robotic camera in the d.c. made the decision to go heywire and not show you. well done, mike. you look great. thank you for joining us and thanks to all of you for getting up way too early with us, at least part of us, on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. >> what i think? i think you're nuts. >> who made the rules?

>> that's a perfect way to start. >> it is. bill belichick, like rodney dangerfield, going back to school. the eight time super bowl winner is going to be the next coach at the university of north carolina. a five-year pending approval deal by the board of trustees. of course, what makes this so special for him is he is also dating. >> stop it. stop it. >> fact check, his girlfriend is 24 come out of college. >> i thought she was in grad school. >> there's the back page of the new york post. i got to tell you, i didn't think this was happening in the end. i thought it was talk. maybe leverage or something. he's going to sit in the living room with 16 and 17-year-olds and begged him to come play. >> is going to coach, guys. he loves to coach. yes. >> we are all on the coat --

show yesterday expressing doubts he would do this and hours later he proved us wrong. i'm for it. it's very clear he read the room and realized there would not be an nfl coaching job for him next year so it looks like you will fall short of the win record he really wanted. to go to college, not exactly a glamour program. i'm sure he will do brilliantly. and i love bill belichick. he's not the warmest and cuddly as figure. >> nobody is thinking, hey, why don't we make thanksgiving dinner a little bit livelier? i'm sure he has talked a bit. had i do this, what do i do? and think about if you are bill belichick one of the greatest football coaches of all time. edger owner, who i love, i love bob kraft. but your older starts telling everybody, don't hire this guy, he's trouble. look what he's doing.

he's saying, i will humble myself. i will go to unc and prove myself all over again. i think this is, again, a pathway back to the nfl. >> it's kind of cool. >> let me show you. >> his dad was actually an assistant coach at carolina in the 1950s. a sentimental attachment. he is to go to his dad when he was a kid. that's where his love of football is born. that's part of it too. bottom line, he wanted to coach football again. he didn't want to be out of the game. >> again, the good news, his girlfriend. postgrad education degree. probably has law school or something. >> okay. >> willie, you are a jersey guy. okay? what's going on in jersey? i keep hearing about these drones, ufos, whatever. what's going on in jersey? >> these are not privately owned.

i got it at best buy drones. some of them have been measured six feet in radius. some question there is a military facility nearby. but no great explanation for a lot of people in new jersey for what they have been seeing in the skies. i'm not adding to any conspiracy theories but we do need some answers. >> what exits are they floating over? >> let's see. i've got to look. it's downstate a little bit. it's not the suburbs. >> i want to get into this first story. i've got to tell you, i do not understand what christopher wray is doing. if donald trump is going to -- twice, by firing the first fbi director when he goes in, and is now doing it again, i would make him do it. i would make him, once again, breach protocol. but ray didn't do that. >> no, that's the big story

that we start with this morning. the announcement from fbi director chris ray that he will resign from his position before president-elect trump takes office in january. here is what he told fbi employees at a town hall yesterday. >> after weeks of careful thought i've decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in january and then step down. in my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important in how we do our work. >> the decision comes as trump vows to replace ray after the inauguration, selecting loyalist patel to take the job. >> patel, promise last december, about a year ago,

that he would be part of the next trump administration and go out and arrest journalists. and either go after them civilly or go after them criminally. he also said he would shut down the fbi building on day one and turn it into a museum for the deep state. >> trump has signaled he will likely fire ray upon taking office if he did not leave first . trump has accused him, without evidence, of allowing his role to be politically weapon iced by the biden justice department. a senior fbi official tells nbc news the current plan is for ray to stay on as tractor until january 20th when the new administration takes over. at that point, fbi deputy director paul will be named acting director and will stay in that position until a new director is confirmed. wray's resignation means he will not serve out the 10 year term to which he was nominated by then president trump in 2017.

>> we don't have tenure terms. we don't have tenure terms. are you surprised that wray just backed down and didn't make it more difficult for donald trump? >> -- heard from one source that wray thinks this will be better for the fbi. that there's a chance trump will attack the fbi less if he steps away. some might say that's naove. but that fits a pattern of array trying to keep a low profile and not getting in public fights with people. we will see the real danger here. the main thing i want to talk about, i talked to a half-dozen former fbi officials. they are vastly more worried about patel as fbi director than pam as the attorney general for the doj. it is the most powerful law enforcement agency in the country. he's got a very conspiratorial worldview that questions

competence in terms of fighting crime and protecting the country. they see him as one of the most dangerous cabinet picks. >> we say this about pete hegseth all of the time, about the dod being the most important bureaucracy as far as american national security. as mike barnicle said, this is the premier law enforcement agency in the world. so you put somebody up there was not prepared to do it, even putting aside the fact he says he's going to shut down the fbi building on day one and he's going to arrest journalists. it's hard to say, let's put that to the side, that he said he's going to go out and hunt down journalists. even with that to the side, he is ill-equipped, like gabbard, to run these massive agencies. let's bring in nbc news intelligence correspondent kim delaney. and congressional -- for the washington post. tell me, why

did he quit? why did he announce his resignation instead of staying in their and saying, i've got a 10 year term? if you're going to fire me you have to fire me. >> joe, you laid out the choice that was in front of chris wray. as soon as donald trump announced that patel was his pick, without commenting on the fate of the current fbi director, wray knew that he was essentially going to have to force trump to fire him or find some graceful way to bow out. at the end of the day, and they wrestled over the sum told, at the end of the day they came down on the side that it would be more traumatic and painful for the fbi, and worse for the country, if array did what you suggested and forced donald trump to fire him. for example, the chairman of the -- committee issued a letter a few days ago accusing wray of all manner of crimes and sin is, essentially saying that the fbi is a disaster under his

tenure. and made charges like the fbi sat on bribery allegations against joe and hunter biden, which has been completely debunked. it's one thing for charles to say things like that. it would be another thing for donald trump to do it as president and say a letter made public at the world announcing why he was firing chris wray. that's the kind of thing they were concerned about. as you said, and as david explained, there's a lot of people out there who think this is a strategic mistake and it's really in keeping with chris reece profile over the years of trying to avoid these fights. of trying to keep the bureau out of these partisan battles. but the result that has been the republicans have relentlessly pummeled the fbi for seven years when wray is on the hill and other times made baseless charges that the fbi has been politicized. and the fbi has done very little to push back against that. as a result, you have only 40% of americans in recent polls have confidence in the fbi.

23% of republicans. the fbi believes they couldn't win that fight. that there is no winning and getting up there. and wray did try to push back occasionally in hearings where he said , at one point he said it was insane to assume that he was biased against republicans. appointed by donald trump. at the end of the day, he decided that staying in and making donald trump fire him would be painful for the workforce. many of them have not gotten over the traumatic firing of james comey in 2017. but what it would have done, as you suggest, it would have underscored the country that this was yet another norm shattering moment. this was the second fbi director that donald trump has pushed out short of a 10 year term, making a mockery of the idea that the fbi director should be independent and should serve independent of presidential cycles. >> so director wray, as ken reminded us, was appointed by donald trump in 2017 when they fired jim call me. he's a lifelong republican and was lauded by donald trump at the time.

the accusation donald trump makes and meet again in his response to the news yesterday is that chris wray is responsible for the weaponization of the fbi. the justice department was weapon iced . chief among those accusations is that they exercise a lawful search warrant in mar-a-lago to get classified documents that had been hoarded at the beach club after months and months of attempts by the national archives to politely get them back. so that's the argument for weaponization. now what you have coming in is explicit weaponization. if it is in fact patel. just saying, i'm coming in, i'm loyal to donald trump to go after his opponents on capitol hill, in the press, go down the line across washington. this is a case where the guy who is coming in next, potentially, if he gets confirmed, will actually use that department as a weapon. >> yes. and the 10 year term is a reflection of history first to get away from j edgar hoover, who for nearly 50 years fed

dirt two different presidents for republicans and democrats and weapon iced of the department. in the 1970s that ended. we had a good 40 or 50 or stretch where that stopped. patel, go back to his book, there's a list of 60 people in an appendix that he says are part of the deep state. trumps white house counsel is part of a deep state plot with hillary clinton and jim call me. so he is coming in. >> it's just so absurd. it's so preposterous and yet you have christopher wray backing out to make it easier for him. >> this is the fear. it's a very conspiratorial worldview throughout the book. he exaggerates his own achievements and experience. it serves this political messaging that trump likes to hear. and part of it is performative. if you believe it or not, this is how you get ahead in the inner circle. he is now going to be,

possibly, the head of the most powerful law enforcement agency in this country. and has access to tremendous amounts of secrets that americans have. again, hoover abused all of that. that's what surprised me in my recent conversations was much, much more fear about what patel will do with the fbi than what pam will do with the doj. >> i'm curious if we heard here is reflective on capitol hill. you have a number of different nominees, like pete, pete hegseth. he is unqualified. these are just facts. he has behaved in ways that may disqualify him. there are just questions in terms of his basic ability to do a job. then there are nominees, or ideas, like patel and kelsey gabbard. these are people who outwardly engaged or spoken in ways that are dangerous to american democracy. if i said that right, are

republicans showing that they are aware of this distinction and that they are aware of the dangers at stake? >> mika, there are two tracks of mind going on on capitol hill right now according to the number of people i spoke to yesterday after the news of wray's resignation. one of them being the nomination track going on. but also, the fact that this news comes on the tales of the justice department inspector general announcing that the trump administration had previously used concerning and surreptitious tactics to monitor congressional staffers and to democratic lawmakers and obtain their communications. that there is a very clearly a precedent here for trump abusing some of the vast powers of surveillance that the justice department has. and as patel has basically clearly stated that he plans on doing. we know that there were 43 congressional staffers whose communications were monitored as part of investigations into

who was leaking to the justice department and fbi investigation of russian interference in the 2016 election. -- staffers yesterday with the inspector general report. in terms of the nominations, these things feed into one another. patel is someone, as is tulsa gabbard, who flew under the radar and went to the process so far as part of the scrutiny that has been on pete hegseth, whose nomination for now has been relatively stable. we saw a number of noncommittal statements about the candidates meeting with republican senators throughout the week this week for one-on-one meetings. there's not a lot of opposition to these people.

there are milquetoast concerns about tulsa gabbard. but not about patel, for the reasons that we are talking about. i talked to a trump transition official last night who says that they are really not concerned about many of their nominees at the moment and feel like their approach -- has really been effective. >> it depends on who you talk to in the trump world. the ones that, you know, are leaking to reporters we've got this, we are going to reduce their political bones to dust. those people are saying -- you talk to actual senators and people close to them, they will tell you there are still five, six, seven, 82 that are pretty hard-nosed. it's interesting that there was a focus on gaetz. now there's a focus on hague seth.

yesterday susan collins, they did not sit around and hold hands and sing cool by i yesterday. susan collins let everybody know where she stood. she is going to go through the process. but she very pointedly said, i want to look at the fbi background check before making a decision. that was not a win. maybe some of the people on their little podcast can say that was a win and, yell and flex their muscles. but i will tell you, there's another problem. and the new york times is talking about it right now. the land of sand and death. the disruptions in syria puts tulsa gabbard in the center of the spotlight. hard for me to believe, even in this cynical age, that republicans who have spent their entire life concerned about the intelligence community and building the intelligence community, and caring about the intelligence community, just like the fbi, are going to appoint, going to go ahead and vote for some really tulsa gabbard, who they have openly said they are very concerned

about her statements that sounded supportive of a sod and very concerned that even russian media considers her to be a close ally of vladimir putin. and again, just repeating russian talking points. i find that hard to believe that there are not going to be four republican senators to vote no for her, with hague seth, and yes, with patel. a guy who said he's going to close the fbi on day one and that he's going to run around arresting journalists or charging them civilly. >> certainly for tulsa gabbard, the spotlight on syria is not helpful to her chances here. over the weekend she was featured on the russian propaganda television network. as far as patel goes, i was talking to someone in the trump world yesterday who was gleeful about wray's decision to step down.

gleeful. we'll have to spend any capital fighting him. this is another sign that we have intimidated washington. we are breaking the process. and in this case, they are right. we don't know that will be the case for all of their nominees. but they have managed to avoid this fight with wray. though, i do believe that now that wray is stepping aside there will be more scrutiny on patel going forward. he has managed to avoid the spotlight to this point. that's going to shift now with more focus on him. my question to you is, is someone who covers this day in and day out, we know what patel has promised to do working to be confirmed. will there be people in the fbi who will carry out his orders? will there be resignations or will there be loyalists, people who will say, i will do that. even if it's morally or legally questionable. >> i don't think there will be very many people inside of the fbi who are willing to carry out illegal orders. when you put it that starkly,

jonathan. by the way, taking wray's place here as the acting director on january 20th will be paul abate, which is not a man the trump world loves at all. in fact, he's a key decision to search mar-a-lago. for them, it's not a win in terms of paul abate. in order to replace him as an acting director before cash patel is confirmed they would have to find another senate confirmed figure or someone within the fbi. just putting that out there. to get back to your question, look, david is absolutely right. current and former fbi officials are very concerned about patel. in part because he lacks the qualifications in the history of people who have ran the fbi to lead the nation's premier law enforcement agency. he doesn't even know how it works. he doesn't know how to place functions. the fbi is a rule of law organization. after the abuses of hoover a lot of safeguards and guardrails were put in place over the awesome surveillance powers of the fbi. and in order to get around them

you have to do a lot of suspect things that are flagged along the way. there's a reason and fbi lawyer went to jail for lying on a form in that situation. there was a paper trail there. there are layers and layers of oversight and review of the surveillance applications. look, there are fbi agents, many people who support donald trump. but there aren't a lot of people, i would argue, willing to do things that are outside of their oath of office to fulfill some political agenda. and if patel tries to order people to do that he's going to find that on the front page of the major newspapers very quickly. does that mean he can't make mischief? absolutely not. there's a lot that can happen behind the scenes. i'm more optimistic than some other people that the guardrails can hold in an institution like the fbi. >> thank you so much for your reporting. this was a thing i was explaining to politicians. especially politicians going into the white house.

the intel community is going to get you coming and they are going to get you going. you can talk to george w. bush about that during the iraq war. it was split. half of the cia agents were against. this yellowcake stuff, that is bs. and it will be linked to the new york times. you know? barack obama is targeting people, like himself personally? that gets leaked to the new york times. there is a split. the 2016 campaign. and this is what is so wild about the whole idea. it's politicized, it's for the side. no, the new york office, they were against hillary clinton. they didn't like hillary clinton. we knew that during the 2016 campaign. the d.c. office didn't like donald trump. and donald trump got elected the first time because james comey, after not indicting hillary clinton, decides he's going to hold a press conference and say, for the first time, by the way, yeah she's not guilty. but she is politically guilty.

which is just an outrageous norm. and then, 10 days before the election, we know exactly what happened. the fbi screws up on both sides. they are politicized on both sides. look at james comey and the mistakes he made. ask the clintons today about what he did and how he elected donald trump. if you look at what happened afterwards, there still a dossier, which we said from the very beginning, was nonsense. the carter page apps. they screw up. they are human beings. but there are people like republicans in the fbi and who like democrats in the fbi. in trump world, running around saying -- it's absolutely ridiculous. they have short-term or long- term memory loss. they don't know what it is now. it was the fbi. it was james comey who gave donald trump basically a life raft to paddle to shore and win the election 10 days before.

it was over. until james comey did what he did. >> i think you might have heard about that from bill clinton a few days ago. when i sat down with the president. that lingers. >> they do not forget. >> is another interesting element to this. it is a little bit of blowback on the pressure campaign that's being brought on senate republicans. you have people like lisa murkowski coming out of this meeting saying, the calls we are getting, the pressure we are getting from trump people are not appreciated. she is saying politely what i think a lot of senators are saying, which is, back off. we have and advise and consent role. a lot of them will go along with whatever donald trump tells them to do. but you have heritage putting up ads saying we are going to primary you unless you vote for all these people. getting pressure from outside. pod casters. >> at least with murkowski. that didn't work too well. by the way, do you still have

ranked choice voting in alaska? so actually taking the middle ground and being responsible actually pays off there. also, tom cotton running around going, i am the enforcer. you all better vote for every one of these people. you know how well that place with fellow senators? what do they say about fellow senators? everyone looks in the mirror and what do they see? the next president of the united states. they don't need tom cotton running around playing enforcer. and people going, we've got tom cotton on our side, he's yelling at all the other senators. where are these people from? because that's not how -- we in the house call them the house of lords for a reason. >> these are the people you cover every day. are people like ted cruz going out and saying that donald trump won with the mandate. you better prove everyone he has. again, he didn't vote for all but one or two of joe biden's

choices. he had to be reminded of that this week. what is your choice of tom cotton, ted cruz, those people that will vote across the board? what is the sense of any pushback from, again, all it takes a handful of republican senators who don't appreciate, first of all don't think these people are qualified, but secondly don't appreciate the pressure campaign being applied from the outside. >> joe, i totally hear you on this. there are a number of senators who have experience going and batting back against trump and defecting from him from time to time. especially during the 2016 and 2020 administration. this time around, i have been surprised at some of the private conversations i've been having with staffers and lawmakers who don't have as much of an appetite to go against trump. and even the people who would be ideologically extremely opposed to some of these candidates. people like tom cotton and lindsey graham, have very different policy approaches to

things like iran and syria, as tulsa gabbard, who would normally come out against her. not just on the policy but also ideologically in terms of gabbard's trajectory from a democrat to bernie sanders. to now a prominent trump backer. again, we are not seeing that much pushback behind closed doors. some people have sort of suggested to me that this is going to be a can to the brett kavanaugh hearings, where there would be some opposition and questions and performative grandstanding throughout the nomination process. but that ultimately someone like susan collins is going to go along with it, so it's up for election, by the way, in 2026. but tom cotton tweeted a couple of days ago, as you sort of alluded to, that of the 72 cabinet secretary nominee since the clinton transition, only two nominees have ever received no votes from the president elect party.

and this is a message that's being circulated among staffers and in between transition officials and staffers. and what we've also heard is that even the new lawmakers who have come to the hill for the first time to serve as senators, again, there's not that much of an appetite to make their mark and take a stand against trump at this pressure campaign is working in some ways. we artie sought joni backtrack and come down from her position against pete hegseth. she is somewhat of a survivor of sexual assault in the military. who was the first female in combat to serve in the senate. and now, suddenly, she is courting having sat through the process. we are keeping a close eye on people that have broader concerns that they have discussed publicly. but right now there seems to be a quarter that could hold out against these controversial candidates. >> we will see.

jackie, thanks so much for being with us. jackie, greatly appreciated. and of course, you need four votes. that way you can throw precedent out the window when you have one guy who has said, once he's fbi director he's going to shut down the fbi and arrest journalists. you got another guy that has absolutely no management experience except running to veterans organizations into the ground and his own mother says he's a serial abuser women. she retracts it but it lines up with accusations before, during and after the letter. and you can go down the road with all of these other pics. you know, i am reminded. i want to ask you about this, david. obviously we hear these things and we expect the worse -- worst. i was prepare for the worst and hope for the best. ken delaney, very interesting. are these people going to follow through on this knowing they can be sent to jail?

i will give you credit for the question. just like this. that was my moment! >> that's not quite what happened. >> is that what happened? >> i kind of thought about it. >> jackie, you notice jackie. >> that's why. >> he went just like that and he kept going. >> johnny, is very important to remember, these people that are in the fbi they actually know what the law is. the country look around and see what has happened to people that haven't follow the law, the have followed what part- timers, that's what bureaucrats call, a lot of people call these people, they call them

christmas help. because they are here and then gone. you look at select rudy giuliani and how his life has been destroyed by telling lies about people spreading conspiracy theories. and i'm just wondering what your thought is. when somebody, whoever it may be, if it's not patel or some meals, they come in and they asked them to do something illegal. when they know donald trump has four years. and at the end of four years everything they do is going to be judged by another fbi director. and it reminds me of what millie said to patel at the end of the first trump term. said, you don't want to go to jail. that's some bad, bad, whatever he said it was. you know i don't swear on tv. but that's kind of the attitude that a lot of these old-timers have. and i'm just wondering your thought.

he's the fbi director today. you don't know who the next fbi director's. you do something illegal. you may think you are sending somebody to jail but you are the one who will end up there in the end. >> that is a great question, the best question as come this morning. >> thank you. take a walk. >> on a less fun note. >> less fun note! now let's talk about the end of democracy. >> they will not overtly break the law, because you are right. you want to go to jail themselves. trump world is smart enough to make it more subtle than that, to ask them to launch investigations, to appoint a special counsel. this is about two things. intimidating people, investigate the investigators. if you dare investigate second trump administration you will

be investigated, you will be removed. and the second thing is rewriting history. it's all about donald trump. a broad narrative here is that there was no need for any kind of investigations of january 6th . there is no need to investigate him holding dozens of classified documents at mar- a-lago. he had his lawyer present the fbi and doj with the signed affidavits saying, here the last 30, 35 documents. this is it. then the fbi and the doj got surveillance video showing that they had moved around all of these boxes in the days before they came to mar-a-lago. so these folks, many of whom i've talked to the doj, felt that they had to carry out the search to uphold the rule. >> by the way, everybody kept asking for those boxes. so for people going, this is horrible, they just showed up one day my home. they continually asked for them. this is what i wonder also, david. the evidence in the case is so

bad. when you look at what the i.t. director said, when you look at what the maintenance people reportedly said, he wanted to flood the pool and destroy documents. there so many people on the inside testifying. i really do wonder, do they want to lift that rock? two they will all of this evidence pouring out of the front pages of the new york times, the washington post, the wall street journal, you name it? in the first months of their administration or even halfway through the administration. because it's one of these things. you know the old saying, i heard a preacher saying a couple of years ago. when your plan calls for revenge, bring two shovels. one for the person you are going after and one for yourself because you're going to end up burying yourself. >> is relitigating the past. and i think there are some republicans that worry this is a waste of political capital.

because these are nominees that, again, the narrative donald trump did nothing wrong, donald trump is a victim, all these investigations were wrong. and many republicans believe that. but it is up to voters to decide did he deserve to be investigated or is it completely unjust? >> so you are saying, as we sum it up at 35 after the hour, when we were supposed he be out 15 after the hour, you are saying it would probably be investigations, it will be harassment, it will be forcing people to get lawyers. but as far as stepping over the line and charging somebody criminally for a crime they did not commit, that may be a bridge too far for some of these people. because they know that they will be the ones that end up in jail ultimately. >> the one danger is that trump can secretly pardon. >> that's a big danger. >> it's a big danger. the supreme court with a sweeping immunity decision, more and more presidential

power is dangerous in the long term for this country. i'm a journalist, i love transparency. i want to see three branches of government fighting each other. this is the danger, that all this power in the presidency, trump now and future presidents. >> david rowe. >> can we validate, jonathan -- >> downer. >> david, speaking the truth. >> great point. still ahead on morning joe. president biden's top aides are in the middle east this morning to ensure a smooth transition of power in syria. and with just weeks left in office they are also pushing for a cease-fire deal between israel and hamas. we will get expert analysis on where things stand in the region, straightahead. we are back in 90 seconds.

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hey, grab more delectables. you know, that lickable cat as long astreat?re the best. de-lick-able delectables? yes, just hurry. hmm. it must be delicious. delectables lickable treat. there is one of these drones that i've heard about over new jersey. little green men inside. thanks, chopper 4. >> here's the story we mentioned at the top of the show. several drone settings across

the state of new jersey. the fbi is investigating the matter. and now the pentagon is even weighing in. nbc news correspondent gotti schwartz has the latest. >> reporter: in the skies above new jersey, trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious wave. suv size drone sightings that have proved impossible to identify or stop. >> the minute you guys on the they go dark. >> reporter: reports of mysterious drones and lights in the sky are growing. from the warships in the west his own, to nuclear ships, to langley, virginia. the pentagon says there is no evidence the drones are coming from a foreign adversary but lawmakers on capitol hill are demanding answers from the fbi. >> i don't have an answer of who is responsible for that, of one or more people who are responsible for those drone flights. >> reporter: those who have sent drones up to give chase say they have never been able to see where they come from or

where they land. this was chased down in his car and he thinks the military should consider shooting them down. he says 11 drones have flown over new jersey recently. >> those drones should have been blown out of the sky. why are we putting up with this? >> reporter: has more people look at the night sky the fbi is asking anyone with credible video to send them in for analysis. >> it's 2024. are you telling me in this day and age people can fly drones of this size, the size of a car is not bigger, and we have no idea who is doing it? >> reporter: for now, yet another growing mystery in the sky. >> so they're flying them over langley. they're flying them over nuclear plants. they are flying them over military facilities. i'm just a simple country lawyer but i wouldn't allow that to happen. >> what's frightening is how no one actually appears to know what on earth is going on." the new york post. we talked to a high-ranking new jersey police were saying, quote, we are all befuddled as to what

the f is going on.". nobody has an answer. nobody got these at radioshack. they're flying them out of the backyard. these are massive drones. >> again, where they from? certainly it's not from the pentagon. right? because they are not going to be flying over military bases or other things. foreign powers would have the ability to do that. so why in the world? >> where would they take off from with something like that? i would think it's more likely from here, given the limited range. your basically is right, we have stipulated no drone zones over any potential site. >> we solved it. onto the next story. >> the latest behind the curtain call in for ask he is, titled, "the great upheaval." it focuses on artificial

intelligence and its potential impact on the incoming trump administration and the future of geopolitics. let's bring in the co-author of that piece, cofounder and ceo of access, jim. i miss nbc contributor mike barnacle also joins us. looks good actually. okay. thanks for showing up. >> this a.i. thing scares me. >> it scares all this. >> it's an austin powers line. but this a.i. thing scares me, man. it seems like we don't have an administration that is going to actually be bringing the rains and on development of it. what are your concerns and what are you reporting this morning? >> i think it goes beyond a.i. but a.i. sits at the center of it.

like most viewers probably feel pretty disoriented. you might feel like there's a lot of change. there actually is because you simultaneously have massive change happening and how we get information, how we govern ourselves, businesses, and then geopolitical relationships. very rarely in history do those shifts simultaneously. and i do think you can put your finger on it. i think a.i. sits at the center of a lot of this. given that almost every business is think about how to apply this. there biggest technology companies, some of which are the size of nationstates, or investing, collectively, hundreds of billions of dollars to will it into existence. then you look at trump and you look at the relationship with elon musk. they want this government and they want a.i. to be an accelerant of these technologies, which will hit not just chat gpt, it will affect how you create data in these data centers opening in a lot of cities. and energy. they require and eat an astronomical amount of energy. you need to produce more of it

domestically, which will reorient the entire domestic energy system that we have today . that's huge. i think the people that are at the table often stand to benefit from it. elon musk has big pieces of this. he has his own a.i. company that he is raising money for and helping fund. when you have the ear of the president and you have -- who has a huge portfolio, and the ear of the president, these are really smart people who understand the technology. i think they are gleefully, and pretty confidently, feeling like let's use this moment to make government and accelerant of all of this. and that's just a big shift from the biden administration. >> jim, your piece is called "the great upheaval." it's one part of what's happening. really, really fast right now. people elon musk and others want to use government to accelerate the pace of innovation and development. elon musk clearly said, why'd

you come out so early and endorsed donald trump? he saw a winner in donald trump. he wanted to get on board early. reports that he has doubled his wealth since election day. and they go even further. how influential do you expect him to be? not just on questions of a.i., but more broadly, this administration? >> astronomically influential. i don't think i can put words to it. i don't think a civilian has had, in history, more impact over at least an incoming administration and the transition of the presidency. and what he tells trump privately, he believes there could be more business change or cultural change, or government change then in any point since the founding of the country. and obviously he's prone to grandiosity. but he's been right on a lot of these technologies and a lot of the areas where the country is going. and i do think, for people that fear it, joe, he says it worries you. i do think taking a wrecking ball to how we have been doing business in washington, there's a real eloquence and logic to it

in that you are going to have to change very fast to keep up with these technologies. and most of our government agencies are so antiquated, surrounded, they are not necessarily set up for this next era. so if you did it right and if you apply technology right, then you position us to hopefully prevail against china. and that's the reason they will not put the brakes on a.i. because every moment they think about putting the brakes on a.i. you are going to have some the whispering in their ear, do you really want to give the chinese an advantage on a technology where we have a decisive head start? it's the reason biden didn't want to regulate it. when you hear that, you see it, you worry about it, you want to be the person to put the genie back in the bottle when we are the ones who created the genie. >> that's always the argument. and you're right, the first thing i will say is, really, you're going to give china the advantage here? and i will say also, we do have a bureaucracy across washington, d.c. it's antiquated. we had reports that the

pentagon has computers from the 1980s. it's absolutely horrid. if we can update those, fantastic. mike, you look at the great upheaval. we still haven't come to terms with what's been happening over the last 30 or 40 years and why there is such great unrest in middle america, where there is such great unrest in the upper midwest. we had an industrial age that was hollowed out by globalization and the tech revolution. we became more productive with less workers. now we have the next revolution with a.i. that's just going to supersize that crisis. we are going to be a more productive economy that's going to require even less workers. that's going to put more people out of work. that's going to put more people on the sidelines. it's going to create social

unrest. it's going to create cultural unrest. it's going to create more economic decay in the heartland. and when you have a government of billionaires that we are going to be having, i don't see a lot of people that have been nominated thus far that are going to be worried about the long-term impact of that. >> you know, joe, what you just said is the icing on the cake of an extraordinarily past 40 minutes of discussion about this country. and it appears today, right now, we are talking about the basic function of government going forward. is it going to change? the function of american government. is it going to change? chris wray just decided to quit his job because he was so disturbed about the reputation and morale of the fbi being dragged through the mud once again. there were three intelligence positions up for grabs. the director of national intelligence, the head of the

department of defense, and the head of the fbi obviously. those three jobs, up for nominations, are critical to the protection and defense of the united states of america. and the nominees are a joke. and they are about to be nominated. it appears that the republican party and the senate side will go along with the nominees to further damage the function of government. you'd be surprised, we would all be surprised, the number of americans in this country who depend on the government. they don't think they depend on the government, but they do. a social security check, a tax refund. government functioning. obeying the law. moving the law forward. moving the country forward. all of that, now, listening to last 40 minutes of this discussion, is on the table. which way are we going to go? which way are we going to go? i'm waiting for the answers.

>> we all are. jim, final question to you. and i will ask you just based on your reporting what you are hearing on the hill, what you are hearing from people around washington, d.c.. we asked david his thought. when we are looking at some of the appointees, whether there is an effort to intimidate or a clear hope of retribution. talking about people inside of the fbi, inside of the justice department. understanding the costs of following an illegal order that ultimately lands them in hot water. what are you hearing around the hill? what are you hearing around washington, d.c.? do they believe that this president and those around him are trying to intimidate critics into silence? or are they going to be seeking retribution from day one?

>> i wouldn't assume that they don't seek retribution. and i wouldn't even assume that they wouldn't stretch into areas that we get into gray areas were illegal areas., saying that they will. you have to take them at their word. a lot of these folks say that's what they want to do. i think it really depends on how president trump feels his presidency is going and who he is agitated with that a given moment. the biggest story is one that you put your finger on. you were saying you think there are six, seven or eight senators who in the end will do the right thing and my a post some of these nominees. i'm not so certain of that, joe. i think you look at what happened with senator ernest in iowa. here somebody who was dead opposed to that nominee, to that nomination on a deeply, deeply philosophical ground. well what happens? you get -- all these conservative groups running ads back home, calling people who are close to you, having other senators come in and pressure

you. it takes a very, very strong, virtuous person to say, i'm going to withstand all that and i'm going to put my political career on their -- at risk to oppose the president of the united states, who happens to be of my party. i would not be confident that any of these nominees are going down. they might trick you might be right. but i'm watching what these members are saying after they go through this pressure campaign. and that's what's different from when you were in congress. there just weren't that many ways to pressure you with that level of intimidation. and it's a very, very, very successful. >> as i said to a british journalist who was asking me this very question yesterday, when it comes to susan collins, it's just like premier league football. it's the hope that kills you. ask he is cofounder jim, thank you. >> i take slight issue with jim. we seem to think that this

administration was not doing enough on it. there's two issues with a.i. one is, can you regulate it? i would say, probably not. it's happening in too many places. it's too decentralized. we should be thinking like the u.s. soviet relationship where you have two players, you can have arms control. a.i. is much too dispersed. too many things are going on in too many laboratories around the country. jim mentioned the china angle, which is one concern. the other is, there's all sorts of upside with a.i. that we haven't thought through. so the idea that right now we can sit down, they are going to shut down this path to a i'm open up this one? that's not where we are. so actually think it is premature to be thinking about all sorts of regulatory ways. actually think the administration is right to be opening up. we will see what good can come of it. mike is right. we might have to think about how we offset the social and economic implications of it. loss of jobs in manufacturing and loss of jobs and services. but we are not at a point right

now in which we can shut down big parts of it. i just don't think that's it. >> let's talk about syria. what's your take? >> lots of things going on. there were some things going on. we are seeing certain types of revenge killings. the turks are using this as an opportunity to go after the kurds, which they see as terrorists rather than a legitimate national group. israel is moving in. these things don't usually go well. after you get rid of the old regime the idea that everyone is going to come together and you are going to have a single authority and it's going to be benign is very little in history, very little in middle east history to suggest this is going to be smooth or neat. so i think we will see a very decentralized, messy country. almost a version of the balkans and syria. at worst, we will see an awful lot of friction. civil strife to basically determine what comes next. we can also see a jihadist group. think about the taliban. these guys can be very taliban like potentially. i don't mean to be the bad news bearer here, but it's great

that we got rid of bashar al assad. this was an awful, awful, despicable regime responsible for hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths and refugees. but that's just the beginning of the end. right now we have a very uncertain path ahead of us in syria. >> you have secretary of state lincoln and -- in israel respectively to talk. what is their objective there? we know that they are discussing, perhaps moving, basically the leading terrorist group that rode into damascus and toppled asad. according to united states designation, removing them from that list. it's so much more complicated than it seemed on the first day when they were dancing in the streets. >> we will have a conditional kind of relationship. take you off of the terrorism list and help you economically. big if. you cannot have serious say thank you to isis to come back.

and this question, also, with the turks. what we say to them? in some ways the most important meeting. what do we say to turkey? which has now replaced iran as the most important external country in syria. what we say to them about the kurds? what do we do for the kurds? what about the 900 military forces that are still in syria? we've got a lot of big questions. >> the biden administration is hoping to get some hostage release from gaza. reports from the washington journal that hamas is willing to drop a couple of demands. maybe we are inching closer to that. give us here read on what we could be seeing you. >> i think the fact that hezbollah is so weak has actually opened up all sorts of possibilities. it has left hamas really isolated. it has weakened iran. they almost turned lebanon into a revived country. you are right. good news. it seems to come boss has dropped the demand of a full

military withdrawal, which is a big deal. here's a hostage list. you know, we've seen this movie before. but i think the strategic situation has so weakened iran and hamas that i don't think it's fanciful now to think of the possibilities going forward that didn't simply exist the last few months. >> really quick, let me ask you. this could end up looking like germany after world war ii. syria could have a turkish zone, a u.s. his own, a kurdish zone and then a syrian zone. and an israeli zone. israel is going in. >> that would, in some ways, not the best outcome, the best outcome is it is a unitary country. if you had that it would be preferable to an ongoing civil war. if the zones were mutually respected. i think the danger is they will be. and in particular, the turks will have many problems. the kurds being an autonomous his own. >> our close allies, who are always standing by our side.

mike barnicle, very quickly, from syria to the sox, what you think of the deal? >> well, syrians don't have a starter right now. the red sox came up with one yesterday and i'm very hopeful they will continue. they are in the grocery store. they will take place off the shelves and check out with more players than they went in with. very helpful. >> are you seeing bregman as the next pick up to move to second base? >> no. the next pick up i think will be another picture. it could be the kid from seattle . louis castillo, could be something like that. and then they go to the offense. >> okay. coming up, new york governor kathy hochul joins the table. we will discuss the latest development in the investigation of the murder of united healthcare ceo brian thompson. and more. we are back in just a moment. .

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from companions to helpers to caregivers. find all the senior care you need at care.com ♪♪ take a look at this. welcome back to "morning joe." i guess we're getting some weather here in rochester, new york. and more coming maybe? new york city police say there is evidence that links suspect luigi mangione. the gun they found on him matched the shul casings that were left behind at the site of last week's shooting.

mangione's fingerprints matched a water bottle and snack bar wrapper that police discovered near the scene in midtown manhattan where it happened. it's believed mangione brought those items from a nearby starbucks just moments before the attack. we're also learning police recovered a spiral notebook from the suspect, along with a three-page handwritten letter in which he wrote, quote, these parasites had it coming. sources tell nbc news in the notebook mangione allegedly wrote about wanting to target a ceo at a conference with a gun, claiming that method is better than using an explosive device. the governor of new york, kathy hochul, joins us now at the table. also with us, president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politic's nation" reverend al sharpton. good to have you all with us this morning. governor, i guess, first of all, is there any more in this case that -- there's so many

different angles to this and some of them deeply -- oh, deeply disturbing. but any new information on this case? >> it feels like the evidence is very compelling. >> yeah. >> i trust the d.a. here in manhattan to make sure that he puts forth an indictment that is going to be ironclad. that's why there's been a little time. why hasn't something happened already. you want to get this right. you don't have to have anybody, a defense attorney, be able to attack what you've done. you have to get it right. we expect that to be issued any day now. and the second that happens, i'm issuing a warrant for extradition. i already told josh shapiro and he's working with me on this. i want to get him back here in the state of new york and run him through our criminal justice system because that horrific attack occurred on our streets and the people of our city know -- deserve to have that

sense of calm that this perpetrator has been caught and he will be never seeing the light of day again if there is justice. you cannot assassinate an individual on the streets of new york, not now, not ever. >> just in the last 24 hours, as mika said, we have shell casings that match the gun he used. we have fingerprints on the water bottle and candy wrapper as well. i just want to dig deeper on the extradition. he is fighting extradition. some people say this could take a long time just to get him back here. what kind of timeline do you expect once you submit that warrant to governor shapiro in pennsylvania? >> i will issue it. he'll sign it. but the judge has already set a date for a hearing on december 23rd. we'll see whether that date has to hold. the governor and i both want him brought back to new york as soon as possible. so, there will be some legal activities from defense lawyer's side. but i believe that the judge will say, he's going back to new york. so, we're expecting that to happen any day now.

>> so governor, we obviously have learned somewhat of this suspect's writings and may have targeted this individual who was a ceo of the health care company but great alarm in the business community among chief executives since this shooting. there's no greater hub of chief executives than obviously new york city, manhattan in particular. what sort of message do you want to send to these companies? what sort of extra security can be provided? >> i spoke to kathy wild, who runs the partnership, the largest organization representing many ceos. i called them individually. and i said this, bring together your top security officials with my state police and our intelligent leadership and nypd, let's have a meeting and share information. not just best practices. because they always have topnotch -- usually former law enforcement, security forces. when i see some trend occurring from our intelligence that a certain classification of individuals are being targeted, certain industry, we can share that information. so i want to be much more

proactive and work with them closely to protect them. we protect everybody on the streets of new york, not just ceos. everybody deserves the protection of our law enforcement. i want to make sure that happens. that's my number one priority. >> on that note about broader public safety, this comes at a time where that's been under -- a spotlight here in new york. we just had the verdict in the subway case, the jordan neely case. this obviously. what message do you have for new yorkers and visitors alike? it's obviously the holidays here in new york. crowds are here. and is there more that you need to keep the city safe? >> we're going to make sure that people have that sense of security they deserve. i'll be making an announcement shortly about our activities in the subways, for example. a lot of people come here, they take the subways. it's the best way to get around. we know that. and i've actually still have the national guard that i spoke about on this show back when i put them in the subways in the spring when we started seeing a spike in crime. crime on the subway is down to pre-pandemic levels. i understand people may not feel that way. there's a lot of anxiety. i understand that to my core.

but that being said, the subways which carry now over 6.5 million people, we still have a small number of incidences. i'll tell you what bothers me the most is the anxiety people feel when they see someone in the throes of mental health crisis. they don't know whether this person is going to be self contained and just make some noise or activity or whether they're going to do harm to them. and that is something no one should have to face. what i'm going to be working on and i'll tell you this is coming, we're working more on the whole issue of involuntary removal. we have a program for that. but here's what happens. someone doesn't take care of themselves, we can remove them. they go to the hospital, they're cycled back the next hour. this system is not working. i have stronger regulations on that that are going to affect in just a couple weeks. we opened 1,000 hospital beds so people who really do need care get the care they need. the system has failed people. and i want people to feel safe. they deserve that here in the

streets of new york. >> and picking up on that, as you want and all of us want to see people feel safe, the way you deal with mental health situations has to be escalated, as you are beginning. and the concerns some of us have, you know i preached jordan neely's funeral, you cannot therefore inspire people to take law into their own hands and end up with fatalities. we have a verdict. we have to live with the verdict. i may disagree, but that's not my debate. our debate is how do we deal with people who have mental health issues but not inspire other people that they can take the law in their own hand and we end up with people dead. >> that's right. >> for whatever reasons had a mental health problem. we can't overlook that. >> jordan neely never should have been in that situation. should have been identified as someone who has mental health issues and he should have been in compassionate care. i've allocated 1 billion dollars

toward mental health. i know at a human level he deserved it. everyone deserves that. but society deserves to feel safe and not threatened from individuals who are not getting the care they need. so we have more to do. i've been laser focussed on this mental health issue for the last three years. we have over 750 people who are long-term homeless in our subways. some of them seem threatening people. their now in support of housing because of the work i've done with the mayor as well. this is how we're doing it. i was there yesterday. going into the subways. identifying people who need help and saying, we're here to move you here so you get the help you need and the people you've left behind that system. we'll feel a lot safer. we have to be aggressive about this. >> this was a difficult case for a lot of new yorkers. they understood the tragedy of jordan neely. they also saw a lot of the police cams that showed almost everybody on that subway saying they felt like their safety was in danger. and so, most of them did not see

daniel penny as a bad guy, but they felt like their safety was in danger. there was, i thought, really good "new york times" article explaining how the fear that new yorkers felt is what framed that tragedy. and so you have the mental health crisis. and you also have, though, jordan neely being arrested how many times, 20, 30, 40 time, right? so this recidivism, where you talked about people going in and out of mental health treatment. it's the same thing. new yorkers are saying, are you really going to -- are we really going to live in a city where somebody goes to jail 20, 30, 40 times and then comes down on the subway and starts talking about, you know, not caring if he dies and not caring if he does harm to other people. how does new york get their arms around that so new yorkers feel

safe and we don't have tragedies like this? >> joe, when i became governor three years ago, i had to change the bail laws that had been changed before i became governor by my predecessor. let me just say that. >> uh-huh. >> they were so loose that someone who was committing crime after crime after crime was being let out. i had to work and get through the legislature -- this was not the easiest thing i've ever done to get them to understand that we cannot have a system that doesn't work. when i'm up in the bronx where i was yesterday, i walked the streets. i talked to shop owners. they should not be in fear that someone who robbed them the day before -- >> right. >> took everything they have will be back on the streets the next day. i changed the law. now, here is the issue i have, the application of the laws is wildly diverse from upstate and down state. i track all the state numbers. when i see that judges and sometimes prosecutors in new york city have a very different philosophy about how to handle the question of whether or not

bail should be granted very sus others, i want to make sure they're following the state laws that we now empowered them to use. >> why is there a difference between upstate and down state. you would think that judges in the city would want people that live around them to be as safe as people in upstate. >> joe, you would think that. i'm not seeing those same result. for people to blame now the state legislature and myself, who changed the laws, and empowered judges to say, this is a person who needs help. they should be in a mental health program. this is a person who is a repeat offender, keeps terrorizing people, hurting retail clerks and workers. >> right. >> hurting people on the streets. you should not be out again. you should not be out. you have the power to keep them. shame on you if you don't exercise that power is what i say. >> and just quickly before you go, you're taking steps to help your constituents with inflation. tell us about it. >> yes, i am.

because of the high cost of everything, groceries and sneakers you buy for your kids, we collected more money than anticipated in sales tax revenues. now, i could spend that on the state's programs. and i said, wait a minute, this money belongs back in the pockets of the people that had to pay the higher prices. so we announced this past week and people are so excited about this, $500 back for families from our inflation surplus. i'm going to put it back in the pockets of those who are paying $5 a gallon for milk and $7 eggs. i went shopping in albany yesterday, and shopping in williamsburg yesterday and flat bush, people are -- i walk up to shoppers like, what would an extra $500 do for you, they're so excited to know that government is responding. i didn't need an election to tell me that affordability is the number one issue on people's minds. >> right. >> and let's stop talking about it, even as democrats. let's stop talking about it. we feel your pain. do something about it. put the money back in their

pockets. that's how you start changing people's lives in a profound way. i'm really excited about this. >> are you signing your name on the checks for $500 checks. >> it's a good move. >> i'll leave it up to you. >> it's worked before. >> by the way, joe biden said this week he was stupid not to put his name on the covid checks that went back out. he might have won. let me ask you one last thing i know you have to run, governor. this idea that the trump administration has put forward about mass deportation which is coming into communities and using perhaps, state, local police to assist in getting people here illegally out of their homes. what do you view the role to be of the state in this operation? >> i have a very strong opinion on this. i will work with you, as we do now, if someone is on a terrorist watch list or audacity to commit crimes once they arrive in the state of new york. i will work with you. i will tell you who they are. i will tell the federal government who they r but i want

to put them through our criminal justice system and do their time. if you deport them, they're a threat to society, they'll be back. i need to protect new yorkers. putting you in jail if you committed these crimes. for families been here a long time, a lot of them have jobs, taxpayers, their kids are in schools, i am not going to let anyone tear apart the families in the state of new york. i will stand up and protect them. my national guard and my state police i just want to send a message out, they're busy protecting new yorkers in the subways and keeping guns off the streets, they're kind of busy right now. so, i know what they're going to be doing here in the state of new york. >> you know, willie, since we came back from the war, started this show, we've always done weather and sports on the 8. oh, it's 8. especially for buffalo. always buffalo. so first of all -- we'll go sports first because you feel

overlooked. the only team to play football in new york, you say those of us around this table do not talk about the team that i've already predicted is going to beat the chiefs and get to the super bowl. your buffalo bills. tell us about them. >> well, we beat the chiefs already in regular season. we beat the 49ers. we had a heart breaking but exhilarating game against los angeles a couple days ago. we'll take on the lions and beat the lions in a couple days. sorry, gretchen whitmer. governors are very competitive. but i come from buffalo. my parents lived in a trailer park. you know, we had nothing. we were working class people. we bought our clothes at used clothing. people at buffalo know what struggle is. when grow to four super bowls and don't come home with a brass ring -- >> that hurts. >> it does something to the psychology -- >> can we pray for jim kelly right now. >> god bless you. >> but it makes you strong and resilient and ever hopeful. always that next season. right now it is the next season.

so, this is our year. >> all right. >> now to weather. i found out that you and i have in common. i was in upstate new york in 1978. >> yep. >> for those who were in upstate new york in 1978, like -- >> it was the blizzard. >> it was the blizzard of '78. we were from the south. just gotten there. we would actually climb up in the back, get a ladder, second floor, the snow drifts ent up 10 feet. >> slide off the roof. >> it was like nothing i ever saw. you talked about the blizzard. and we're bringing this up because -- >> i'm heading there tonight. i'm going to manage the next one. >> there's one going right now. but talk about what you were saying the blizzard of '78 in buffalo. your mom -- >> your mom in a bar. >> trapped in a bar. >> just like willie. off in the bar. ten days. >> no. my mom never drank. it's kind of ironic. >> bad timing. >> never had a drink.

all people to be stuck in a bar. she's driving home through the blizzard. you have to go through the streets of south buffalo. her car gets stuck. the snow is piling up over. she has to go literally sleep on a table in a bar for days and days. i was in college but happened to be home then. and so my dad was stuck somewhere. so i had to take care of all my younger siblings. we're running out of food. we're scared. it's cold. i mean, i didn't realize now you're not supposed to do this. when your power is out, you should not turn on the oven. i know that now. but i was a dumb kid. so i'm trying to keep the family warm. it was crazy. but i'll tell you, when i was governor, we had seven feet of snow just a couple years ago. >> wow. >> my own power in my condo in buffalo was out. we lost power. we had a flood. the pipes froze. my condo wasn't fixed for about almost a year. so, i was at a hotel. it was crazy. it was christmas of just two years ago. but the people there suffered tremendously. but my god and resilient.

>> one more thing, the buffalo bills could have had a dome stadium. >> yeah. >> they didn't want it. >> no. >> they wanted -- they're tough. >> their edge. that's for like tampa baseball. that's not for the bills. >> kathy hochul, great to have you on. thank you very much. >> go bills. >> bring it home. >> i might say for the record, willie doesn't drink a lot but he does go to communion more often than most people. >> amen. >> another time. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> the priest is like, weren't you just here five minutes ago. >> new reporting on the pressure campaign the president-elect and his allies are implementing to get some of trump's more controversial cabinet picks across the finish line. plus, the stock market at a record high. but the gap between corporate profits and the income of working americans is becoming more pronounced. steve ratner is standing by to break it all down for us. we're back in two minutes. we're ba ickn two minutes.

♪♪ i think the chiefs are vulnerable. >> welcome back. >> you win by one or two points a game. remember the vikings did that a couple years ago. i think the bills may do it this year. >> mvp. >> incredible. >> the steelers might be in the mix, too. >> the steelers. 10-3. >> problem is that the chiefs get the home game all the way to the super bowl. that's a problem. >> win each game by two points. >> anyhow. >> y'all are boring. okay. president-elect trump, donald trump, is set to ring the opening bell at the new york stock exchange later this morning as the market under the biden administration continues to set overall record highs. joining us now, former treasury official, morning joe economic analyst steve ratner. take us through what you got. >> it's been quite a ride in the stock market and donald trump is here to celebrate it today. so let's take a look at what's

actually happened. go back to 1994, really the stock market almost been on a tear throughout this period. it's up 12 times over that time frame. and four out of the five presidents during that time frame have actually had great stock market performance. clinton being the best, 15% a year. obama almost 14% a year. trump almost 14% a year. and biden 12.5% a year. the only kind of loser was bush who had the dot com bubble crash and also the financial crisis that made it hard for him. but, stocks have gone up so much that by most measures they are now very, very expensive. this is how we measure how expensive stocks are by the ratio of the price to the earnings of the s&p. and what you can see is here we are today. and stocks are more expensive than they've been any time in the last 120 years except for the dot com bubble, actually more expensive than they were before the crash in 1929. that obviously doesn't mean they

can't go higher. i'm not here to predict stock prices. >> hey, steve -- >> yeah. >> can you explain for the layman out there more expensive. explain that. >> basically we value stocks on a multiple of their earnings. and the lower the multiple of the earnings the cheaper they are. as the multiple goes up, they get more expensive. and it's harder for people -- for the stocks to keep going up because they're simply more expensive. it's no different than anything else you buy. and so you can see how expensive they are today. doesn't mean they can't go up more, it's pretty unlikely that donald trump will have a repetition of his success in the first term with stock prices. you know how important stock prices are to donald trump. >> when you say they're more expensive, just an exaggerated version of this is when you have stocks like pets.com that were losing money hand over first and yet they were still -- before the dot com bust still costing a lot of money. >> yeah, exactly.

they're overpriced, like any other kind of thing. houses can be overpriced. the same kind of thing can happen with stocks when the stock prices go up a lot faster than the earnings, which i'll show you in a second. >> do you think that's why warren buffett pulled his money out. we hear about warren buffett pulling all of his money out of the stock market or most of the money out of the stock market and he's in cash now because -- does he think the stock market is so overvalued that it's likely to fall? >> he hasn't said that. and actually most of what he's pulled out is he sold his apple stake and we'll talk about apple also in just a second. but, warren buffett and most investors and i will tell you trying to time markets is a fool's errand. so, buffett isn't saying explicitly he's worried about stock prices. implicit is in what he's doing is that fact, yes. >> talk about the magnificent seven.

it's remarkable seven stocks are driving so much success on the stock market. >> yeah. these have been named the magnificent seven. i'm sure you all heard of nvidia. it's up over 825% since the beginning of last year. less than two years. meta, better known as facebook, up almost 400% and tesla is interesting because the stock had been languishing until the election but people think musk will use his influence in the white house to help tesla and big jump. amazon, google, apple, the laggard only doubling in the last two years and here is the s&p all the way down here. these stocks accounted for all of this. they represent 30% of the index. 500 stocks in the s&p index, but they're weighted by the size of their market value. and these are all trillion dollar plus companies. so instead of being 2% of the index, which is what they would be on an equal weighted basis, they're 30%. but if you look over here, you can see what happens. if you assume that the stock

market -- the s&p were equally weighted rather than market value rated, it would be up 29% over the last year -- two years. instead it's up 57%. so, this is what a large part -- not all of it, a large part of what has been driving the stock market. >> right. we talked earlier this morning about how the technological age, globalization made the united states much more profitable, richer, made us more productive but hallowed out the middle class and the working class. you have -- your next chart talks about how corporate profits are exploding but much faster than incomes for working americans. >> yeah. it's interesting. if you want to look for reasons why people are unhappy and the mood of the country is so dispeptic. the fruits of our economic success, we had a great economy for a good while with ups and downs but generally quite

strong. the rewards of that have not been delivered equally. so again, if we go back all the way to 1994, we're tracking here stock prices and you can see what's happened to those. we're tracking corporate profits. you can see what's happened to those. and we're tracking how much of personal income has gone up. and you can see the difference here. over a long period of time how people ended up with a lot less than corporate profits and way less than stock market investors. and let's just look at the last two presidents. you can see that under trump and his first term, corporate profits went up by 14.7% annual rate over his four years. personal income only went up by 5.7% over that same period. biden, it's closer but still corporate profits went up 12%, personal income went up 7%. so the capitalists so to speak have done very well and the

average american a lot less well and i think you can see in a lot of the unhappiness out in the country part of the reason why that might be. >> all right. "morning joe," economic analyst, steve ratner, providing, as always, extraordinary charts. also providing us -- >> thank you, steve. >> the word of the day. >> what's that? >> dispeptic. >> not a word i ever said in my life. >> for the kids at home, it means irritable or depressed. by the way, the number of the day is eight and the color orange. still ahead on "morning joe," the incoming trump administration plans to end a long-standing policy for i.c.e. agents. nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley join us with her new reporting on that. and we'll be joined by democratic congressman gabe vasquez of new mexico. he just won re-election in a majority hispanic district that narrowly went to donald trump's in last month's election. we'll talk to him about the cross-over voters next on "morning joe." "morning joe."

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the incoming trump administration is planning to scrap an obama-era policy that prevented i.c.e. agents from arresting undocumented immigrants in so-called sensitive locations without approval from supervisors. the policy was created in 2011 and remained through biden's current term. it bans arrests in hospitals, schools, at funerals, houses of

worship among others. three sources familiar with the plan tell nbc news trump intends to rescind that policy as soon as his first day in office, adding the incoming administration believes it will allow i.c.e. to more efficiency implement trump's mass deportation plan. joining us now one of the journalists who broke the story, nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley. julia, good morning. i want to talk exactly about the plans the trump administration has but a little more on this policy to begin with. probably makes sense to a lot of people not to go into a hospital o r a funeral, for example. to grab somebody and deport them. why was it put in place to begin with? >> yeah. when this was put in place in 2011 by obama's then i.c.e. director it seemed like common sense. they wanted to allow migrants to be able to get services that they needed to be able to prosper and live in a community peacefully. undocumented children are still allowed to go to school even if their parents are in this country undocumented. the idea that parents could be

arrested picking up their children from school or that they would be discouraged from going into that setting, from getting emergency health care, from attending a wedding or a funeral, these all seemed like common sense places to protect. and in fact, the first trump administration stood by this. they did not change these rules when they came into office. the biden administration went further to define exactly what these places were. they also said it includes rallies. so if you think about it, when they rescind this policy, willie, if there are protests against mass deportations, an undocumented immigrants show up there, i.c.e. could target those locations to do arrests. and what advocates say is this will send more people underground. migrants will be afraid to come out and participate in their communities. it could affect how they live, how their children are able to live in a healthy way and it could affect how they interact with police. so if they're victims of crimes, they could be disincentivized from going to places where they could be -- where they could

talk and actually be cooperative with law enforcement. >> you know, julia, as you know covering this beat so closely, tom n, the border czar, said repeated will we're going after the bad guys. where do you draw the line of who is a bad guy, who is not? convicted criminal, suspected criminal? how do you see this policy of mass deportation actually being implemented? >> yeah, willie. that's interesting because what homan is saying we're going after the bad guys. everything we've reported so far indicate that is a want to get these numbers as high as possible. the very idea they're going to rescind this policy that isn't really thought of that the bad guys are at churches and weddings and funerals and hospitals and schools, but rather if they rescind this they can get the numbers higher. it's also the reason why they're looking at major metropolitan areas and talking to private prison companies to vastly expand i.c.e. detention and looking at the cost of what it could be to deport millions. look at that figure.

967.7 billion. this figure we heard in the first year is far lower than what they would need to do. the numbers they're looking at really go beyond just going after criminals. we should point out, i.c.e. has a really hard time tracking down the criminals. over 400,000 migrants in this country who have been convicted of crimes that are not detained by i.c.e. but that number is very similar to what they saw at the end of the first trump administration. i.c.e. notoriously had a hard time finding migrants especially when it's found out later that they were convicted of crimes in their home countries before they cross the border, if that information wasn't known at the time. and so, it's difficult to see how they're going to be able to focus just on the bad guys and really get them all out. >> hey, julia, explain to people watching, why does it cost so much money to deport migrants? >> well, it comes down to the bed space, as you know, they

have these expensive contracts with private prison companies. they have to be able to monitor them as they go through the asylum process if they do have a claim. you have to be able to put them on a plane, send them back. also in cases of countries that are unwilling to take back their migrants, you have to be able to force them possibly to another country. we've reported last week they're coming up with a list of other countries, countries that don't want to take them back. what will be their financial incentive or incentive at all to take back migrants who aren't from those countries. and overall costs really go up when you look at the fact, again, that they don't know where a lot of these migrants are. i've been with i.c.e. on ride alongs. it can take about eight agents to make one arrest. they only have about 1,000 i.c.e. agents out doing the fugitive operations. the numbers there just don't really lend themselves to being able to make these mass arrests, particularly when they're going after people who could be a high

threat to the agents or to the public. >> we've heard back and forth, julia, between donald trump and the president of mexico, the new president of the mexico. i'm curious is mexico changing its policy in any way that is more in line with what donald trump wants to maybe stop the flow through mexico into the united states? >> we do understand there have been about two calls between claudia scheinbaum and trump. and in those calls that she's not made any promises to that extent. we know that she does not want this 25% tariff that trump has been hanging over mexico. he's really taking the stick over the carrot approach to get mexico to comply. i think the thing that scheinbaum and the previous mexican administration really tried to point out is that they have already done so much for the united states when it comes to stopping immigration. they have tripled their intradictions in the last year. it's one of the reasons why the numbers at our border have come down so far.

they're already taking back 30,000 people per month from cuba, haiti, nicaragua and venezuela that show up at our border. they can take people back all through agreements that the biden administration made with them and remain in mexico, something during the first trump administration, something they don't want to see again. in all the conversations, mexico is not ready to go head-to-head with trump. here is our red line. they need a open dialogue and good relationship with the united states. they're worried about the tariff. but they also keep wanting to remind their public and the american public how much mexico has taken on already on this issue. meanwhile, they're really worried and want more from the united states to keep arms trafficking from going into mexico and, of course, both countries are worried about the spread of fentanyl. >> all right, nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley, thank you for your great reporting. we appreciate it. let's bring in now, democratic congressman gabe

vasquez of new mexico. he represents a majority hispanic district that trump carried this election. and let's continue the conversation. what are your concerns with this incoming administration as it pertains to mass deportations? >> well, thank you for having me on. and as you mentioned, my district is a majority hispanic district. i represent 180 miles of the u.s./mexico border. i represent a land mass bigger than the state of pennsylvania. and so i think this fear-based authoritarian approach to mass deportation is the wrong move for many different reasons. when you look at a district like mine, one of the largest producers of our nation's onions, chile crops, pecans and look at who is starting small businesses at the fastest rate, it is within the hispanic population. and many of the families in my district are mixed status families. and so i think what folks really want is a humane, a predictable

approach to immigration reform that helps boost our economy, that helps support international trade with our country's largest trading partner, which is mexico. and to normalize relations in a diplomatic way that also allows for immigration reform that has alluded congress for many years. that's one of the reasons i ran from congress. i come from an immigrant family. my family contributed to this country greatly and i had the opportunity to serve my community in congress. we need to change the conversation about the value that migrants produce in this country and realize that districts like mine help put food on the table, lower the cost of goods and in particular with trade with mexico, help a supply chain that lowers the cost for all americans. >> congressman, good morning. great to have you with us. you're a fascinating case because of what mika laid out n your district, you won but donald trump also won. in fact, you won by a much bigger margin than you had the two years prior.

so, i think you're someone democrats on the national level should be talking to. perhaps taking latino voters for granted or making assumptions about their views on immigration that proved not to be true. what should national democrats take away from your election and know about your district? >> well, look, i'm somebody that is more comfortable on horseback or on atv than i am in a chevy suburban. i have experience border life my entire -- pretty much my entire life. when i came to congress, i came with the lived experience of what it means for folks both to be farm workers and to be the farmers, to be the hospitality workers but also to be the restaurant owners. i know how hard our folks work in our community. [speaking in a global language] and so when we talk about candidates that are actually going to represent their district, first and foremost, you have to show up. and in my district, showing up often means driving nine hours.

that's what it takes to drive from new mexico to pueblo. you put in the work and democrats are willing to select candidates that reflect their districts, places where they have significant latino populations, they'll have much better success than looking at who has the credentials or the harvard credentials to be able to self fund a campaign. you need to look more at the home-grown candidates that are able to build the trust and win the support of their communities just like i did here. >> congressman, picking up on that a lot of the national democratic advisers and people that frame these campaigns do not understand that no community in your district, the latino community, a lot of my work in the black community are monoliths. may be more conservative on some

issues and more so-called progressive on others. talk about that. you have a lot of people talking for people that they never talked to that you obviously have just outlined that is one of the reasons you've been victorious. >> well, thank you for that question. look, i represent latino veterans that served in vietnam. i represent oil field workers in the most productive area of the basin in the southeast. i represent cattle growers that have been here for third and fourth-generations that are all latinos. they all faced different experiences. they all have different needs. and they all need a representative that's going to support them. oftentimes it means reaching across the aisle, it means understanding that rural lifestyles and rural communities in places like new mexico matter just as much to latinos as they do in the inner cities. and so, thinking about, you know, how we approach these communities that are not amonolith, it starts with choosing first a good candidate but also understanding that we have fourth, fifth, sixth generation latino families who are just like any americans. the truth is if we are not

native american, we all have an immigration story in our history. we all somehow came to this country. and we have to realize that for latinos, especially in my district, the issues that apply to them are the issues that apply to the general electorate. that was the economy. those were pocketbook issues. that was lowering the price of gas. that was making sure that people had good-paying jobs and their kids could go to technical school, could go to college. those are things i think as americans we all want. so we didn't segregate latinos into a separate category. we just took care of the issues we knew folks were thinking about while at the same time making sure that we produce an economy that was built on international trade in my district and that helped support a new generation of workers that are coming to this country and contributing to our economy. >> democratic congressman gabe vasquez of new mexico, thank you very much for being on this morning. and coming up on "morning joe," democratic congressman dan goldman will be our guest to weigh in on christopher wray stepping down as fbi director.

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(intercom) t minus 10... ♪♪ (janet) so much space! that open kitchen! (tanya) ...definitely the one! (ethan) but how can you sell your house when we're stuck on a space station for months???!!! (brian) opendoor gives you the flexibility to sell and buy on your timeline. (janet) nice! (intercom) flightdeck, see you at the house warming.

. okay, then, i'll do it with you. >> what do you mean you'll do it with me? >> i mean just what i said, i'm going to college, what do you think? >> what do i think? i think you're nuts. >> not so. who made the rules? ♪♪ >> come on. >> that's the perfect way to start. >> it is. bill belichick. going back to school. the eight-time super bowl winner is going to be the next head coach of the university of north carolina. a five-year pending approval deal by the board of trustees, and of course, willie, what

makes this so special for him is he's also dating. >> okay. no, stop it. >> you led with that. >> just fact check, his girlfriend is 24, out of college. >> i thought she was in graduate school. i thought she was in graduate school. >> there's the back page of the "new york post." jonathan lemire, i got to tell you, i didn't think this was going to actually happen in the end. i thought it was maybe talk, leverage, something. he's going to sit in the living rooms of 16 and 17-year-olds and beg them to play for north carolina! he's going to coach, guys. >> we were all on this show expressing doubt that he was going to do this, and hours later he proved us wrong. >> i'm for it. it's clear he read the room and realized there was not going to be an nfl head coaching job. he'll fall short of the nfl win record he wanted. to go to college, not exactly a glamour program. he'll do brilliantly.

he's not exactly the, and i love bill belichick, the warmest and cuddleiest figure. >> why don't we make thanksgiving dinner a little bit livelier, and bring over saban. and think about it, if you're bill belichick, one of the greatest football coaches of all time, and your owner, who i love, i love bob craft. your owner tells everybody, don't hire this guy, he's trouble. look what he's doing, okay, i'll humble myself. i'll go to unc, and i'll prove myself all over again. i think, this is, again, a pathway back to the nfl, but still, i personally -- i like the move. >> it's kind of cool. >> it's kind of like, oh, really. you think, you know, my sell by date has passed? let me show you. >> his dad was an assistant coach in the 1950s.

he said he used to go with his dad when he was a kid, watch film with him. that's where his love of football was born. that's part of it too. bottom line, he wanted to coach football again. he didn't like being out of the game and this was the opportunity that was there. >> again, the good news, his girlfriend. >> that's just -- stop. >> post grad education degree, probably. law school, something. i don't know. >> she's terrific. >> willie, you're a jersey guy, okay. what's going on in jersey? >> i don't know, man. >> i keep hearing about these drones, ufos, whatever, what's going on in jersey? >> is there an amazon headquarter. >> these are not i got it at best buy drones. some have been measured at 6 feet in radius. some question there's bedminster nearby, a military facility nearby, but no great explanation for what a lot of people in new jersey have been seeing in the sky. i'm not adding to conspiracy

theories, but we need some answer answers. >> what exits are they floating over the most? >> let's see. i don't know, i've got to look. it's down state a little bit. not the burbs. >> vince lombardi rest stop. >> i do not understand what christopher wray is doing. if donald trump is going to break precedent twice, first by firing the first fbi director when he went in, comey, and now doing it again, i would make him do it. i would make him, once again, breach protocol. >> right. >> but ray didn't do that. >> no, that's the big story we start with this morning. the announcement from fbi director chris wray, that he will resign from his position before president-elect trump takes office in january. here is what he told fbi employees at a town hall yesterday. >> after weeks of careful thought, i have decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of

the current administration in january and then step down. and in my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important in how we do our work. >> the decision comes as trump vows to replace wray after the inauguration selecting loyalist kash patel to take wray's job. >> patel, of course, promised last december about a year ago that he would be part of the next trump administration and go out and arrest journalists, and either go after them civilly or go after them criminally. he also said he would shut down the fbi building on day one and turn it into a museum for the deep state. >> trump has signalled he would likely fire wray upon taking office if wray did not leave

first. trump has accused wray without evidence of allowing his role to be politically weaponized by the biden justice department. a senior fbi official tells nbc news the current plan is for wray to stay on as director until january 20th when the new administration takes over. at that point, fbi deputy director paul bate will be named acting director and will stay in that position until a new director is confirmed. wray's resignation means he will not serve out the ten-year term to which he was nominated by then president trump in 2017. >> all right. so, david, we either have ten-year terms or don't have ten-year terms. are you surprised that wray just backed down and didn't make it more difficult for donald trump? >> ken dilanian who covers the justice department for nbc, he heard from one source that wray

thinks this will be better for the fbi. there's a chance trump will attack the fbi less if he steps away. some might say that's naive, but that fits a pattern of wray trying to keep a low profile, not getting in public fights with people. the real danger and the main thing i want to talk about, i talked to a hatch dozen current fbi officials, they are worried about kash patel as fbi director than pam bondi. it's the most powerful law enforcement agency in the country. he has a very conspiratorial world view, and competence in terms of fighting crime. they see him as one of the most dangerous cabinet picks. >> we say this about pete hegseth all the time about the d.o.d. being the most important bureaucracy, as far as america's national security, as mike barnicle said on "way too early," this is the premiere law enforcement agency in the world.

you put somebody up there who's not prepared to do it, even putting aside the fact that he's going to shut down the fbi building on day one and arrest journalists, i mean, that's -- i mean, it's hard to just say, oh, well, let's put that to the side that he said he's going to go out and hunt down journalists. right, even with that to the side, he's ill equipped like hegseth and gabbard to run these agencies. let's bring in ken dilanian and congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post," jackie alemany. tell me, ken, why did he quit? why did he announce his resignation instead of staying in there and saying, i've got a ten-year term. if you're going to fire me, you're going to have to fire me. >> joe, you laid out the stark choice that was in front of chris wray. as soon as donald trump announced that kash patel was

his pick, wray knew that he essentially was either going to have to force trump to fire him or find a graceful way to bow out. at the end of the day, and they wrestled over there, i'm told. at the end of the day, they came down on the side that it would be more traumatic and painful for the fbi and worse for the country if wray did what you suggested and forced donald trump to fire him because, look, for example, charles grassley, the chairman of the judiciary committee, issued a letter, accusing wray of all crimes of a manner and sins, saying the fbi was a disaster under his tenure, and made charges that the fbi sat on bribery allegations against joe and hunter biden, which has been debunked. it's one thing for charles grassley to say that. it would be another for donald trump to do it in a letter, announcing that he was firing chris wray.

that's the thing they were concerned about. there are a lot of people out there who think this is a strategic mistake, and it's really in keeping with chris wray's profile over the years of trying to avoid these fights, of trying to keep the bureau out of these partisan battles. but the result of that has been the republicans have relentlessly pommelled the fbi for seven years when wray is on the hill and other times, made baseless charges that the fbi has been politicized and the fbi has done very little to push back against that, and as a result, you have only 40% of americans, recent poll, have confidence in the fbi. and 23% of republicans. now, the fbi believes they couldn't win that fight, there was no winning in getting out there, and wray did try to push back occasionally in hearings where he said at one point he said it was insane to assume that he was biassed against republicans. given that he was a lifelong republican, appointed by donald trump. but at the end of the day, he decided that, staying in and making donald trump fire him would be -- would be painful for

the work force. many of them have not gotten over the traumatic firing of james comey in 2017. it would have done, as you suggest, it would have underscored to the country that this was a norm shattering moment, this is the second fbi director that donald trump has pushed out short of a ten-year term making a mockery of the idea that the fbi director should be independent and serve independent of presidential cycles, guys. >> david, director wray, as ken just reminded us, was appointed by donald trump in 2017 when they fired jim comey. he is a lifelong republican, was lauded by donald trump at the time. the accusation donald trump makes and made again in his response to this news yesterday is that chris wray is responsible for the weaponization of the fbi, the justice department was weaponized. chief among those accusations is that they exercised a lawmaker search warrant at mar-a-lago to get classified documents that had been hoarded at the beach club after months and months of attempts by the national archives to politely get them

back. that's the argument for weaponization, now what you have coming in is explicit weaponization, if it is, in fact, kash patel. no wink and nod, i'm loyal to donald trump to go after his opponents, on capitol hill, down the line across washington. this is a case where the guy who's coming in next, potentially, if he gets confirmed, will actually use that department as a weapon. >> yes, and the ten-year term is a reflection of history, first, to get away from jay edgar hoover, who for 50 years fed dirt to republicans and weaponized department. we have had a good 40, 50 year stretch. kash patel, his facebook, "government gangsters" there's a list of 50 people part of the deep state, pat cipollone, trump's white house counsel is part of a deep state plot with

hillary clinton and jim comey, so he is coming in -- >> it's just so absurd, it's so preposterous, and yet, you have christopher wray backing out to make it easier for him to get in there? >> this is the fear is that he's -- it's a very con spheretorial world view throughout the book. he exaggerates his own achievements and experience, and it's, and it serves this political messaging that trump likes to hear, and part of it is performative. does he really believe it or not? this is sort of how you get ahead in that inner circle, but he's now going to be possibly the head of the most powerful law enforcement agency in this country. and has access to tremendous amounts of secrets that americans have. again, hoover abused all of that, and so it's -- that's what surprised me in my recent conversations was much much more fear about what kash patel will do with the fbi than pam bondi with the doj.

>> jackie alemany, i'm curious if what we heard is reflected in the thoughts on capitol hill. you have a number of different nominees, like pete, who -- pete hegseth, he's unqualified. these are just facts, and he's behaved in ways that may disqualify him. and there are just questions in terms of his basic ability to do a job. then there are nominees or ideas like kash patel and tulsi gabbard, these are people who have outwardly engaged or spoken in ways that are dangerous to american democracy. if i've said that right, are republicans showing that they are aware of this distinction and that they are aware of the dangers at stake? >> yeah, mika, there's actually sort of two tracks of mind going on on capitol hill right now according to the number of people i spoke to yesterday after the news of wray's resignation. one of them being the nomination track going on. also the fact that this news comes on the tails of the

justice department inspector general announcing that the trump administration had previously used concerning and surreptitious tactics to monitor congressional staffers and two democratic lawmakers and obtain their communications, that there is very clearly a precedent here for trump abusing some of the vast powers of surveillance that the justice department has and as kash patel has basically clearly stated that he plans on doing. we know that there were 43 congressional staffers whose communications were monitored as a part of investigations into who was leaking potentially to reporters during justice department and fbi's investigation of russian interference in the 2016 election. and this is something that was top of mind for many of the staffers that i spoke with yesterday who flagged this inspector general's report. but in terms of the nominations,

these things all sort of feed into one another. kash patel is someone, as is tulsi gabbard, who have kind of flown under the radar and sort of sailed through the process so far as a result of all the scrutiny of pete hegseth, whose nomination for now has been relatively stable. we saw a number of non-committal statements about the candidates meeting with republican senators throughout the week this week for one-on-one meetings. but right now, other than the usual suspects, susan collins, lisa murkowski, and mitch mcconnell, there's not a lot of opposition to these people. there are concerns, especially about tulsi gabbard but not about patel for the reasons that we're talking about. i talked to a trump transition official last night who says that they're really not concerned with many of their nominees at the moment, and feel

like their approach, especially with hegseth fighting has been effective. coming up, by one measure, syria traded a ruthless dictator for a designated terrorist. richard haass weighs in on how the white house is managing that. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." t ahead on "morning joe."

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and appreciate. and we hope through time, overall, when we get through the committee and to the floor that we can earn her support. >> i would say that i had a good, substantiative discussion that lasted more than an hour. we covered a wide range of topics. i pressed him on both his position on military issues as well as the allegations against him. so i don't think there was anything that we did not cover. >> susan collins let everybody know where she stood. she's going to go through the process, which she very pointedly says i want to look at the fbi background check before making any decision. that was not a win. maybe some of the people on their little podcasts can say that was a win today, and scream and yell, and flex their muscles, but i will tell you, there's another problem, and that is -- and "the new york

times" is talking about it right now, the land of sand and death. the disruptions in syria puts tulsi gabbard in the center of the spotlight. hard for me to believe. even in this cynical age that republicans who have spent their entire life concerned about the intelligence community and building the intelligence community and giving a damn about the intelligence community, just like the fbi, are going to go ahead and vote for somebody like tulsi gabbard, who they openly said we are very concerned about her statements that sounded supportive of assad and very concerned that even russian media considers her to be a close ally of vladimir putin, and again, just repeating russian talking points. i find that hard to believe that there are not going to be four republican senators that vote no with her, with hegseth, and yes,

with kash patel, a guy who said he's going to close the fbi on day one, and that he's going to run around arresting journalists or charging them civilly. >> yeah, certainly for tulsi gabbard, the spotlight on syria not helpful to her chances here. she just even over the weekend was, again, featured on rt, the russian propaganda television network in a supportive way. as far as patel goes, i was talking to someone in trump world who was gleeful about wray's decision to step down. we don't have to spend capital fighting him. this is another sign we have intimidated washington. we're breaking the process, and in this case, they're right. we don't know that will be the case for all of their nominees. they have managed to avoid this fight with wray, though i do think that now that wray is stepping aside, there will be more scrutiny on kash patel going forward. he's managed to avoid the spotlight to this point, ken dilanian, but that's going to shift now with more focus on

him. my question to you s as someone who covers this day in and day out, we know, joe went through it. we know what kash patel has gone through were he confirmed. will there be people in the fbi that carry out his orders, will there be resignations or loyalists, people who say, i will do that, even if it's morally or legally questionable? >> i don't think there are going to be very many people inside the fbi who are willing to carry out illegal orders, when you put it that starkly, jonathan. i should say that taking wray's place here as the acting director on january 20th is paul le bay, not a man who trump world loves at all, paul was key to the decision to search mar-a-lago. it's not a win as far as paul abbate, and confirming him as acting director, they would have to find a senate confirmed figure, or someone in the fbi. just putting that out there.

back to your question. david is right, current and former fbi officials are concerned about kash patel, in part because he lacks the qualifications in the history of people who have ran the fbi to lead the nation's premiere law enforcement agency. he doesn't know how it works. he doesn't know how the place functions. the fbi is a rule of law organization. after the abuses of hoover, a lot of safeguards and guardrails were put in place around the awesome surveillance powers o.f the fbi, and in order to get around them, you have to do a lot of suspect things that are flagged along the way. i mean, the reason an fbi lawyer went to jail for lying on a form is because there was a paper trail there. there are layers and layers of oversight and review of these surveillance applications. so, look, there are maga fbi agents, people inside the fbi who support donald trump, but there aren't a lot of people i would argue willing to do things that are outside of their oath of office to fulfill some

political agenda, and if kash patel tries to order people to do that, he's going to find that on the front page of the major newspapers very quickly. does that mean he can't make mischief, absolutely not. there's a lot behind the scenes. i'm more optimistic that the guardrails can hold in an institution like the fbi. >> ken dilanian, thank you very much for your reporter. this is the thing i explain to politicians, especially politicians going into the white house or people going into the white house, the intel community is going to get you coming and they're going to get you going. you can talk to george w. bush about that during the iraq war. it was like split, half of the cia agents, this yellow cake stuff, that's bullshit, and a leak to the fbi. barack obama targeting people, himself personally, that gets leaked to the "new york times." there's a split in the 2016 campaign, and this is what's wild about the whole idea, it's politicized, no, the new york

office you know, they were against hillary clinton. they didn't like hillary clinton. we knew that during the 2016 campaign. the d.c. office didn't like donald trump, and donald trump got elected the first time because james comey after not indicting hillary clinton decides he's going to hold a press conference and say, yeah, for the first time, by the way, yeah, yeah, she's not guilty. but oh, she's politically guilty, which was just an outrageous norm, and then ten days before the election, we know exactly what he did. the fbi screws up on both sides. they're politicized on both sides. you can look at james comey and the mistakes he made. ask the clintons today about what he did and how he elected donald trump. you look at what happened afterward, the steele dossier, which we said from the very beginning was nonsense. they're doing the steele dossier, the carter page fisa

apps, they screw up, they're human beings, but there are people who like republicans in the fbi and who like democrats in the fbi, and trump world, running around saying what they're saying, it's just absolutely ridiculous, willie, they have short-term or long-term memory loss. they don't know what it is now. it was the fbi. it was james comey who gave donald trump basically a life raft and a paddle to shore and win the election ten days before. it was over, until james comey did what he did. >> i think you might have heard about that from bill clinton a few days ago. sitting down with the president. >> i did. >> that lingers. for obvious reasons. >> they do not forget. >> for good reason. >> there's another interesting element to this, which is a little bit of blow back on the pressure campaign that's being brought on senate republicans, so you have people like lisa murkowski coming out of these

meetings saying the calls we're getting, pressure we're getting from trump people are not appreciated. she's saying politely what senators are saying, back off, we have an advise and consent role here. not all senators, a lot of them will go along with whatever donald trump tells them to do. you have heritage putting up ads saying we're going to primary you, unless you vote for all of these people. pressure from outside. >> they tried that with lisa murkowski. that didn't work too well. don't you have ranked choice voting in alaska? >> yeah. >> so actually taking the middle ground and being responsible pays off there. and also, tom cotton, running around going, i am the enforcer. you all better vote for every one of these people. do you know how well that plays with fellow senators? what do they say about fellow senators, everyone looks in the mirror, and what do they see, the next president of the united states. so they don't need tom cotton running around playing enforcer,

and people in maga world going, we got tom cotton on our side, he's yelling at all the other senators. where are these people from because that's not how -- it's we in the house call them the house of lords for a reason. >> coming up, a state senator in new jersey is now calling for a i want willed state of emergency until officials learn more about a series of mysterious drone sightings. we'll have the latest on that when "morning joe" comes right back. "morning joe" comes right back michael strahan: i've been a part of the st. jude family for years.

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them, they go dark. >> reporter: it's not an airplane. reports of mysterious drones and lights in the sky are growing. from warships to nuclear sights across the west to langley, virginia, and most recently to arsenal in new jersey. the pentagon says there's no evidence that drones are coming from a foreign adversary, but lawmakers on capitol hill are demanding answers from the fbi. >> i don't have an answer of who's responsible for that, of one or more people that are responsible for those drone flights. >> reporter: those who have set drones up to give chase like local sheriff's departments say they have never been able to see where they come from or where they land chased this one down in his car and thinks the military should shoot them down. eleven drones have been flown over a military sight. >> those drones should be out of the sky. why are we putting up with this. >> reporter: the fbi is asking anyone with credible video to send them in for analysis.

>> it's 2024. are you telling me in this day and age somebody can fly drones of this size, the size of a car if not bigger, and we have no idea who's doing it. >> reporter: for now, yet another growing mystery in the sky. >> so, willie, they're flying them over langley, they're flying them over nuclear plants. they're flying them over military facilities. i'm just a simple country lawyer. i wouldn't allow that to happen. >> what's striking is how no one actually appears to know what on earth is going on. i'm going to quote the ""new york post,"" a high ranking new jersey police source saying we're all befuddled as to what the "f" is going on. nobody got these at radio shack and is flying them out in the backyard. these are massive drones. >> where are they from? it's not from the pentagon. they're not going to be flying

over military bases and other things. richard haass, you tell us. i mean, foreign powers would have the ability to do that. so why in the world -- >> where would they take off from or something like that. i would think it's more likely from here, given their limited range, but your basic point is right, we ought to have stipulated, if you will no drone zones over any site, that's not complicated. president-elect trump is times person of the year for 2024. we'll talk about the process behind the selection when the editor in chief joins the conversation in the fourth hour of "morning joe." tion in the fo of "morning joe.

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lot of things going on there. what's your take? >> lots of things going on. there's some worrisome things going on. we are seeing revenge killings, the turks using this as an opportunity to go after the kurds, which they see as terrorists, other than a national group. these things don't usually go well. after you get rid of the old regime, the idea that everyone's going to come together. you're going to have a single authority, and it's going to be benign, it's very little in history, very little in middle east history to suggest this is going to be smooth or neat. i think we're going to see, at best, a very decentralized messy country, almost a version of the ball balkans in syria. we're going to see civil strife to determine what comes next, and we could see a somewhat jihadist group. think about the taliban. these guys could be very taliban like potentially. again, i don't mean to be the bad news bear here, but great that we got rid of bashar al

assad, this was an awful, despicable regime, responsible for hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths in refugees, but that's just the beginning of the end. right now we've got a very difficult and uncertain path ahead of us in syria. >> richard you've got secretary of state blinken and sullivan in the region to talk about what's going on with israel and also with syria. what is their objective there? we know they're discussing perhaps removing basically the leading terrorist group that rode into damascus and toppled assad. the terrorist group according to the united states designation, removing them from that list, it's so much more complicated than it seemed on the first day when they were dancing in the streets. >> we're going to have a conditional relationship. we'll take you off the terrorism list. we might help you economically. big if, though. you cannot make syria a safe venn crew for isis to essentially come back, then there's a question also with the

turks. what do we say to them. actually, the most important meeting may be in ankara. what do we say to turkey, which has replaced iran as the most important external country. what do we say to them about the kurds, the military forces that are still in syria. we've go t a lot of big questions. >> the biden administration is hoping to get a cease fire hostage deal in gaza, reporting from the "wall street journal" that hamas is willing to drop demands, maybe we're inching closer to that. give us your read and how the tumult may be impacting that. >> it's left hamas isolated there. it's weakened iraq. by the way, you can see new hope for lebanon, almost turn lebanon into a revived country. but yeah, you're right. rare good news. it seems that hamas has dropped the demand of a full israeli military withdrawal.

which is a big deal. talking about here's a prisoner, here's a hostage list. so, you know, we have seen this movie before. actually, yeah, i think the strategic situation has so weakened iran and so weakened hamas, that i don't think it's fanciful now to think there are possibilities going forward that simply didn't exist for the last few months. coming up, a conversation with the lead counsel from donald trump's first impeachment, congressman dan goldman reacts to the resignation of the fbi director. that's next on "morning joe." di, there's no slowing down. each day is a unique blend of people to see and things to do. that's why you choose glucerna to help manage blood sugar response. uniquely designed with carbsteady. glucerna. bring on the day. asthma. does it have you missing out on what you love, with who you love? get back to better breathing with fasenra, an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma taken once every 8 weeks. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems.

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. i think if animals could speak, if all species could speak, they would all say the same thing, which is i want to live. >> josh, a lot of folks could argue spending money on squirrels, why is that important? but it is important, why? >> every living creature deserves a chance to live, and

every living creature wants to live. she is ready to go, and that, my friends, is what it's all about. >> that was a look at the new program titled "extraordinary world" with jeff corwin, debuting next month on cbs and paramount plus. the series is produced in partnership with the brady hunter foundation. it will shine a spotlight on every day heroes making a difference through animal advocacy, land and resource, conservation, youth empowerment and much more. and joining us now, the host of the program, wildlife conservationist, jeff corwin, and the costar, josh fox, the founder and executive director of the brady hunter foundation, which focuses on both humanitarian and animal welfare efforts. thank you both for being here this morning. so, jeff, let's start with sort

of the message here, the origin, if you will, of your life's work, i guess. >> yes, you know, i kind of joke, i started in this career as a brunette. and now i find myself as a silverback still telling this powerful story of where we are in the planet when it comes to the protection of natural resources and endangered species, and how that has an interconnection with the human experience. and that's really the spirit of this series. it's a partnership with the brady hunter foundation, which is a passion project for josh, and essentially, every episode, we go on this incredible journey where in this world ofl challenges today and so many unknowns, we highlight every day people making our world a special and stable place, from animals to people, that's the spirit of what the series is. >> josh, how do you choose which stories, which animals, which people to highlight? >> we have met so many incredible organizations around the world, and we ask them the

same question every time, which is how can we make an immediate impact? we are in 14 countries, we have done over 80 projects in the couple of years we have been in existence. it's about people and animals working together. >> tell us a little bit more about these projects. where do you go? >> i mean, i'm down in florida. like, for example, we did a partnership with feeding south florida, an incredible organization that feeds the needy. we have a huge truck that travels around south florida, feeding people. we have had lines of cars, up to 500 cars where we distribute food to them on a monthly basis. >> the clip we played there. there's a lot of animals when we think of endangered or need people's help and assistance who have to fight for their ability to live and need our protection. you don't always think about squirrels, you know, which is highlighted there. so talk to us about what some people might figure the more unorthodox or mundane animals who you believe also deserve a right to live. >> well, essentially everyone

has a place at this table, this big conversation, and squirrels, we see them every day, we consider them a nuisance, but in many ecosystems, they're critical to the survival of that place. look at our forests, nuts get distributed for germination. we did this amazing story where we were rescuing sea turtles off of new england, flying them to the hamptons to a sea turtle hospital where they get to survive, and we show how a whole community comes together to save this resource. that's really the mission of this series, to show how the human opportunity for a better life often connects to how we take care of the environment, and every creature, whether you're a keystone endangered species or a humble squirrel, you have a place in the conversation. >> let me follow up with that, jeff, what are the impacts you're seeing of climate change in what you're doing?. >> well, john, that's an

incredible question. we do many episodes in florida. that's where brady hunter is based. florida because of climate change, the most and only place in north america where we have coral reefs, 3% of those coral reefs survive. the sea turtles getting a cold stun off the coast of new england, it's because of climate change that has drawn them up. climate change is very much impacting the wilds of our planet. that train has left the station. it's how we manage and mitigate going forward, and showing those every day heroes on the front lines of making a difference hopefully gets us to that better place. >> josh, let me ask you, then, what are some of those every day heroes on the front lines? what are some things they are doing to combat climate change, particularly in this moment where there's so much uncertainty and worry about that issue? >> you know, i was horrified when i first moved down to florida. i was walking the beach with hunter, who my foundation is named after him, my dog, and there was just plastic everywhere.

there was garbage all over the beaches in florida. and it was literally one cup at a time, one straw at a time, i would put it in a garbage bag, and i was inspiring people over time. more people joined me on the journey, and our beach anups have 500 people. we're doing these all over the country. i wish we could have a day that was dicated to cleaning up our shorelines, lakes, streams, oceans, we want to inspire other people. that's the main thing we think about with this show, how to educate and inspire people to get off the coach and make a difference. >> important work. extraordinary world with jeff corwin debuts january 49. jeff corwin and josh fox, thanks for being here this morning. the fbi director, stepping down next month as president-elect donald trump prepares to take office. we'll go through christopher wray's history with the president who appointed him seven years ago. and on capitol hill, some republican lawmakers are

supporting trump's suggestion that democrats who worked on the january 6th committee should be jailed. we'll show you their comments about their colleagues. plus, we'll bring you new reporting on an american man who was just freed from a prison in syria. a jam-packed fourth hour of "morning joe" is having ahead. ♪♪ luis fonsi: in this family, we take care of every kid at st. jude like they are our kid. because at st. jude, we believe all children deserve a chance to live. but one in five kids in the us still won't survive cancer. and globally, that number is even higher. in this family, we won't stop until no child dies from cancer. this holiday season, join our st. jude family. we need you. please donate now. they get it. they know how it works.

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there's also been trouble brewing for trump's hhs nominee and last living -- last living california raisin, rfk jr. junior is well known as a vaccine denier and brainworm habitat, but now, now rfk jr. may have gone a bit too far because he's going after one of america's heros, high fructose

corn syrup, he called a formula for making you obese and diabetic. sorry, that's birthday cake oreos. their slogan, why not make this your last birthday. >> fbi director christopher wray has announced plans to step down before trump's inauguration. it's fitting america's top law enforcement officer is timing his resignation to coincide with the end of law. the president-elect has had it out for wray since wray was appointed by a man who nearly destroyed trump's political career, donald trump. >> welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. fbi director chris wray says he will resign from his position before president-elect trump takes office in january. the decision comes as trump has vowed to replace wray after the inauguration selecting loyalist

kash patel for the job. nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander has the latest. >> reporter: this morning, president-elect trump is celebrating christopher wray's resignation as fbi director. posting it's a great day for america as it will end what he calls the weaponization of the united states department of injustice. after wray revealed to bureau employees he will step aside before trump takes office. >> this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important in how we do our work. >> reporter: wray will leave with nearly three years left in his ten-year term, handpicked by trump himself in 2017 after then president trump fired fbi director james comey. the president-elect has attacked the doj and fbi for years, arguing that hat he was unfairly prosecuted for

political reasons. slamming wray over his role in the classified documents investigation. >> i can't say i'm thrilled with had im. he invaded my home. i'm suing the country over it. he invaded mar-a-lago. i'm very unhappy with the things he's done. >> reporter: trump also seized on wray's testimony to congress saying there was some question whether a bullet grazed trump's ear during an assassination attempt last july. >> he said maybe it was shrapnel, where is the shrapnel coming from? is it coming from heaven? i don't think so. >> reporter: the fbi later confirmed trump was struck by a bullet. trump has announced his choice to replace wray, kash patel, meeting with republican senators wednesday. >> we look forward to a very smooth transition in the fbi and i will be ready to go on day one. >> reporter: a former federal prosecutor and controversial trump ally patel vowed to go after those he says unfairly targeted the president-elect and recently made this provocative promise.

>> i would shut down the fbi hoover building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state. >> he also said, jonathan lemire, he was going to arrest journalists, go after them criminally, civilly for those who did not go along with the 2020 stop the steal conspiracy. >> donald trump's campaign promise of retribution, kash patel is at the spear of that. >> yeah. >> the tip of the spear. he is the embodiment of that pledge. he has to this point largely flown under the radar in the confirmation hearings process because gaetz, matt gaetz, took a lot of oxygen, now the focus is on pete hegseth, but with wray stepping down, those i talked to in trump world thrilled that he did this, that trump doesn't have to push him out, he didn't have to be made to fire him, but rather stepping aside, but wray moving on does most likely put more of a spotlight on patel in the days and weeks ahead, and he is someone who not only does not

have what would seem to be the qualifications for this job but has made these incendiary mention far beyond the purview of that job. >> unprecedented. let's bring in dan goldman from new york, he served as lead counsel in donald trump's first impeachment. congressman, thanks so much for being with us. you know, it's interesting in that kristen welker interview, you could go through it and if you read between the lines, you know, donald trump was going to get rid of christopher wray but he never came out and said i am going to fire chris wray. do you think the fbi director made a mistake in making things easier for donald trump in this case? >> well, joe, this is exactly the difference between a nonpartisan apolitical fbi and the political world that donald trump inhabits. christopher wray wanted to do what was best for the fbi. that is not what is probably best or i would say what is best for the country. i would have much rather he

waited and made donald trump actually justify firing him rather than resigning. but because christopher wray cares about our justice system, cares about the ruhle of law and the fbi, he did the best thing for the organization, not necehimself. i think it was y in response to resignation, even putting aside that he accused the fbi of impeaching him which is only done in congress not the fbi, but goes after him about the search of r-a-lago, which, by the way, joe was approved by a judge who found probable cause was presented. the idea that christopher wray went rogue and did a search warrant, of course, is belied by how our justice system works and how due process works. it was a well-deserved search

based on the facts that we read and donald trump is bitter because it was against him. >> doug brinkley, i'm curious your thoughts just looking at the resignation. chris wray had a chance to stay in fight and say i'm not going anywhere, and the thing about donald trump is, we've seen in the past a lot of times he will push up to the line and hold and wait. should he have stayed in there for the sake of history? so history would record that donald trump fired two fbi directors? unprecedented. one of them an fbi director he actually appointed himself? >> i think he should have stayed, 100%. we were counting on him too. everybody's got to kind of hit the barricades right now and do what's best for the country, not what's best for themselves or what's best for an agency. i thought this was a unique opportunity to have one of those -- the guardrail, we have

so few, there would be continuity in fbi so things wouldn't go scare them right after the inauguration. but alas now, trump's going to get the fbi and that's -- if there is such a thing as a department of revenge and retribution, that's where it's going to be emanating from from kash patel and the people he brings in. i think it's unfortunate that wray could have stayed in three months, six months in and then, perhaps, backed out. >> so dave, let's get to your thoughts on this. you know the law enforcement world so well. wray says he didn't want to be a distraction for the fbi but arguments have been made he should have stayed in and make trump pull the trigger if you will. what are your thoughts on that and your concerns about trump's intended replacement for wray, kash patel? >> i was disappointed, jonathan, that wray capitulated. he ran from the building. he's still fighting the last war. he's still in a world of norms.

this is the trump era. it's different. he should have stayed and fought and forced trump to fire him. his replacement is likely to be kash patel. i think he will be confirmed by the senate and kash patel is someone actually i know. he was a public defender in miami, so he was in my neck of the woods. he was actually on team normal for a while, even when he worked for congressman devin nunes. he was a likable guy, not part of the ultra maga. what happened is he changed during the russia investigation. he was investigated himself. it took a lot of time, money, out of his own pockets, and some would say it radicalized him. now it's a different kash patel. not only does he talk differently with rhetoric, looks different, all jacked up and ready to go. i think there is a guard really -- guardrail too. i know pam bondi. i do not believe she's just going to walk out trump's enemies in handcuffs.

i think she will be adherent to the rule of law even though i think kash patel is a revolutionary. >> dave, let me follow up with that, i was surprised earlier this morning, i heard you say this, but david rohde who i is one of i think the fiercest defenders of and -- and -- and -- of the rule of law and a guy that's constantly talking about his concerns, actually said in his conversations with people in the fbi and the doj, that despite some of pam bondi's statements, that he agreed -- that they agree with you that she is actually a safeguard against some of the radicalism there. do you think that's the case? where you have donald trump saying these people should be arrested, those people should be arrested? >> pam bondi is a 20-year prosecutor, someone who has worked with democrats, republicans alike. i'm one of them. i have personal experience. i would be shocked if she

decides to just do whatever trump tells her to do, regardless of the law. i do think you can look at her career and you'll see he is tethered to the rule of law. even when she makes these comments on fox news, it's a different rule as a analyst and commentator than as the role of attorney general. i believe that she will ultimately do what she thinks is necessary to carry out trump's priorities but only go so far. i do think she will investigate the investigators, but i think she learned the rule of john durham, what happened when he investigated the investigators, he was humiliated, and it blew up in his face. there were acquittals. she doesn't want that to happen to her. >> let me restate this for people on the west coast that may not have heard earlier i think at the end of the day when they think about it, the people around donald trump, are going to say, you do not want to lift the rock back up of the january 6th investigation. you do not want the testimony of your i.t. person to leak out.

you do not want the testimony about the cameras. you do not want the testimony of, you know, the possible flooding -- i mean all of this stuff. mika, i just don't think that's in his best interest politically, let alone -- i'm sorry, dave, go ahead, let alone the best interest of the country. >> donald trump himself believes he benefitted from sitting in a courtroom in manhattan looking like a martyr. do you really want anthony fauci and adam schiff and liz cheney to become super martyrs. they will become instant presidential candidates if they have the same fate. >> several house republicans appear to be open to the idea of seeing some of their colleagues who served on the january 6th select committee go to jail. the bulwark spoke to several congressional republicans following this comment trump made on nbc's "meet the press." >> cheney was behind it and so was bennie thompson and everybody on that committee.

for what they did -- >> yeah. >> -- they should go to jail. >> you think liz cheney should go to jail? >> for what they did -- >> everyone on the committee -- >> anybody that voted in favor -- >> are you going to direct to send them to jail -- >> they will have to focus on that. i will focus on drill baby drill. >> following those remarks by trump james comer told the bulwark, quote, with politicians if you've used congressional committee and you've lied and tried to set people up and falsely imprisoned people then you should be held accountable. >> wow. i mean that's a hell of a confession by james comer who lied repeatedly, repeatedly about joe biden. is he going to send himself to jail. >> is that what he's telling us right here? >> republican congressman tim burchet said committee members should be imprisoned if they broke the law and suggested

without proof the committee manipulated evidence. congresswoman lauren boebert told the blog -- >> all right. i don't care. she said something -- go -- go see a play. you're up. >> we have one in mind, congresswoman. congressman goldman, let's get your response to this. first the idea floated by the president-elect that members of the january 6th select committee should be jailed. and then republicans on the hill suggesting their democratic colleagues deserve exactly that fate. >> it's baffling, jonathan. obviously, the january 6th committee did an investigation that was authorized by congress, upheld by courts of law, it was totally legitimate and part of their duty, but just the fact that because donald trump does not like what happened means that those people should go to jail says everything that you need to know about what his expectation is for kash patel, for pam bondi, for the department of justice. that's why they are there.

that's why kash patel is there. he has promised to go after donald trump's political enemies. i sat on a weaponization subcommittee for two years here led by the republicans. they didn't demonstrate a single instance of the weaponization of the federal government by the joe biden administration or by house democrats, and here they are trying to ignore the fact that donald trump's entire purpose with his selection for the fbi is to do just that and to jail his political enemies. that's banana republic stuff. it's not just bad for the political enemies and for a political system, is undermines our entire rule of law. it undermines the credibility of every single prosecution that's out there, and you see that because defendants all around the country are making these allegations that their prosecutions are political. he's already undermined the institutions and he will go much further if kash patel is confirmed.

i disagree with dave, i think the senate republicans will uphold their duty, their oath to the constitution, not to donald trump and they will recognize that kash patel is unqualified and dangerous and should not be the fbi director. >> so, congressman, quick follow-up, you speak of political enemies of donald trump you served as lead counsel in the first impeachment trial of trump when he was in office the last time. would you be considered a political enemy? are you fearful that you could be targeted or prosecuted? >> well, i've -- i've been on enemy's lists and, you know, i guess that is a possibility. i welcome that possibility. i hope that they put their attention on me and not the good men and women who are career public servants in the federal government who are just doing their jobs and who are really subject to retribution. i can -- i can happily and ably stand up for myself and i have a megaphone here in congress. i have a speech and debate clause defenses.

so yes, if he's going to attack his enemy, please bring it on, donald trump. >> democratic congressman dan goldman of new york, with that, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. good to see you. and let's bring into the conversation co-host of "the weekend" on msnbc, see moan sanders town sand. >> it's interesting, you heard what congressman said, bring it on. people close to mark milley are saying, he's saying the same thing. bring it on. the white house has floated the possibility to jack smith of a pardon. jack smith said not on your life. i want him to come after me. i want to fight him. i can take care of myself. it's very interesting, we have all this talk about the possibility of all of these people being pardoned. i'm sure liz cheney feels the same way. i know we spoke to the new

senator from california. he basically felt the same way. very interesting, a lot of people saying, oh, okay, you want to come after us? we're prepared. we're ready. we're looking forward to it. >> you know, i know the great douglas brinkley is sitting with you all, and he noted this is a time for people who -- look, if you really believed that donald trump was a threat to democracy, if people were saying that, if you believed that the guardrails, the only guardrail left are people who are defenders of democracy, then people like senator schiff, dan doledman, congressman goldman, liz cheney, mark milley, right, jack smith, it is correct that they should say i'm willing to stand here and fight. now, that's easy for someone who, you know, to my knowledge, i'm not on the list to say, right, but one could argue director wray part of his decision making that i have heard from some folks within

the -- the fbi and outside of who are friends with him and know him well, is that, look, he didn't want to have all the ire turned on him and drag the fbi through this, but he -- the ire -- he didn't want to be the focus. he wanted the focus to be on the work and if he was a hindrance to the work he wanted to go. you know, i'm just kind of like, i wonder if, you know, we all would make the same decision. but this is a time where, obviously, the -- the line in some respects has moved and the question now that people should be asking themselves is not, you know, should we be normalizing donald trump -- because that question is moot, he is the president-elect and will be, you know, the next -- will be the 47th president of the united states. the question is where is the line? what is and is not acceptble? what are people willing to do? guardrails are not laws. they are norms that we all accept until someone doesn't accept them anymore. i used to work in the white house. many things i saw donald trump do in his first term, when we

were talking -- when we got to the white house i was like oh, so we can just do whatever we want to do? joe biden doesn't believe that. so he himself was his own guardrail. guardrails are not rules. they're norms we ad here to until someone decides not to ad here to them. donald trump, he investigated people when he was president and still has time. he asked for investigations from the fbi. the associated press to the "new york times" to the "washington post" wrote it up. we i think need to be honest that it's not a question of oh, will he do this. he is going to do it. how far will he go? >> here's the interesting thing, doug. let's talk about this. it always backfires. i'm not equating any of these investigations or any of these impeachments or any of these indictments, i'm not -- there's no moral equiv ocation with any of them, i'm putting it out to you as a historian, bill clinton's impeachment, ended up

helping bill clinton. he left office with a 60% plus approval rating. drove republicans crazy. you could say the same exact thing about donald trump. he's sitting there at a defense table all summer and terms him into a martyr. you look at the percentage of americans who believe every charge against him was politicized. i mean, at one point it was up into the 70s. it always blows back on the people who are going after the president's or the politicians, et cetera, and it's -- we talked before about durham. durham, who had a good reputation, right, then he decided to lead this phony investigation of the investigators. his reputation sullied. he made a fool of himself time

and time again. his cases got thrown out of court. he was humiliated. we could keep going. james comer. i mean the fact that comber talked about well if you do an investigation and you lie about somebody, james comer kept lying over and over again about joe biden and the crime family. so much so that the "wall street journal" editorial page said, all smoke no fire. stop this madness. he lied so much about joe biden -- this guy, who is saying if you use an investigation for the wrong reasons, you should go to jail, he needs to be careful. his own house republican colleagues went up to him and go, dude, we know you got a good counsel in arnold from green acres but cut this out because you're making fools of us. this is a distraction. i want you from what i've talked -- talk about how if

donald trump decides to go down this path or anybody decides to go down this path, it always seems to blow up in the politician's face who does it. >> you're exactly right. think about with bill clinton, people remember congressman living ston, the attention goes on the comer types and they get this intense scrutiny. i think we all need to be careful that there's not this enemy's list. there are a few enemy's lists if you would like. i would say it's like joe mccarthy in wheeling, west virginia, might be somebody -- kash might have his own list -- >> wrote it in a book. >> wrote it in a book. i'm sure steve bannon has a big, long list he would like to do something with and donald junior might have a list, they're all over the place, inauguration is coming and what's donald trump going to do? he's not going to be doing revenge on these people. he's going to first off pardon

the january 6th conspirators. anybody that was on team trump that day, that's done jail time, he's going to say you're free. get out of jail. you're heros for leading the insurrection. then he's going to sign hundreds of executive orders. it's going to rain executive orders on the country. than they're going to get kicked into the courts. donald trump said we'll do a muslim ban. well there was no muslim ban. over and over. will some of what he does get through? yes. i don't think you're going to see the targeting liz cheney and going into court with her and all of this. >> everybody stay with us. because we have a very important guest that comes up. he's on a tight schedule. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin. andrew, i know you got to leave very soon. you're such a busy, busy man. let's talk about how elon musk's net worth has doubled since the election. isn't that funny how free market forces work. >> interesting. >> unbelievable. in fact, we're talking about 400

plus billion dollars is now his net worth in total. of course most of that in the context of shares of tesla, but also in the context of shares of spacex and, of course, spacex even more so than just about anything else is going to have lots of government contracts and other things, but you're seeing this across the board. it is possible, i should say, that elon musk could turn out to be five, ten years from now, the first trillionaire in america when you think about compounding and potential growth if things were to continue a pace. we do not have a trillionaire in the united states right now, but if bill gates had never sold any of his shares which he used in large part for philanthropy, never sold any of the shares, he would be a trillionaire. elon musk getting a huge boost out of his connection with trump and a real sense that his companies are going to flourish

under a trump administration. i should mention president trump speaking just finished up speaking down at the new york stock exchange today. he just won, obviously, "time" person of the year. it's the first time -- not the sitting president yet. ronald reagan the first sitting president, i believe, to speak at the new york stock exchange, now probably what, 30 some plus years ago. it's an interesting morning, but he's definitely out there telling the wall street world that he -- this is the president, he is behind them. >> i have about 47 other questions to ask him. >> let him go. >> he has to go. andrew ross sorkin, we'll finish this up tomorrow. dave, give us your final thoughts on everything you've heard here? >> the people that want to investigate the investigators need to be careful. joe mccarthy did it, doug brinkley said it, he held up a list, and look what happened. there are no schools or parks named after joe mccarthy. that's the lesson kash patel and my friend pam bondi and donald

trump need to remember. >> he got destroyed. we'll see what happens in a generation. he got censored and destroyed. things turned quickly. he had presidents, generals, congressmen, ceos, fearing him one day, rebuking him the next, and he died a broken man. again, time and time again we've seen this throughout history. we'll see the incoming white house understand that. >> state attorney for palm beach county, dave aaronburg, thank you very much. president-elect donald trump was named "time's" person of the year. we'll talk time's editor in chief about that selection. that's next on "morning joe." 's. nutrients for immune health. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. (♪♪)

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all right. donald trump ringing the opening bell at the new york stock

exchange. it's connected to "time" magazine choosing him as its person of the year and "time's" editor in chief sam jacobs joins us now. good to have you with us. >> so, sam, i don't know if this will be a controversial pick or not, it's hard to not, given how "time" has said for good or ill, the person who has most impacted the year. we had a trial. we had an assassination attempt. we had the most tumultuous campaign in modern history. we had rhetoric that at least we thought around this table was the most divisive in recent american history. then we had -- we had a victory where donald trump improved in 49 of 50 states. talk about this year. >> i think, joe, you've made the

case for why donald trump was "time's" 2024 person of the year. i think we are living in the age of trump. i think many people thought, perhaps, after his defeat in 2020, that his first presidency was an aberration, but what this election shows is it was not. he is continuing a path through american politics. and i think in some ways because we've been living in that age for nearly a decade now, the sheer extraordinary nature of this year is hard to take notice of. you just walked us through those events. each one of those events is going to be a moment in time that historians will be writing about in four years. >> take us behind the scenes a little bit as best you can of the selection process. some of the other nominees we know about, prime minister netanyahu of israel, vice president harris, of course, who trump defeated in the election, elon musk, joe rogan and others. talk about these conversations here and why the choice became clear that it was trump? >> in some years this is a hard, hard choice. mika, last year we talked about

taylor swift and the decision behind that. this year not a hard choice. we asked the president-elect about many of those people you mentioned -- he has opinions about all of them -- but this was an obvious decision for those of us at "time." >> yeah. >> when i look at this i agree it had to be donald trump and the moment was the shooting in but butler, pennsylvania. when people forget history, you say the year 1973 their minds scramble what happened that year, but that moment where he's bleeding and saying "fight, fight, fight" and that moment is when robert f. kennedy jr. made an effort to see trump and elon musk endorsed him, and it coalesced for trump and then the symbol in milwaukee for the republican national committee was the bandaged ear. >> yeah. >> at that point, it started looking like it was going to be the year of trump. only one on the list that could

have replaced that would have been harris if she had won and we would be talking about the first woman president. >> i think that is a transformational moment for trump and the country. we asked him about it and he said a lot of people changed about how they thought about me during that moment. it's harder to get him to talk about how it changed him, but he recognizes that as a moment when he moves from a factional political leader to a cultural. >> correct. >> simone, you have a question? >> yes. i'm interested in the conversation, the interview that the president-elect did that goes along with the endorsement. he said a number of things. i was struck by his admission that, you know, he might not be able to get grocery prices down. this isn't his first time on the list. can you tell us about the interview? i know people should take a stab and go read it. it's great. >> i don't think there's a news organization that spent more time on the record with president-elect than "time."

he would be happy to talk through his thoughts on foreign policy, domestic policy, someone we spent time with again in the spring and talked over 65 minutes over thanksgiving about everything. >> did you notice any changes between trump preelection and post-election. >> we found him to be much more subdued, lower volume, reflective would be an overstatement, but doing a level of introspection we hadn't seen before. trump is most comfortable in a fight, and what we saw was someone who felt like he won the fight and is searching to figure out what his positioning is. he said to us, it's actually sad that this is over, that this will never happen again. he seems happiest on a campaign stage in a campaign and he's starting to think through what it means for this to be his last campaign. >> you know, maggie haberman, who knows him -- >> so interesting -- >> as well as any journalist said if you want to understand donald trump you have to understand that his entire life he's been fighting to survive

the next five minutes. five minutes at a time. and now you're suggesting that fight, at least politically, is over. >> over the course of 65 minutes with him, we found him to realize that that's done. >> i mean that political fight for the next campaign. >> i think so. he's now thinking which of my kids is going to have a role, family members. we asked him, what's the future of maga without trump. he has trouble answering that question. >> interesting. "time" magazine editor in chief sam jacobs, thank you for coming on. >> i want to be clear, i'm not talking about -- he's not -- he's not stopping fighting. but again, the political fight that he's been in nonstop since 2012, 2013, that's now at an end, unless, of course, he wants to fight to run for a third time. >> and i think he wants to position himself as a global states person. i think he sees that -- like

eisenhower when he came in, won in big in '52 and got out of korea by june of '53. >> right. >> i think he's going to roll in there and say what can i do with syria and israel and gaza situation and russia, ukraine. can i now run for something larger than the presidency like global leader that -- and work with china, russia in a big-time, old-style summit way. >> pl historian doug brinkley, thank you very much. symone sanders townsend, thank you as well. we'll watch "the weekend" saturdays and sundays starting at 8:00 a.m. on msnbc. still ahead, an american man has been found in syria after being imprisoned for months. we'll tell you what we're learning about him, who he is, and nbc's richard engel takes us inside the palace of toppled dictator bashar al assad. "morning joe" is coming right back. ad "morning joe" is coming right back

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41 past the hour. a video that emerged overnight shows a missing american in syria who claims he was imprisoned for months. the man told nbc news that his name is travis timmerman and that he's from missouri. he claims that he is a pilgrim who was detained earlier this year after crossing into the country on foot. he said he had been in europe prior to embarking on a pilgrimage and traveled from lebanon into syria in late may, but was spotted by a border guard and detained. the video had sparked speculation the missing man could be american journalist austin tice who disappeared in 2012. that man was freed from prison days after syria's long-time dictator was driven from power and the country. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has a look inside the palace where

bashar al assad lived in luxury. >> reporter: the former syrian dictator bashar al assad lived in a palace on a hill high above damascus. now it's under control of the rebels who overthrew him. they gave us an exclusive tour inside. i understand why he wouldn't want to leave this. assad and his wife seemed to have modern tastes. you are greeted by the grand atrium, accented by a classic wood panelled library. upstairs, was for the family only. the apartment where the rebels say assad lived. you could tell this was really the intersanctity. everywhere there are thick bulletproof doors, extremely heavy, solid metal electric keypads. this could have been sealed off, but in the end it didn't do him any good. >> reporter: all the security was to protect his bedroom,

ransacked after he fled. there's something curious when you go to someone's house, people want to see their bathrooms and a sense of how they lived. this was assad's private bathroom in here. jacuzzi tub. can't imagine he'll be living this well in exile in russia. the new interim government said syria is broke. cash flow didn't seem to be a problem for the man at the top. his personal barber chair. you can imagine him here getting ready for the day. assad lived well as a dictator until it all ended for the man accused of being responsible for the deaths of half a million syrians all to protect his life of power and luxury. >> nbc news's richard engel with that report. time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. south korea's president is defending his attempt last week to put the country under martial

law. the botched efforts sparked widespread protests and clashes at parliament. in a defiant speech yesterday, he insisted he had been trying to save the country from what he called anti-state forces, adding, he will, quote, fight to the end. saudi arabia was officially named as the host of the 2034 world cup in men's soccer. despite objections by a number of human rights groups, the saudi bid was the only contender for the multibillion dollar event. advocacy groups say the human rights records raises risks for thousands of migrant workers who will likely be brought in to build the infrastructure to stage the tournament. similar accusations were made against saudi arabia's neighbor qatar host of the 2022 world cup. and police in illinois have released this dramatic video of a garbage truck that exploded in a chicago suburb last friday

injuring three first responders. the footage is from a police officer's body cam who was responding to reports of a truck fire. the explosion sent a shockwave through the area that caused substantial property damage. it was not immediately clear why the truck powered by compressed natural gas caught fire and exploded. we'll follow that. coming up on "morning joe" we'll speak with two-time emmy nominated actor ron perlman and director jack histon on the new film "day of the fight" about a successful boxer making a big comeback after being released from prison. "morning joe" will be right back. from prison. "morning joe" will be right back ♪♪ ♪ yeah... i feel free ♪ ♪ to bare my skin yeah that's all me. ♪ ♪♪ ♪ nothing is everything ♪ ♪♪ with skyrizi 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months.

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>> in the garden. that's big! >> smoke a pack a day and go 12 rounds. >> today is my last day.

>> i'm sorry. >> just remember the good. >> which ever way it goes tonight, just know that we're proud of you. no matter what happens, i need to know that you will pay. >> kid, i love you. you know i do. you got to let things go. >> i got nothing, okay. i got no wife, i got no kid, i got nothing. >> i'm sorry i wasn't the son that you wanted. >> didn't really matter in your life. far more willing to forgive than you might expect. >> that was a look at the new film "day of the fight" premiering at the venice film festival last year. the movie follows boxer irish mike flannigan his coach and father figure stevie as they try to build the former middle weight champion for his first

fight in years following his release from prison. critics have been raving about the film with "the new york times" review calling it, quote, an unabashed genre picture that manages to be both the kind of movie they supposedly don't make like they used to and also something braisingly fresh. those are good words. joining us "day of the fight" costar ron perlman, who plays stevie, and the film's director, producer and writer jack huston, who is making his directorial debut. >> congratulations. >> jack, start with you, your first time behind the camera, why this film and why now? >> i think i wasn't in any rush to get behind the camera. i think this, you know, i had to find something that really called to me. something that made me not just want to do it but have to do it. when the story came to me it was one of those moments where i -- it brought tears to my eyes when i thought about michael in this

role, michael pitt who plays our lead, irish mike, and then i started putting it together and the elements came together. yeah, it's -- it's, you know, it's one of the great moments when you actually do get to go and make your first film, especially something which is as heartfelt and real as something like this. it's sort of a throwback like "the new york times" was saying to films that don't really get made much anymore which are human stories, adult story, stories that make you feel something. i love going to the theater and feeling something. >> so, ron, tell us what drew you to this film and in particular your character? >> well n two words, jack huston. we've -- we go back some -- a couple decades, but, you know, to be a witness to somebody who

is leaving his comfort zone, doing something that he's never done before, which is writing and directing a movie, which is a very daunting task to those of us who toil in this artform, that's having a front row seat in something that is kind of heartwarming and historic, and i wanted to be there for that. i also found the script to be incredibly moving and resonating and the character he asked me to play was pivotal and, you know, was going to have a major impact on the way the movie turned out. >> so, ron, let's take a look at a clip where we see the softer but expletive laden side of your character steven.

>> hey, [ bleep ]. what the [ bleep ] you doing smoking? you know, you're the only one i know who can smoke a pack a day and go 12 rounds. >> today is my last day. >> you've been saying that for 20 years. give me a [ bleep ] break. >> today i actually mean it. >> see a little pop in that thing. that's better. how you feeling? you get some sleep last night? >> yeah kind of, you know. >> night before a fight. [ bleep ] won't shut down. >> you had a crazy dream last night. >> yeah. it was like this dream we're in the meat market -- >> ask me if i give a [ bleep ]. >> we had to have the finger hovering over the bleep button for that clip. >> yeah [ inaudible ] you really chose a nice benign little clip there. >> yeah. family friendly before 10:00 a.m. here on the east coast. tell us a little bit more about your character but also just the

cast, like extraordinary. just a few, joe pesci, steve buscemi. mike pitt. what an all-star team this is. >> yeah. and i mean it's -- it's great to, you know, feel like you're part of the 27 yankees. it's kind of like a cast of murderers row. but in the center of it -- and this is something that shows the -- the infinite wisdom of jack huston and his insight into what was going to make this thing cook -- was the performance of michael pitt. you see him in this, in his most raw state as an actor, most courageous state as an actor. this is such a personal deep feeling moment, character who is asked to get his house in order and it's -- it's -- it was a privilege to be a part of.

it was a privilege to watch. it affected my game in infinite ways. >> so, jack, fight movies in your family linage, to an extent. what did you love about this story line and talking about working with ron. >> well, i sort of set out to make a movie about a boxer, not a boxing movie because, you know, it's all character, it's -- i wanted to make something relatable and something that asked a major question, if you only had one day, what would you do? who would you say? what would you say to them? our sort of tag line is "how far would you go for the one ys you love?" because the metaphor for the film is day of the fight isn't what he's fighting for it's everything outside of the ring. he's fighting for everything, all those mistakes, redemptive journey. so, i mean, i was so lucky to

get ron perlman. i -- i -- i've been sort of very fortunate in my life i got to work with some of my heros, ron being top of that list. that was, you know, a few years by a film that shall not be named, but we had such a great time off -- off camera. >> yeah. >> the way of saying it. but i just needed somebody because you know, mike didn't have a father figure. his father was abusive and very tough on him. you can see it, it comes out in the film. stevie, his -- his coach, became that sort of father figure for him, that mentor. somebody who stood by him through thick and thin through his mistakes, never wavered. always there. at the end of the film, he's meant -- he says, i could never have done this without you, stevie. the beautiful thing, nobody embodies this like ron. it's the most delicate, sympathetic, funny, abrasive,

captures all these amazing feelings. i watched ron, and it brings tears to my eyes. i think he's one of the most beautiful performances. >> "day of the fight" is playing in select theaters now and will continue to expand in theaters throughout december and january. actor ron perlman and director, producer and writer jack huston, thank you both very much. congratulations on this. >> love you, ron. >> that does it for us this morning on that lovely note. anna cabrera picks up the coverage in 90 seconds. in 90 ss (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound) 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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