influential within the african american community, particularly the sort of political elite of the african american community, and their word is going to go a long way. it's probably not just in terms of their influence, but also who they represent, so you know who might be, you know, ye riding w them into a storm. they're extraordinarily close with jim clyburn and hakeem jeffries, the house minority leader, and this is good news for martin o'malley. >> i think that's the case when i saw this news and was able to report it. i thought for sure, this was one of those things when you know the behind-the-scenes way that things function, these are the key people who have sway within the party, and look. for these folks who are about to set into a month of forums. this is the part of picking the dnc chair. it's far from over, but the battle is heating over. jonathan allen, thank you for joining us. that was "way too early" for this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. two months ago, the american

people elected donald trump as the 47th president of the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] thank you for that very generous applause. it's okay. there are no election deniers on our side of the aisle. [ cheers and applause ] >> and there you go. that was house minority leader hakeem jeffries pointing out republicans' history of election denialism. ahead of today's anniversary of the january 6th attack on the capitol. hours from now, congress is set to certify donald trump's win ahead of his inauguration in a few weeks. the transfer of power to trump is shaping up to be peaceful unlike the january 6th he denied

president biden four years ago. so good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." with us, we have the co-hosts of our fourth hour, jonathan lemire. congratulations. president emeritus of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. he's the author of "home and away" available on sub stack. a lot to talk to you about today here and abroad. rogers chair and the american presidency at vanderbilt university, historian jon meacham is with us, and the host of "way too early," ali vitali, great to have you with us. we are so happy to have you on the team. great first show. do you want to go there? four years ago, quite a different day than today. >> yeah. yeah. i do. i would love to, you know, we saw the opening shot, t.j. can we get the shot of the capitol? just an absolute blizzard. >> yeah. >> that is going to be setting

in over washington today, expecting anywhere from 10 inches to a foot of snow there, and so i just think for a blizzard of words regarding shay's rebellion and the french and indian war, i want to go to jon meacham in nashville, tennessee safely. >> ensconced. >> away from the snowstorm there. jon, i would love to get your thoughts this morning on january the 6th. we still have, and i saw something -- a really moving story today about a capitol hill cop who had said his whole life he either wanted to be a race car driver or he wanted to be a police officer at the capitol. he took his life a few weeks after the january 6th riots. it was too much for him to contemplate and to bear sort of

ptsd. there were -- all in all, there were four police officers who died. their families mourn them this morning, and died -- the families say as a result of january the 6th. there were also others that were swept into the madness of that moment who passed and, so here we are. and hakeem jeffries is exactly right. there were those four years ago who pushed back against a peaceful transfer of power in the most violent of ways, and yet how beautiful that hakeem was able to stand up and say, we lost. we salute you. we hand the gavel to you basically of power in washington, d.c. why? not because we love what you stand for, not because we love the campaign that you ran, not

because we believe that what you are do is going to be good for washington, but we do this because we love america. this is what people who have loved america for over 240 years have done, and we democrats, we do it again today. >> the first time this happened was march 4, 1801, shortly after the shay's rebellion. just if you are keeping score. >> yes. >> when thomas jefferson walked from his boarding house on capitol hill to become the first president not of the governing party of washington and adams. as informal as those labels were then, and he gave a really important inaugural address, probably the second most important thing he ever wrote behind the declaration of

independence. and he said, we're all republicans, we're all federalists, and every difference of opinion does not have to be a difference of principle. but there are some differences of principle, and a difference of principle is whether or not you acknowledge results you don't like, and that's the essence of life in a rules-based order. otherwise, it's all kindergarten and the teacher's gone, and that is what we have to push back against again and again and again. i don't know about you except for remembering possibly in passing, that both vice president richard nixon and vice president al gore had to preside over their own -- certifying their own defeats in the presidential race. i had never really thought much about the election

certification. i think i remember claire mccaskill saying with you all, you know, sometimes she didn't go when she was in the senate because it was just a -- it just happened, right? it was, like, you know, oh, you know, they're servicing the water fountains, you know? you don't go to that, so, you know, but now it's important. >> yeah. >> and a final point is this is not a partisan talking point. this is not a -- just a way to hammer away at donald trump. so remember what happened on january 6th is an act of remembrance in the purest form, and remembrance in the traditions joe, and you and i and so many came from. remembrance is not nostalgia. it's an act of agency. you remember things that you either want to emulate or you want to avoid, and we want to

avoid ever again having american democracy on the knife's edge. >> and jon, you have said so many times through the years, and i think it's important to remember this today. you've said so many times that american history has always been on the knife's edge, maybe, you know, if a battle had been fought one way or a retreat had gone another way, we may have lost american democracy. i think it's so important with the madness that follows every election where every trend is exaggerated, where every victory is turned into a massive landslide where suddenly x and elon musk and bros and you name it are in charge of america for the rest of time in memoriam.

it is important for us to remember those of us who know history, those of us who have lived history, those of us who have understood that actually a victory is just the beginning of a political battle. a democratic political battle, and you never know where it's going to end. i always think about the two greatest landslides in modern american history, 1964 lbj 49 states. he's run out of politics, his own party gets rid of him. i can say newt gingrich became the first speaker in 40 years, republican speaker in 40 years. he was run out of town four years later. richard nixon, 49 states out of 50 he wins, and of course, soon after that, he's being ridden out of town. he doesn't even last two years

after winning 49 states. i'm not saying this is going to happen to donald trump. that's not my point at all. >> right. >> my point is that for the past two months since the election, there have been such massive oversweeping statements about the scale and the scope of his victory, and what it will mean for america for the next generation that you forget that one candidate got 49.9% and the other got 48.5%, wisconsin less than a percentage point. michigan, 1.5 percentage points and by the way in those two states, democrats won the senate race. this remains an evenly divided country, and no one -- no one to paraphrase william f. buckley, no one is held hostage to the

last election other than what the constitution tells us, and so we are still a divided nation, and yes. yes, donald trump won despite january 6th, but that half the nation was okay with that. half the nation not okay with that. the debate continues in full. >> absolutely, and as ronald reagan used to say whenever he wanted to see whether a prediction was true or an inevitable result was going to come come along, he would ask president dewy how that would work out. it is contingent. it is conditional, and this is not -- again, to our republican friends, this is not to diminish president trump's victory. it's not. >> not at all. >> it is to put it in context. it is to put it in context which is that -- as you mentioned, 1964, 1972, and 1984 were the

only elections since world war ii and really we could go back farther, but i won't because mika will cut me off, the -- it was more than 58%, 59% of us agreed on who should be president, and we talked about this, and i will leave you with this. 1868, remember thinking a couple of months ago, you know, what was a presidential election that should have been 80-20, right? either 20% of you, if we can get 20% of people to say anything. so 80-20, what should it have been? i thought 1868, right? grant's running, a triumphant union general. horatio seymour, the white supremacist, wanted to repeal the 14th and 15th amendments. the verdict of the civil war. it was a five-point race. in 1868, someone who was against what had happened in the civil

war nearly won the presidency of the united states in an era when some black folks could vote in the south and still a lot of white confederates were excluded from the franchise, and it was a 4.5, 5-point race, when they were still burying the civil war dead. all of which is to say that as long as both sides to use that phrase, as long as both sides acknowledge the supremacy of the will of the people and the rule of law, and the -- and the viability of constitutional norms, as long as everybody agrees on the rules, let's have the fight. what january 6th was about, and is about, present tense , is wht happens when some people step out of that constitutional covenant and try to end the debate. the debate has to go on, but it goes on in a constitutional

coffee covenant, and what january 6th is, is a reminder that not everybody, everybody will follow those rules. >> and as we watch this video from four years ago, keeping this in mind, we look at what a difference four years makes and today officials in washington will be boosting security as a joint session of congress will certify president-elect trump's electoral victory. as jon meacham noted, vice president kamala harris presides over the process of an election she lost this past november. trump has said that he plans to pardon those charged and convicted in the january 6, 2021 attack calling them patriots and hostages while referring to the riot as a, quote, day of love. bring back the video of that riot.

one protester was killed. four police officers died in the aftermath. more than 140 officers were injured. and remind you, president trump asked everybody to go to the capitol, sell he would aid he wm there. according to the department of justice, more than 1,580 defendants have been charged in connection with their actions at the capitol on january 6, 2021. of those, 1,270 have been convicted. more than 1,100 have been sentenced including 667 given jail or prison time. the federal criminal charges against trump in connection with the events of that day were dismissed without prejudice when he was re-elected president. trump and his allies have since said the lawmakers who investigated the attack and trump's role in it should be investigated themselves, and in trump's words, should, quote, go

to jail. jonathan lemire, you wrote the book "the big lie," all on this, and it seems this morning the big lie has at least for much of the country, for half the country, for trump's team, for the maga right, the big lie has flourished. the big lie has become the truth in their eyes, and this riot that we have been looking at with all of the consequences is somehow acceptable, even celebrate sgld celebrated. >> yeah, the big lie won. this past weekend, just two odd weeks, he screened a documentary at mar-a-lago about john eastman who was one of the electors whose efforts were to overturn the election. he gathered dy giuliani, michael flynn, peter navarro, and others.

many of the people who were deeply involved in the efforts to steal the election. they gathered with donald trump this weekend at mar-a-lago. i'm also told people close to the former president, they're considering up to a thousand acts of clemency or pardons of those involved. that's most of the people that the doj has charged to this point. some investigations are still ongoing. so he is on the precipice of taking power again, and he still cannot let go of the lie that he lost the last time. he's still believing that he was cheated, that he had won then as well. on the other side, we have president biden penning an op-ed in the "washington post" he spoke to reporters saying, this is a somber day of remembrance. the way we think about pearl harbor or other tough days, dark days in our nation's history, but that is certainly something republicans have done,

everything they can to wipe away from, and there's not going to be any federal recognition of january 6th the next four years when donald trump is in power. >> there are two ways of looking at this day, richard haass, and two sides of the country that are making decisions on it that completely don't line up with facts. your thoughts? >> what it shows , mika, is tha democracy as we close in on our 250th anniversary, we're still a work in progress and we're still vulnerable. >> right. >> just think of what happened the last two, three months. if kamala harris had won a close electoral victory, it would have been challenged in the courts. it would have been challenged in the streets. it would have been challenged in state legislatures long before january 6th this time around. it's not clear to me what this country would have gone through. we escaped only because the side, the republicans who have challenged in some ways, the rule of law came out victorious. we shouldn't assume the fact this january 6th is going to be orderly and peaceful, that we're out of the woods. we're not. what this says to me is we've

got to double down on the lessons of what happened. we need to not take for granted that american democracy is here to stay. we need to teach it to our young people. civics needs to become a staple of american education in middle schools, high schools, and colleges. >> i would add to that national service. >> keep going. i would say begin with civics, but no one should be able to get a degree in this country without being -- >> fully educated. >> educated. read the documents. read some of the history, public service ought to become mainstreamed in this country. >> totally agree. >> bring americans together who are now living in totally red or totally blue counties or states. we ought to teach people how to navigate the information landscape because conspiracies and, quote, unquote, alternative facts, there's no place for them in a functioning democracy. the lesson i take from this, is yeah. we got through january 6th four years ago. yeah, this time we didn't have a

major problem because of the outcome, but we shouldn't -- we shouldn't get comfortable. american democracy still faces, i would argue, an uncertain future. >> certainly. >> that's the lesson we ought to derive from what we're talking about today. >> joe? >> it reminds me, ronald reagan said long ago that american democracy is not a birthright. it is something that must be worked for, that must be fought for. peacefully of course. every generation, and every new generation of americans are tasked with working as hard as they can to ensure that democracy lasts another generation, and ali, it's interesting. much has happened over the holiday break to suggest that all republicans are not going to lie down and give up their article 1 -- or i would say,

article 3 powers. you look at the house of representatives threatened by elon musk, threatened by donald trump, threatened with political extinction that they were going to come in in their primaries and destroy their political careers. 38 republicans said, go ahead. make my day, and voted the way they wanted to. 38. i have been through close votes. 38 votes, that ain't nothing when you're voting against your leadership and also the incoming president. you can also look at the senate who selected john thune. you could look at the senate who said, no, that matt gaetz and right now we're still raising serious questions about kash patel and others, and we haven't even gotten to the courts and what's going to happen there. it's, again, we -- history will be written as we move forward over the next four years, and it will determine where this

country moves, how strong american democracy is, but we can look back over the last two or three weeks and not -- not just blindly think it's going to be a slam-dunk for the incoming president, that there are still some people that believe in checks and balances in washington, d.c. and across america. >> or at least their own political and policy agendas, right, joe? i mean, you know many of these members who were part of that 38 or who caused some problems for speaker johnson and his ability to keep the gavel just a few days ago before the weekend. i mean, these are folks who have their own individual goals and agendas here, but i do think that you're right to talk about the push and pull we'll see in the house. how much will they swear fealty to donald trump? how much will they let trump and his allies continue to just push through whatever policy agenda they want, and at what point will there be checks? i think it was striking that the

incoming majority leader of the senate, john thune, didn't say openly yes, every trump nominee for all of the cabinet positions that he's put forward, will definitely be confirmed. i mean, you can't speak in absolutes in this senate, but it is notable that we are not at a point where even the most controversial of these picks we've talked about, kash patel. we've talked about pete hegseth. we've talked about tulsi gabbard for a different number of reasons they're all controversial, but the fact they're not immediate rubber stamps tells us something about trump's washington, but to bring this back to the fact that it's january 6th, this is a party that might have disagreements on policy, but every one of them almost to a point, did come home and allow donald trump to retake control of this party, to carry on the idea of the big lie. this is not just a matter of agree to disagree on the salt tax deduction or on policy. this is the fundamentals of democracy in this country, and i think january 6th is such an

important lens on capitol hill every single day because democrats and republicans are not operating from the same reality when it comes to that, and when it comes to things that are policy and politics, it makes it hard to have any kind of foundation of trust, and i think that's the bedrock of washington and of the capitol right now. >> and yet there's going to be a one-vote difference in the house of representatives. >> absolutely. >> as i've said, whether they like it or not. whether republicans like it or not. >> we'll see. >> whether democrats like it or not. there's going to have to be a sort of unity government if they want to get anything passed, and ali, i want to talk to you specifically about something that people started talking about over the past week, and that is the possibility of one huge massive bill that's going to shove, like, $10 trillion of additional debt to the united states government that's already $36 trillion in debt. they're going to shove that all into one bill. you talked about those 38 republicans that voted against

the last reck -- or the last bill, continuing resolution because they're concerned like i am, like a lot of conservatives are, about exploding deficits, exploding debt. i mean, when you start talking about jamming everything into one, but first of all, real small government conservatives hate that because that is leadership's way of shoving a lot of really bad stuff -- we'll just say this morning, down conservative members' throats, but $10 trillion of additional debt in one bill? that's just a perfect example of how maybe the speaker and people around donald trump -- maybe they are overshooting the mark there, because i cannot imagine conservatives blindly voting for a -- an additional $10 trillion, and again, they've got a one-vote margin. so how does that go, ali?

>> well, i'm sure there's concepts of a plan on how to pay for it. don't you think, joe? they're talking about this idea of, oh, we'll offset the spending. i've yet to see how they -- >> no, they won't. >> exactly. i've yet to see how they'll do it. you can't. >> the only way you can do it is you can cut medicare. you can cut medicaid. you can cut social security, and you can cut defense spending. i mean, i grew up on this stuff. this is why i ran for congress. you cannot cut $10 trillion unless you're going to slash social security and medicare. i don't see them doing that, and unless you're going to slash defense spending. and then you talk about additional -- massive tax cuts for billionaires and multinational corporations? this is not something -- i don't know how they get from here to there. >> we're going to watch them try. i mean, certainly the way they're going to attempt to do it, and you know this so well, is they're going to attempt to

overshadow the right concerns about fiscal responsibility, and they're going to try to basically talk over the people in their conference who have active concerns about how they can bring down the national debt, how they cannot spend an extra $10 trillion. they're going to try to say, but we're doing border security. we're doing tax policy. we're renewing the trump tax cuts of 2017. those are going to be the things that they hope -- that they hope will sweeten the deal for reluctant conservatives who don't like the spending, but who have been on the front lines of trying to pass stricter border security measures, and the border is so central to the trump message and the trump policy agenda, it has always been the centerpiece, and to soe fact they're going to put that as a very key piece of this multiprong plan. i don't know these guys, maybe they're forgetting the difficulty that democrats had during build back better. that was many, many late nights at the capitol. many missed deadlines, many failures and many key policies,

ultimately having to be pulled out of the bill because there was no way to get them passed. i don't know when people that were happy with that bill at the end of the day, but they had wins to mark in it. now republicans are going to have to do the exact same thing. they're acting like it's going to be easy. i don't know. memories are too short on the hail. hill. this is not going to be easy. >> thank you very much. we will see you tomorrow. and still ahead on "morning joe," here's a live look from the carter center in atlanta where former president jimmy carter is lying in repose. we'll talk about how the nation is paying its respects to the 39th president this week. "morning joe" is back in 90 seconds. week "morning joe" is back in 90 seconds keke! chris! jason! boop! friends. let's go, let's go, friends! hold onto your dice. woohoo!! -nice frosting, pratt. -thank you! how we doin', keke? tastes like money to me. i can't go back to jail! wait, did you rob my bank?

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these are live pictures from atlanta where the late president jimmy carter is lying in repose at the carter center. six days of state funeral ceremonies celebrating his life began over the weekend. on saturday, president carter's motorcade made a brief stop at his childhood home before continuing onto atlanta for a moment of silence at the state capitol. tomorrow his casket will be moved to washington where carter will lie in state until thursday ahead of his funeral ceremony at the national cathedral. from there, he will return to

his hometown of plains, georgia for a private funeral and a burial alongside his late wife, rosalynn, and mika, obviously this is a family you knew so well. you would go over and play at the white house with amy when you were 8, 9 years old, but you and your family remained close friends with the carters throughout the years, and certainly my recollections of him while with you is what a lovely, wonderful man he was, and i may just add, what a patient man he was with your father. >> absolutely. this is almost to the end, a man who was completely dedicated to service and to god, and he held his bible studies up close to the end, and yes. i had talked to my dad a lot

about their friendship, and the friendships that were made in that presidency, and i have been reading my father's book over again, "power and principle" basically his four years of working with former president jimmy carter, and how carter managed people, how they managed their friendship, and it often was intense and at times, they would go play tennis or go running and carter would completely leave him in the dust. he was in very good shape, very physically strong as president, and something that stood out just in terms of former president carter's devotion to service and to god. in the book, my dad talks about pope john ii when he visited the u.s., and carter got to spend a few hours with him, and my father got to go pope john paul ii, and had tremendous respect for him and adored him, and the

pope said to my dad, that when he spent time with jimmy carter, it was as if two religious leaders were conversing, not one. so jon meacham, you write in a new piece, quote, carter was a great and consequential life, a life devoted to the highest of american ideals, the fulfillment of the promise of the declaration of independence at home and abroad. tell us more about his tremendous legacy. >> well, he's a remarkable american story to have come from the south, first democratic president. he and lyndon johnson were these democrats who came from the farthest reaches when you think about it, of the republic to rise to the pinnacle of power, and he did it in a meritocratic,

and the things that were available to white men in that era were the means by which the president -- president carter ascended. he went to public schools. he went to the naval academy. he served in uniform. he was in the state senate. he was a governor of georgia just moments after historically speaking, the civil rights movement, and comes out of nowhere really, makes the iowa caucuses into the iowa caucuses, and becomes president in a -- by the way, to connect what we have been talking about, in a very narrow win over a man who then became his friend, gerald ford until he died. president ford could name the five or six counties. he would put his hand up, that he had lost in southern ohio

that he believes if he'd carried them, the result would have been different. i love politicians who can still name counties decades on, but president carter had a remarkably global vision, and a global understanding of what the implications of the declaration of independence were for someone who had come from segregated georgia, and it's a sign that the world can and does change not rapidly, but steadily when there are people of good will, and jimmy carter was of good will. did he get things wrong? absolutely. was he perfect? absolutely not. was he a saint? no. he was a sinner who managed to do some really remarkable things, and sinners who do remarkable things seems to me are more inspiring than saints

do because i don't know about you, but i know a lot more of the former than the latter. >> well, you know who else does? jesus, like peter. the sinner of all sinners, and denied him three times, and he said, peter, you are the rock in which i am going to build my church. so thank god sinners have a shot at changing the world, and jimmy carter certainly did that. jon meacham, thank you so much as always. deeply grateful for you this morning. richard haass, first of all, an observation about jimmy carter that i noticed being around dr. brzezinski and president carter at times, one is how different a leader jimmy carter was and that he brokered dissent, active dissent. >> mm-hmm. >> i have read through dr. brzezinski's memoirs, his diaries during the white house years, and at times you read it, mika and i go, my god. how did jimmy carter keep dr.

brzezinski in there? because he was constantly pushing back and fighting him. in fact, in his office in maine, he had a picture of carter and him running, and jogging and jimmy carter -- jimmy carter's line was, perhaps that's it. it's a big perhaps the one time that we were in step. you just don't see that anymore with presidents. they want it their way or the highway, but let's talk about jimmy carter for a cond. of course, his presidency remembered for iran and the iranian hostage crisis, and miscalculations there, and let's talk about some other things briefly because i'm fascinated that 1979 may be one of the more pivotal years in history other than say '45 and '47 in recent american history. you had the camp david accords

that ended a ground warfare for generation in the middle east. you had the created globalization era in which we live for better or for worse. you had the soviet invasion of afghanistan and carter's reaction, and more specifically let's just say it, dr. brzezinski's reaction. not only that, but also to poland when solidarity came up. he came up with a porcupine doctrine that would have made it too expensive for the soviets to actually go into poland as they had with hungary and czechoslovakia before that, and then you had the polish pope, and the week that changed the world when the polish pope went there, went to poland. the rise ofsolidarity, and really you can go back to 1979 and the first cracks really in the wall of the iron curtain began in 1979 with a lot of the carter administration's policies. that of course, history of

course, has overshadowed that because of the iranian hostage crisis, but i want you to do two things here if you will for our friends watching this morning. i want you to talk about the carter legacy, failures, and all that we just talked about here, but also i want you to take that last piece, iran, and how ironically in carter's death, you have iran at the weakest state it has been in since that year, 1979. >> so let's go back to '79. it was the year i went to work for jimmy carter. i joined the pentagon that year among other things, working on iran and afghanistan. who of the big events of that year. i actually think jimmy carter, you know, all of the talk about his post-presidency, it's damning him with praise.

it tends to underestimate the accomplishments of his presidency. nuclear arms control agreements with the union. you mentioned the normalization with china, camp david, the panama canal treaty, and it gets criticized. this canal has stayed open and operating and we have had unlimited access at the same rates at everybody else ever since. we're not fighting a guerrilla war around the canal. i actually think jimmy carter was a really interesting foreign policy person who at the same time was both an idealist and a realist. he was the forerunner of ald reagan. he put human rights front and center on the foreign policy agenda, but he was still willing to deal with regimes like china and the soviet union which to me, you know, was impressive,and he -- by the end, he was increasing american defense

spending significantly. he understood that yes, he was a man of peace but he understood the we're world wasn't there. he jacked up american defense spending significantly. all of our military capabilities in the middle east, what we now call central command, guess what? they had their origins in late '79, early '80 under jimmy carter and his pentagon. i think there's much more continuity between carter and reagan than anybody understands, and so i would give him a lot of credit for what he did. coming back to iran today, you're right. i actually think this is a remarkable moment. what the biden administration is doing is handing off the middle east to the incoming trump administration where there is more opportunity for progress than there has been in longer than a generation, and take iran which has been the principle problem directly in, and directly now for decades through

its proxies, you know, given the loss in syria, given that hezbollah has been devastated, hamas has been weak end. israel can act militarily over iran with impunity. what an opportunity for the united states to approach iran and essentially say, look. we are done tolerating your support of proxies militarily. we are done allowing you to move ever closer to nuclear weapons. we are prepared to have an arrangement with you, a modus operandi, but only if you accept severe constraints on your foreign policy. if you are willing to do that, we can even talk about easing sanctions, but if you are not, we are prepared to use military force to make sure you do not get close to nuclear weapons, and you cannot resumeproxies. if there was ever a moment to introduce diplomacy by the back of force, this was the moment. donald trump likes to think of himself as a dealmaker. i actually think he has a serious opportunity here, joe. >> there really is. not only in iran as you said,

but in syria across -- across the middle east. expect a deal between the saudis and israel soon after donald trump gets into power. you're going to see countries that have been sworn enemies since 1948 actually moving together and i think in an acceleration perhaps. we have the camp david accords with jimmy carter, but the abraham accords with donald trump, and of course, jared kushner running that in the first term. i think you're going to see an acceleration of that. jonathan he lemire, i want to follow up on what richard says. jimmy carter did a lot of things, and that's an incredible legacy, but when people talk about that i want to roll my eyes because again, you normalize relations with china. the only piece treaty from '48 to the 21st century in the middle east with the camp david accords, but i really want to

coo key in briefly on what he said about carter. we often look at presidents and there's always this jagged edge, this cut between the two, but you look at jimmy carter pushing human rights in the soviet union and across the world, and you look at the military buildup in 1979 and late 1980. this was jimmy carter pushing america past the nightmare of vietnam. he did not have a congress that would allow him to jack up military spending after america had crawled out of vietnam after the surrender, and, in fact, after americans were exhausted by war. it took the shock of afghanistan. it took the shock of iran for carter to be able to get military spending up and going again, and it certainly did increase exponentially, and the

pushback against the soviets increased exponentially as well. >> you're right, and first of all, most former presidents get shorthanded by history. we remember one or two things. in carter, yes. the quick analysis is, oh, the most successful post-presidency, his time in office is often forgotten, and look. he was likely the most successful post-president. we shouldn't suddenly dismiss, that but i think his time in office is now getting a reconsideration. in a book a year or so ago, and other ies that have come forward in recent years, and i think his time in office though with its flaws is now being regarded better in history, and this is one of those moments where after vietnam with the united states so destroyed and demoralized at home and abroad by what happened there, by the quagmire of vietnam, carter started to move past that and build up some militarily, paving the way perhaps intentionally or not from what reagan and george bush sr. did, just as the soviet union was beginning to run out of money and get bogged down and stuck in afghanistan. the first cracks in the iron

curtain began to emerge, and you just detailed some of the those things that happened in 1979, that put the soviet union on that path. so i do think now and mika, this is how in part, how carter will be remembered. yes, he's remembered as a man of faith, a devotion to his god, to his wife, certainly to charitable works, but also someone who, you know, made a difference while in office, and yes, iran -- iran of course, was the thorn at the end that helped undo his time there, but someone who history will regard i think more kindly than perhaps he was at the time. >> yeah, and in closing, you know, the middle east, china, a number of the things -- the accomplishments of this presidency are the very reason that jimmy carter as joe was joking, was so patient with my dad, and many others. >> sure. >> because jim schlesinger, exactly. because, you know, my dad was a man who countered the thinking of many within the

administration. the national security adviser in cart carter's presidency was the first cabinet-level position so he came in hot in terms of this is new. but the president, president jimmy carter, welcomed the debate for the greater good, and i think that is what made a lot of what happened during his presidency so consequential and why history looks back at it as we get farther and farther away from it as a consequential presidency that changed the world. richard haass, thank you so much for joining us on quite a day this is in history. we'll be reading your new piece in foreign affairs on, quote, the iran opportunity. look forward to that. and coming up, the nfl post-season is set. we're joined with their takeaways from week 18 and a preview of the college football playoff semifinals. "morning joe" will be right

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. for 36 yards to get to 1,100 yards which will put in incentive for him. fumbled the football. picked up by barnett who's having a day. inside the 5, into the end zone. touchdown, texans.

>> in for patriots fans. hopefully he's just like josh allen looking for his 115th consecutive start. milton, again. wide open. >> from the 16 yard line on first down. smith fires. what a catch. >> good snap. good hold. the kick on the way by santos, and it is good. >> it's second and goal. end zone shot for the lead. it's mclaurin. he's got it. >> here's mayfield. three-man rush. steps away, looking. going to take a shot. he's got a man at the end. he is. it's a touchdown for mcmillan. >> from the 32. they fake it to him. they fake the run to franklin and here they come back to near side. he breaks inside the 20, and he

takes it home for the denver touchdown. >> 25. he's got an opening. the acceleration. jamyr gibbs. touchdown, detroit. >> those were some of the biggest plays from the final sunday with the nfl regular season, including first of four touchdowns scored last night by the ons running back. one of the few times i have been able to say that this year as he car carries detroit to a win. let's have msnbc pablo torrey. they have a dominating performance. do you know what i want to talk about? my heart breaks for my atlanta falcons, but do you know what i want to talk about? i want to talk about the sign that went up with chiefs fans and i'm surprised to say we're this obvious about this. >> yep.

>> but the sign that went up in the second quarter that said we will do anything to stop from facing joe burrow. >> yeah. >> who of course, made history being the only quarterback in nfl history. i think seven, eight games in a row, three tds over 250 yards. burrow, i'm sorry. if there were an mvp for the second half of the season, burrow would win in a landslide. the chiefs wanted nothing to do with it and i'm curious, were you as concerned as i was at how badly the chiefs tanked that game? >> i was darkly amused, and this is the story of week 18, the last week of regular season in general because this week is as much about the game within the game. it's about jockeying for playoff position, for draft position as it is about winning the game on the field. the problem with the chiefs, joe, because i've heard from anne addleberg for example, a sample of bengals fan. >> of course. >> who was deeply existentially concerned at how insulting it

was that they didn't even pretend, kansas city did, to try and win. they lose 38-0 to the broncos, sending the broncos to the postseason instead of the terrifying bengals and joe burrow, and for me because of course, these are games that you're supposed to try and win, this was a bit of an -- it was like watergate, but inverted? the lack of coverup was worse than the crime here. >> yeah. exactly. >> so everybody does some version of this. if you are smart. it's good strategy, but you didn't even pretend. you benched the four most important players of the team and you lost 38-0. this is one of those things where the league office has to get involved on some level and say, can you guys help us out? you know, the first rule of tank club, joe, is you don't talk about tank club. >> you don't talk about the tank, man. >> this is screaming we are losing on purpose. i get it. i get it, cincinnati. i get it if you're worried about this because it was insulting.

it really was. >> all right. let's keep talking about losers and not of course, the lions who just looked extraordinary. >> they were. >> i want to you look and i want you to -- to provide comfort and solace to my dear friend jonathan lemire because as somebody who followed the atlanta falcons his entire life, what i learned is when a team's really bad, losers win at the end when they're supposed to lose and what about those patriots, jonathan lemire? >> ugh. >> that is a sign of true loser-dom. >> this was a failure on every level for this organization who went into yesterday with the number one overall pick. were they to lose, they would have held onto that. they would have lost in every conceivable way this year. what's one more game? well, that didn't happen yesterday. first of all, the buffalo bills tanked almost as egregiously as the chiefs did, but they at least pretended. they put up a couple of points, you know, but they benched their

backup quarterback. they turned to a third stringer. they didn't want their division rival to get their number one pick. joe milton did play well. it's hard to get players to tank. backup players who are playing for their next job, their next paycheck are going to play hard. this had to come down from the organization. it didn't, pablo, and here's where this is so frustrating. jerrod maiyo, first-year head coach. you should get more than one year, but he seemed overmatched all year long. after they win this game, a win that he seemed very happy about within the hour, he was fired. robert kraft fired him. that was probably in the works before this decision. we don't know, but now the patriots slip from the first pick to the fourth. they lose the opportunity to have the number one pick because they have a quarterback already in drake may.e. they could have traded that out for a king's ransom. it's an indictment of an organization that has been off

the rails since tom brady left. >> the thing about this is that there is no plausible explanation for how you make all three decisions they made on the same day. so it is starting drake maye just for a serious to get him out there. why? what's the point of that, right? if you are wor. >> reporter: -- worried about his health, why risk it? it's winning the game and firing the head coach, like, the whole thing, joe, about jerod mayo, is this was the hand-picked succession to belichick. why would you fire him as soon as the game is over instead of before the game if you were concerned about him not executing some plan to get you the number one overall pick? it's just -- it's a triple bogey of anti-strategic thinking after having again, the greatest coach in the sport for decade. it'll be three and three years, which is a remarkable turnaround. >> yeah. pablo, let's talk about -- i know you're a big dvt fan as am

i. and what you learn in dbt is two things can be true at the same time. >> dialectal behavioral therapy. >> many are saying. yeah. >> joe, on one hand can be crushed, that once again the falcons did not make it through on the other hand, joe can be very happy that michael penix jr., i don't care what anybody says, penix jr., robinson, drake london, the atlanta falcons are coming. for people who say they aren't, please. the falcons' future is as bright as the crimson tide's future is gloomy. mark it down. but on the other hand, we've got to talk about the comeback. we've got to come back --the ye it was about the comeback player of the year instead of someone who lost their arm in a wood-chopping accident and then played the next year.

this was a guy who got benched, treated like trash in north carolina, got no support. yesterday, the last five weeks, this guy has looked extraordinary. talk about bryce young. >> look, i was waiting for this. i have compared bryce young to your long lost child who has been away on study abroad in europe and you're concerned about him, he's trying new things and scared of the new adult world. here he was in the third straight week looking great. when i say great, i mean ten touchdowns total against zero interceptions. so bryce young, for people who are not familiar, was the number one overall pick once upon a time. >> by the way, look how great bijan is. >> the tailback for the falcons, one of these running backs who are, in fact, enabling the renaissance for a position that we had discarded, like bryce young had been by the panthers who benched him. a rare thing to start your

number one overall pick and then bench him and only to watch him redeem himself, when they're long out of contention. still, you feel so much better about yourself. somehow this sad game, this sad game, joe, has enabled you to, yes, enact a little bit of self-help. you feel good about the falcons, you can actually feel good about bryce young, a rare alabama grad making good on january 6th, 2025, absolutely. >> really, a rare alabama grad. i think maybe the eagles have a quarterback who -- maybe not a grad, but he's doing fairly well. there are a few alabama guys doing well. >> you count him as an alum, jalen hurts. >> really quickly, though, and we want to bring in paul to talk college football at the top of the hour. we need to move to the news, but we're staying with sports for a second because we haven't even trashed alabama yet. let's talk, though, really quickly, the lions, the word over the last three or four

weeks around the nfl has been, you know, great team, their defense is too hurt, they're not the team anymore, it's going to be the eagles. my god, last night the lions responded. are the lions the best team in the nfl? >> they have been playing like it. there are other contenders. the chiefs, sure. but the lions top to bottom, despite the injuries, it's because really -- i watched this game against the vikings. for those not familiar, unprecedented to have two 14-win teams last week of the season playing in a game like this. never has there been two teams this strong resume-wise. and jahmyr gibbs, we're watching him celebrate, he did it four times. he's not going to be the mvp, shouldn't be. he turns out the absolute best performance of the entire year. this is it to me, the most impressive single game, jahmyr gibbs. and that defense is what enables it, because the vikings, again, they've now lost to the lions twice this year, they might get

them again in two weeks. the lions, i believe, is the house pick here. we sat on the set months ago and said this looks like a super bowl team. that we got right, it absolutely is them right now. >> yeah, it looks like it. gibbs, also an alabama grad. let's bring in paul finebaum, speaking of alabama. paul, we could talk about how horrible alabama has been this season. we could talk about -- and i will say it myself, debore is not cut out, alabama can drag this out for three or four years. i'm serious, we're going into the era of mike shula all over again. this is not going to get better. it was just absolutely horrific. that being said, i want to talk about something bigger. there has been a monumental shift, and it happened in front of our eyes over the past month, and that's been the sec, which has completely dominated college football over the last 20 years. we've pushed teams like penn

state, notre dame around, we would sleep through national championship games against notre dame. it's not the losses that the s.e.c. teams endured that i took note of. it was the line, for the first time in 20 years you had notre dame pushing around georgia on the line. you had michigan, a bad michigan team, their second team, pushing around alabama's offensive line. for the first time since the early 2000s, actually, these midwest teams competing and beating teams from the deep south. and we can put clemson in there as well. what's happening? how has there been such a radical shift just this year? >> joe, it's all about the transfer portal, where backups who are waiting their turn decide to leave. you were talking about -- just think about this, hurts for philadelphia, jamar gibbs last night.

what about derrick henry on saturday? these are all alabama players, some of them, jahmyr gibbs moved over to alabama from georgia tech. jalen hurts ultimately went to oklahoma. it's a new world. and alabama stockpiled backup defensive tackles who ended up going number one in the draft. and they don't have that anymore. their quarterback, we watched him the other day just throw a terrible pass at the end of the game, and he replaced the aforementioned bryce young, who has been spectacular in recent time. this is why nick saban left. he couldn't deal with it anymore. it was a year ago this week, not that i need to remind you, on january 10th that saban shocked the world. it shouldn't have been shocking, because he saw this and wanted no part of it. he didn't want just average number one draft choices on his team. he wanted the backups to come in for the number one pick who would ultimately be number one. that's what happened with georgia the other night, a

pedestrian performance. what you're saying about deboer is accurate, the fact that alabama -- as you and i know because we were there in pasadena on january 1st of this year, lost to michigan, and on the final day of the year they lost to michigan again. i mean, bear bryant somehow is rolling over in his grave. >> paul, i'm thinking about the s.e.c. and i'm thinking about how your finger on their pulse must feel right now, because there is a representative, it's texas. but does it feel like it? does texas feel like the s.e.c.? >> nah. >> okay, yeah. there you go. >> texas isn't the south. i mean, come on. >> there's no pride, paul, there's no pride in the s.e.c. give me the relationship, the dynamics with texas right now representing the proudest conference in college football history. >> well, what's unique is about 13 years ago texas and oklahoma had decided to go to the pac-12

because of the academics, stanford, cal, were far superior to the s.e.c. they really wanted nothing to do with it. texas was an acquisition. this was a wall street move. and the s.e.c. now holds them and it's their only hope. but i'll tell you what's even worse than that, guys, if penn state somehow beats notre dame in the orange bowl on thursday night and then texas falls to ohio state, think about this, we have an all big ten national championship. that will not go down well in my part of the world. >> all right. espn's paul finebaum and pablo torre, thank you both very much for coming on the show and going way over the top of the hour. >> thank you, mika. >> next time we'll keep it tight, but it's really good. okay, let's go to live pictures of the nation's capitol where congress will certify donald trump's win this

afternoon. in many ways, today will be different than four years ago. no one expects a mob. the capitol is heavily secured and the transfer of power is expected to be peaceful, as washington, d.c. also braces for a major winter storm. vice president kamala harris presides over the process of an election. she lost this past november. this is the first look of her message about her sacred role in certifying the election results. >> the peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of american democracy. as much as any other principle, it is what distinguishes our system of government from monarchy or tyranny. today at the united states capitol, i will perform my constitutional duty as vice president of the united states to certify the results of the 2024 election. this duty is a sacred

obligation, one i will uphold, guided by love of country, loyalty to our constitution, and my unwavering faith in the american people. as we have seen, our democracy can be fragile, and it is up to then each one of us to stand up for our most cherished principles, and to make sure that in america our government always remains of the people, by the people, and for the people. may god bless you and may god bless the united states of america. >> joining the conversation, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, senior executive editor for national security, david rhode and the former leader that investigated the january 6th attack on the capitol, the author of the new

book entitled "harbingers, what january 6th and charlottesville reveal about the rising threats to american democracy" and there's so much to talk about here, joe. four years ago is looked at so differently, depending on what side of the country you're talking to. >> well, half of america. it is. 49.9% of america. even that is an over generalization. i think we need to clear this up as well. there were people on both sides voting that weren't excited about voting for either one of the candidates. so when we say 49.9% of americans voted for donald trump, a lot of those people didn't endorse january 6th, but they brushed it aside and said, okay. and then you had 48.5% of americans vote for kamala harris. we're still a 50/50 nation. it is a reminder, again, if you

haven't been watching news since election day, we understand, if you haven't, why you haven't. we've had many people come up to us and say, i'll get back to you in the new year. but there's been such an overstatement of this election and how it's going to impact the country for the next 30 years, because the country has bolted far right or bolted far this way or that way. there's a one-vote majority in the house of representatives. that's going to mean democrats and republicans will work together, whether they want to or not. we still are a divided country. we still have checks and balances, and we will see what happens on january 20th and beyond. but make no mistake of it, this election was a one percent election, a one percent

election. and, yes, that one percent makes all the difference in the world, but we are still a country that is divided down the middle. jonathan lemire, as we talk about that, i think it's fascinating, the difference in the house only being one vote, and yet the difference in the attitudes that split the two parties is dramatically as they could be split on a day like today. i want you to see this clip of hakeem jeffries. >> two months ago the american people elected donald trump as the 47th president of the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you for that very

generous applause. it's okay. there are no election deniers on our side of the aisle. >> that is the fundamental difference there, joe, to your point. there are no cries this time around that the election was stolen. why? because republicans won. that's the party of election deniers. >> he went on -- and i hope that we can get the full clip there. he went on and said, we're not election deniers and we are going to affirm the results of this election. why? not because we love the policies of the republicans, not because we agree with what donald trump said during the campaign, but hakeem jeffries said, we're doing it because we love america. we're doing it because we believe in democracy. it's a powerful, powerful way to frame those divisions right now. >> yeah, and we heard similar words from president biden in

his op-ed that published over the weekend, acknowledging his fundamental differences with donald trump, but said that the nation's democracy is bigger than that and that he is going to have trump over to the white house that morning before the inauguration, that he will attend donald trump's inauguration in the afternoon of january 20th, two weeks from today. these are courtesies, of course, that donald trump did not provide for him four years ago. and that is the point i was trying to make. that's the difference. yes, there's a lot of talk about how the republicans come in with the presidency, the senate, the house, they have a very favorable supreme court as well. the margins in the house make this tricky and it's not like they have an overwhelming lead in the senate. but the republicans feel like they have wind at their back, a lot of momentum, and they feel like they can make changes, perhaps, that will have lasting impact in these next four years or perhaps two before the midterms. but mike barnicle, this is bigger than that. today on january 6th we need to focus on what hakeem jeffries

had to say, the minority leader, the fundamental difference between these two parties. there are no cries of election fraud this time around because donald trump won. had he lost, had that race gone the other way, we can all rest assured he would be fighting this election defeat much like he did the one four years ago, and, frankly, he continues to contest even though he's now in power. what happened four years ago with rioters storming the capitol, republicans have done an excellent job of pretending it didn't happen. there's still no memorial, no black at january 6th. there was talk of putting up something permanent to remember what happened that day. that still has not occurred and it's not going to happen under donald trump either. >> this is such a huge story and such a huge day for the country, what happened in the past and going forward. i mean, we are 48 months removed from a violent attack on the constitution of the united

states. that violent attack in the course of 48 months was turned into a victory for donald trump. that's incredible to think about. and we don't think about it often enough. it has to do with politics, it has to do with culture, it has to do with the great phrase in "the new york times" yesterday and the long take-out of what happened on january 6th, how did it manage to envelope throwing sand into the eyes of history? that's exactly what's happened. we've got to answer the question of, who are we as a country? what's our culture all about? what's our politics all about? why do both these parties stand in such fierce angry and ugly opposition to each other on everything? >> well, that's exactly what tim looks into in his new book "ha

"harbingers" and i want to focus on the criticism you talked about, and you identified one of the main vehicles for disinformation, social media. i would like to hear about that. also, what is the anger and cynicism that you think was tapped into that brought everything to a level of violence numerous times? what can we learn, and why is it -- how is it that we're at the point where there are leaders right now in washington who don't see this day the same way? >> mika, it's a good question. one of the points i make in the book is that in looking into what happened in charlottesville and what happened at the capitol, people have to realize they're both real forums for anger at institutions. charlottesville started as a protest about civil war statutes, but it became a broad forum that people were anger at the direction of the country, they thought the government was leading them astray. similarly at the capitol, election fraud were the main

impetus, but there were people there angry about covid restrictions or some people were angry about race and things on display in charlottesville. the division is not right versus left, it's people who believe in institutions and those who do not. that fundamental undercurrent of cynicism that people have about government, about the media, about higher education, about science. that is the undercurrent, i think, that also, largely, in my view, explains what happened with the election. the president-elect tapped into that. >> timothy, it's still with us. you read the letters that were left by the vet who served america honorably for years, who blew up the tesla truck outside the trump hotel in las vegas, his screeds read -- they're almost identical to what we heard from many january 6th

rioters, and talking about violence and overtaking the federal government, that this has somehow become this war and if it takes violence to purge democrats and others, then violence it will take. and i guess my question is, and i know you had to look into this in writing the book, we try to go back and figure out, when is it that people felt so disconnected from the institutions of american government that this extreme violent position is where they jump to? a lot of people go all the way back -- i always said if you understand the rise of donald trump, the first term, at least, go back and look at kim burn's documentary on vietnam and see how one president after another president after another president lied about the vietnam war being a winnable war. and i guess all the government

scandals that moved forward from there. what was your main takeaway? what was the big idea? what drove so many americans to this point? >> joe, it goes back to mika's question about how people get their information. i think what we've found, again, both in charlottesville and january 6th, so many people in this country now only get information through curated social media feeds, which really only reinforce things that they initially engaged with or believed in. there are very few places where, again, a lot of americans are getting balanced, nuanced, complicated explanations of information. they're only getting things that are designed to keep them engaged and reinforce their perspective. there's also a lot of misinformation that proliferates, there's really no obligation for platforms to curate or mark things that are false. so all of that is creating eco

chambers and allows people to go down rabbit holes. >> i don't know how there is a resistance if there isn't agreement on what facts are. >> exactly. >> and that, i think, also a fundamental challenge. david, your thoughts on what lies ahead and on today? >> i applaud you as a journalist for doing this and talking about the information problem we all face and the need for the media, too, to reform and reach broader audiences. the big question here is kash patel, who has been nominated to be the next fbi director, and a central theme of his rise in trump world and in his book he wrote called "government gangsters" was the january 6th committee was a fraud, that its career public servants like you in the past who are somehow part of conspiracies and the january 6th convictions were unfair. so that's the key thing, is what happens now as kash patel, confirmed was the leader of the most powerful federal law enforcement agency in the country. >> do you think he will be

confirmed? >> i do at this point, because i agree -- look, donald trump won the election, he won the political battle, the information war, and i think his base believes that many people were unfairly convicted for their activities on january 6th, so he has to deliver on that. and i think republican senators will confirm kash patel because of that narrative that's so strong now in the republican party. >> and then -- go ahead, mike. >> i was just thinking about all of this conversation that we're just having right now, and joe touched upon something that i think is critical and often forgotten, the roots of all of this perhaps lie in 1965 and 1966 in a country called vietnam. massive numbers of young working class men, largely, went, fought, and died there. the roots, they stayed alive. there's the roots of iraq and afghanistan, where massive

numbers of americans went, fought and died there. for what in both cases? for what? for the lies told by the government officials presiding over those wars. the roots of the financial crisis are tied to both, people who lost sons and daughters in afghanistan and iraq, people who lost sons in vietnam, the same people, largely, who lost homes and jobs and factories disappeared. the roots of the lies of government officials over the course of multiple decades. >> joe? >> i want to expand on that just a little bit, mike, because you have in the kim burns documentary, you have tapes of jfk in 1963 saying, we can't win the war in vietnam, we've got to wait until after the election to tell america that, basically, and bring our troops home. you then have lbj on tape lying, saying this war is not winnable,

we can never win this war, but basically saying, i can't be the president to surrender. and then nixon saying the same thing, 57,000 americans died, countless vietnamese died. and then, like you said, you add on top of that is iraq lies, the war in afghanistan that continued, katrina, you have, of course, as you said, september 15th, the great recession, people losing their homes, bankers walking off scot-free, nobody getting sent to jail for that, maybe one person. and you're right, there's this accumulation of bitterness and resentment. and then you have covid, which, again, i think too many of us just forget about. in our nation's memory, it's something that too often we just want to block out. all of these things combined together have created this toxic

mix. but, timothy, you brought up social media, and i think sometimes we're reluctant to talk about it too much, even though we do, because it makes it sound like we're old and out of touch, mika and myself, but you are right. this is how disinformation and lies get injected immediately into the mainstream of american political thought. think about this evolution as we're talking about history, in 1960s there was a book called "none dare call it treason" which if i'm not mistaken, basically accused linden johnson of being a head of a conspiracy and murdering people on his rise to power. you then had in the 1990s the clinton chronicles. we've gone from book form to videotaped form where it was said of bill clinton that he murdered people in arkansas on his rise.

so disinformation, conspiracy theories spread in paperback book form in the '60s, in the '90s spread on videotapes, and now today, people sit down, look at their phones, and immediately that disinformation, those lies injected immediately into the mainstream of political thought. >> no better example than a guy named steven airs who testified at the select committee, carpenter from pennsylvania, trump supporter, was surprised when the election did not go the president's way. so he started reading about it on facebook, and the only information he was getting about the election was through the algorithmically driven curated feed that sort of reinforced what he read, so he liked an article or shared it, and that then generated more and more content. a lot of it was misinformation, a lot of it was all the crazy theories about election fraud that were just false. pretty soon, he's in a group of other people skeptical about the

election, he's invited to go to the ellipse, he goes, he finds himself in this crowd of people surging to the capitol. now, he's no victim, i want to be clear. it isn't as if people don't have an obligation to educate themselves and to challenge the things they read, but there are a lot out there, that because their only exclusive portal about which they learn about these issues comes from social media feeds. they don't try to get, they don't reach out to get the other side. that fundamental ecosystem is different than what we've dealt with before. >> it's really dangerous, and the algorithm feasts on anger. so if you're scrolling or you're online and you stop at something that gets you angry, and that makes you take a few moments to sort of dig in on it, whether it's a lie or something violent, you get more. >> and you're more likely to stay on the platform, to stay and continue to keep that app open. >> literally for kids, i just wonder if cigarettes is going to

look like child's play compared to what social media is doing to this country, but to the minds of young people. the new book is entitled "harbingers, what january 6th and charlottesville reveal about the rising threats to american democracy" and thank you very much. congratulations on the book. we appreciate you writing it. let's bring in nbc news washington correspondent who has new reporting on vice president kamala harris' thinking on this important day. a few months ago we played the message from the vice president about her role in today's election certification. what more are you hearing this morning? >> good morning, mika. we know that the vice president in that video that we obtained at nbc news exclusively, that she really wants to hammer home the idea that she views certifying her election loss as a sacred obligation and she really thinks this is critical to upholding the u.s. constitution and the idea of a

peaceful transfer of power, no matter which party wins. i've been talking to multiple sources, including white house officials and current and former aides, and they all tell me this is tough for her, because this was an election that she thought they could win and an election she thinks she should have won, she's not going to let politics get in her way. i talked to one former aide who said there is sadness and frustration, but today you're not going to see any of that from the vpt.ice president. she's going to be hammering home this has to go back to being ministerial, the vice president doesn't have a choice on what way they decide to do this. really, this is about the vice president carrying out what is really a duty laid out in the constitution for january 6th. we saw, of course, former vice president mike pence do this on january 6th, exactly four years ago, while a mob was chanting to hang him and while president-elect trump was pitching for him to do something different and not certify the election results. so she is really going to be trying to make sure that

americans know that they have a role to play in upholding democracy. as you see, you're playing those images from the last january 6th four years ago, and when we were certifying election results, she wants to put that behind us. one aide told me they really want to make sure that people sort of go back to this as seeing this as bureaucracy at work. a lot of times people didn't think about january 6th. as a country we weren't circling january 6th on our calendar because it had been a day where the votes were certified, it wasn't a big deal. there isn't a big demonstration planned by democratic protesters because they want to hammer home the idea they believe the american people duly elected president-elect trump and at one point, on vice president harris' future, she's looking at possibly running for president in 2028, possibly running for governor of california in 2026. i'm told she's highly likely to set up an organization where she can travel and speak and be engaged. she wants to be engaged in the

political conversation. what that looks like, she hasn't exactly decided. today is going to be all about fulfilling her duties. >> you're right to bring up the name of mike pence and we would be remiss not to give credit for what he did four years ago, resisting the pressure campaign from donald trump, following through on his constitutional duty after checking with dan quayle that indeed that's what he should do. you mentioned vice president harris, her long-term political future. talk to us a little more about how she and president biden view the next two weeks. we know the president is going to be overseeing jimmy carter's funeral this week, traveling to rome to meet with the pope and a couple of major speeches in his last week or so in office. to talk about his legacy, yes, but also how he views the american story. tell us more about what we might hear from him and the vice president as they exit the public stage, at least for now. what's the lasting message to the american people? >> well, president biden really wants to hammer home his own legacy, we saw the big speech

where he was talking about what he did for the economy because the economy was a big talking point in the election loss for the vice president. you can imagine that the vice president is also going to be saying to people that they believe that they have accomplished a lot. but i've been talking to sources who were at a lot of the holiday parties that she hosted at the vice presidential residence, and she was saying this to a lot of people, there is no time for a pity party, there is no time to be sort of taking this defeat and thinking that this fight is over for democrats. so they're also going to be trying to really, i think, invigorate people who believe in the ideals she was talking about on the campaign trail. she was telling an interesting story at the holiday parties and talking about backstage at howard university, she was even telling members of her own family that you can't be sitting in this loss and let it affect you. there's sadness and frustration, but she wants to be a fighter. what that looks like in the future will be something very interesting to watch. but she wants to let people know

that she shouldn't just give up, the fight is a long one and they will, they believe, democrats ultimately win. but definitely something to look out for the last two weeks. they really do believe right now the responsibility is to ensure peaceful transfer of power and continue to carry out their duties until then. >> thank you very much for coming on the show this morning with your reporting. david, stay with us. still ahead on "morning joe," there are two wars going on overseas, but according to our next guest, neither of them is the biggest risk of 2025. ian bremmer joins us next to explain what's at the top of the list. "morning joe" is coming right back. two months ago the american people elected donald trump as the 47th president of the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ]

>> thank you for that very generous applause. it's okay. there are no election deniers on our side of the aisle. you see, one -- one should love america, one should love america when you win and when you lose. that's the patriotic thing to do and that's the america that house democrats will fight hard to preserve, because we love this country. ♪♪

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time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. president biden is set to visit new orleans today in the wake of last week's deadly terror attack there. the white house made the announcement on friday, saying the president and the first lady will, quote, grieve with the families and community members impacted by the tragic attack. 14 people were killed when a man rammed a truck into a crowd on

bourbon street on new year's day. david rhode, real quick, what are we learning from the fbi? any new details on this attack? >> the main thing is that he -- there's a lot of questions about the two improvised bombs he made. he may have made it out of a common chemical used in many others, but there were initial reports that it was a less common, very rare explosive that had never been used in a terrorist attack in europe or the u.s. so there's real concerns about how, did he somehow have help online to learn how to make this bomb or not, and then the broader question of what caused him to radicalize. at this point, i just want to reaffirm again, over the weekend, no ties between the las vegas, which appears to be a suicide, and the new orleans attack at this point. we'll see, we'll stay on top of this. >> yeah, the real question on new orleans, joe, is whether or not there was some sort of assistance, even online.

>> well, yeah. and, also, david, it seems very clear, if you look at the two different bombings and the attacks, the one in las vegas seemed to be fueled by an anti-government pro-trump person, if you look at his final words, and the one in new orleans, obviously somebody who at some point had become an isis sympathizer. is that where the fbi is, as far as you know, on both of those investigations? >> yes, that's accurate. clearly, he pledged allegiance to isis. we ran a story over the weekend on the website about a perfect storm. this gets to what we were talking about earlier. there's a confluence of factors here. it's never been easier to access extremist communities online before in american history, there's deep partisanship in

this country, and there's a record number of threats from all kinds of groups. most of them are far right leaning, but there have been some examples of violence from the left, the attack on the 2017 republican baseball practice, the second assassination attempt on president trump in florida did come from the left. so we're back to this online radicalization dynamic we talked about earlier. >> we'll follow that. back to the news, new york city's new congestion pricing program for drivers entering downtown manhattan has gone into effect. drivers will now pay $9 to access the busiest parts of the city, below 60th street, during peak hours. the toll is the first of its kind in the united states, and it's meant to reduce traffic gridlock while raising funds to improve the city's aging public transit system. ouch. and ukraine launched a surprise offensive into russia's

kursk region over the weekend aiming to regain ground after months of setbacks. kyiv's forces initially seized territory in the region back in august, but has faced challenges as russia deployed troops, including north korean soldiers, to push them back. and the war in ukraine is one of the top issues our next guest is watching in the year ahead. the geopolitical risk adviser group is out with its top risks report today for the upcoming year. among the group's top concerns, global leadership crisis and the resulting power vacuum that threatens to destabilize international relations. russia's invasion, of course, and the potential new lengths vladimir putin may go to in order to subvert the global order. and iran's role in the middle east and where the country now poses more of a threat due to how seriously it has been weakened by 2024's events.

"morning joe" has an exclusive first look at this report and its coauthor, ian bremmer, joins us now, president and founder of eurasia group. looking at this list, yeah, nothing to worry about in 2025, nothing at all. look away. >> well, ian writes that this is about as dangerous of a time since the 1930s globally, or the early stages of the cold war. i wanted to ask you, though, ian, i'm going to go all the way down to number eight. i agree, there's so much to worry about on this list. you wrote something regarding number eight, and that's ai. you say developers try to build more powerful ai will likely be restrained only by limits on data, compute, energy, or funding access. until such constraints are reached, ai's capabilities and associated risks will continue

to grow unchecked. and i think for the long range, this is something that gravely concerns me. i remember watching christopher nolan's classic "oppenheimer," and while watching "oppenheimer," i was thinking this is not really a story so much about controlling atomic energy and the spread of it, this is all too relevant to what's going on in the world of ai, where i remember on wall street leading up to the great recession in 2008, all the wall street actors were saying, trust us on the credit default swaps, we know what we're doing. they didn't. i feel the same, we have a culture in silicon valley saying, trust us, you can't regulate us, you can't step in. if you do, china is going to wipe the floor with us. so what's the happy medium there? how do we put some checks on perhaps the most promising and

most dangerous technology we've seen since the atomic bomb? >> joe, it's interesting you focus on that risk, because it is the fastest moving risk and in some ways the most systemic globally. i'm a huge enthusiast for ai in terms of what it can mean for unlocking human capital, as well as new industrial renovation, but we need to have rules of the road. and last year there was a lot of effort, a lot of prioritization by the u.s. with the executive order that was done in concert with a lot of the systemically important ai ceos, a lot of effort by the europeans, of course, the ai act, a lot of effort by the united nations and global governance. this year they're moving in the other direction. the americans are going to rip up with the trump administration that executive order and allow the tech pros, as we call them, to basically sort of write their own ticket. the europeans are concerned that they're being left behind and they're focusing much more on

trying to get more money and more support into their own smaller efforts. the brits last year had this big -- what was it called, an ai safety summit? this year they're calling it instead sort of -- it's going to be focused on ai action summit. that should tell you all you really need to know. so the u.s. and chinese were beginning, just beginning to try to talk about how we could stop each other from taking ai in ways that could be really, really dangerous, like getting ai out of autonomous decisions for nuclear weapons launches. that took over a year to get done. i suspect that conversation is going to completely break down. and i also think -- when you look at some of the open source ai, like, for example, llama, what facebook has, we have guys in our organization just to see what it can do, have downloaded it on their own laptops. if you then ask it questions of how to kill someone with arsenic

or how to target ceos of pharmaceutical companies, it will tell you. so both from the u.s. and china arms race perspective, and also from the bad actors and tinkerers perspective, these tools need regulation. and we're not going to get it this year. we are, instead, going to get more and more use cases that eventually will become crises. >> let's turn to number one on the list, the g zero area, lack of a dominant power and this idea of how the u.s. and china relationship, and talk to us about why you think this is potentially dangerous. >> this is not a year where the principle risk is trump. trump is the symptom of the fact that people are not interested in global leadership to respond to global problems. so the united states is focusing much more inward and much more unilaterally, resolving problems itself, not with allies, not together with adversaries. the chinese, massive economic challenges, focusing internally on dealing with those.

and everyone else is so weak this year. the canadian government is about to fall, german government has fallen, the french government, the japanese weaker than we've seen in decades, the south koreans, government keeps on -- everywhere you look, the alternatives to the u.s. and china are just playing defense. and the most important geopolitical relationship in the world, of course, is the u.s.-china relationship. there's no trust between the countries, but at least in the last year, 25 different high-level channels were established between the two countries to try to maintain a level of managed decline. this is a year that that managed decline is probably not going to hold up. trump says he's a deal maker, maybe he's interested. but what china is willing to put on the table as the u.s. administration talks about hitting them hard with tariffs, more export controls on technology, and even some of the hawks around trump that will talk a lot more about taiwan and the south china sea, we are set to have a much less managed

decline of that relationship with significant knock-on economic and national security concerns around the world. >> so that gets us to number two on your list, the rule of don. his proteges, his staff, all of his allies contend that one of his strengths is his unpredictability. unpredictability, though, seems to be a potentially lethal danger in places like beijing and every other capital in the world, it would be a danger to what's going to happen with ai through the eyes of -- >> the economy. >> so what about that? >> rule of law is, of course, what the united states was founded on, and the founding fathers were concerned that, you know, you needed to have constraints on the executive authority in the country to ensure that that did not become rule of man. and that unpredictability, which will lead to a lot of wins -- i don't think trump is going to fail in everything he tries to do, because other countries are so weak. they're going to say, hey, we'll

give you a deal. look at what the mexicans will be, look at where the canadians will be and europeans early on, they will say we're going to spend more money on efense, buy more gas from you guys. but that unpredictability in the power ministries in the u.s., the department of justice, the fbi, that unpredictability in terms of what the most powerful country in the world does domestically and internationally, and the decisionmaking of one man -- and, frankly, the decisionmaking of the most powerful wealthy private sector individual in the world very aligned with him who put a poll on twitter/x this morning saying, should the united states liberate the brits from the uk? there are right now already -- trump isn't president yet, there are crisis conversations happening in european capital, how do we respond to the rule of don, unpredictability, from the most powerful country in the world that is going to act much more unilaterally on the globe stage in 2025. >> let's talk about a couple of

quick opportunities here, a possibility of abraham accords moving forward, the saudis and israel probably striking a deal early in the trump presidency. i'm curious what your take is on the opportunities in syria. iran weaker than at any point since 1979. possibility of at least a cease-fire between russia and ukraine, especially with ukraine having some success over the past week in their attacks. what are the opportunities that you see, reasons for hope? >> as i said, when the united states is saying, you listen to us or else, there is a willingness of a lot of countries to pay attention. and that's not just american allies. it's also adversaries. so do i think there is a much greater likelihood of a cease-fire between russia and ukraine? yes, i do. now, it's going to be more dangerous until that cease-fire comes because there will be more

assassinations and long-range missile strikes and the rest. but i would be surprised that at the end of 2025 you still have active fighting along front lines the way we have right now. so, yes, i think that is an opportunity. and it's an opportunity that's not going to lead to the breakdown of the european union. they still feel like this is very much a threat to them. the israelis have shown that they have escalation dominance across the middle east, and that has meant that iran no longer has an axis of resistance. you know, joe, i used to study the former soviet union, my dissertation was on russians in ukraine and i remember the period between 1980 and '91 when the soviets lost all of their eastern bloc countries. the iranians are in the middle of that right now. they just lost all of their proxies across the middle east and they're experiencing instability and incredible economic challenges at home. so they are far more willing to reach out to anybody to cut a deal. they certainly don't want to escalate. the big question, of course, joe, will be to what extent the

israelis and the americans are prepared to accept what the iranians are offering, or will they say, they're so weak, this is our unique opportunity to take out the iranian nuclear program, this is our unique opportunity to help undermine what is a very weak islamic republic led by an ailing 85-year-old supreme leader. >> the new top risks list is online now. president and founder of eurasia group and g zero media, ian bremmer, thank you very much. happy new year, i think. here is to whatever is ahead. david rhode, thank you as well. coming up, hundreds of flights are canceled or being delayed this morning as snow blankets parts of the united states. we'll have the latest on the winter weather that is impacting millions of americans. "morning joe" will be right back.

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it's been nearly seven years since the deadly marjory stoneman douglas high school mass shooting. now a film entitled "death by numbers" is telling the story of one of the survivors, as she works to reclaim her power and confront confront the gunman who wounded her. the movie is on the oscar's short list for best documentary, a documentary short film. take a look. >> i think being able to directly address him is another form of justice, because he affected by life in not just a literal, physical way, but in a psychological and mental and emotional way that will be everlasting, and i don't -- i didn't get to choose that. so if i get to choose anything, it will be this.

people can remember up to 10,000 faces, with the average person able to recall around 5,000. maybe if i meet 10,000 more people, your face will not be so clearly imprinted in my mind. but you will not be so lucky. you will not be able to forget mine. >> joining us now, the subject and writer of the documentary short film, sam fuentes. also with us, peabody award winning producer of "death by numbers" kim snyder, thank you so much. sam, i'm so moved by your story, just reading here the words that you delivered to the killer himself, and i believe it was at his sentencing. i just want to read from that, because i have a question coming out of it. this is a victim impact statement just before the

shooter was sentenced to life in prison, and you said to him, i was still a child when i saw you standing in the window, peering into my holocaust studies class, holding your ar-15 that had swastikas, ironically, scratched into it. i was still a child when i saw you kill two of my friends. you shot me in my leg. and if you looked me in the face, you would see scars from hard shrapnel that was lodged into it. from that moment and all of the trauma around it, to shooting after shooting after shooting that happens after, can you explain the impact of the reality that these continue almost on a weekly basis, sometimes daily? >> yeah. so, when i wrote "death by numbers" i was contemplating so

many different themes. for one thing, hate. the shooter was somebody who i believed was subscribed to an ideology of bigotry and hatred. and, unfortunately, when these kinds of individuals have access to deadly firearms, this is when the real violence and evil takes force. and oftentimes we don't recognize it as hate and as bigotry. and for one thing, that hate, in many ways, from all the way up to the perpetrator of the crime to the victims of the crime, that kind of violence just reverberates through a community. as a result of the shooting that happened at my high school, three students have killed themselves because of it at the hands of a firearm. this project was particularly important to me not just because of the issue of gun violence that is ever growing and doesn't seem to hold up, but also to talk about the aftermath and the

trauma that happens afterwards, that is always ongoing. and so, i wanted this issue to be much more personal, because it is. and as a survivor, i have the privilege of being able to shed some light on this real kind of pain. >> so tell us about "death by numbers". >> i was writing it during a time where i was digesting and reconciling with a lot of my trauma, and the importance of "death by numbers" i feel, not only is it to unpack the grief and the trauma and the pain that happens in a community, that happens individually, that happens among families, but also to recognize that my shooter wasn't unique and that these issues are happening all along the country, and that there are

pockets in this country that are full of collective hate. and i wanted to think about what real justice looked like for the survivors of these shootings, what the actual aftermath is, what the actual trauma is. and so i felt that standing up to my shooter was one way of being able to come -- not just to terms with what happened to me, but what this country is unfortunately full of, which is hate, which is violence. >> which is the narrative this morning, mike barnicle. we keep talking about pockets of hate, social media driving hate. >> yeah, it is a narrative. and, unfortunately, in sam's case -- and, kim, i would like you to answer how you tell sam's story, because it's what you would refer to as a forever act. it never goes away, in sam's mind, obviously, every day, no matter what sam does each and

every day, it's a forever act. how do you chronicle that? >> well, my producer partner and i have been in the space of storytelling for over ten years, starting with "new town" and sam and i collaborated on this for almost six years. our relationship has been close and we were so inspired by her writing of "death by numbers" that we decided to adopt it. and sam has said it beautifully, it really goes beyond guns. it really is speaking to collective hate and the idea that, yes, we have this gun problem where we're a complete outlier in the world, but i think at the hands of an unstable person with access to assault weapons, this just keeps happening and we have invariably become enured and we wanted to

raise violence and youth trauma and the poetic undercutting of her trial and something that hasn't been seen. most shooters don't live through it, this one did. and sam's courage to confront this scariest moment and person in her life. >> sam, what would you hope, someone who is watching this, what would you hope their takeaway would be? how do you hope that person would view something differently or perhaps try to change something in themselves or outside? >> certainly. well, for one thing, i would hope that people walk away from this understanding that the issue of gun violence isn't just one that goes away once it disappears from the headlines. that they can walk away with this and have conversations of gun violence in all forms, not just mass shootings, because it isn't just an issue of mass shootings. at their dining room tables, i hope this film can cause them to take action, but i also hope that the film allows them to be

more conscious of the aftermath and what life looks like after this violence happens. and, unfortunately, gun violence has been an everlasting issue, but it doesn't have to be. and so i hope this pels people to take action. >> thank you both very much for coming on the show this morning. for more information on the film, you can visit "death by numbers, the film. on capitol hill, the certification of the election results. it's normally a mundane event, but four years ago a violent mob of donald trump supporters tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. we'll discuss the difference between then and now straight ahead on "morning joe." feels like a work of art! (marci) what about the app? (luke) uh-oh!

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two months ago the american people elected donald trump as the 47th president of the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you for that very generous applause. it's okay. there are no election deniers on our side of the aisle.

>> and there you go. that was house minority leader hakeem jeffries pointing out republicans' history of election denilism, after the anniversary of the january 6th attack on the capitol. hours from now, congress is set to certified donald trump's win ahead of his inauguration in a few weeks. the transfer of power to trump is shaping up to be peaceful, unlike the january 6th, he denied president biden four years ago. so good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." with us we have the co-host of our fourth hour, jonathan lemire, congratulations. president emeritus of the council on foreign relations, richard haas, the author of the weekly newsletter "home and away" and a lot to talk to you about today. rogers chair from vanderbilt university, historian jon

meacham is with us, and the new host of "way too early" ali vitali, congratulations. great first show. we are so happy to have you on the team. joe, let's start off on this january 6th. do you want to go there? four years ago, it was quite a different day than today. >> yeah, yeah, i do. and i would love to -- you know, we saw the opening shot. can we get the shot of the capitol? just an absolute blizzard that is going to be setting in over washington today, expecting anywhere from 10 inches to a foot of snow there. and so i just think for a blizzard of words regarding the rebellion and the french and indian war, i want to go to jon meacham in nashville, tennessee, safely away from the snowstorm there. but, john, i would love to get your thoughts this morning on january 6th. we still have -- and i saw something, a really moving story

today about a capitol hill cop who had said his whole life he either wanted to be a race car driver or he wanted to be a police officer at the capitol. he took his life a few weeks after the january 6th riots. it was too much for him to contemplate and to bear, sort of ptsd. all in all, there were four police officers who died, their families mourn them this morning, and died, the families say, as a result of january 6th. there were also others that were swept into the madness of that moment who passed. and so here we are, and hakeem jeffries is exactly right, there were those four years ago who

pushed back against a peaceful transfer of power in the most violent of ways. and yet how beautiful that hakeem was able to stand up and say, we lost, we salute you, we hand the gavel to you, basically, of power in washington, d.c. why? not because we love what you sand for, not because we love the campaign that you ran, not because we believe that what you're going to do is going to be good for washington. but we do this because we love america. this is what people who have loved america for over 240 years have done, and we democrats, we do it again today. >> yeah. the first time this happened was march 4th, 1801, shortly after the rebellion, if you're keeping

score, when thomas jefferson walked from his boarding house on capitol hill to become the first president not of the governing party of washington, as informal as those labels were then. and he gave a really important inaugural address, probably the second most important thing he ever wrote behind the declaration of independence, and he said, we're all republicans, we're all federalists, and every difference of opinion does not have to be a difference of principle. but there are some differences of principle, and a difference of principle is whether or not you acknowledge results you don't like. and that's the essence of life in a rules-based order. otherwise, it's all kindergarten and the teacher is gone. and that is what we have to push

back against again and again and again. i don't know about you, except for remembering possibly in passing that both vice president richard nixon and vice president al gore had to preside over their own -- certifying their own defeats in the presidential race. i had never really thought much about the election certification. i think i remember claire mccaskill saying with you all, you know, sometimes she didn't go when she was in the senate because it was just -- it just happened, right? it was, like, oh, they're servicing the water fountains, you don't go to that. but now it's important. and a final point is, this is not a partisan talking point. this is not just a way to hammer

away at donald trump. to remember what happened on january 6th is an act of remembrance in the purist form, and remembrance in the traditions, joe, that you and i and so many people came from, remembrance is not nostalgia, it's an act of agency. you remember things that you either want to emulate or you want to avoid. and we want to avoid ever again having american democracy on the knife's edge. >> and, john, you have said so many times through the years -- and i think it's important to remember this today. you said so many times that american history has always been on the knife's edge, maybe if a battle had been fought one way or a treaty had gone another way, we may have lost american democracy. i think it's so important with

the madness that follows every election, where every trend is exaggerated, where every victory is turned into a massive landslide, where suddenly x and elon musk and bros, and you name it, are in charge of america for the rest of time in memoriam. it is important for those of us who know history, those of us who have lived history, those of us who have understood that a victory is just the beginning of a political battle, democratic political battle, and you never know where it's going to end. i always think about the two greatest landslides in modern american history, 1964, lbj, 49

states. he's run out of politics. his own party gets rid of him. i can say newt gingrich became the first speaker in 40 years, republican speaker in 40 years. he was run out of town four years later. richard nixon, 49 states out of 50 he wins, and, of course, soon after that he's being ridden out of town. he doesn't even last two years after winning 49 states. i'm not saying this is going to happen to donald trump. that's not my point at all. my point is, that for the past two months since the election there have been such massive oversweeping statements about the scale and scope of his victory and what it will mean for america, for the next generation, that you forget that one candidate got 49.9% and the

other got 48.5%. wisconsin, less than a percentage point, michigan, one and a half percentage points. in those two states democrats won the senate race. this remains an evenly divided country, and no one, no one, to paraphrase william f. buckley, no one is held hostage to the results of the last election, other than -- other than what the constitution tells us. and so we are still a divided nation. and, yes, donald trump won, despite january 6th, but that half the nation was okay with that, half the nation not okay with that, the debate continues in full. >> absolutely. and as ronald reagan used to say whenever he wanted to see whether a prediction was true or an inevitable result was going

to come along, he would ask president dewey how that worked out. history is always like this. it is contingent, it is conditional. and this is not -- again, to our republican friends, this is not to diminish president trump's victory. it's not. >> not at all. >> it is to put it in context. it is to put it in context, which is that, as you mentioned, 1964, 1972 and 1984 were the only elections since world war ii, and really we could go back farther, but i won't because mika will cut me off, where more than 58%, 59% of us agreed on who should be president. we talked about this, and i'll leave you with this, 1868, i remember thinking a couple of months ago, what was a presidential election that should have been 80/20, right?

20%, we can get 20% of people to say anything. so what should it have been? and i thought 1868. grant is running, triumphant union general, horacio seymore, the former governor of new york, who was a white supremacist, wanted to reveal the 14th and 15th amendments. it was a five-point race. in 1868, someone who was against what had happened in the civil war nearly won the presidency of the united states, in an era when some black folks could vote in the south and still a lot of white confederates were excluded from the franchise. and it was a four and a half, five point race, when they were still burying the civil war dead. which is to say that as long as both sides, to use that phrase, as long as both sides acknowledge the supremacy of the

will of the people and the rule law and the viability of constitutional norms, as long as everybody agrees on the rules, let's have the fight. what january 6th was about and is about, present tense, is what happens when some people step out of that constitutional covenant and try to end the debate. the debate has to go on, but it goes on in a constitutional covenant. what january 6th is, is a reminder that not everybody, not everybody will follow those rules. >> as we watch this video from four years ago, keeping this in mind, we look at what a difference four years makes. and today officials in washington will be boosting security as a joint session of congress will certify president-elect trump's electoral victory.

as jon meacham noted, vice president kamala harris presides over the process of an election she lost this past november. trump has said that he plans to pardon those charged and convicted in the january 6th, 2021 attack, calling them patriots and hostages, while referring to the riot as a, quote, day of love. bring back the video of that riot. one protester was killed, four police officers died in the aftermath, more than 140 officers were injured. and remind you, president trump asked everybody to go to the capitol, said he would meet them there. according to the department of justice, more than 1,580 defendants have been charged in connection with their actions at the capitol on january 6th, 2021. of those, 1,270 have been convicted, more than 1,100 have

been sentenced, including 667 being given jail or prison time. the federal criminal charges against trump in connection with the events of that day were dismissed without prejudice when he was re-elected president. trump and his allies have since said the lawmakers who investigated the attack and trump's role in it should be investigated themselves. and in trump's words, should, quote, go to jail. jonathan lemire, you wrote the book "the big lie" all on this, and it seems this morning the big lie has, at least for much of the country, perhaps the country, for trump's team, for the maga right, the big lie has flourished, the big lie has become the truth in their eyes. and this riot that we've been looking at with all of the consequences is somehow acceptable, even celebrated.

>> yeah, the big lie won and donald trump is still very much living the big lie. just this past weekend, now just two odd weeks before he takes power again on the eve of this january 6th, he screened a documentary at mar-a-lago about john eastman, one of the lawyers in the fake elector scheme, whose efforts were to overturn the election. he gathered rudy giuliani, michael flynn, peter navarro and others. these were all people, many of whom were deeply involved with the efforts to steal the election. they gathered with donald trump this weekend at mar-a-lago, also i am told, speaking to people close to the former president, they're considering up to 1,000 acts of clemency or pardons for those involved with the january 6th insurrection. that's most of the people the doj has charged to this point. some investigations are still ongoing. so he is on the precipice of taking power again and he still cannot let go of the lie that he lost the last time. he's still believing that he was cheated and he had won then as

well. on the other side, we have president biden penning an op-ed in the "washington post" over the weekend and briefly spoke to reporters, saying that this is a day that we should always forget. he's calling for an annual commemoration of january 6th, a day of -- a somber day of remembrance, akin to how we think about pearl harbor or september 11th, or other dark days in our nation's history. that is certainly something republicans have done everything they can to wipe away from, and there's certainly not going to be any federal recognition of january 6th the next four years. >> there are two ways of looking at this day, richard haas, and two sides of the country that are making decisions on it that completely don't line up with facts. your thoughts? >> what it shows, mika, is that american democracy, as we close in on our 250s anniversary, we're still a work in progress and we're still vulnerable. just think what happened the last two, three months, if kamala harris had won a close

electoral victory. it would have been challenged in the courts, it would have been challenged in the streets, in state legislatures long before january 6th this time around. it's not clear to me what this country would have gone through. we escaped it only because the republicans, who have challenged in some ways the rule of law, came out victorious. but we shouldn't assume the fact that this january 6th is going to be orderly and peaceful, that we're out of the woods. we're not. and what this says to me is we've got to double down on the lessons of what happened. so we need to not take for granted that american emocracy is here to stay. we need to teach it to our young people. civics needs to become a staple of american education in middle schools, high schools and colleges. >> i would add to that, national service. >> i would say begin with civics, that no one should be able to get a degree in this country without being familiarized, educated, read the

documents, some of the history. public service ought to become mainstreamed in this country. bring americans together who are now living in totally red or totally blue counties or states. we ought to teach people how to navigate the information landscape. because conspiracies and, quote, unquote, alternative facts, there's no place for them in a functioning democracy. so the lesson i take from this is, yeah, we got through january 6th four years ago, yeah, this time we didn't have a major problem because of the outcome. but we shouldn't get comfortable. american democracy still faces, i would argue, an uncertain future. >> absolutely. >> and that's the lesson we ought to derive from what we're talking about today. >> joe? >> it reminds me, ronald reagan said long ago that american democracy is not a birthright, it is something that must be worked for, that must be fought for, peacefully, of course, every generation and every new generation of americans are

tasked with working as hard as they can to ensure that democracy lasts another generation. and, ali, it's interesting, much has happened over the holiday break to suggest that all republicans are not going to lie down and give up their article 1 -- or i would say article 3 powers. you look at the house of representatives threatened by elon musk, threatened by donald trump, threatened with political extinction, that they were going to come in in their primaries and destroy their political careers. 38 republicans said, go ahead, make my day, and voted the way they wanted to. 38. i've been through close votes. 38 votes, that ain't nothing when you're voting against your leadership and, also, the incoming president. you can also look at the senate,

who selected john thune, and you can look at the senate who said, no, to matt gaetz, and right now we're still raising serious questions about kash patel and others. and then we haven't even gotten to the courts and what's going to happen there. again, history will be written as we move forward over the next four years, and it will determine where this country moves, how strong american democracy is. but you can look back over the last two or three weeks and not just blindly think it's going to be a slam dunk for the incoming president, there are still some people that believe in checks and balances in washington, d.c. and across america. >> or at least their own political and policy agendas, right, joe? i mean, you know many of these members who were part of that 38 who caused some problems for speaker johnson and his ability to keep the gavel just a few

days ago before the weekend, i mean, these are folks who have their own individual goals and agendas here. but i do think you're right to talk about the push and pull we're going to see, the senate and the house create in real time, how much will they fealty to donald trump, and let the allies condition to push through whatever agenda they want. at what point will there be strikes? i thought it was striking that john thune didn't say openly, yes, every trump nominee for all of the cabinet positions he's put forward will definitely be confirmed. you can't speak in absolutes in this senate, but it is notable that we are not at a point where even the most controversial of these picks, we've talked about kash patel, we've talked about pete hegseth, tulsi gabbard, for a different number of reasons. they're all controversial, but the fact they're not immediate rubber-stamps tells us something

about trump's washington. but to bring this back to the fact that it's january 6th, this is a party that might have disagreements on policy, but every single one of them, almost to a point, did come home and allow donald trump to retake control of this party, to carry on the idea of the big lie. this is not a matter of just, okay, agree to disagree on the salt tax deduction or on policy. this is the fundamentals of democracy in this country, and i think january 6th is such an important lens on capitol hill every single day, because democrats and republicans are not operating from the same reality when it comes to that. and when it comes to things that are policy and politics, it makes it hard to have any kind of foundation of trust. and i think that's the bedrock of washington and of the capitol right now. >> and yet there's going to be a one-vote difference in the house of representatives. >> absolutely. >> whether they like it or not. whether republicans like it or not, whether democrats like it or not, there's going to have to

be a sort of unity government if they want to get anything passed. ali, i want to talk to you specifically about something that people started talking about over the past week, and that is the possibility of one huge massive bill that they're going to shove, like $10 trillion of additional debt to the united states government that's already $36 trillion in debt. they're going to shove that all into one bill. you talked about those 38 republicans that voted against the last bill, continuing the resolution, because they're concerned, like i am, like a lot of conservatives are, about exploding deficits, exploding debt. when you start talking about jamming everything into one -- first of all, real small government conservatives hate that, because that is leadership's way of shoving a lot of really bad stuff, we'll just say this morning, down conservative members' throats.

but $10 trillion of additional debt in one bill, that's just a perfect example of how maybe the speaker and people around donald trump, maybe they are overshooting the mark there, because i cannot imagine conservatives blindly voting for an additional $10 trillion. and, again, they've got a one-vote margin. so how does that go, ali? >> i'm sure there's concepts of a plan on how to pay for it, don't you think, joe? they're talking about this idea of, we'll offset the spending. >> no, they won't. >> i've yet to see -- exactly, i've yet to see how they'll do it and $10 trillion is massive. >> the only way you can do it is you can cut medicare, you can cut medicaid, you can cut social security, and you can cut defense spending. i grew up on this stuff. this is why i ran for congress. you cannot cut $10 trillion unless you're going to slash

social security and medicare. i don't see them doing that. and unless you're going to slash defense spending. and then you talk about additional massive tax cuts for billionaires and multinational corporations. this is not something -- i don't know how they get from here to there. >> we're going to watch them try. i mean, certainly the way they're going to attempt to do it -- and you know this so well, is they're going to attempt to overshadow the ripe concerns about fiscal responsibility and try to basically talk over the people in their conference who have active concerns about how they can bring down the national debt, how they cannot spend an extra $10 trillion. they're going to say, we're doing border security, we're doing tax policy, we're renewing the trump tax cuts of 2017. those are going to be the things that they hope will sweeten the deal for reluctant conservatives who don't like the spending, but who have also been on the front lines of trying to pass stricter

border security measures. and the border is so central to the trump message and the trump policy agenda, it has always been the centerpiece. so the fact they're going to put that as a very key piece of this multi-pronged plan, i don't know where these guys -- maybe they're forgetting the difficulty that democrats had during build back better. that was many, many late nights at the capitol, many missed deadlines, many failures, and many key policies ultimately having to be pulled out of the bill, because there was no way to get them passed. i don't know many people that were happy with that bill at the end of the day, but they did have a lot of big wins to mark in it. now republicans are going to have to do the exact same thing. they're acting like it's going to be easy. i don't know, memories are too short on the hill. this is not going to be easy. >> we will see. the host of "way too early" ali vitali, thank you so much. still ahead, here is a live look from the carter center in atlanta where former president

jimmy carter is lying in repose. we'll talk about how the nation is paying its respects to the 39th president this week. "morning joe" is back in 90 seconds.

these are live pictures from atlanta, where the late president, jimmy carter, is lying in repose at the carter center. funeral ceremonies celebrating his life began over the weekend. on saturday, president carter's

motorcade made a brief stop at his childhood home before continuing to atlanta for a moment of silence at the state capital. tomorrow his casket will be moved to washington where carter will lie in state ahead of his funeral ceremony at the national cathedral. from there, he will return to his hometown of plains, georgia, for a private funeral and a burial alongside his late wife, rosalynn. and, mika, obviously this is a family you knew so well. you would go over and play at the white house with amy when you were 8, 9 years old. you and your family remained close friends with the carters throughout the years, and certainly my recollections of him while with you is what a lovely, wonderful man he was,

and i may just add, what a patient man he was with your father. >> absolutely. this is almost to the end a man who was completely dedicated to service and to god, and he held his bible studies close to the end. and, yes, i had talked to my dad a lot about their friendship and the friendships that were made in that presidency, and i've been reading my father's book over again "power and principle" which is basically his four years of working with former president jimmy carter, and how carter managed people, how they managed their friendship, and it often was intense, and at times they would go play tennis or go running, and carter would completely leave him in the dust. he was in very good shape, very physically strong as president. and something that stood out just in terms of former

president carter's devotion to service and to god, in the book my dad talks about pope john paul ii when he visited the u.s. and carter got to spend a few hours with him. and my father got to know pope john paul ii and had tremendous respect for him, adored him, and pope john paul ii said to my dad that when he spent time with jimmy carter, it was as if two religious leaders were conversing, not one. and we'll talk more about former president jimmy carter's legacy with jon meacham after a short break. plus, president-elect donald trump has invited house republicans to mar-a-lago ahead of the inauguration. nbc's vaughn hillyard joins us live from florida with the details. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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coming up, our next guest defended the capitol on january 6th, 2021. former capitol police officer

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jon meacham, you write in a new piece, quote, carter was a great and consequential life, a life devoted to the highest of american ideals, the fulfillment of the promise of the declaration of independence at home and abroad. tell us more about his tremendous legacy. >> well, he's a remarkable american story, to have come from the south, first democratic president, he and linden johnson were these democrats who came from the farthest reaches, when you think about it, of the

republic, to rise to the pinnacle of power. and he did it in a meritocratic -- there's a lot of debate these days, but the mechanics of american democracy in society that were available to white men in that era, were the means by which the president, president carter ascended. he went to public schools, he went to the naval academy, he served in uniform, he was in the state senate, he was governor of georgia just moments after, historically speaking, the civil rights movement, and comes out of nowhere, really, makes the iowa caucuses, into the iowa caucuses, and becomes president. by the way, to connect what we've been talking about, in a very narrow win over a man who then became his friend, gerald

ford. until he died, president ford could name the five or six counties, he would put his hand up, that he had lost in southern ohio, that he believes if he had carried them the result would have been different. i love politicians who can still name counties decades on. but president carter had a remarkably global vision and a global understanding of what the implications of the declaration of independence were, for someone who had come from segregated georgia. and it's a sign that the world can and does change, not rapidly, but steadily when there are people of goodwill, and jimmy carter was of goodwill. did he get things wrong? absolutely. was he perfect? absolutely not. was he a saint? no. he was a sinner who managed to do some really remarkable

things. and sinners who do remarkable things, seems to me, are more inspiring than saints, because i don't know about you, but i know a lot more of the former than the latter. >> you know who else does? jesus. like peter. the sinner of all sinners, and denied him three times, and he said, peter, you are the rock on which i am going to build my church. so thank god sinners have a shot at changing the world. and jimmy carter certainly did that. jon meacham, thank you so much, as always. deeply grateful for you this morning. coming up, it will now cost many drivers an extra 9 bucks to access the busiest parts of new york city. 9 bucks. we'll speak with republican congressman mike lawler, who says the governor's plan for congestion pricing amounts to legalized theft. the republican lawmaker is our guest straight ahead on "morning joe."

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some of you may know me as a standup comedian but i'm not here to roast you tonight. i want you to know that. how could i really? you are so famous and talented and powerful. you could do anything but tell the country who to vote for but it's okay. you will get them next time, if there is one. i'm scared. ariana? hold my hand. >> coming up will break down the winners from the golden globes. highlights straight ahead on "morning joe."

beautiful snowy morning in washington, d.c. where a lot is happening today. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. on the east. with us, host of msnbc's politics nation, reverend al sharpton. it is good to see you. happy new year. >> happy new year to you. >> here is to whatever the hell is ahead. we begin with congress meeting today to certify the 2024 election with heightened d.c. after the capitol riot wreaked havoc on the certification process four years ago. nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles has more. >> reporter: congress convenes this morning with a simple yet important job, certify the ballots from the electoral college to pave the way for donald trump to once again be

sworn into office on january 20th. with the president-elect's opponent presiding, harris describing her role in a video message shared with nbc news. >> the peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of american democracy. >> reporter: the certification will mark an important step in the gop taking full control in washington. in addition to trump taking the oval office republicans took back the house and senate last week with speaker mike johnson narrowly hanging onto the top job on the ballot. >> we have an america first agenda. >> reporter: while today is expected to be uneventful the remanence of chaos and violence from four years ago when 140 officers were assaulted remain pure heavy fencing wines the complex and hundreds of trump supporters who stormed the capitol on that day have been

convicted of their crimes which led to the certification process and increased security. president biden writing overnight that america, "cannot accept a repeat of what happened four years ago." adding an unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite even erase the history of that day. when asked about his predecessor and soon to be successor -- >> i am hopeful we are beyond that. >> reporter: trump himself refuses to take any blame for that day and has promised pardons. >> will be acting very quickly. >> that was ryan nobles with that report. let's bring in vaughn hillyard who joins us live from a long west palm beach, florida. what a difference four years makes. four years ago donald trump was heading to a speech in front of his supporters.

but at the capitol, the riot followed. on the heels of gathering his most trusted election conspirators for the screening of that john eastman documentary and ahead of her bringing in members of congress to plot agenda for the first hundred days. >> reporter: that's right, jonathan. he will be at palm beach, at mar-a-lago. he will undoubtedly be watching kamala harris not only oversee the counting and certification of his 312 electoral college votes, but her own defeat. there is not a single democrat that has publicly suggested they intend to object to his election victory here today and that is where when you are looking at what took place this weekend it is not a coincidence he welcomed saturday night in mar-a-lago -- i was not invited

to this event but watching on social media some of the videos rolling in of john eastman, a film being played in a mar-a- lago ballroom. john eastman was one of the lawyers indicted along with donald trump for his role in telling donald trump he had the right to pressure mike pence january 6th, 2021. peter navarro was there in the ballroom saturday night. he defied a subpoena from the january 6th select committee. there was also michael flynn, the committee outlined in its allegations he was inside the oval office before january 6th, part of conversations about potentially seizing voting machines and imposing martial law. there was also jeffrey clark inside that ballroom with donald trump, the doj official

who urged other doj officials about the 2020 election and was the man under consideration by the then president who was acting as attorney general before january 6th. rudy giuliani was in the crowd as well. rudy giuliani of course indicted as well as found liable for defamation of two election workers. donald trump merged two events, jonathan. the italian prime minister was there to meet with him in mar- a-lago and ended up sitting between donald trump and marco rubio to watch the film about john eastman and watch trump as he stood up on stage and praised the likes of those individuals at the forefront of the efforts to overturn the 2020 elections. quite a stark contrast from four years ago but he was with the same individuals who were on the front lines with him that day at the lighthouse.

>> we are talking about obviously january 6th and the possibility of trump pardons and the people you said were involved to stop the process. i was just reading from the main editorial, from the wall street journal this morning. as i scan and delay this activity, on the 20th, a prison sentence was given to 31-year- old joshua lee atwood who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement. he emptied a can of pepper spray at police, beats them with a poll, and pelted them with objects such as metal scaffolding pipe. he yelled that the cops were pieces of -- and betrayed the country. criminal history includes attending felony case for

allegedly stabbing someone in 2023. on december 17th, a 16 month sentence was given to michael bradley who on the sixth came with his own metal baton, swung it at police more than once. he lied to the fbi, claiming it was a flashlight holster. here is a list of his priors. 2022 conviction of math trafficking. there are several other people who say this was a brutal reality of the capitol riot that many want to forget. this was the wall street journal editorial page. mr. trump suggested january 6th would extend so far. pardoning such crimes would contradict support for law and order and the wall street journal editorial page said it

would send an awful message about his view of accessibility of political violence done on his behalf. the wall street journal goes on and underlined this line, "that is what january 6th was," says the editorial page. make no mistake. and then they end with this editorial -- with this paragraph. sentencing philip sean, 50, was done by judge royce, a reagan appointee. he said this. quote, having read dozens of indictments related to january 6th, i can say confidently, this reagan judge says, no one has been prosecuted for protected first amendment

activity. nobody is being held hostage. nobody has ever been made a prisoner of conscience. every rioter is in the situation he or she is and because he or she broke the law and for no other reason. yes, he was being led off by u.s. marshals. he shouted a final word. trump's is going to pardon me anyways. let me hold this up again, vaughn, for the audience. this is not the nation. this is not the new york times editorial page. this is not your friendly neighborhood msnbc prime time post. this is rupert murdoch's own wall street journal and their

editorial page saying what a lot of republicans will privately say to you and to me off the record. anyone who has committed acts of violence especially against police officers should serve every last day of their sentence. and i am wondering if you perhaps have been able to sort through the ambiguity better than i have for the wall street journal page but what is your sense of the pardons for these january 6th rioters? do those include those who have committed acts of violence? >> reporter: they are martyrs in the minds of donald trump and i want to be clear not just donald trump, joe, but millions of americans. i can say that having stood at the capitol on january 6th watching the attack unfold. part of me that they was a recognition and i thought the

video would send a clear message, a willingness among thousands of americans who were willing to take up arms including flagpoles with american flags on them to not only attack members of congress, an evangelical christian conservative vice president in mike pence but also capitol police officers and individuals who work in the capitol keeping the basic infrastructure of american government alive. yet what we watched unfold over the last four years was an effort by donald trump and his allies to wage a campaign not just for political victory, but to come to the defense of those attackers that we watched violently attack the capitol. it was more than election nihilism but i've had hundreds of conversations from every corner of this country from every corner, joe, and there was did nihilism among who attacked

the capitol that day and an admittance of guilt so many of these pro-trump attackers went before the courts and admitted to their own violence. for others there was a dismissive -- there was this justification that became clear leading up to the 2024 election, a justification in order to take on the deep state, those undermining the maga movement, conservative movement, the moral righteousness in their view of america there was a justification of those attackers that day and for donald trump it was at the rally in las vegas where he told them they were warriors have called them patriots. there were cheers in the crowd at the mention of the attackers that day and for americans,

there was a rejection about the seriousness of what took place four years ago today and that led to his election. where does this go? i don't know, joe, but i do know americans -- at least a major part of this population -- are not as fortified by the images that played out that day and instead have come to the defense of the man who suggested they were part of a big, beautiful day, part of movement about to enter another term in washington, d.c. >> we want to spend a lot of time in the coming months looking into why of what you just said, vaughn, because it is important many americans do not see what happened on january 6th as anything more than what donald trump says it was. nbc news corresponded vaughn hillyard, thank you for that reporting. on that note, with these

pardons, if they happen, no one here is going to be shocked because he has talked about it for a long time so no need to waive arms right here on fire. but it will be a permanent and official distortion of not just our values, but the rule of law and one, we will have to ask the question, what is next? >> the danger and impact of this should not be underestimated and i'm glad the wall street journal and rupert murdoch are taking the position because it is much more, in my opinion, important if he makes these pardons and he did something we disagree with. he is in effect saying if you try to do an insurrection, undermine the boat of the

american public, you become modern hostages. >> right. >> i remember we had the george floyd protests after he was killed by police. there were some who went out into the streets for violence and the family is and i rejected it. these people led to the death of police men. to say that legal, different strokes for different folks, you can use political violence in some instances if it is to my liking. remember what donald trump said about george floyd? if the looting starts, the shooting starts. where are we trying to find lockyer? >> we need to get our next guest but there needs to be more discussion as to why this, among many things including the nominees he's looking at the

head of his cabinet editions, is actually not in donald trump's best interest and we will get to that but it does not end well for everybody ultimately. >> that's right. >> some of trump's allies are desperately urging him to turn the page on the 2020 election and leave january 6th behind. he won't and keeps resurfacing it. someone we want to talk to about the anniversary, retired capitol police officer harry dunn. he joined us now. thank you so much for being with us. i want to get to your thoughts today four years later and let's start with this topic of conversation. for so many americans what happened that day has been distorted, whitewashed, downplayed, and frankly for some of trump's allies, celebrated. >> thank you for having me on.

i want to talk to what mika has said. donald trump said from the beginning this is what he wanted to do which is why meander so many coworkers have campaigned so hard against him and for kamala harris. the american people, i believe, work misled and the officers who defended the capitol on january 6th four years ago. it is snowing here in d.c. i talked to one of my officers and she said the snowstorm came four years too late. imagine if it were snowing four years ago. it has been four years. four long years. let's talk about the pardons. that being, it pulls at my heart and makes me upset. it makes me angry. how could people watch what happened that day and sit there and say they are okay with what happened? those people were not hostages. those people sitting in jail

are people that attacked, assaulted police officers in the worst, most violent ways. the people who enter the capitol and walked around, sure, they did that but did not serve prison time. they got probation. they are not sitting in jail. they are not hostages. those sitting in jail committed violent attacks on police officers and that is what we need to focus on right now. the internal order of police endorsed donald trump. how about they put out a statement saying they are okay with the pardons? if they are they have not said anything about it and i wish they would. >> harry, talk about on that day the type of terror some of your fellow officers were facing. not those that walked around. what you just referred to, those that were violent that were talking about where is mike pence, the vice president? they wanted to hang him.

these people literally had murder in their mind and in their mouth. talk about being an officer working that day and some of your colleagues, what you were facing. >> i saw on the graphic it's at 15 or 1600 were charged and 600 were still in jail or something like that. sure, there were people that were there that were peaceful. they were not helping or bringing an end to the situation but there were people there that were not attacking police officers and they got the proper prison sentence and fines. the video of michael being dragged into the crowd, it was not about getting past him. he was down and out of the fight and people attacked him while he was down. people went back and looked for people to fight and beat up. they were not interested in getting into the building and stopped. they were hell band on

violence and those people should not be outside the jail. they need to serve their full sentence. they told us in their own words they are there to stop. they were there because donald trump sent us. they felt emboldened to be there on january 6th four years ago because arguably the most powerful person in the world told them to do so. think about this. after a pardon, what message does that send to them? you know, we were right. let's do it again so we never need to. >> retired capitol police officer harry dunn thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. thank you. coming up, rush-hour is winding down in manhattan, the first city in the nation to institute congestion pricing costing drivers an extra $9.00 to enter the city during peak hours. we will be joined by mike

lawlor of new york who calls the plan a cash grab. plus, we will bring you the winners and the highlights from the 82nd annual golden globes. welcome to the 82nd golden globes, ozempic's biggest night. if you're watching on cbs, hello. if you are watching on paramount+, you have six days left to cancel your free trial. ♪♪ you'll get better when you're not blamed for a condition you can't control. ♪♪

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welcome back. time for a look at the headlines this morning. frequent spacex rocket lunches in california caused a number of local residents to push back. the launches, some taking place between midnight and 5:00 a.m., can feel like an earthquake, causing loud, rattling blooms that wake residents, set off car alarms and may knock off books from shelves inside homes. 1300 people so far have signed

a virtual petition calling for the suspension of the launches following an environmental impact report. poor sleep can impair the regions of the brain responsible for suppressing unwanted, intrusive memories. those memories can be linked to a number of mental health issues including depression, anxiety, and ptsd. sleep deprived individuals struggled to engage the brain regions that suppress memory retrieval compared to well rested participants. >> 6:00 p.m. bedtime tonight. >> you've got to actually sleep though. that is the hard part. bluefin tuna weighing as much as a grizzly bear sold in japan for $1.3 million making it the most expensive tuna to be sold. i never thought i would say

this. in the history of sushi! the fish weighed in at 608 pounds and was cost -- got off the coast of northern japan. the largest ever sold was 613 pound fish and brought for $3.1 million. >> and now from a tuna the size of a bear, anything could be next. joining us now is republican mike lawler. you don't need to weigh in on that unless you really, really want to. >> he may. >> you can address the pricing plan in a moment but first we want to get your thoughts on a conversation we have been having all morning long. it is the anniversary of the january 6th riot at the capitol and there will be no such insurrection today. this time donald trump won. we just read in the wall street journal in an opinion page

moments ago about the pardons he has promised to give. so many were convicted after what they did on january 6th. what are your thoughts? pardons for those convicted of violent offenses. >> was the first republican in new york to condemn what happened january 6, 2021. was my first day in the legislature in albany. was wrong and it never should have happened. i have been clear about that and i have long believed anyone who has engaged in violence at the capitol or as reverend al pointed out moments ago those who engage in violence in the aftermath of george floyd, they stormed the courthouse in portland, burned a police station in minneapolis. everyone should be held to account for their conduct. i've always believed that and i have been firm in that.

i do not believe people should be pardoned have they committed violence. if there is a specific case someone may have been overcharged, fine. that should be reviewed. if someone engaged in violence at the capitol on january 6th they should deal with the consequences of that. >> congressman, let's talk about congestion pricing now. it's split a lot of new yorkers, and i understand. it is really hard on commuters and it is very difficult for a lot of people getting in and out of new york city that just can't afford this new tax. i do wonder though as you drive around new york, it seems everything was built during the depression, right? it seems so much of the

infrastructure there is 70, 80, 90 years old and needs updating. needs renovating. if not congestion pricing, what do new yorkers do? what do we all do to keep that infrastructure up-to-date? >> well, first, new york got $100 million from the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the state frankly has done a horrible job releasing those funds for infrastructure improvements not just in new york city but across the state. secondly, the mta, the worst run authority in america and as i fundamentally believe needs an enema. the mta loses $700 million a year from people who refuse to pay the right to subway and jump the turnstiles. they refused to pay.

in fact, you just saw two men jump the turnstile moments before a man was pushed in front of an oncoming subway car. fortunately, he survived. it encapsulates exactly what the problem is in new york in the subway system. crime is up. murders are up 60% on the subways. we saw a woman burned alive. people do not feel safe to ride the subway system which is why revenue is down for the mta but let's be clear, this is a scam, congestion pricing. it has nothing to do with reducing congestion or improving the environment. it has everything to do with the mta raising revenues to it can borrow $15 billion more. this is an authority tens of billions of dollars in debt and has individual borrowing authority. that needs to be completely

overhauled. i understand there need to be infrastructure upgrades but this is a scam. the fact is governor hochul is charging the average new yorker $2500 more to drive into the city to go to work on an annual basis, and meanwhile she is spending as of dollars in taxpayer money for housing, clothing, food, education, and healthcare for illegal immigrants. if we want to talk about priorities, on investing in new york's outdated and antiquated infrastructure, we have to look at how new york is spending its money to begin with. they have increased spending from $178 billion just four years ago to $239 billion and they need another billion dollars from hard-working commuters? doesn't make a lot of sense, joe. >> congressman, let's push this. let's say you want

infrastructure improvements, repairs. if not congestion pricing, where does that money come from? how do you propose the state to pay for these things? for instance, congestion pricing has made an impact on traffic, on the environmental impact. why are you discounting that? how do you pay for all of this? >> i would strongly disagree with it being proven to work in london. fundamentally you will not reduce congestion. you will shift at. in the bronx for instance, they have among the highest asthma rates in the world. you are going to have traffic move there for people to commute down into central and lower manhattan. the funding is very simple. every year, as i said before, the mta loses $700 million from people who refuse to use -- pay

to use the actual system. you can reduce the fair, number one. number two, new york spent $4 billion for free housing, clothing, food, health care for illegal immigrants. new york chose to be a sanctuary state and city. so of course, people are going to come here. $100 million in taxpayer funds for campaign-finance. they have a matching funds program, welfare for politicians. take that $100 million and put it towards the mta. there is no reason to pay for political campaigns with taxpayer money. with the $239 billion budget, up 61 over four years to prioritize the mta. in addition, the mta needs a

full audit and the mta needs to have a complete overhaul, starting with removal of all of its management. jana lieber needs to go. the fact he was celebrating the start of congestion pricing on top of the cherry picker the other day as if for some bizarre reason he thought as an unelected bureaucrat he should be celebrating the policing of hard-working new yorkers for their money, it is bizarre. there are a lot of ways to fund its operations and capital improvements but $2500 annually ? >> mike lawler of new york, thank you for being with us. we look forward to you coming back announcing a run for governor. when is that going to be?

>> we will look midsummer. we will see what happens. >> we hope to have you on many times before then but you can make the announcement here. thank you so much, congressman. we appreciate it. really quickly, the congressman talked about the bronx and how the redirection of traffic could actually add personal impact to the healthcare of the people in the bronx. i'm curious, what are your thoughts? what is your organization's thoughts on this? every new yorker has an opinion. >> it has been mixed. i have talked to people over the holidays in the organization. some think it is something good and they've brought the price down because it was originally supposed to be more. others say it is unwarranted and unfair. reaction is mixed. what's interesting about

congressman lawler's interview, he said there was infrastructure money that came out of the infrastructure bill that had not been used. by the way, that was what joe biden past. i'm wondering if the republicans in charge will be able to get that money out. if the money was not used, why does he not make sure it is being used? if it's not being used, why not? you can't just make a statement that the infrastructure bill was there and republicans opposed it. well, why not? you are in charge now, congressman lawler, and i'm sure when you run for governor you will be able to explain it. president trump as promised sweeping new tariffs once he takes office but that may be changing. andrew ross sorkin joins us ahead to explain. we will be right back.

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welcome back to "morning joe." a shot of the white house in washington. again, blizzard conditions expected later day possibly up to 12 inches of snow there. you can see the flag flying at half mass. jimmy carter, as we talked about this morning, the funeral position moving towards washington, d.c. continuing today. that is a shot of the washington monument looking back across the washington mall. by the way, speaking of congestion and the pricing and infrastructure, we should have kathy hochul on to talk about what new york is doing with the money. that would be fascinating. let's see if i can encourage her to get a train to take

people straight from jfk into manhattan instead of the two, two and a half hour drive it is for people coming across the world here and getting stuck in traffic. mika, you look shocked by this. >> we have one, but okay. >> it is not as good as you want it to be, joe. >> you guys, i said starts at jfk and goes into manhattan. doesn't stop. goes straight there. but we will see. maybe they can extend it and the air train can go doorstep to doorstep. anyway -- >> that is what i want. >> well, how about just allowing people -- jfk is a gateway to the world for america. maybe they can figure out a way

to get people that come to new york city from jfk into manhattan in 30 minutes or less. without flying a helicopter. andrew, i know you and your rich friends all fly. people are always like, joe, take the helicopter. i'm fine. i'll stay on the ground and be late two hours. andrew, you are here and it is great to have you here. there is a report donald trump may be looking at tariffs differently. the incoming president dismissed that as fake news, quoting anonymous sources which says my policy will be paired back. that's wrong. we teased that story, the incoming president who says that will not happen. i have this continued obsession

about the economy and i really want to keep talking about this because i kept questioning credit default swaps in 2008. i did not understand them and i said, well, there must be people smarter than me but there weren't on that issue. it wrecked the economy and destroyed the economy for a while. i keep obsessing over the bubbles we may have. one, the stock market bubble. two, the crypto bubble. it's worth $800 million just because -- >> come on. >> no, it's real. >> i can't take it. >> i wish that were the only example of this craze we are dealing with here but the third and the one that is concerning me the most is the fiscal

bubble. we've got trillions in debt. our economy has been fueled by debt from the federal government since 2000. if you look at the numbers and the gdp per ratio and the national debt, far worse than europe, britain, any other country. now we hear about this massive bill that mike johnson is talking about doing in april, may, or june. they will add $10 trillion to the national debt. wendy's bubbles explode, andrew, there will be no safe refuge, right? >> oh, no question. i remember being on this broadcast in 2008 and afraid to fail. we were talking about banks and now we are talking municipalities, cities, states, countries, like our own.

there will be a time you would think you have to pay the piper. when in this bill you are referring to -- maybe it should be called the maga bill. this was reported in axios yesterday. rather than to immigration, taxes, do this and that, do it all at once. >> donald trump just gave an interview and said he's fine as well. >> just now? >> just now he said he would prefer one option but moments later said it does not really matter. we just want to get it all done, so okay, but it will be hard to wrangle those on the hill without firm leadership. >> joe, going back to the washington post piece, there were advisors talking about could you just carveout tariffs on items that are dedicated to national security? even though the president-elect

is taking to truth social to say it's not true and he is thinking of across the board tariffs, do you believe this is a negotiating employer? you have to start there and say i am doing everything and then you have to go down to something else. you can't start undoing national security things because you can't get what you want from these other countries if that is in fact what he's trying to do. >> andrew, everything, andrew, is a negotiating ploy with him. he takes a hard line on tariffs, on immigration. i'm saying hard line on immigration because they know it is impossible to do what was promised in the campaign, so people close to him say they will try to roll it back to violent offenders and folks there. i want to go back to this bill that jonathan just brought up. he was talking about two different ways.

we already saw -- there will be so many different polls here. the senate was already pushing back against mike johnson's plan to do it all in one piece. the senate already said, sorry, we're not going along with it. you've got immigration, the border security part of it. i think that would pass comfortably standing alone, but i want to go back over to the bill that cost $10 trillion more. $10 trillion added to the national debt. go back to the continuing resolution, where elon musk was saying he was going to destroy any member of congress basically that voted for it. >> right. >> 38 republicans said, go ahead. make my day. i didn't come here to add to the debt.

there will be so much push and pull and not from conservative fiscal hawks, but also wall street, right? they have got to be concerned about that. >> we have talked about it a lot. in the wake of the table, if a bill were to move ahead with $10 trillion, it is possible the bond market will say, enough. we will not be buying u.s. bonds at these prices. it will cost more which will mean inflation for everybody. does that change the dynamic? there is the freedom caucus, there is wall street -- >> right. >> there will be democrats in the middle of all of this. >> cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, great to see you and happy new year. >> day six. day six.

the biggest stars in film and tv gathered for the 82nd golden globe awards in los angeles last night, kicking off hollywood's highly anticipated award season. kaylee hartung has the details. >> reporter: the stars were shining brightly left made at the 82nd golden globes. amelia perez winning best film in two different categories and best supporting actress, a first for zoe saldana. >> what i've witnessed, is standing up for each other and celebrating each other and it is so beautiful. >> reporter: the brutalist about a holocaust survivor's experience took the award for best drama and best actor for adrien brody. >> it is a story about human capacity for creation. >> shogun. >> reporter: and shogun taking four golden globes including

best drama series and wins in three acting categories. >> this is a very big present for me. >> reporter: how do you process the impact you see shogun having on audiences? >> it's breaking the wall within cultures. >> reporter: many of the night's winners including wicked director reflecting on the impact art can have. >> pessimism and cynicism rule the planet right now. we can still make art that is a radical act of optimism. >> reporter: the night's standout speech delivered by demi moore. >> this is the first time i have won anything as an actor. >> reporter: her role in the substance winning the 62-year- old the honor as her family watched from home. >> i celebrate this as a marker of my wholeness and the love that is driving me and for the

gift of doing something i love and being reminded that i do belong. >> reporter: in the comedy category, it was all lava for hacks star jean smart, while the globe's first solo female host nikki glaser had some fun with the crowd. >> where is timothee chalamet? you have the most gorgeous eyelashes on your upper lip. it is such a good look. >> [ laughter ] >> reporter: stars reveling in the unofficial kickoff to award season. >> describe the energy on the carpet tonight. >> it is buzzing. >> what makes this moment feel special? >> there are times you get knocked down and it's hard but embrace the ride. >> joining us now, entertainment correspondent chloe melas and the founder and former editor of the hollywood reporter. thanks for being here.

chloe, i will start with you. start with the brutalist. not many have seen this yet but that could change. who else stole the headlines yesterday, including the host? >> reporter: i met the director of the brutalist 15 years ago and if you don't know his name, this morning, now you do. he has done incredible movies but this one put them on the map. he made this $100 million epic. he mentioned in his speech last night that this was a movie people were betting against. 3 hours, 15 minute intermission. people in the ballroom were whispering to each other you have got to see the movie. it is not all over the country right now. it is in select theaters but a lot of people were talking about nikki glaser. she told the line perfectly hosting the golden globes. it is a hard job.

i saw her at taylor swift's concert and we were chatting and she said, look, i want a job again. i want to toe the line with making jabs but not going too far she will make enemies. she's getting great reviews this morning. joe? >> matt, i'm curious, we want to talk about the stars and the movies. >> well, there was one name you did not hear from her mouth last night, nor from any of the winners. donald trump. that is the sign of a change in hollywood. there is not this resistance or this anti-trump thing that you see. people are falling in line and realizing there is a change in the mood of the country and they know a lot of people when they start to hear politics, people absolutely shy away from it.

other than that, the fact nikki glaser was openly auditioning to be asked back meant you would not get a ricky gervais's style monologue where he insulted people. she did it for the people in the room, the producers, and i think she did fine. >> it is so interesting. chloe, i was reading an article in she was going to go on not only the stars but would she weigh in on at the election? there were sort of two mindsets. one,, hollywood will bow down to trump but there was strong pushback from the other side going, weight a second. we saw taylor swift, beyonce, the biggest stars on the planet campaign against him and there was this feeling among some

people there was blowback from these hollywood stars and rock stars getting involved in politics. did you sense any of that? >> reporter: in the monologue, she addressed just that. hollywood did not have the ability to influence the presidential election. i said to nikki, you should go hard . they want hard jokes and they want to laugh. the numbers are dwindling of people watching award shows every year. tuning in on sunday night before work the next morning to watch hollywood get their awards and pat themselves on the back but people want the watercooler jokes the next day. she said, look, i will not go that hard. she looked to tina fey and amy poehler. this is the first time the globes have had a woman host so low. and speaking of women, i want to talk about demi moore.

>> i loved her speech. >> reporter: she is 62 years old and she has been nominated for times before. never won a golden globe or an award for acting in her career. she sat at one point the producer told her she was a popcorn actress. i was thinking and look, i did some googling last night. jodie foster, jean smart, all big winners. >> i love that! >> final thoughts on another of the night's big winners, shogun . >> the tv winners last night were basically a rubber stamp of the emmys this past september and shogun is a monster. it is show of the year. most expensive show affects has ever done. so much so they green lit a second season even though the first season was basically the entire book of shogun and it

was not really a surprise. the globes in the past have been edgy and have gone out on a limb on new shows or shows not getting awards at other awards shows that between hacks, shogun, jeremy allen white from the bear, this was like a repeat of the emmys. >> chloe melas, matt belloni, thank you for coming on the show. that does it for us this morning. we will see you tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. sharp. ana cabrera picks up the coverage. up the coverage. winter wallop. whiteout conditions and eo treacherous travel. as a massive snowstorm impacts millions. we are live in kansas city which just saw one of its snowiest days ever. high-security and snow on d capitol hill as lawmakers prepare to certify donald trump