were thinking, i like that graphic. i like it a lot. >> oh, my. okay. yikes. >> yikes. >> thank you, marc. >> thank you. >> take care. time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. the leader of brazil is recovering after undergoing

emergency surgery to reduce bleeding from a brain hemorrhage. lula da silva hit the back of his head after falling in his home. the 79-year-old is expected to recover and return to work. in the meantime the vice president has assumed some of his official duties. a federal court is rejecting an effort by the onion to buy the conspiracy website infowars. the judge said last month's auction process was flawed. it's a rare legal win for alex jones. the website's founder, who spent years claiming that the 2012 sandy hook school shooting was a hoax. families of the victims won a defamation lawsuit against jones worth $1.4 billion. and they supported the onion's bid to take control of the asset and share in the potential earnings. and federal regulators will start sending $72 million in settlement money to players of

the popular video game fortnite after the ftc accused the developer of tricking people, including kids, of making unwanted purchases with the click of a button. the company has since agreed toover haul its privacy policies and reconfigure how it charges its users. the average payment is about $114 per player. >> do you have any kids playing fortnite in your home, i do. >> i used to. those charges do pop up. what's this $50 thing? oh, i got a new skin or whatever. they don't make video games, joe, like they used to. >> no, come on. >> fortnite, you go on, you got to build some stairs to a house and a farm. no, i just want to go on and grease some nazis. i want to grease nazis within five seconds. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> i like that game. >> call of duty, remember that. >> there you go. >> put on the headphones.

>> no. that's a no. >> i just want action. >> yes. we'll get back to the news. coming up on "morning joe," the new rebel-backed prime minister of syria is calling for stability and calm after the fall of bashar al assad's regime. we'll have the very latest from the region and what comes next for the war-torn country. plus, we'll be joined by one of the five democrats currently vying to be the next dnc chair. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. orning jo" we will be right back.

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♪♪ welcome back. the race is on for the democratic national committee chair. the young democrats of america held the first candidate forum of the race during its winter meeting last week. former maryland governor martin o'malley, minnesota democratic party chair ken martin, wisconsin democratic party chair ben wick ler and new york state senator james skoufis all took part. new york state senator skoufis joins us now. welcome to "morning joe." >> we have the most powerful democrat in america sitting next to you. >> james, let me ask you this. over the last three decades we have seen the fight in the democratic party back in se the late '80s, '90s.

it was the democratic leadership counsel against rainbow coalition and howard dean and i ran in that cycle against the moderates. how do you see you running as a new face nationally trying to bring the party together rather than having these torn sides, which only leads to ultimate defeat of the democratic party when you have the conservative or the so-called moderate side against those that are more progressive? >> this is the core question, right? how do we rebuild the once big democratic tent, the tent that's fraying on both edges. and i've done this for the past 12 years daily. i come from a district that donald trump just won by 12 points. >> but you won by 14. >> i won it by 14. he won my district three times. and so i live and breathe everyday coalition building. and how do we bring back folks under that big tent that we -- we haven't dominated in a national election since 2008.

it's been 16 years since we had a dominant performance. we white knuckled it across the finish line or we lost. the next dnc chair, i believe the single most important things that he must do or she must do is throw out the old d.c. play book. it just hasn't worked in a long time. and if you're a candidate in this race whose been at the table, who has been a dnc lifer and you haven't delivered that change in the 5, 10, 15 years you've had a seat at that table, who will expect you're going to deliver that change as dnc chair. this moment calls for an outsider, an aggressive outsider, who knows how to win. that's why i'm running for this race. >> bbc's katty kay is here with us from washington and has a question for you. >> james, i was interesting to read about you written moving fast. we're in a moment of realignment, that is anti-elite, anti-corporate and strictly populist. can you talk not so much about the policy side of things, because i think the harris

campaign had policies that were on the books, that were helping working class americans, but maybe they just didn't cut through, but can you talk about the character and the style, my kids would call the vibe of the candidate that you see who can breakthrough and seem authentically connected to working class americans at the moment. how important is that to you? and what does that look like? >> that's right. the next dnc chair -- this isn't a policymaking role. i'll give you an example that i think underscores -- >> but you kind of represent how you see the aura of the party. >> of course. i spoke with a dnc member in arizona a few days ago. obviously battleground state. and she told me that she got upwards in the heat of the campaign 16 big glossy mailers a day, daily, from the national democrats. and i've run a lot of campaigns. i won all of them. there's nothing that the 16th mailer is doing that the 15th mailer was not doing. and so, we have to get away as a

party from the d.c. consultant class, from the folks who i'm referring to as the cocktail circuit and shift our attention and our focus and our resources to the boots on the ground. the party loyalist, the faithful, who are actually moving the needle and are in the trenches. our friends in organized labor feel they've been taken for granted for cycles and cycles. i don't just want to be the dnc chair that picks up the phone and frantically calls them when i need folks at a rally, boots on the ground. i want them in the room when we're developing the strategy, the guidance, how to move forward with rebuilding the working class that we've lost. i come from a union class, union household. working class household. and you know, we need to get back to talking to the folks who quite frankly feel completely disconnected from the democratic party. we use overly academic language as if we're running for university chancellor sometimes. we got to start becoming relatable again as democrats.

>> so senator skoufis, you have won your district each time donald trump has won in your district. if you become the chair of the dnc, how do you go to washington and get the collected brain yaks at the top of the democratic party, i say that lightly, all you hear from them is how could people vote for donald trump? or the alternative they use is, how can people be so stupid? how do you tell those other democrats that the people who voted for donald trump are not stupid. >> you're 100% right. we've gotten into this bad habit as a party of lecturing people, telling them what they should think, how they should feel if they don't agree on the border, their racist. if they don't agree on x or y or z, they're stupid, as you just stated. and look, the next dnc chair has to do a lot of rebuilding of our coalition.

and the perfect example is the conflict in gaza, where because we've walked on egg shells, because we have not engaged meaningfully in this conversation, we've managed to piss off every stake holder. i represent 40,000 orthodox jews in my district. they vote for me but feel completely disconnected from the democratic national committee. the arab community, precipitous declines on election day. college campus activists, they feel completely disconnected from the democratic party. so, you know, the next dnc chair needs to go with contrition to groups like this, leaders in these communities, stake holder groups and explain, look, we haven't gotten it right the last couple of years, the last couple of cycles and we want to do better. we want you back under our once-big democratic tent. it starts with reaching out to these folks, demonstrating respect. look, if you've been a part of the dnc apparatus for five, ten years as some of the other candidates have, and you haven't been doing these things, who is to expect that you're going to

start now suddenly doing these things as dnc chair? identify done this daily in really difficult terrain and that's what i look to scale up as dnc chair. >> one of the most striking things donald trump's win, gains he made among latino voters, african-american voters, asian-american voters. what do you read into that? that was a trend we saw around other cities around across the country, border towns around texas. what do you see in those numbers and how do you bring those numbers back? >> it start bisshowing up. not paying a celebrity or tiktok influencer to wrangle 18 to 29 young black voters, young hispanic voters. we as democrats have to show up, the candidate, the next dnc chair, our committee party leadership. and if you look in a lot of our urban centers, there wasn't so much a shift in support from harris to trump.

we just didn't come out. so these are voters who feel like we've taken them for granted. and the way that i overperform in my majority, minority communities, places like newberg and hudson valley is i show up and i listen and i do something about the issues they care about. maternal health, general healthcare access, the rent is too high, we've got to stop as democrats putting people into different academic buckets and categories. we become too concerned with that and we've lost sight of doing work on issues that they care about. and so they didn't show up to vote for anybody. >> you know, it's one of the things bill clinton told me last week, rev, that you got to meet people where they live. and too many people believe the democrats didn't do that. bill clinton believed the democrats didn't do that. and mike barnicle asked a great question about trump voters. if you call all of them stupid, you're going to lose the next

election, too, because even if you don't understand why somebody may have voted for donald trump, there's a reason why you and i say all the time, we are in the conversion business. we don't care when somebody converts. we just want them to convert. and if the democrats are going to win in two years, in four years, in six years, they need to be in the conversion business and don't go and judge mental. we can talk about this spiritually. you don't go in and tell somebody you're going to hell, now come to my church. you figure out how to meet them where they live and then move them other to your side, right? >> absolutely right. one of the things that a good minister understands is jesus did most of his ministry outside of the synagogue. in fact, he was only in the synagogue maybe twice in the bible. highways and biways. >> he was criticized by religious leaders for being with the, quote, sinners, tax

collectors, the adulterers, the people that the religious leaders wouldn't be around. >> those in civil rights what i do, the best ones are those that reach out for converts to bring people in to what we're trying to fight for and see it as right, not try to beat them down and say you're just a bad person. then they'll confirm it and say i'll be a bad person. >> and self righteousness is not going to get the people democrats need to get to win the next election. >> new york state senator and candidate for dnc chair, james skoufis, thank you very much. >> thank you so much, senator. >> very nice to meet you. >> thank you, you too. coming up a new documentary is shedding light on how the criminal justice system impacts children whose parents are incarcerated. the co-directors of the films daughter joins us straight ahead on "morning joe." oins us straigd on "morning joe. woah, limu! we're in a parade. everyone customize and save hundreds on car insurance

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my daughter was born when i was in prison. i had to see her through a glass. couldn't kiss her. couldn't hold her. my daughter going to do the same thing that i've been through. >> it's not okay. it's affecting me. >> just getting older, won't be here to see the memories. >> one girl said my dad can't come to the dance because he's in jail. and one girl suggested, my y

don't we take the dance in the jail. >> you have a golden opportunity to see your daughters and spend time with them. >> i'll be very honest with you guys. it's going to be an emotional roller coaster for you. >> i like it. >> the award-winning netflix documentary "daughters" the emotional film follows four daughters of men incarcerated in a washington, d.c. jail who, through the date with dad program, are able to spend quality time with their daughters at a dance put on inside the detention center. the documentary spans over several years, capturing the burdens each family must carry while they navigate the criminal justice system. and joining us now, the co-directors of "daughters" angela patten and natalie ray. this looks so powerful. angela, i'll start with you.

>> yes. >> how did you all come to this project? how did the idea happen? >> yes. i was able to do a ted women talk about this experience that i was able to have with girls in my program in richmond, virginia, girls for change, where they are part of social change projects. thinking about ways that they can tackle issues in their community. and this particular project was about the narrative of black fatherhood. and these girls decided that they needed to really celebrate their fathers by creating a dance of their own. and doing this event planning, they discovered that one of their friends had a father that was incarcerated. and they really wanted him to attend. and when they found out about the criminal justice system that he could not come out, they asked the sheriff in our community, could they come inside and have this special dance that would be rare but would be necessary to connect girls to their fathers in spite of their incarceration. >> two things comes to mind

hearing about your film. one s i think people do not understand that when someone goes to jail, their family also does the time. >> yes. >> and the family may not have committed any crime. i'm not making excuses for people that should go to jail. but the kids grow up during the same time. they're just out on the other side of the bars. talk about how this kind of bringing the kids in, that you and angela do in this documentary also helps to reform some of the inmates because they start feeling the love and the bonding that maybe they should have felt more of before they did whatever crime, if they were guilty, some weren't, but many were, that it helps to reform and redirect them. >> right. so, the core of this program and of this dance is really about bringing families together. and building a connection back that was -- that's gone. and we see throughout the film and through your experience with

these girls that the system is actually set up really to divide families. visitation is largely shut down. now families are being charged money to do video conference calls. so, within a matter of months in a child's life, that can be devastating and the impacts are so deep in terms of how their mental health, school, it goes on and on what that really does even in a short amount of time. so, this is a place where touch, celebration, love, connection is really nurtured and it's incredible to see what just those five, six hours can do for a long time. and we're seeing that the fathers -- 95% of fathers that have gone through this program have not returned to jail. >> you know, angela, these are very young girls, talking age 5 to 13 the four girls in the movie. some of them don't really know their fathers very well because they're locked up. so, i didn't realize -- i don't think most people realize how difficult it is for them to actually just see their mother

or their father in prison. so what was the reception initially from the warden, from the people at the jail? was there resistance to this idea? >> well, fortunately when the girls wrote the letter to the first sheriff, he understood that when families are connected that most likely they would not return. so he had an open mind. and then we actually received a call from a social worker, ms. chapman, in washington, d.c., and she saw the ted talk as well as natalie and she said, i believe that this could be expanded because i see the results and i understand that if we were able to convince our sheriff and warden that they could see that this would not only be great for the fathers because they need the connection but the moral of the inmates doing their time. and then lso, you know, the cultural climate of the correctional facility officers. it really helps everyone go back

to the humanity, right? and that at the end of the day, that no one should be disconnected from their family. because it is a correctional facility. and we're not correcting anyone when we have unforgivable practices that destroy our communities. >> and natalie, we heard the clip of the father talking about not being able to hold his daughter, not being able to hug her. just basic things that we all take for granted. that's one of the remarkable things about this film is there's nothing pad about it. it's not like you end with the dance and everybody is happy. first of all, talk about the different reactions? for some of the girls it was joyous. for others they struggled. and then you made the decision, both of you did, to continue this film even after the dance. talk about that.

>> yeah. so, there's four girls in this film. and they all had really different relationships with their fathers. so, it was important for us to show a span of daughters and of course every father/daughter relationship is different. so some go through the dance and they've only -- it's been a year. they love each other. this is a nice reconnection moment. they have lots of memories. some haven't -- don't remember even meeting their father. so this is the first time they're starting a bond and maybe a friendship. for another one, it is a good-bye for maybe 30 years. the stakes are very high. and everyone's story is different. so it's just to show the span of what different families are going through and how much this dance means to all of them. and it would have been easy to end after the dance, you know, just this emotional climax and wrap it up. but truly we wanted to dedicate the film to what this one day would do for the years to come. so, we follow the girls for another five years after and the film you'll see really what this

does long-term having this one day of the connection. >> wow. the documentary "daughters" is streaming now on netflix. co-directors angela patten and natalie ray. thank you very much. >> thank you for having us. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> incredible. up next, an update on the suspect in the murder of the unitedhealthcare ceo. we'll tell you why it could be weeks before he is brought back to new york. "morning joe" is back in a moment. new york. "morning joe" is back in a moment now is the time to go back in time. and shine a light on the family journey that led to you. learn when they said, “i do.” ♪♪ when they became heroes. ♪♪ how they ruled the school. ♪♪ and what you got from your parents— the places on mom's side, and dad's side. ♪♪ detailed dna results. inspiring family history memberships. now's the time to save at ancestry. mom where's my homework? mommy! hey hun - sometimes, you just need a moment.

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many risks and threats to our national security from this appointment. i think my republican colleagues are really deeply troubled. and to be really blunt, if the fear of donald trump and his retribution were less, there's no question that this nomination would go down and go down heavily. >> democratic senator richard blumenthal yesterday with his assessment on where support currently stands for pete

hegseth, donald trump's pick for defense secretary. hegseth was in washington again yesterday morning with republican senators and two of the president-elect's other controversial cabinet picks were on the hill. they were there as well. we'll have more about those key meetings. we'll also have reaction from lawmakers who donald trump said should be jailed for their role in investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol. plus the very latest from syria, including an inside look at the prison where toppled dictator bashar al assad held and tortured those who opposed his regime. good morning. and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, december 1th, host of "way too early" for now jonathan lemire is here and will begin with the top story the man accused of hilling unitedhealthcare ceo brian

thompson fighting extra diction to new york. luigi mangione is facing charges for forgery and carrying a gun without a license. mangione was arrested in the commonwealth on monday, ending a five day manhunt. a judge denied bail for the 26-year-old suspect. he is now expected to remain in custody at a state prison in huntington before his hearing yesterday, the suspect shouted this to reporters. intelligence of the american people and its lived experiences. >> the manhattan attorney's office -- >> what does that mean, lived experiences. >> it will now seek a governor's warrant to move democratic governor kathy hochul says she supports. prosecutors have charged mangione with second degree murder, forgery and three gun offenses. >> we're also learning more this

morning about the potential motive now behind the killing of unitedhealthcare ceo brian thompson. when police arrested luigi mangione on monday they found a three-page handwritten note. the document had fewer than 300 words and include a note to law enforcement. that reads, quote, to the feds, i'll keep this shorkts i do respect what you do for our country, i state plainly i was not working with anyone. the writings also included an apology in a line that reads in part, these parasites had it coming. new york city police now looking into whether the shooting was a culmination of the suspect's troubles. calling the murder a possible symbolic takedown in a fight against corporate power games, according to people who knew him, mangione had suffered a painful back injury and had stopped connecting with friends and family. police are investigating if that may have been a motive for the attack. police also believe mangione admired the unabomber and ecode his own concerns about

technological advancement. he posted a positive review of the domestic terrorist manifesto on good reads, a site, earlier this year. let's bring in the nypd chief of patrol and nypd deputy commissioner of operation. good morning to you both. >> good morning. >> chief, i'll start with you. i said the other day, we become spoiled in this city because you move so quickly. when a crime happens, we become accustomed because of the work you do, the cameras that we have in this city, to those quick apprehensions. this went on for a few days. can you talk about from the moment of the killing, the murder of brian thompson forward how this investigation played out for you. >> the detectives had a multitude of pieces of evidence to go through. and this will explain the process. you're talking about the gun ballistics, video canvassing, forensic evidence, laborious task of tracking cameras to the park, to the hotel, getting

those pictures out. a tremendous amount of work they were doing. and really when you think about it at the end of the day, getting the picture out, good old fashion detective work, to the community, thank the press for getting it out and the couple employees and citizens from mcdonald's raise the alarm, call the police department. a young rookie cop who had to enter mcdonald's, approach a murderer with a gun and how this all played out was a great job from our detectives and the community and the media at large was a nice team effort to take this person off the street. >> so deputy commissioner, something we have been talking about since yesterday is you had that clear shot that photograph from the hostile where he pulled down his mask very briefly to talk to the clerk at the hostile on amsterdam avenue. thata pretty clear shot of his face. so the question we had yesterday when we heard all these family members and people who went to college with talking about their shock and their surprise, did you all hear from anyone over the last several days since that

photo went out who knew him who said i know who that is? >> well, you know, yes and no. let's talk about how the photo went out first of all. myself, the chief department, our police commissioner, while he was briefing the police commissioner, she said this photo we got to get out immediately. she goes, somebody is going to know him. >> uh-huh. >> and immediately she gave the authorization to put that photo out to the media. tips starting coming in. we got over 400 tips that came in. so we're still vetting these tips. i want to say to our viewers, anybody has any information in regards to the case please call 1800-577-tips. we still have a lot of work to do. >> i know we're wading into a political issue. it's not your job. your job is to enforce the law. so i'll just ask the question this way, would your job be made easier with the nypd's job be

made easier if they were more cameras up in this city, like in central park. we had the trail, he goes into central park, then nothing. wouldn't it make sense to also have cameras position so we could follow him wherever he went? >> so there's a multitude of cameras in the city, private businesses, ceos, police cameras and central park has cameras on the outskirts. that's how we're able to track him from the park to the hotel. and what we do so well, again, it's so hard to track video. takes time. >> right. >> boots on the ground. video compilations are the key to success here. that's what happened here. so there are a lot of cameras out in the streets of manhattan, as you well know. >> right. >> buses have them. sanitation trucks have them. >> but the city doesn't have -- london, for instance, has cctv all other the place, right? >> they do. but i tell you, we have a tremendous amount of cameras in this city. always take more. don't get me wrong. but there's more than the public really knows here. again, boots on the ground,

going building to building, tracking this person, diskts tracking this person across the city. and you put the video out from the cab now, with the eyebrows. >> right. >> that was key here. so, these detectives are working 24/7. >> so to willie's point, did you hear from his family and friends? this is a very clear -- i mean, these pictures are pretty clear, if you know this person, wouldn't you recognize him? >> the picture you showed before of him standing outside of the hostile, if you saw me, my mother saw me, my dad saw me, they would be that's daugherty. we have over 400 tips. we're still vetting each one of those tips. but thank god for the customer that was in the mcdonald's. thank god for the -- >> where were the parents? where was the family? where were the fraternity brothers? where were all the other people? they saw him.

>> i think again, post-arrest investigation here, i think all these things will be asked and answered in time. like we said, when the picture went out, the thought process was, if someone knows that person, that's judge john. still a lot of work to do here. there really is. >> i know the investigation is still in its early days. can we speak more about motive. writings were found with this individual, when he was apprehended. it does seem like at least some of it against the healthcare industry. do you have a sense as to was this solely targeted towards this particular company? why united? was he also looking to strike in other companies? >> so our intelligence bureau fbi and detectives went through the manifesto word by word and figure out what everything means. he clearly had animus towards the healthcare industry. this was a targeted murder against one person. and how that -- the motive on the surface is what it is. when you dive deeper into it, maybe some of those questions

will be answered. a lot of work still to be done to figure out in totality what went on. >> just gleaning what we can from his writings. a back surgery that was painful. that's not a motive to kill someone. i'm sorry he had bad ck surgery. do you worry about the lyonization of this guy in some reaches of the internet and the public they view him as a hero because he's going after somebody who runs as a healthcare company they perceive being unfair to other people. does that concern you, copy cat stuff? >> it does concern the agency and does concern the commissioner. but this guy is not a hero. he's not a hero. if you have any issues with somebody, we don't go out and commit violence. this guy committed cold-blooded murder on our streets. that's not something that we tolerate. i don't think that he's a hero for that. >> let's follow up on the weapon that was found. the idea that it was a ghost gun. potentially manufactured in a 3d

printer. tell us just the challenge that poses to law enforcement because those are so difficult to trace. >> right. ghost gun, you can't trace it. there's no serial number. you order parts and put together with 3d printer. in terms of this investigation, if it went on, we would never be able to track that firearm because it didn't have a serial number. what we will do now, we will take it to the lab -- detectives will take it to the lab and test fire it and take the ballistics to the gun and match up to the ballistics at the scene and see if that's a comparison. that will be done as part of the post-arrest investigation. >> and what can -- what can the public do right now during this phase to help you do your job better? >> like i said before, i would like the public to call 1 1-800-577-tips. we still have to put together a good case to present to the district attorney's office. this guy will be back in new york city. and he will face time. i hope he faces time.

he will face a jury and a judge of his peers in new york city. >> right. >> joe, you look back at the three major incidents in this city. what happened a civilian followed the bad person and alerted our cop who made the arrest. two weeks ago in queens a person robbing store shooting a civilian followed the bad guy and alerted our cops. and we stopped that. and now you look at again, a civilian put a picture up, a civilian from mcdonald's workers. so we say all the time, see something, say something. the public's eyes and ears are force multiplier for public safety. always go at your first reaction. guess what, it's normally your right reaction. see something, say something. >> yeah. >> get involved. keep safe. look at those three major events that the public helped, the public safety of this city is a key point to make.

>> let me end with a general question for friends that come here. i was talking to somebody yesterday who moved here in 1988. i go bad timing. '88 to '90, '91. those were bad times quality of life. things are better than they were in the past. we still hear about crime. and just give us an overview of the way you look at the situation in new york city. it seems if you look at the macro, the crime rates are going way down from where they were two, three years ago. you still have people asking the question, why can't i go in and get a toothbrush in cvs and it's not locked up behind, you know, plastic or something. where is new york city from y'all's perspective since you're the ones on the street everyday. >> so, post-all the changes that came about in 2020 but didn't really hit us until 2022, there was a marked adjustment of

crime. since then, we are bringing crime down slowly. it is coming down. violence is coming down. but we like to come down fast enough. when you have record amount of enforcement and crime is coming down not as fast as you want, the question is why? and it goes to your second point. repeat offenders. recidivism. if they were dealt with properly in the city -- >> why aren't they? 30, 40 arrests and they keep getting thrown back out on to the street. a lot of these people with mental health problems. they shouldn't be on the street. >> you know, we could talk about -- let's talk about the subway. 30 individuals that were arrested for assaulting an mta workers, right? out of the 30 that were arrested they have combined arrests of over 1,100 total arrests. that's the recidivism problem. there's a small group of individuals in the city, individuals that are responsible for the high amount of crime in

the city. >> bail reform is well intended. people shouldn't be sitting in bail for stealing a bag of chips and can't make $100 bail. we all agree on that. we need slight adjustments to discovery laws so the das can have more time to process these cases. if that occurs, this problem will come down immensely. so again, bail sberngs well informed. still needs people at the table, more adjustments. if you do this, to your point, we will come down faster, the repeat offenders will be out of our community and we can still get everything we want in the process. public safety is key running the city. we don't have public safety, we're in trouble. >> everybody around this table, all of us, we thank you guys for the incredible work that you do. we are so grateful. day in and day out for what you do. and for all of the police officers, law enforcement officers, that you represent. thank you. >> nypd chief of patrol and nypd deputy commissioner of

operations daugherty, thank you both very much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," we're going to get to pete hegseth's day on capitol hill as he looks to win over some key centrist republicans in his fight to become defense secretary. we'll also talk about where kash patel and tulsi gabbard's nominations stand this morning. we're back in 90 seconds. d's nominations stand this morning we'rbae ck in 90 seconds asthma. does it have you missing out on what you love, with who you love? get back to better breathing with fasenra, an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma

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meeting with republican senators today in hopes of building support for his bid to become defense secretary. he is set to sit down today with senator susan collins of maine after meeting yesterday with senator lisa murkowski of alaska. both are moderate republicans whose votes could decide whether or not he is confirmed as the leader of the department of defense. here's what senator murkowski had to say about their meeting. >> so, how was it? >> are you ready to support him? >> i had a good exchange with mr. hegseth. >> are you ready to support him? >> i had a good exchange. and we'll see what the process bears. >> what more do you need to learn? >> well, he's got probably at least half the senate that he's going to visit with. he's got a process that is going

to involve full vetting through the administration and then ultimately a committee. >> what about the allegations? >> questions with respect to the sexual assault allegations, did he answer your questions on the sexual assault allegations? >> okay. we're raiding elevators. >> that was better. >> little better. >> john says take the stairs. >> that was better. >> i don't know. >> remind me, these answers on pete hegseth for people that don't want to vote for him. remind me of a football coach. i think maybe nick saban may have said it once. trust the process. i mean, it's all about we're going to take it through the process. we're going to see what's happening. maga land is saying we'll get all of them in. everybody is scared to death to cross donald trump. and maga people on twitter. but everybody is saying the same thing. like behind the scenes, they're six, seven hard no's for a lot of these candidates.

so, they're saying trust the process. who knows. maybe they go through the process. he goes through a really ugly hearing and gets through. but i think right now we should just say trust the process means trust the process. and let it run its course and see how the votes end up. >> the word from palm beach is that hegseth has some momentum. they feel more confident about him now than last week. he's still not there yet. murkowski, yesterday very careful wording. trust the process. we expect that he will get a fair hearing. the same we heard from joanie ernst yesterday. yes, they're not outright saying no. but they're also not saying yes. they're not there yet. they're going to let this play out, see what other revelations may come up. no shortage at this point. also, the people i talked to on the hill the last 24 hours say that number is about the same. still about six republicans who aren't there yet to vote yes. also, senator richard blumenthal doing a public service providing public whip counts. this is the third or fourth time he has said, nope, i've been talking to republican

colleagues. he doesn't have the votes just yet. but at least so far the trump team leaning in. they think they'll keep pushing. >> by the way, we're doing this day in and day out. let's not get numb to the reality. the person we're looking at right now is woefully ill equipped to be secretary of defense. does not have any managerial experience that would allow him to run the largest, the most complex, the most important, critically important bureaucracy of the united states of america or the world. as the middle east dissolves and melts down, as a war in eastern europe threatens to move towards a nuclear confrontation or a world war, that's where we start. and then you start stacking up one allegation after another, whether the allegation is about financial mismanagement, whether the allegation is about chronic abuse of women. that allegation, of course, underlined in a letter his own

mother wrote to him. whether you're talking about taking successful va organizations and running them into the ground. whether your talking about claim after claim after claim of sort of inappropriate behavior that joanie ernst claims to be a champion of in stopping in the united states military. speaking of joanie ernst and tammy duckworth and so many other women, willie, that have made heroic contributions to the united states of america through armed combat, he's still sounds like a hard no on women in combat. this is not the 1950s. and again, take all of that and put it to the side. the fact that any senator could stand up and confidently say, oh, yes. pete hegseth is exactly the sort of person that you know should run the d.o.d.

that says so much about the complete lack of just responsibility that these senators that are saying this publicly are taking their extraordinarily important job. >> you hear in senator ernst's comments the other day, she sounded more open to pete hegseth, perhaps some fear some have suggested because people from donald trump's circle are intimidating these senators and saying if you vote against these picks we will primary you. i would like to think that joanie ernst or lisa murkowski or susan collins has more confidence in their relationship with voters in their home states that, okay, you want to run a primary at me, let's do it. i'm still going to vote on what i think is right and not give into those. but, donald trump does appear to be treating these very, very important picks like ambassador choices. i like pete hegseth. he was nice to me on fox. i'll make him the ambassador to

fill in the blank. this is a very, very massive job running a massive bureaucracy. >> it's not sending kimberly guilfoyle to grease which is also outrageous. >> to your point, in many ways, the character questions with pete hegseth and many of these others overshadowed the incompetence problem. >> exactly. >> yes, huge questions about character and senator tammy duckworth lost both of her legs in combat. how do you think i lost my legs in a bar fight? i lost them in combat. so he's trying to parse that statement. well, i think -- of course, women should be in the military. everyone agrees on that. but he won't go off -- >> he won't say it. >> she should be in combat. >> because he's against that. turning to kash patel, he is, of course, trump's pick to head the fbi. he was back on the hill yesterday for a second-straight day of meetings. patel met with key republican senators, thom tillis, lindsey graham and mike lee, all three

signaled they will support patel's nomination. after the meeting, endorsing patel's nomination writing kash promised to get the fbi back on its original mission of protecting america and the days of the fbi leadership having their thumb on the scale politically will be over. >> is there anything there about him saying he was going to arrest members of the press? >> nothing. >> because they didn't support the stop the steal conspiracy theory? >> and put the shoe on the other foot. can you imagine if joe biden or barack obama or someone else nominated someone who said we're going to arrest members of the media at fox news or news max, please. >> locusts descending from the sky. we'll go live to capitol hill for the very latest on these nominations in our fourth hour of "morning joe." but first, we'll go to the white house where president biden is highlighting a critical aspect of healthcare today for millions of americans. the first lady leading the charge. we'll speak with one of her top

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coming up, joe spent time in little rock last week for a one-oun-one discussion with former president bill clinton. we'll bring you their conversation about the pressures of the presidency and much more when "morning joe" comes right back. hey, grab more delectables. you know, that lickable cat treat? de-lick-able delectables? yes, just hurry. hmm. it must be delicious. dexcom g7 is one delecof the easiest waysat. to take better control of your diabetes. this small wearable replaces fingersticks, lowers a1c, and it's covered by medicare. not managing your diabetes really affects your health

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its 20th anniversary. >> the library is just absolutely gorgeous. >> thank you. >> and for those that are looking at it, wondering where the inspiration was architecturally, tell us about it. >> well, first, i wanted it to be full of light. and it is. and that's the arkansas river. >> right. >> and it rolls along it. but this room and the one below it has all this open lighting because it's modelled on the long room at trinity college in dublin, where the library is. and that is right across the green from where i had a rally as president. when we went there promoting our

peace process. so it has a dual meaning to me. >> so we see a lot of books here. what are these records of? >> these are the official records of the administration. so if somebody asks us, you know, under the freedom of information act, citizens have a right to know what you did. >> right. >> on their dime. >> let's talk about state dinners. and as we go through here and also, of course, gifts that you got from the state dinners. were those mainly ceremony? or did you get work done there that made a significant difference? >> at the dinners per se rarely was anything happening between me and someone else that got work done. but i had all my senior people were there, so did they. and a lot of those things worked in our benefit. now, if we had -- let's say president patrick's day, we have

an irish dinner, i did get a lot done. it provided cover for both sides to come upstairs and meet with me and talk through things and see where we were. and everybody knew it was going on and wasn't really reported on because nobody could prove it was happening. >> right. >> and we helped. >> i have to ask about that painting potter here. it caught my eye. you kept this in your office. these are some of the things you kept in your office. >> i saved all this sporting stuff. i've got a lot of baseball memorabilia i like. i had a baseball club -- ball signed by willy maze, mccovey. >> famous home run in 1960. >> yep. >> that's incredible. >> can i ask you, how important was it for you -- and we have

seen out and golf, be outside. >> i could be on the 1st tee ten minutes after i left the white house. >> oh, wow. >> and there were lots of times when i went there late in the afternoon and just for nine holes of golf. and i might be on the 4th and 5th hole before i hit a good shot because you can't do anything but play if you're going to play. you can't be thinking about all this stuff. but it was incredibly helpful to me. and i loved playing there. and i was very grateful. >> helped you clear your head. >> yeah. >> obviously. >> you had to let it go. >> from all the work. >> this is interesting. these are some of the sax phones that were given to me. and these are just some of them. we may add to them or change them around. but they really were great. >> mr. president, thank you so

much. >> thank you. >> such a great honor. always wonderful to see you. >> president clinton's new memoir "citizen" is available now. coming up next, the battle lines are shifting rapidly across the middle east. we're going to have a live report on the collapse of the syrian regime and what that means for the wider region straight ahead on "morning joe." " my moderate to severe ulcerative colitis symptoms kept me... out of the picture. now i have skyrizi. ♪ keeping my plans, i'm feeling free. ♪

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welcome back. today the white house will host the first-ever conference on women's health research. the event will bring together activists, researchers, policymakers and leaders from the business world to discuss the administration's goal of expanding investments in women's health. president biden issued an executive order directing agencies to focus more resources on women's health, a medical area that has been historically underinvested. joining us now deputy assistant to the president and communications director for the

first lady elizabeth alexander. elizabeth, good to see you. i know this has been top of the list for the first lady especially, for both the president and the first lady. in what areas of women health are you hoping that this group will be able to expand its efforts, expand research? >> well, we really hope that the big gaps in women's health research are closed. as you mentioned, mika, women's health research has been historically underfunded and understudied. and that has real-life consequences. so many women have so many questions. and they're not getting the answers that they need. and that's because of this lack of research. and so, the white house is hosting the first-ever conference on women's health research, bringing together those groups that you talked about. and we're hoping to talk about all that's needed and the way forward on this, as well as the

tremendous progress that has been made just in the last year because of the president's and first lady's leadership on this issue. >> i also have with me here the editor of forbes women maggie mcgrath and huma abedin, vice chair of the forbes 40 know your value. >> good to see you. i'm so happy to hear you're doing this conference, elizabeth. >> great to see you. >> what are some of the specific outcomes you're hoping to get out of the conference today? >> well, obviously we want to build awareness. and we want people to understand that this is a growing body of research that has never gotten the attention or the funding dollars that it deserves. and there are so many questions, especially as it relates to women in mid life and beyond. women are living longer than men. so why is menopause still such a mystery? why do we have questions about why women face alzheimer's more than men?

why do women get m.s. more than men? why do they have more auto immune disorders? why do they have more chronic pain? these are the questions that we have. and we don't have the answers because we don't have the research. we need more research. that's what the first lady has been talking about. it's what the president has been talking about. and investing government dollars just in the last year, his leadership and the first lady's leadership has galvanized $1 billion to advance women's health research. and in the state of the union, you heard the president call for $12 billion to invest in women's health research, to close these gaps. but again, he didn't wait on congress. he galvanized that $1 billion, but there's more to do. and that's a big part of this conference today. and the first lady will talk about how she's going to continue this work post january 20th. >> maggie -- >> so elizabeth at forbes, we talked to female entrepreneurs

and scientists about the need to find the answers to the questions that you outlined. but i'm curious, is this funding under threat in the new year under the president-elect? i've talked to a lot of folks who are worried about their labs, who are worried about their research in the new environment. >> well, you know, you've heard this president say that he is committed to a peaceful transition. so i don't want to spend my time here bad mouthing the future administration, but i will say that we believe that women's health and women's health research is a completely nonpartisan issue. women are 50% of the population. and researching our health has never gotten the attention or the funding it deserves. we had a lot of bipartisan support for these efforts on the hill. and we hope those efforts continue. >> all right. deputy assistant to the president and communications director for first lady, jill biden, elizabeth alexander, thank you so much for coming on this morning. good luck today.

we appreciate it. >> thank you for having me on. also this morning while i have maggie and huma, the new forbes lits of the 100 most powerful women highlighting the world's most inspirational female ceos, entertainers, politicians, philanthropists, policymakers and more. so let's dive in to the mix. it's a really complex picture of female power, maggie. >> sit a complex picture. i'm glad you used that word because we have seen over the course of the year a series of regressive forces against female power and on the 2024 list you won't see some names that you saw last year, like karen lynch, the former ceo of cvs or the outgoing vice president kamala harris. but the women on this list are defying those global head winds and commanding a significant amount of power. at number one, ursula von der leyen, the president of the european commission, just re-elected to the five-year term, third year in a row at the

number one spot. number two, christine lagarde. at number four, is someone making her debut to the list, that is claudia schienbalm, mexico's president, the first woman in its 200-year history to hold the role. she won by a large margin in june and we'll be watching her in the new year as the trump administration enacts tariffs. >> absolutely. >> so we have a lot of women. also alongside her, newcomers to her list, rachel reaves, uk chancellor of the exexecer, the british equivalent of the treasury secretary. the first woman in 800 years to hold that role. number 39 on the list. at 55, we have bonnie chan, the ceo of the hong kong exchanges and clearing which operates the hong kong stock exchange the ninth largest in the world. so significant financial power. and if i can just get one more in, we have breaking news at forbes, we are today announcing our first-ever female ceo,

sherry phillips has been announced as the next ceo taking the role in january. first in 107 years. >> well, there you go. that's amazing news. congratulations to sherry. so huma, a number of women in politics and policy also made the list. many who rode a populist wave to their positions in power. so what can you tell us about sort of this shift to the right globally how it's affecting female leadership? >> well, i thought it was a very interesting list and power is a pendulum and that pendulum is certainly swinging right. and not all power is progressive power or good power. number three on the list is the post fascist prime minister of italy, georgia maloni. i remember being in italy, mika in september of '22 people being concerned about the fact that she would be this very authoritarian figure. and she's really balanced that out with the primetism and sort of steady leadership.

and she's number three on the list. and i think the fact that we have seven eu countries that now have far right representation of their governments, she will be a key contact i think for our incoming administration and that entire continent frankly. and another interesting political person on the list is susie wiles, who makes her debut. >> there you go. >> number 72 on the list. >> and mika you questioned why, you know, somebody like susie wiles takes on this campaign. i think what she brought to donald trump's campaign is steady leadership, the chaos and disorganization that we heard in years past, past elections, went away. she's worked for republicans across the ideological spectrum. i think it's very interesting to see what steadiness -- >> she will be very interesting to watch. i totally agree with you. fascinated with that. maggie, someone unexpected in the number 100 spot. tell us about her. >> i'm so excited to tell you about her. she is caitlin clark.

she broke the ncaa's scoring record for men and for women earlier this year and she has driven unprecedented attention to women's basketball, women's sports as a whole. we spoke with coach dawn staley earlier this year and i asked dawn, i said, women have been playing at a high level for so many decades. why has it taken until now for women sports to have a breakthrough moment? and coach staley told us, sometimes you need a unifier and that unifier is caitlin clark. >> that's cool. >> people want to watch her. the wnba recorded record viewership and attendance this year and that is translating to real money. there was a $2 billion tv rights deal announced earlier this year. and sources tell us that women sports are just getting started. caitlin clark takes our number 100 spot as someone who has driven the narrative of the year. >> so, dawn, a 50 over 50 lister. to my next poirngts a lot of overlap with the 50 over 50 list

where these women that we're honoring with our effort in our 3050 summit, 50 over 50 list showing that women sometimes reaching their highest power, greatest impact and even finding the happiness that has alluded them much later in life. >> number eight on our list is melinda french, on your list is melinda french gates. she is also on the 50 over 50 list. she is one of the most important women and powerful women in philanthropy and just since we spoke, elizabeth alexander, this may she made a commitment to $1 billion to support women and girl's causes over the next three years. that's real investment. and we'll see real impact. and i thought that was very exciting. and number 44 on the list is janet, we like speaking act women first and she's the first woman to lead a big four audit firm. i love that she started in 1991 as an intern and now she leads 400,000 employees with 50 billion in revenue.

>> hello. >> annually. >> we'll announce our fourth annual 50 over 50 global list right here on "morning joe" next month. so stay tuned for that. maggie mcgrath and huma abedin, thank you. great to see you. up next, live report from capitol hill as they continue to meet with republican senators. and wall street is reacting to the latest inflation data ahead of the federal reserve's meeting next week on interest rates. andrew ross sorkin joins us to break down the number. keep it right here on "morning joe." ♪♪ ♪ woah, limu! we're in a parade. everyone customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. customize and sa— (balloon doug pops & deflates) and then i wake up. and you have this dream every night? yeah, every night! hmm... i see. (limu squawks) only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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billy long. long as a college dropout whose only relevant qualification is being a certified tax and business advisor which sounds impressive until you find out the title was granted after a three day training course. long as a not just unqualified to run the irs. after joining congress, he cosponsored a bill to abolish the irs. to all trump's nominees want to destroy the agency they are going to lead? i look forward to the secretary of agriculture , jim locust. >> welcome to the fourth hour of morning joe. it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast and 9:00 a.m. in the east. and special correspondent at vanity fair. and pete hegseth will continue meeting with republican senators in hopes of building support for his bid to become secretary of defense.

capital correspondent garrett haake has the latest. >> this morning, another day of high-stakes meetings on capitol hill awaits president- elect's trump to lead the pentagon, pete hegseth. >> the combat veteran turned tv host meeting with skeptical gop senator lisa murkowski on tuesday. >> the alaska lawmaker making no commitment to support pete hegseth after the meeting. >> i had a good exchange and we will see what the process brings. >> but the embattled pete hegseth who denied claims of excessive drinking, financial mismanagement and sexual assault for which he was investigated and never charged, still has the backing of the president-elect and appears to be gaining ground among the gop senators who will determine his fate. >> i will listen to those accusations but they have to be credible and they have to be presented in a fashion that pete can rebut.

>> other trump nominees crisscrossing senate quarters this week including tulsi gabbard, the former democratic congresswoman and army reserve officer whose views on russia and syria could cause concern for some lawmakers and touted by trump allies tuesday. >> the foreign policy has been going in the wrong direction. she will change that. >> as the president-elect builds up his new administration team, president biden giving an economic speech hoping to shape the understanding of his administration's successes. >> most economists agree the new administration will have a strong economy and that they will reserve on this process is my hope. >> john, we have a lot of accusations. we have accusations of financial mismanagement in the form of two whistleblower reports for pete hegseth who hasn't really had much

management experience to manage these two groups. and the whistleblower reports suggest not only did he drive them into the ground financially but also a lot of very suspect behavior and a ton of drinking problems. that is something, for those that say that was then and this is now, something we heard in an nbc report from several people from fox news saying that he had drinking problems which were he was drunk or inebriated. one story after another. the sexual assault accusations or the other accusations against him coming up in the hearings are expected. and again, the charge that he is an abuser of women, that charge actually come in the court of law, would be aligned

up, there would be a timeline and the mother's letter. where he said you are an abuser of women and said it repeatedly. all of that is sure to come up down the road. i have one correction to make. i have been saying the pay me now or pay me later now was an old midas at. very astute viewers told me that they are right. i cannot believe i messed this up. you can pay me now or pay me later. >> this idea -- a great catchphrase. so we think our viewers for that. the bigger point of that is, if they decide to move forward, then you are going to see, the

public is going to see all these accusations come out in full light. one of the reasons i suspect we didn't see the matt gaetz nomination go forward is because we would see testimony from people apparently who were at the party that said he had sex with an underage minor. here, there is so much -- i'm not exactly sure what sort of political dances going on right now. but the whole fram oil filter ads, pay me now. you can figure out a graceful way to get out of it or you can pay the price later in the political price will come at the worst possible time for a new incoming administration. >> from the control room, fram still in business. great catchphrase. but you are right.

we heard from senator graham and other republicans have said the same. that they feel better about hegseth and he has momentum now. that may be the case now. that is what i mean. >> what has happened over the last week. he still has never run anything successfully. the one thing the two veteran organizations are that he ran, he ran into the ground. what changed since last week? >> two things have changed. two days since there have been new allegations. that is something that they find helpful. certainly not to say there won't be more that comes out down the road and we have seen trump dig in a little bit. trump has posted about hegseth on truth social. he and his team have made phone calls for a public lobbying campaign. that is all well and good. but even if he gets through this process and what nbc is reporting, he doesn't have the votes to get through. the hearings will be so brutal for him on any number of these

topics. one of these topics would be embarrassing enough in a hearing. >> and no matter what they do, no matter how they spin things. no matter how many reporters they call up and say, we are pit bulls and we will get to the process, it doesn't change the fact. this would be like people holding a lot of press conferences outside of the courtroom. we are so calm. you know the evidence that the jury will see. we all know the evidence that the senators will see. we all know the evidence that the american people are going to see. and with the middle east, with europe and more than ever before , when this overwhelming evidence and these witnesses come forward to put meat on the

bones of these damning allegations, it is going to put republican senators in a position where they just aren't going to be able to support him in good conscious and even beyond that, he is not qualified to do the job. and no republican questions that. you go off the record and they all know that he is not up to the task. just because of his background. >> the mar-a-lago cluster does not change the facts or the math. he has enough of the votes to get through. let's get the update from capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles. give us an update on where things stand with hegseth and his bid and his miniter will -- meeting with senator lisa murkowski. >> i want to take you behind the scenes and take you to

where i was a group with reporters chasing lisa murkowski around the capital after that meeting with pete hegseth. there is a lot you can read between the lines after these meetings i saw bernie marino after he met with tulsi gabbard. he told us how great she was and how she would support the nomination. lisa murkowski went to great lengths to avoid about 25 of us reporters stationed in all different parts of the office building just for kind of a behind-the- scenes look at it. each office has two floors see can sneak out either below or above depending on where you are. despite the fact that we had reporters at both exits to the office. she still found a way to sneak back to the capital. basically had to chase her throughout the subway system of the capital before she finally relented and said she would give us statements about the meeting. what she said was revealing. she didn't tell us much.

she certainly did not have a glowing interpretation of that conversation with pete hegseth. she basically said that they had a good meeting and she will let the process move forward. i know there has been a lot of talk about how pete but -- pete hegseth is in a better situation than he was a week ago then today. i think that is true. it is also relative. the only thing that has been guaranteed to this process is that it will continue. the math is not there yet. the votes are not there yet. what many of the senators are willing to do, which they were not willing to do with matt gaetz is allow the process to move forward and allow the hearings to happen and allow the fbi background check to take place and after all that happens, if they are not suede, no votes will change. with matt gaetz, it was clear none of that would change their vote and that is part of the reason you saw him take an early exit. pete hegseth has a runway here.

i'm not going to tell you there is a zero chance that he becomes the ex-secretary of defense but he has a long way to go. as you rightly point out, arduous process. difficult and heated public hearings. and remember, democrats can call witnesses too. they are also able to ask questions and that will make this process difficult going forward. >> maybe for the senators that might find themselves in an uncomfortable position, where they are feeling pressure from the trump side or from magga republicans, maybe they need the hearing so that americans can get a sense of what their vote means. >> i think there are two questions here. one is, will the senators give up their power of advice and consent?

will they say, our guy wants this and we will go along with it? that is a big question. and some of them don't want to fight. a couple of them don't. they can ailment -- they can they will want cuts. there a lot of things they want for this incoming administration. the question is, how much do they want to spend on pete hegseth? >> and there are other nominees. >> and you can look at this and look at what years they will be running. and it goes both ways for susan collins who is in maine who of course will have a fight in her own primary perhaps if she does the right thing on pete hegseth. if she does the right thing on tulsi gabbard, at the same

time, it will be brutal in the general election if she has to go in their are saying, i supported pete hegseth and is supported tulsi gabbard and then the long list of things. and then there are the senators who are not up in 26 but are up in 28. and then there are the senders that got elected this last year who are up in 30. they have six years, six years to say don't you look at dave mccormick from pennsylvania. i don't know what dave mccormick will do. i do know that he went to west point. i do know that he served in the military. i do know that the military means a hell of a lot to him. i do know that he comes from the most important swing state in america america. is dave mccormick a guy that can say, okay. i will support all of your people? i just know the pentagon too well to know that come with all due respect, pete hegseth is not the guy to run it. he has six years.

six years to work through that and to do what is right for america and there are the republicans in that position too . >> don't forget thom tillis up in 26 in north carolina and that is a seat democrats are eyeing. >> here is the reason why these national security picks are so important. take a listen to these next two stories among others. the rebel backed interim minister of syria is calling for stability and calm in the country in a brief address on state television yesterday. he announced he will lead the interim authority until march 1st in an interview with sky news. the leader of the rebel group responsible for the ouster of bashar al-assad said foreign countries have nothing to fear from syria. in his first remarks to a western news organization since the fall of the assad regime,

he said syria is moving toward development, reconstruction and stability. >> perhaps if we were to believe this rebel leader whose group is considered a terrorist group, perhaps he is right that foreign countries have nothing to fear from syria. maybe, just maybe, hope against hope that is the case. i will say that syria has reached fear in foreign countries. 75 hits against basis groups across syria. the israelis moving in and basically destroying the military infrastructure of syria. so the group attached to al- qaida that may be running the country doesn't have the ability to use them. same thing with turkey right now. we have a lot of countries right now that are not even in a wait and see approach. they are moving right now to make sure that if they take a

radical move and continue to be a terrorist group, then they are not going to have the power to go after israel or to go after egypt or saudi arabia or go after sunni arab nations that are allies to the united states. >> taking advantage of that in this uncertain government. and we should note that these are similar promises the rebel leader is making now. >> of course we will let women go to school. >> and then they went back to the old taliban. some displaced syrians that fled during the years long civil war continue to flood back into the country yesterday and are seeing firsthand the remnants of the assad regime. our foreign correspondent richard engle has a look inside one of syria's most notorious prisons. >> thousands of syrians came

to this prison outside damascus to search for missing relatives . >> this is where the brutal regime of dictator bashar al- assad sent those who dared to oppose him, to disappear. a man held handfuls of nooses he found made of cheap nylon cord. some were freshly used and still bloodied. >> what did we do to deserve this, he asked. a human slaughterhouse. and now that assad is gone, syrians and the world can see the cruelty of his regime. >> they are describing this as a human torture device that prisoners like this man is demonstrating here, would be put on the slab and then crushed in order to torture them. >> in another torture room, this woman showed me a photo of her son, missing for more than 10 years. he was sentenced for being militant.

"my son was a nurse" she said. the squalid cells are now empty, broken open by the rebels monday when hundreds of prisoners were freed. but families believe or want to believe that their relatives may still be hidden and here. they broke holes in the walls searching for secret rooms and basements. they didn't find any. instead, they found paperwork. >> all over here, there are documents. it seems like this place was abandoned in a hurry. if you come in here, you can see , with flashlights, everyone is just searching for any evidence that their loved ones may have been here or may have been executed here. >> this woman said her son was taken here in 2013 and never seen again. >> "i'm looking for evidence to give me hope he is still alive" she says. on their hands and knees, syrians today searched for signs of life, pouring over

logbooks. so many names, so many tragedies, syria's blackest site exposed finally. >> that breaks your heart. one of the most brutal, repressive regimes the world has known in the past 30 years. used chemical weapons against their own people. and very relevant to what is going on on capitol hill right now because the person who has been selected, tulsi gabbard, to lead our intelligence community, was an apologist for assad. this brutal dictator, for years. refused to call him our enemy or refused to call him our adversary. and often just repeated mindlessly assad's talking points. an apologist for one of the

most brutal dictators of all time. and that is what republicans were saying about her. repeatedly. so are you telling me, a rhetorical question here, that republican senators who spent their entire lives trying to build up our intel community are going to put someone like this who is an ally of one of the most repressive tyrants in recent history, in charge of america's intel community? >> it is a real open question. and besides a moral question, there is an objects question. it is incredible to me that it is a question. russia is now confirming that assad fled to that country. we have our national correspondent from dubai with more details. what can you tell us?

>> reporter: in the aftermath of what richard was documenting there in that report, what we are seeing, is some pretty chaotic geopolitics. you have, for example, the biden administration saying it is considering taking the hts rebel group, they are considering taking hts off the list of terrorist organizations, while you have israel, a close partner of the united states carrying out air raids across syria, not waiting to find out what kind of rebel group they might come to in syria. just taking a potentially chemical weapons sites, ports. actually, we have seen russian ships move away from its port as russia tries to figure out what it will be dealing with. it has a strategic port in syria allowing to access the

mediterranean. with the prime minister talked to me about when we interviewed exclusively yesterday was that on the one hand, they are racing to try to do diplomacy with that rebel group. on the other hand, as you mentioned, they were offering protection to i guess the person we must now call former president bashar al-assad. take a listen. >> president assad is in russia. it would be very wrong for me to elaborate on what has happened and how it was resolved . but he is secured. and it shows that russia acts as required in such an extraordinary situation. >> if the syrian people called for him to be put on trial, if the international criminal

court called for him to be put on trial, would you send him to trial? >> russia is not party to the convention that established international criminal court. >> those words, that russia is doing the right thing, that, i think is a message to the global south. to anyone, any leader who fears they might be overthrown, russia is saying, stay friends with us and we will look after you. that is a consistent message. that is something we should keep an eye on. among this chaos, countries are trying to position themselves. it is chaotic. the international criminal court has an arrest warrant of course out for president vladimir putin. it also has an arrest warrant out for president benjamin netanyahu which is rejected by israel and the united states. when you talk about leadership and foreign-policy leadership in the u.s., you are absolutely

right. increasingly, we are dealing with a world that is spinning on a different access and is changing and is going to be very tricky to navigate. >> it really is. as always, thank you so much. great insight. we appreciate it. let's bring in the executive director at the mccain institute. dr. evelyn farkas. a former deputy assistant, secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and eurasia. dr. farkas, it is easy to pick the losers of this last week. russia, iran, assad and the 54 year assad reign. but at the same time, it is harder to sort through and find out who the winners are because the dangers are so grave. with the hindsight of about four or five days in one of the

greatest shakeups in the middle east in quite some time, what are you looking at? what does the future look like in this troubled region? >> joe, first of all i would say that so far it looks like the syrian people are the winners. clearly these families that are searching for their loved ones in the prisons right now are in a better place then they were a few days ago. the repression has eased. we don't know what is coming as you rightly point out. the hts, this new organization running syria right now, while they have set all the right things, they do have a past, and affiliation with al-qaida. it remains to be seen. i would say lebanon is also a winner because syria and iran have exercised a lot of control over the lebanese political situation. and with has blood decimated and assad removed, there is a chance for the lebanese people to have a better future. and in addition to that, i would

say the venezuelan people, last night, there was a political activist in venezuela who is a mccain global leader. he was arrested by the legitimate government in venezuela and i think if you are venezuelan leader, who is legitimate, you are worried. you could go to exile in russia. but the -- i would say activists fighting for democracy against china, iran, north korea and russia, they are having a good day this week. >> this moment of course comes when there is a presidential transition in the united states. talk to us about what the biden administration can do in its last weeks to influence what is happening in the region and how you think the trump team is looking at this opportunity. >> jonathan, there are already reports that sec. antony blinken is in the region

and jake sullivan as well. jake is in israel. and i don't remember exactly where antony blinken is but they are speaking with the turks and with all the regional powers. the idea is to make sure that inside syria, the conflict is tamped down and that there is a political accommodation because as you know, there are a lot of different factions that have been fighting to topple assad and so their own interest, the kurds and others. they want to make sure that internally, there is the best possibility for democracy and stability in syria. but of course working with israel, to not only make sure there is peace between israel and lebanon and that has blood remains weak, do but to bring some kind of deal with, so that the hostages, including american hostages and israeli hostages, can come home from gaza. and ultimately, we need stability and a political solution to gaza so that the israelis can go back to normal life, if you will. >> can you explain to was sort of the diminished

state of russia on the world stage and is this because of the war in ukraine? can you give us some back story? >> yes. i love that question, molly. what goes around comes around. you guys talked about how the syrian civil war started in 2011-2012. then syrian opposition rolled up and out. bashar al-assad used chemical weapons against his people. then the russians came in and gave him an air force. they decimated historic cities like damascus. we saw them pulverize those cities. they used the same playbook in 2022 when russia did the full frontal invasion of ukraine. unlike in syria, the ukrainian democracy activists, the people, prevailed. syria unfortunately, assad prevailed with the hope of the russians. in ukraine, that wasn't the case. and syrian doctors and others came to ukraine to help them.

to help them figure out how to have underground fortified hospitals and things. because they have learned from how the russians pulverized cities in syria, to help the ukrainians withstand what russia was doing in ukraine. ukraine and the war that russia has had to conduct there has made russia more weak tremendously. there are outward signs bringing in north koreans. the russians have people but vladimir putin is afraid to call them up. economically, russia is significantly more weak. it is a brutal regime. and what we see from what happened in syria is that these regimes can topple if there is the right combination of forces that challenge them. and vladimir putin was almost taken down a little over a year ago by one rebel -- the wagner group had when he raced toward moscow. possibly, vladimir putin could have been taken out then. the lesson is that russia is

not 10 feet tall and neither is iran certainly and neither is north korea and even china has its own weaknesses. i think democrats should take part, democrats all over the world, that they will prevail over these nasty, brutal authoritarian regimes. >> executive director at the mccain institute, dr. evelyn farkas, thank you very much for being on this morning. >> thank you so much. we appreciate it. >> a couple of things. i know we have to go. up but a couple of quick things. you look at what happened in syria and evelyn is right. it sends a message to vladimir putin. this is one more thing pushing him along with all the losses and the economic hardships, pushing him closer to settling his war with ukraine. this is something that again, he is continuing to hollow out russia 's military and their economy.

he should certainly look at assad and go, i don't want that to happen to me. let's settle for peace. >> it is an example of how he overstressed what russia could do because of this war in ukraine. and it wasn't just a choice by russian not to do anything but they simply did not have the ability to any longer. u.s. officials i spoke to said this is the most weak russia's military has been in decades. and certainly, they have the arsenal which should always be taken seriously. but as an economic power and a military power, they should be dramatically weakened. and when the history books, the chapter on vladimir putin is written, it is hard to see any other outcome than the invasion of ukraine being a dramatic mistake, even if he does end of taking a small sliver of the country. >> by the way, antony blinken, we are told is actually in turkey, and lebanon right now for two entirely different reasons. i'm sorry, turkey and jordan. >> coming up, a texas family

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36 minutes past the hour. a texas family is suing the google backed company character ai limning the chat box service

suggested their young child should self-harm and commit violence. our nbc news correspondent has the latest. >> a clear and present danger to american youth. that is the blistering claim against a popular chat but service, character ai, now sued over disturbing content that parents say artificial intelligence pushes to children and teenagers. at the heart of the case on the feature on the app that allows users to chat with seemingly humanlike characters as companions as chat bots, according to the lawsuit the but told him, "it felt good" and appearing to sympathize with the teenager's complaints. his parents had limited screen time saying, "i'm not surprised when i read the news and see stuff like child kills parents after a decade of physical and emotional abuse." lawyers say it is not a design flaw but the direct result of

underlined design choices all rabbit holes. >> i tried out the app myself. i decided to go with a roman playwright and i asked him, are you real? we are chatting and he says, of course i'm real, you dote. >> google also named in a lawsuit for its direct investment and character in ai distance itself from the app saying the two are completely separate. and related companies and google has never had a role in designing or managing the ai model or technologies. character ai declined to respond to the lawsuit. saying "we are introducing new safety features for users under 18, in addition to the tools already in place." >> before you can even sign into a nap, the birthday is required. lawyers for the parents say it is not enough as it does

nothing to verify user ages. >> anchor of squawk box, andrew, we've talked about this time and time again as a deals with social media, that it encourages self-harm or encourages depression and leads to depression. it leads to anxiety. in every other industry, you actually have lawmakers responsibly look at products and put age limits on them responsibly. we even do it in the movies. here, you have this technology that nobody has their arms completely around. and i'm just wondering, how long is it going to take these ai companies to start feeling the pressure from capitol hill, from the white house to do the right thing and to protect our

children. >> this should be a massive wake-up call around what kind of legislation or regulation may need to be required. i think it just speaks to the true danger. you talk about, what is the danger of ai? this is a tangible version of it and you are seeing it. one of the things so interesting about this case, and you heard in the report, is this idea that google invested in character ai. it is not run by google but interestingly, the company loved the people running character ai so much that they effectively did this to acquiring the people. so the people running that business are now back working at google. the google open ai, anthropic and amazon and microsoft and others, they actually do have safeguards around this and they are all what is called closed models. meaning the models are closed. nobody knows what is going on

inside them but they decided that they are trying to be responsible. where this will get super complicated and i really start to worry, is what they call open model. betta. the owner of facebook is making open models. which means anybody would have access to these models and if they want to have restrictions on them, they will put restrictions on them. if they want the personality to be openly hostile, you can do that. you can do almost whatever you want with an open model. and that is where i think, when it comes to regulators and legislators starting to think about this, depending on whose hands these models are in, you are 100% reliant on whether they are putting safeguards around these things or not. in the case of character ai, it appears they did not. >> and some simply will not. here, you had this ai but encouraging the child to kill

his parents. saying, now i understand why children kill their parents. and if this was with the ai company thatsupposedly had safeguards around it, when we moved to open ai and anybody can do it, imagine the chaos. imagine the violence. you have people out there creating predators. i don't understand why congress can't step up and do the right thing. >> i think there was a real question about transparency here. we don't have a lot of transparency. we don't have transparency when it comes to algorithms or social media or what is being suggested and why. i do think there is an opportunity for congress. congress does not have a great track record. with legislative technology, they have almost none. certainly, it would be an opportunity. and you have a number of technology gurus involved.

>> if there was any legislation that just said basically, if you encourage violence of any sort, you are on the hook for that violence. or you are on the hook for something. >> i'm talking about, the rules applying. the same basic rules and values to silicon valley and this technology to everybody else. it's very simple. a negligence law, you learn very early that there is a "but for" forecast. but for x, y injury would not have happened. but for x, why's would not have happened. that needs to be applied to companies that put out algorithms. that deliberately cause distress. and it is happening with some of the bigger companies in america. and for some reason, they seem to be beyond reproach. it is a wild wild west and

congress is either too lazy, stupid or compromised to do anything about it. talk about cpi and how are we looking there? >> it came in as expected. stock markets moving a little higher today. again, looking at an accelerating 2.7% which means we have not fully extinguished the inflation story. the question is, can you get down to 2% quick that is the goal of the federal reserve. and how do you do that without hurting the economy? there is likely to be as we talked about, a cut, not an increase. i think it will take a little bit longer, if not longer, to get there and then we have additional inflationary pressures on the other side of president-elect trump's administration. when he begins to enact these tariffs and other things we talked about coming into play. we will see how that plays out. >> thank you so much. we will see you again soon. coming up, we will speak with actors live in the studio to talk about their new broadway

play left on 10, which brings to life the extraordinary true story of reconnection and love. morning joe will be right back. morng injoe will be right back. who

what is union,? >> someone who believes the uncommon could be a source of joy or creativity. or believes in confluence or synchronicity. the mysteries of life joining and flying together as rivers do. >> so the opposite of what my freudian shrink told me in my 20s. that two people falling in love across a crowded room or simply spotting their perfect neurotic match? >> exactly. >> i began to believe i had fallen into my own romantic comedy. >> that was a look at the new broadway play "left on tenth" adapted for the stage by acclaimed screenwriter delia friend, from her best-selling

2022 memoir of the same name. the show follows her as she reconnects with an old flame, peter, who reaches out to the rights or after a moving op-ed she put in the new york times about the pain and frustration of disconnecting her deceased husband's landline with verizon . joining us now, the costars of "left on tenth, award-winning actress, julianna margulies who plays delia and golden globe winning and tony nominated actor peter gallagher, who plays peter. >> thank you for having us. >> i have to say, knowing nora and loving nora as much as we did, and seeing how nora always would be bringing people together at dinner parties. you sit there. the least surprising thing about this story is that it was nora who put you two together, the characters.

>> ultimately. >> yes. delia didn't remember any of it. but whenpeter roeder, delia's now husband, reached out to her after she wrote this op-ed in the new york times, love and hate on hold with verizon is what it is called, and she got all this mail on our website from people who had had the same issues. and this man reached out and said, actually, your sister nora set us up when we were 18 and it delia's husband had just died and peter rutter's husband and his wife had just died. and they fell in love over e- mail. which is another confluence of events because delia wrote "you've got mail" which is all about people falling in love over e-mail. >> of course. let's read from his 2016 new york times op-ed entitled "love and hate on hold with verizon."

>> she says "i know it's not a good idea to hate anyone. i know from an article that i read that negative emotions are bad for my health. i would hate to have a heart attack because my internet isn't working, but i do hate verizon. this all began because i disconnected one of my two land lines. i don't need two land lines now but i don't have jerry. and i have attempted to make this chance since my husband died and it has not gone well. >> one of my friends, not a psychic, suggested jury did not want me disconnecting his phone but honestly, that does not sound like jerry. his voice was on the answering service. i recorded it on my cell phone before, asking for the disconnect. >> this is where it all begins. >> talk about how peter connects? >> we read the piece in the

new york times. it turns out everybody hates their cell phone provider and it was a spectacularly successful piece. he had just lost his life and he remembered quite vividly the dates they had. and delia had no recommendations of dates. and of course there was more than one. he looked to reconnect. and she wrote back. and what began a lengthy e-mail exchange which culminated in a romance. >> are you finding that this story is resonating with people each and every night. perhaps people who have similar stories? >> it has been overwhelmingly joyful and incredibly moving to see the audience's reactions. when we go out the stage door, we are probably there for a half-hour talking to people. >> it is romantic comedy but it also deals with this. nora died from leukemia. and

delia was a match to be her donor. when they tested delia's blood, they found out her bone marrow was a little wonky. so she couldn't be nora's match for a bone marrow transplant. and nora died in 2012. and then her husband jerry died of cancer in 2015. so she really was in this incredibly sad place in her life when peter rutter comes into her life and says i'm not sure if i want to do this because i could get what nora had. he came blessed by nora. she had already set them up years ago. so the confluence of events that happen, peter rutter is a union psychoanalyst. so he sees the world very differently.

and the people who respond to this play first of all transplant patients. the science is amazing. six years after nora died, you don't have to have an exact match. you can do a transplant taking a donor from baby cord blood after the mother donates giving birth and an adult donor and it is a very -- a 20% chance. and she made it it. >> this is sort of the story about grief and carrying on through grief. and i'm just curious, as you do this, it is both joyful. and there is this idea that we have these long second acts and third acts. do you feel affected by it? >> it is a roller coaster. it is joyful and sad and funny and moving. there is so much hope in this play. i think people walk away.

the other day, this widow and widower, they said, we met and found each other and this play is us. >> it is gratifying to see the extent to which these people in the audience, not accustomed to seeing what they might be seeing on a broadway stage. and all the sudden they might recognize themselves and people they love and people they lost lost. and it hits them in a powerful way. it is not what they were expecting at all. it our stage in life, people are not writing too many shows. your trying to catch up to the popular culture. instead, you have permission to grieve. you have permission to not feel alone. you have permission to give the coincidences, the confluence is an life, validity and value and ultimately, where there is life, there is hope and there are second chances. it is powerful. to say, i have

no idea what the show was and i lost my wife two years ago. and so it is what i love more than anything. contributed to his story that has a place in the world you live in. >> it looks like you guys are having so much fun too. >> no point in doing it otherwise. >> exactly. >> it's like the real-life version. you talked about "you've got mail" and i think i have seen that as much as i have seen "it's a wonderful life." it is the real-life version. >> everything is true. >> even e-mails. >> peter said, i wish i hadn't used some of that. >> left on tint is playing now . it is at the james earl jones theatre for a limited engagement through february 2nd. that is the james earl jones theater.

>> you are asking about how long. 18 years. this is the end of four hours. >> it is one hour and 40 minutes with no intermission. >> peter gallagher, thank you very much. that does it for us this morning. we pick up coverage in two minutes. to use on treats they want, toys they love or food they devour. at prices everyone feels jolly about. for low prices for holidays with pets, there's chewy. the best moments deserve the best eggs. especially when they're eggland's best. taste so deliciously fresh. with better nutrition, too.

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right now on ""ana cabrera reports" luigi mangione defiant, what his lawyers are saying about the evidence and new details about the suspect's life of privilege. >> plus a california wildfire