by the number of questions from democrats. and this seems to be their theme throughout these hearings, asking about keeping these agencies apolitical and asking him specific questions. would he fire somebody for political leanings? if there is a political litmus test that is requested by the administration or the white house, will you enforce that? so i think that democrats really sort of leaning into that in some of these hearings. >> yeah. it's a common thread from ratcliffe to bondi through hegseth. that's something that all of them want to see, because we know loyalty as a litmus tes, has always been top of the list within trump world. it's going to be interesting to see how these guys play out. liz landers, thank you so much for joining us on all of it. that was way too early for this friday morning. morning joe starts right now. >> good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is friday,

january 17th. we have a lot to get to this morning, including the latest from israel as the cease fire and hostage release deal goes to the country's cabinet for final approval. >> also ahead, we have a recap of yesterday's confirmation hearings on capitol hill, including the nominee who seemed to have the best day so far in front of lawmakers there. and we'll go through the fallout from the ousting of republican congressman mike turner as chairman of the house intelligence committee. we'll talk about that. plus, major league baseball is remembering a broadcasting icon, top of the sixth and rookie sensation ricky vaughn on the pitch. >> now you can close the book on kellner. >> thank god vaughn into the wind up in his first offering. >> just a bit outside, he tried the corner. >> we'll look back at the legendary career. jonathan yeager, nobody like bob uecker. >> you know, uecker first came into the national spotlight for

his miller lite commercials, and he would always say best seats in the house and then add them up. it was always he was sort of like the rodney dangerfield of baseball, always making fun of himself. but boy, that guy so beloved by baseball fans for generations. yeah, i think he would. >> those ads, he would go must be in the front row where he thought he had his ticket, and then it would end up in the last in the last row. and i'd say best seats in the house. what an icon. you know, a pretty good player who worked hard and had a lengthy career and then who really made himself into this cultural icon by just being himself. he was everyone who knew him said this was genuine. it was bob uecker. he was funny, he was ebullient, he was kind. and a milwaukee brewers legend, an icon of that city. there you go. must be in the front row right there. heading up. and someone who was working to. there he is in his familiar perch up top. best seats in the house. worked until he was 90 years old. just a great guy and dearly missed a great a great

line in gene robinson. >> let's let's be very clear here because he's so beloved. yeah. and this is a lesson for everybody because he was so beloved. even jonathan lemire said a pretty good ballplayer. let's let let let's let's not put lipstick on this pig. exactly. >> he was he was not that good. >> was on the mendoza line. he batted 200, 200, 200 was his lifetime batting average. >> he was a backup catcher. great guy. and just let's let's just be, you know, with the obituaries and tributes are supposed to be factual. so let's be factual. wasn't a great ballplayer, was a great guy. worked until like 2023 i think you know, he just an amazing career. he had as a as a broadcaster and as a as as a personality. >> yeah. yeah. you know yesterday we we're going to be talking about a lot of things this morning going to get to

israel. but you know we talked about the treasury secretary pick. and it's very interesting on that. for some of the larger cabinet picks like scott descent even even though he said things on tax cuts that i would guess just about every democrat disagreed with, you know, for republicans that are saying, oh, democrats are being so harsh on all of donald trump's, it's just not the case for some of the most important selections. marco rubio, bipartisan, bipartisan hearing. he's going to have a bipartisan vote. you have the same thing with the incoming cia director, john ratcliffe, who's, by the way, went to every democrat, every republican did it old school the way you're supposed to do it. everybody treated him with respect. treasury secretary, again, even though they disagree with him on taxes and tariffs, he was treated respectfully. he's going to get a bipartisan vote. there are 3 or 4 that cause grave concerns for really good reasons. but you know what?

let's not let let's not miss the forest for the trees. and especially these republicans and maga types saying, oh, they're the democrats are saying no to everything. they're not they're they. if you look for most of these elections, they're going to get bipartisan support. >> i mean, we've been talking in recent weeks about the kind of resistance posture of 2017 versus what's emerging now. and i think that's an example of it where, you know, there is the option to just blanketly oppose everything. and i think what's emerging now is different. saying, you know, a kash patel who was talking about jailing journalists is a different threat level to the country than someone with policy views that you might have differences with on trade or tariffs or taxes or whatever. and to actually differentiate those is good. it allows you to hold your fire and allows you to be, you know, not the boy who cried wolf. >> so we'll get to much more on this. as you can see, anand and gene are here also with us, president emeritus of the council on foreign relations,

richard haass. he's the author of the weekly newsletter home in a way, available on substack, and president of the national action network and host of msnbc's politics nation, reverend al sharpton and us special correspondent for bbc news katty kay is with us. >> we're going to get into the news in a second. okay. the main news i'm wondering, katty kay, are you or david lynch correspondent in london? i mean, a big loss for the movie and the art world. i mean, you talk about a guy that that saw through his lens and saw through his eyes differently than everybody else. david lynch creating really his own genre of movie making. >> yeah. >> and he was young. >> i mean, how i think i'm right that he was only 72. and you think how much he's already achieved and how much more he could have done certainly going to be 78. he was. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> i mean, you feel like he i

feel like we've, i feel like he was younger because we've lost somebody who's created so much and has been, you know, and continuously doing things that broke the mold. >> i think that's how he will be remembered here. >> oh no. >> all right. a lot to get to on this friday morning. we'll start now with the latest out of the middle east. big news. the office of israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has confirmed that negotiating teams have agreed to the cease fire and hostage release deal. now, a security cabinet meeting is set for this morning to vote on the deal, with the full cabinet meeting set to vote later and then time allotted for israel's supreme court to hear any appeals. still a few hurdles. netanyahu's office says that despite the delays, the cease fire is still expected to go into effect sunday, with three hostages released. then, israel delayed the security cabinet vote yesterday, blaming hamas for creating a last minute

crisis without providing details. >> yeah, and richard, obviously when this news first broke, i'm sure you thought the same thing that i thought, which is, okay, this is maybe this is going to happen. it's probably going to happen because you have two american presidents that are now leaning on israel and hamas to make this happen. but you knew the obstacle was going to be bibi netanyahu not managing negotiations with hamas, but managing negotiations with the most extreme right wing members of his own cabinet. and sure enough, that happened. absolutely right. >> but we'll get this first phase. >> this is going to happen. >> it gets more difficult every phase you go on. so the second phase, which again, is involves not just hostages for prisoners, the last remaining live hostages, a lot more palestinian prisoners. israel then would have to actually vacate completely the, the gaza strip. and i think that gets more complicated. and the third

phase, which talks about all the arrangements for what comes after, we're not even in that zip code yet. so i think this gets progressively more difficult as we go on. but my sense is joe. bibi netanyahu could not not go ahead with this first phase. it would have been like lucy in the football, right? expectations are so high emotionally, so desperate in israel to get this done. this had to go through well, i'll say also, gadi bibi netanyahu knows what we've been saying here. >> he's not the most politician, most popular politician in israel. he's not close to being the most popular politician in israel, just like joe biden was the most popular politician in israel after october 7th, that is now donald trump. and donald trump is going to lean on him very, very hard. that's obviously what happened here. he's been saying for the past month he wants this resolved or there's going to be held hell other place. so i'm not exactly sure where bibi netanyahu had left to go.

>> no, i mean, i mean, it was interesting to hear joe biden very explicitly say that this was a deal that had been negotiated by his team, although he gave credit in these final days of getting it over the line also to the incoming trump administration, but clearly saying, listen, this was the deal that had been put in place back last spring, and it could have been in place then. >> but already this is being seen as the in the region, as the impact of donald trump coming into office. now, whether this means that america going forward is going to be seen as having more power in the region than it's had over the last two years, since the 18 months or so since the invasion of october the 7th. because one of the things that's been really laid stark over the last period since that hamas invasion is how little power the united states has had, how little power the biden administration has had to get the deal that it wanted to get done. they couldn't. america was not been in the position of pushing hard to get this done. will that be different now donald trump is coming into

office. there are some indications and some suggestions that this already shows that it is. but let's see. let's see if bibi netanyahu's coalition actually survives this. and let's see, as richard is saying, we get the first phase of this done. but this is a long period. and every stage the it gets more and more tenuous and more fragile. >> well, and you know, jonathan, for anybody that's been in the white house, reported on the white house, interviewed joe biden on or off the record. there's just no doubt biden had a horrific relationship with netanyahu for at least a year. really was angry that netanyahu would not not move towards a peace agreement. and so, yeah, so their relationship was was almost nonexistent because it wasn't in netanyahu's political in his political favor to come

to a peace treaty, bring the hostages home, do the things that joe biden and the rest of the world wanted, wanted to be done. so now you do have a new administration coming in, trump coming in, and their attitude is they're going they're going to pick up where they left off with the abraham accords. and we're fully expecting to have an israel saudi deal soon after. and i suspect part of what happens in gaza may have to do with money that saudi arabia provides for the rebuilding of gaza. >> yeah. first, on the biden part, he went to israel in the days after october 7th, literally wrapped netanyahu in a hug. but since then, the relationship slowly at first and then rapidly deteriorated. where? to the point where biden seized with anger at how netanyahu would go back on on promises, would move the goalposts in terms of what deal would be made, how he would say one thing privately and another thing very publicly, and in how

he would continue to kowtow to the conservative wishes of his cabinet. biden privately blames netanyahu for this war, you know, for prolonging a war that he believes hurt his reelection chances earlier, last, last year. this is a different moment now, though. netanyahu, for the most part, has enjoyed a good relationship with trump. they did have a brief falling out after netanyahu recognized biden's win in 2020. trump got mad at him for acknowledging that joe biden won the election. but but they have patched that up and they are close. and i'm told that part of this, eugene, is that the netanyahu government wants to get off on the right foot with the trump team coming in, that they had good relations last time. they want that as well. also, the chaotic, sort of bombastic approach that trump takes to the office where he said, literally, they'd be hell to pay in the middle east if a deal wasn't struck before he took office could have spooked all all parties involved. that said, there's still skepticism that this deal will hold, that netanyahu will follow through. i was speaking to someone in the senate foreign relations

committee just yesterday who had real concerns that at the end, netanyahu would find some way to submarine it if he thought it was for his own advantage. >> really? exactly. and i think he i think he he would have. but my question about netanyahu is, you know, his governing coalition is of the far right that that's not going to like this deal, that doesn't like this deal, that doesn't want any deal that wants the final end o, of hamas and, and essentially israeli annexation of, of gaza and the west bank or judea and samaria and, and so he has to deal with that as well. i do think that that trump coming into office created a new situation. the other new situation is how weak hamas is right now. i mean, they have, you know, they're patrons are in syria, iran, that whole axis or arc is severely weakened. now,

in the case of syria out of power, hezbollah is much weaker, hamas has no backup and they've been battered. and so it's certainly in their interest to make this deal. >> you know, rev, i'm not i'm not sure that bibi netanyahu. reads truman capote, but if he did, he could read a book called answered prayers, where capote says more tears are shed over answered prayers than any other kind. and he so wanted donald trump to beat joe biden. and so much of what he did, it seemed, during the campaign, was to help divide biden's democratic party and make his pathway to the presidency much easier. donald trump's so he got his answered prayer, and now he's going to be a junior partner in running

israel. and if you talk, if you talk to people in the trump administration, they basically said there were times during the abraham accords where people would say, just step aside, we'll take care of this. so he he got what he wants, and now he's feeling, you know, the leverage that trump has over him. and he's going to be a junior partner his own country. and that's actually what he was aiming for. i don't think he likes this result. but but he's now being pushed to the edge. >> he's being pushed to the edge and is being very dramatically shown. he'll be pushed to the edge. i think that the real problem is going to be in phase two and three. i think that you must remember as this was even announced, there are still people being killed in the gaza at this point. >> can can we just underline that fact? people are still being killed and the humanitarian crisis that the news media was all reporting about six months ago, nine

months ago, it's only gotten worse. that's right. it's heinous. there. one. what? one. one. is. is i mean, the world is going to be horrified when this, this cease fire takes place and humanitarian assistance comes in, the world is going to be horrified at the scale of suffering in gaza. >> that's my point. i think that we have not really seen the depths of what happened in gaza. and as i said, there are killing going on right now. hopefully we'll end sunday and we don't know the conditions of some of the hostages. when they return, the emotions, the families. it's almost like the bodies of the hostages and the bodies of innocent people in gaza don't matter that this is just a political chess game with netanyahu and biden and trump. what about the people that are in the middle of this? and that's what the threat of phase two and three, because those

emotions and those reactions are going to really dictate a lot when the world sees what really happened in gaza and when the world really sees these hostages, it's going to turn public opinion and it's going to be some a climate that trump and netanyahu is going to have to negotiate. and, richard, final word on this. >> we're going to be getting back to this throughout the hour. but you wanted to get a final word. >> yeah, i wanted to come back on your point about answered prayers. donald trump clearly had real leverage over bibi netanyahu and a funny sort of way, because bibi netanyahu no longer had the leverage of going around joe biden to donald trump. it was a little bit like nixon going to china. right? so trump has the evangelicals, has conservative american jews. and i think that will help get this deal. certainly phase one, probably phase two, because you've got to get all the hostages back. but and that's the big but maybe also the deal with the saudis. i don't think, though, there is any appetite that i have discovered for tackling the fundamentals of the israeli-palestinian issue. so no one should look at this. as good

as this is, as welcome. this is this ain't peace. totally agree with you. we are not far down that road at all. to you, bob uecker, we talked about this morning. this is still the first inning here. we've got a long, long ways to go. this is real. not just this israeli government. joe israel has changed in part because of october 7th, in part because of demographics. i'm not sure israel is psychologically and politically prepared to go much beyond this. i'm not sure the trump administration is prepared to push much beyond this. i'm not sure palestinians are ready yet to coexist peacefully with israel on a large scale. so this as good as this is, it's just a time also for keeping it in perspective, perspective. >> but let us make no mistake, and i understand israelis that wanted the two state solution before october 7th. they don't want to talk about it right now. palestinians obviously aren't going to trust israelis talking about a two state solution, but an. you can't have middle east peace and ignore the palestinian

issue. and the abraham accords approved, approved that abraham accords made made great strides forward. but they thought they could do it without the palestinians. and, you know, the arab leaders i talked to around the region say next round, okay, we're going to the saudis make a deal with the israelis. fantastic. we get other countries making deals with the israelis. but there has the palestinians have to be a part of, of that equation, because there will never be peace in the middle east until we take care of the palestinian question and, and offer some sort of two state solution. >> i think that's absolutely correct. i think what's really interesting about this moment of two presidents who don't much like each other working together, and maybe that pushing this over the line is that it feels like america discovered

its power and leverage in this moment. after 15, 16 months of being the most powerful country in the world, and sort of asking netanyahu nicely to stop doing things he was doing in the way he was doing them, and not really going much further than asking nicely and sending strongly worded letters and continuing to send money and sending weapons. there was something, in a way, very humiliating for american power over the last year. plus, where the most powerful country in the history of the world seems to not be able to control a very small country who is its financial dependent. and so maybe it is this kind of thing of presidents working together, where we rediscover our power and leverage to say, if we think this is a moral and humanitarian catastrophe, which i believe we should act like it, we should put conditions on everyone we help, not just israel. we shouldn't be writing checks to support things we think are

disasters. so i hope the notion of power and leverage is sustained through whatever phases come. >> i also i also we i want to add and i want everybody to put a bookmark on this too, because, you know, i can't tell you how many times i heard people coming up to me going, kamala harris is going to lose because she's not going to get the jewish voters, because joe biden has been tough on this, or joe biden's been tough on that. and i don't know if there were political calculations on joe biden not standing up more strongly to benjamin netanyahu and not sending over the weapons that without conditions, because maybe he thought democrats couldn't afford to lose the jewish vote. but same as it ever was, 80%, same as it ever was. kamala harris, after all of the yammering i heard, oh, jews will not support democrats. this this is the time it 70, 75, 80% of

american jews voted for kamala harris. they just do. so if you're sitting there going, oh my gosh, i can't put conditions on bombs that i'm sending to israel. if i'm afraid that there's a humanitarian crisis and i'm not, i'm not saying we don't know what the next crisis is going to be, but if you're a democrat and you're making that calculation, that is the wrong calculation to make you make the calculation based on what's best for the united states, best for the humanitarian crisis on the ground. and don't sit there wringing your hands, going, i'm not going to get the jewish vote, because that's just not the case year after year after year after year. >> all right. >> we're going to get back to this. and we've got a lot more to get to, including president biden's final interview as president. still ahead on morning joe. will tiktok get

banned this weekend? we'll take a look at where things stand for the popular social media app ahead of a supreme court decision. morning joe is back in 90s, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was. >> same as it ever was. >> i wish my tv provider let me choose what i pay for and pause my subscription when i want. and have hundreds of free channels. >> sling lets you do that. >> sling lets you do that. >> tap into etsy for home and style staples to help you set any vibe. from custom lighting under 150 dollars to vintage jackets under 100. for affordable pieces to help you make a fresh start, etsy has it. a chewy pharmacy order is en route for summit who loves the outdoors. so her parents use chewy to save 20% on their first order of flea and tick meds. delivered fast, so summit never misses a dose. or an adventure. for quality meds. for life with pets,

there's chewy. >> brand new. socks, underwear and t-shirts are the most requested items in homeless shelters. bombas was founded to help. so one purchased equals one donated, with 140 million donations and counting. visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order. >> even though he he talks a very tough game about china, there is one guy who really does

like tiktok. >> we're looking at tiktok. >> we have some very big news on tiktok. >> i'm on tiktok now. i know a lot about tiktok. i'm now a big star on tiktok. we'll take a look at tiktok. >> we're looking at tiktok. >> we may be banning tiktok. >> we're not doing anything with tiktok. joe biden is responsible for banning tiktok. if people want to save tiktok, they have to vote for me. i could have banned tiktok. i'm the one that says we should save tiktok. tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. no way. no. it's unrelated. it has nothing. >> all right. >> in the first term, it was china. china. china. i think it's tiktok now. >> all right. >> the supreme court is likely to share its decision on whether to ban tiktok today. last week, the court heard oral arguments over a new federal law that requires the social media app to divest from itshiseased

parent company by sunday or face a nationwide ban. the biden administration says if the ban goes through, the white house does not plan to find companies that allow access to the app, deferring the implementation of the law to the incoming trump administration. in an appearance on fox news yesterday, trump's incoming national security advisor, congressman mike waltz, said the president elect will try to save the app. >> well, president trump and this is in line with the legislation, will we will put measures in place to keep tiktok from going dark in the legislation, allows for an extension as long as a viable deal is on the table. >> and then, you know, essentially that buys president trump. time to keep tiktok going. it's been a great platform for him and his campaign to get his america first message out. but at the

same time, he wants to protect their data. >> but, you know, the thing is, and congressman waltz, soon to be national security advisor, walt has has been gene robinson. a fierce critic of the excesses of communist china. what i'm so what i've always been horrified about with tiktok and have always encouraged my family not to have tiktok on their phone, is you're you're letting the communist chinese government control what you see through communist chinese government's algorithms, and then you're letting the communist chinese government scrape data from from you, possibly from your phone. are you laughing at me? are you you thinking i'm sounding too much like a 1950s cold warrior? a cold war warrior? >> no, actually, i'm surprisingly sympathetic to where you're going on this. okay, good. okay.

>> that was that was that was a mocking, surprisingly sympathetic. >> but but i find it insane. i find it absolutely insane that there is an app out there where we're allowing the communist chinese government to surveil our children, to surveil our families, to surveil our businesses, to surveil our politicians, to surveil our campuses, to surveil america. this is insanity. so, i mean, i am hopeful that the incoming national security adviser and the incoming president. i know it would be unpopular to ban this, but i hope that they are unbelievably aggressive in putting up a chinese wall, so to speak, between the communist chinese government and whomever takes control of this app. and by the way, that shouldn't be

elon musk, because he is so in bed business wise with a communist chinese government. he would be the last person that people like congressman waltz should, should, should trust having control of this because he would do exactly what the communist chinese government would want him to. >> yeah. he's not he's not the one to give the keys to the to the henhouse. you know, if you've heard what outgoing fbi director chris wray has been saying, he has been warning of this, this sort of vacuum cleaner of information, this, this, this vacuum that, that, that in china that is sucking in america's american's data, all kinds of information in any number of different ways, and certainly through tiktok as

well. and he and he warns how dangerous this is going forward. so you don't have to be kind of an unreconstructed cold warrior to be concerned about any foreign power, you know, amassing, infiltrating our, our, our cyber realm or cyber cyber lives to this extent and collecting that much information. and you have to worry about what, in the worst case, it could be, it could be used for in the future. so this is you know, chris wray has been has been trying to sound an alarm on this. and one hopes that something that the incoming administration will take seriously and will try to address. >> yeah. at the moment there isn't any evidence. i mean, there hasn't been any evidence up to date that the chinese state has decided to use tiktok to attack america or divide america. but what's one of america's weaknesses? one of america's weaknesses is that everybody is siloed. we're

enraged. bubbles. we don't like each other in the country. and if you can't beat america militarily or you can't beat it economically, communication mediums are an incredibly powerful tool. ask any regime throughout history, right? if you control communication, you can do an awful lot of damage to your adversaries. what's to say that it's not just the data they're accumulating, but it becomes a two way street, and that's used to increase those divisions and weaknesses that already exist in american society. i would feel if you're going to cite national security as a reason to put tariffs on canada and mexico, but you don't think there's a national security concern with giving access to china to have one of the most powerful communication tools in american media. that seems a little bit of a disconnect. >> yeah, we'll just note the biden administration considered whether or not to explore sort of an extension to keep tiktok going beyond the ban. they opted

against that, but they don't think they're going to enforce the ban in these next couple of days. and as the ban looms for tiktok, we should note the apps that are surging as possible replacements on the app store. well, similar concerns perhaps will be held. the two are. the two biggest are both chinese backed apps. one, its name literally translates to little red book, i.e. chairman mao's little red book. it is an instagram esque video application, and the other is called lemon eight, a similar app that's also owned by bytedance, the same company that owns tiktok. with the with the connections to the chinese communist party. so the replacements that americans are considering in the wake of this tiktok ban have the same problematic issues. >> we will sell them the rope. what was lennon's quote? >> the rope for our own hanging. >> for their hanging. >> for their own hanging. this is this is an extraordinarily powerful surveillance tool by the communist chinese government. and the fact that you have politicians that aren't

all standing shoulder to shoulder, providing more protections is crazy. and of course, you look at what russia has done and they deliberately have sent out misinformation and political campaigns to try to divide americans. this is this is i mean, people on both sides said, you know, we're going to talk about a chairman who was stripped of his position on the intel committee because he he actually stood on the floor last term. and he said, you all you republicans, you're receiving russian disinformation and you're spouting it on the floor of the people's house. so russia has been very successful actually spreading disinformation through social media indirectly. and yet we're letting the communist chinese government do it directly. so we're concerned about u.s. steel being owned by the japanese, but

we're not concerned about the greatest surveillance tool on our phones in the world, like being controlled by the communist chinese government. >> like i'm with you on that. and by the way, we're treating japan worse than china. but that's a separate conversation here. also, there's no reciprocity. the access that the chinese have to american society through tiktok, you would say, would be one thing if we also had similar access to chinese society. right? last i checked, we have zero access to chinese society. my guess, though, joe, is despite everything you said. and that's why i was laughing before. i actually think that one way or another, this is going to go through donald and donald trump likes tiktok. he has a friend who's a big investor in it. i think, you know, the fact that you have the chinese sending their number two guy to the inauguration, he wants to in some ways invest in this relationship with china. and he also, as you know, likes to get involved in something, jump in and show that only he can make the deal, right. so my

prediction is one way or another, whether it's under a separate name or something, we're going to find the united states is going to find a way to allow tiktok, or the app formerly known as tiktok, to have access in the united states. and i think it highlights a larger thing owned by an american. no, i think so. >> the giant, the communist chinese will still have control over. >> that would be my guess. >> that would be right. >> and i think it shows a larger thing. this administration, potentially the new administration is all over the place on china. you've got those who care about the taiwan issues, the traditional geopolitics, and you've got those who are worried about the economic challenge coming from china. we've got this issue, and there's no consensus whatsoever in the new administration about to take over about how to deal with china. >> okay. coming up, as joe just mentioned, did house speaker mike johnson strip a republican lawmaker of his chairmanship of the house intel committee because of a call from mar-a-lago? we'll dig into that straight ahead. morning, joe.

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to 40% off with code lumen tv. start your health journey today at lumen me. >> all right. welcome back. >> we are. let's finish up let's finish up our conversation really quickly on tiktok. you guys brought up a couple of great points. great point. and talk about the difference

between tiktok and china and tiktok and america. >> so you raised the prospect of something very nefarious, which is the communist chinese party using the presence of these apps to surveil. maybe that's happening. maybe it's not. we don't know. right. but sometimes the really dangerous thing is happening in the light of day. exactly. and what we absolutely know is happening. i'm looking at abc news report here, is that tiktok for minors is really different in china and the us, partly because of regulation in china. it emphasizes educational content. there's a lot more like social, you know, social pressure. these algorithms have the social pressure there is to like do your math homework. right. there is a 40 minute. the douyin is the name of the tiktok equivalent in china, a 40 minute daily limit for users under 14. so whether or not they're surveilling or doing anything else, what we know they are doing is using this powerful technology to fortify their kids, right? right. and they're using it to distract and

enfeeble our kids. richard, 100%. >> the fact that so the polls show that so many young people that tiktok is now their principal news source, and the fact that you have this separation on content, this is scary ought to be something that frightens people. >> but that that is why there ought to be a lot of pressure on the incoming administration that if they can regulate this and preserve the growth of their young people, why would we make a deal one way or another without the same kind of calculation for ours? where is the christian right? wherever all these people that believe in morality, demanding that if they're doing this in china, the least you can do, mr. trump, is make sure it's done. >> they regulate their own app. we won't regulate there. >> and he's saying he's going from tick tock, tick tock, tick tock and you flip it over. nobody's talking about that. >> let's see what happens. >> a threat to american supremacy through the kids and the next generation and the next generation. >> but i will have to find a new venue for my dance videos. i

know that's going to be you're going to have to work on that challenge, because i really i follow this, okay, a ceasefire deal between israel and hamas hangs in the balance. >> the cease fire between israel and hezbollah in southern lebanon is set to expire in less than ten days. the deadline comes as lebanon and the united states, who helped broker the deal, both welcome new presidents. lebanon elected a new leader earlier this month, a move backed by the united states after being without a president for more than two years. joining us now, contributing editor for the financial times, kim gaddis. also with us, msnbc correspondent and host of ayman, ayman mohyeldin, good to have you both with us this morning. >> kim, i think we've already quoted vladimir lenin once this morning. i don't know that we can do it again, but i will say it seems that we've been through a few weeks in the middle east where decades have in fact happened, and nowhere more

dramatically than lebanon. give us, give us your your take right now of what's happening in lebanon, syria, and of course, with the peace deal that may be or at least the cease fire deal that may be going down in israel. >> it's been a few weeks, indeed, of incredible, rapid historic changes starting with the fall of assad in syria on december 8th, when i was last on the show. >> and since then, it's just been one thing after another. first, let's pause to recognize that the continued transition away from assad in syria has been fairly smooth so far, and i really hope that it continues to be so. and there's been a massive diplomatic blitz from the new interim leaders of syria traveling around the region, welcoming international leaders and being embraced by countries like saudi arabia, qatar and to

some extent, the uae, which are also keen not to repeat the mistakes they made. after saddam hussein was removed from power in 2003 and they stepped away from iraq and allowed the void to be filled by iran, they want to make sure this time that they own and not own syria, but that they are part of the conversation and in the space and then in lebanon, the removal, the departure of assad was such a relief for syrians after 50 years of oppression and ten years of terrible civil war. but syria had a terrible role in lebanon as well. it occupied this country for three decades until 2005. it assassinated scores of our leaders, intellectuals, journalists. and so to have this departure of assad and this newfound freedom in syria come almost a few weeks after barely ten days after the end of the war between hezbollah and israel, just ten days after

that ceasefire meant that the mood here over christmas was exuberant. and then we had the election of a president that most people in lebanon really couldn't have dreamed of. somebody who is an army commander, not everybody is a fan of having yet another army commander at the helm of the country, but someone with integrity who has navigated the last few years very, very adroitly, very, very well. and then we've had a prime minister nominated again, reformist, progressive, forward thinking, top icj judge, international court of international court of justice. a lot of people are saying, you know, the next stage of the situation here is, is nirvana. it's almost too good to be true. we're waiting for the saboteurs to see where the next problem might arise. i don't think that hezbollah and iran are just going to let it go this easily. and then, of course, you know, joe, all of this is happening after a year of tremendous pain in the region.

and so we cannot forget that it comes after thousands of dead in gaza and the agony of israeli hostages, who hopefully will be released on sunday. >> so, ayman, let's pick up right there this idea that if this cease fire holds still uncertain, but if it holds and the process begins, hostages being released and the like, this will be the moment, as we mentioned earlier in the show, where finally the world will see what happened in gaza and you know that will come. the israeli media had not israeli military had not allowed media into the situation, into the territory to see what was happening there. talk to us about what that moment will be like, particularly also for some of those arab states who then might be tasked with helping to rebuild. >> sure. i'll take the second part first. the idea of arab countries coming in and being directly involved in the rebuilding of gaza is very unlikely without some kind of comprehensive agreement on the horizon. something that says to

these people, if you are going to invest billions of dollars, try to rebuild the infrastructure, try to help people get back on their feet and build livelihoods, that there is going to be something that guarantees that investment is not going to be lost. let's remember, this is not the first war that has happened in which gulf countries, european countries, even the united nations has been asked to come in and try to rebuild some component of gaza. so certainly there are going to be reluctant to do that if there is no framework, if there's nothing comprehensive that says this time around, it's going to be different, and we see something on the horizon that could lead to statehood or something. >> and it isn't. isn't that really the grand deal, the nobel peace prize deal, which is normalization of relations with saudi arabia and other sunni arab states in exchange for them helping to rebuild gaza and overseeing a two state solution. >> it is i mean, richard can talk about this more, but it's the holy grail of peace deals, i

think, that has eluded the world for the better part of 70 years. i mean, i think you've had successive american administrations, arab governments, different. there's also something that i think is fundamental to talk about here, which is what kind of peace do the israelis and arabs want? there is this kind of cold peace that has existed between israel and egypt for the better part of 40 years. it's on a on a government to government level. there's peace, great cooperation on security and intelligence, but there isn't that kind of fundamental peace that i think egyptians and israelis deserve, where you actually belong and feel part of the region. but then, on the other hand, you have the abraham accords, where you have israel and the united arab emirates, where they've been able to tout much more integrated cooperation and a lot more tourism and travel, a lot of economic. >> exactly. >> a lot of economic cooperation. and so i think the saudis are watching this and they're saying, look, if you just want us to make a peace treaty that we sign that we're not at war with israel yet, that can be done. but if you're not going to offer a dynamic change in the region that brings about a palestinian state that fundamentally brings israel and

integrates it into the gulf and integrate it into the arab world, then you're just going to be signing a piece of paper that's going to be a cold peace, and we're going to find ourselves in these all kinds of like, non-state actor wars that we've seen over the last couple years. the states have been pretty passive, but the non-state actors hezbollah, hamas, the houthis. now we'll see what happens in syria, who pops and emerges there, isis. these are now going to be the more dynamic factors if we don't address the fundamental issues of the palestinian-israeli conflict. >> katty kay hey, kim, it's katty here. >> so you've talked about all the things that have changed in the region recently, particularly in lebanon. and of course, now you have another change coming, which is a change of us administration. the trump administration has always been very confident about its ability to kind of bang heads together, use american leverage in order to get things done in the middle east. and they did get the abraham accords at the end of president trump's first term. do you think the in the fact that trump is coming into office, how is it going to change power dynamics in the region? and is

it the same middle east that was in play when he left office back in 2020? >> katie, it's great to speak to you from from beirut. there's one big difference with the last time president trump was in office, which is that iran is much weaker and its proxy allies across the region are also much weaker. hamas, and especially hezbollah is, you know, down, perhaps not out, but very much down. and in syria, a key element of the iranian axis, you know, president bashar al assad is gone. so that's one big difference. and that goes to the core question of what does trump want when it comes to iran? we've heard a lot of talk about going back to maximum pressure, maximum pressure without an end goal. what is your policy goal at the end of this is very important to define. i think i was listening to the earlier part of the conversation. i think we're giving president

trump elect still a little bit too much credit at this point, i think, for making the hostage deal happen. now, i think benjamin netanyahu was intent on not getting to a hostage deal for as long as possible. i think, you know, there's been a lot of criticism of president biden, and rightly so, that he did not put enough pressure. but i really think that benjamin netanyahu was not going to cede to any kind of pressure. and he can now say, you see, i was right, i was right. look at what we have achieved. iran is weakened. hezbollah is pretty much destroyed. hamas can can barely stand. so i just want to say that. but yes, president trump is coming into office now wanting to bang heads and make deals. and the question that benjamin netanyahu is going to have to ask himself is, does he want to please president trump,

or does he want to please his far right coalition? and that is going to go to the crux of what president trump can actually achieve. >> we'll be watching that. >> and, richard, we'll we'll see how how that plays out at the end. but you know, the trump administration, incoming trump administration does believe there's going to be a deal between israel and the saudis. there's going to be continuation of the second abraham accords. and i guess the underlying question is what we were just talking about. is there any possibility for the grand deal? maybe not today, maybe not next year, but maybe a two, three, four year plan where the saudis, emiratis. jordanians, egyptians, other people come in, sunni arab nations come in and help rebuild gaza, help reinvest in gaza with

the long term prospects of a two state solution. so think of it in two phases. >> i think initially with the saudis care most about joe is getting a security assurance from the united states. essentially, you get iran. they want some help with their nuclear program, and they'll give minimal lip service, and they'll normalize relations with israel in exchange for a minimal israeli statement about something with palestinians. i think that can happen. i think that will happen. what you're asking is, can we go from there to sort of the big growl that's been out there for decades? i think in the short run, the best you can do is probably try to prevent things that would make it even more difficult annexation of, quote unquote, judea and samaria, even more settlement expansion and so forth. that doesn't sound ambitious. >> that might be a no, no, no, that's really ambitious. let me ask you something. can the saudis strike a deal that that the illegal settlements. no. and the abuse of palestinians on the west bank come to an end? or is that beyond the reach of any

peace deal? >> i think what we've learned in the last 15 months, getting normalization with saudi arabia, as valuable as it is, is not that valuable for this israel. this israeli government is not willing to pay, quote unquote, that price to really take on the settlement. there's half a million settlers now living in the occupied territories. they're powerful in israeli politics. israeli demographics have moved the country to the right. i think what we've learned that is welcome is getting the saudis in the abraham accords tent. that's simply not a much of a as much of a carrot as we thought. >> so we're talking about a different middle east from the last time donald trump was there. and of course, we're looking at israel. we're looking at lebanon, we're looking at syria. but why don't we just say what it sounds like, what you're saying, and other people are saying, this is a different israel. this is not the israel that we've known since 1948. this is an israel now that has run especially on the west bank by extreme right wing religious extremists. and they they do not

want a two state solution. they don't want to deal with the palestinians. and i guess you're saying a two state solution is a case on life support. >> i'd say it's on life support. and donald trump would have to decide that he would devote an enormous amount of his calories. and marco rubio and mike waltz would have to say, this is going to become a major strategic priority. we are going to devote enormous time, pay, enormous potentially political price here at home and so forth, and do this. and so it would be a major, major calculation on their part. and even then it would be a bit of a long shot. but but that's what it would take. it's not dead. the two state solution. but to get from where we are to their enormous difficulty, alex is telling me and he's been telling me he's the best five minutes we have to go. >> i will say we need to continue this conversation later today, because the idea that you can make peace without taking care of the palestinian question, that is a fool's errand. it's happened before.

let's pray it doesn't happen again. richard haass, thank you. >> contributing editor at the financial times. kim guitars, thank you very much as well. kim kim's 2020 book entitled black wave saudi arabia, iran and the 40 year rivalry that unraveled culture, religion and collective memory in the middle east, is available now. eamonn mauldin, thank you as well. we'll be watching eamonn on weekends at 7 p.m. eastern again right here. >> that's like a tiktok guy. >> that's how can i use that in the promo for the show? >> absolutely, i like it just the one night. eamonn. for those who didn't. i like the madonna. >> that's good. >> it's cool. >> one name madonna venmo. >> all right. still ahead we have more about the hall of fame broadcasting career of the late bob uecker. pablo torre joins us to talk about that. and a preview of the divisional round of nfl playoffs. morning joe is

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many people? and this is true. how many people immediately went to google to search? what is oligarchy? and weirdly, google responded, don't worry about it. >> it was more like a stern talking to than a speech. >> biden warned us about threats to democracy, including the decline of american journalism and the dangerous seeds of oligarchy, where too much power and influence is in the hands of a wealthy few. basically, his message was, i'm getting the hell out of here. you probably should too. >> thank you, sir, for that stark warning. but i got to say, delivering it in your trademark low power mode whisper ramble robbed it of a certain essential urgency. there's a reason paul

revere didn't go on his midnight ride saying the berbers are the verbose aromas. anyway, you guys, you guys know. >> i heard the warning. welcome back to morning joe. it's friday, january 17th, jonathan lemire. reverend al sharpton is still with us joining the conversation. we have a member of the new york times editorial board, mara gay, and host of the last word on msnbc. >> this is big. >> so donald lawrence usually doesn't get up early. >> i mean, lawrence. speaking of truman capote, i mean, lawrence, he you know, he usually, you know, he's a late night guy. he doesn't roll out of bed till about 1 or 2. he has a pimm's cup. do you feel he looks over this balcony and looks out over the park. goes back in and sleeps for four more hours. so the fact that we have you at 7 a.m. we're so grateful. this is. this is big joe. >> i've never been in the same sentence with truman capote. so thank you for that. you're very good. >> so we'll start with you. lawrence, you had an exclusive

sit down yesterday with president biden. his final oval office interview before he leaves office on monday. so during the wide ranging conversation, the president reiterated his fears about the future of democracy in america. let's listen. >> i really am concerned about how fragile democracy is. that sounds corny, but i mean, i really i really am concerned because you've heard me say it a hundred times. i really think we're at an inflection point in history here. we're unrelated to any particular leader. things are going to change drastically. so i guess what i'm worried about is that the thing that keeps it on track are the guardrails. that's that there's a supreme court that's independent, but not but accountable. there is a congress

that you speak your mind, but you're held accountable to basic standards. there's a presidency that says you have really limited powers. i mean, you're the top dog, but you're not. you can't dictate everything. and i don't know, they seem to just we just seem to be chipping away at all those elements. well, look. if the decision is made that the multi-billionaires, the super, super wealthy, the wealthiest people in the world began to control all the apparatuses from the media to the economy, then who do i get to fight back for? me? who do i get to? i mean, look, i think everybody deserves just a shot. i'm not a guarantee. just a shot. how the hell can you make it in society

today if you don't have access to an education? you don't have access to adequate health care. you don't have access to the opportunity to have a job that you can handle, where you can make you can make ends meet. >> lawrence, in his farewell speech to america, joe biden warned about the increasing power of billionaires and oligarchy rising to control america's government. and, of course, industrial tech sector. did you find those themes running throughout his interview with you as well? >> yeah, that's where he wanted to begin. >> he definitely because i gave him a pretty wide open beginning there. and that's what he chose. that's what he went for. he also made some news or certainly clarifications. he said i asked him if he had spoken to the president elect this week or last week as the cease fire deal was coming to a close. he said

no. the only time he talked to him was on that visit to the oval office that we all saw, and he said that was just a brief part of that discussion. talking about the cease fire negotiations, i asked him, when is the first time he said the words cease fire to benjamin netanyahu, and it was much earlier than publicly known, very right at the edge of israel's major escalation in gaza. and he you know, the challenge, joe, in those interviews, as, you know, presidential interview, they they schedule it for 20 minutes. and i knew he would go longer than 20 minutes talking to me. i didn't know how much longer, you know, 2530 i don't know. you know, we ended up, i think, doing 48. but that was the every second of it. you are working with the knowledge that this could be the last, the last

question. so you're just sitting there throwing you're throwing away questions the whole time. you know, you just i spent days writing questions, things that we didn't get to, subjects that we didn't get to. and you just have to, you know, call an audible and constantly drop them after the interview. there was some there was actually had an interesting time in the oval office. we were walking around the oval office a bit. he was showing me photographs and different things that meant something to him, and we caught that. we have video of that. we're going to show that on on monday. the president talking about a photograph of his mother on election night 2008, where he's she's holding barack obama's hand and her son's hand just as they're going out on the stage there to give their victory appearance and the story about how his mother was the final voice convincing him to accept barack obama's offer of the vice presidency. and, joe, this is a story you're going to love that he told about being in

that in the oval office with ronald reagan, you know, because i asked him, do you remember the first time you were in this room? and he said, there's so many times, you know, and he went back to a great story about being in there with ronald reagan when he had just defeated a reagan choice for supreme court. and reagan's reaction to that was to ask him to come up to the oval office to talk about, okay, you know, who could get through the committee, which is the way to do it, you know that. that's right. that's what you're going to have to do. and it's a really entertaining story about how that went. and so that's interesting. that's all for monday. and it's just, you know, it's just it's just you're you're walking around someone's office with him and he's telling you what matters to him in this room. it's very personal. there's no news in it at all. >> yeah. he and reagan, two, two irish politicians having good stories. who would have ever seen that coming? so. so, lawrence, you talked about joe biden's mother holding barack obama's hand. if were she still

alive, i'm not so sure that would still be happening. nbc news. a pretty stunning story. talking about how angry and embittered joe biden is toward barack obama, toward nancy pelosi, kamala harris, you go down the line. it seems that he's isolated and embittered against people who have been some of his closest allies. as he leaves office, james carville calls it a tragic, tragic ending to a successful presidency. did you did you see any of that, or do you have any insights on that? >> well, no. and there was actually an indication, an opposite kind of indication on that because i asked him about about netanyahu and about the delay in coming to an agreement. the agreement that they've come to has is essentially the same proposal that that joe biden's had out there, you know, since the spring. and this is an

obvious issue there where i asked him, did he have reason to believe that prime minister netanyahu delayed an agreement here because he knew it would hurt joe biden and kamala harris politically, and it would help donald trump and that and the president said he absolutely did not think that he, you know, there was an opportunity there for him to go further in that direction that you're talking about. and he, he if you watch it, he absolutely did not. and kept saying, you know, you have to understand the difficult position netanyahu is in politically in his country. and i understand that. and so that's the only thing that comes close to what you were just talking about. and, and you certainly from the person in the room, you don't get any sense of, of any of that, any, any, any negative feelings at all in the time that

i spent with him. >> mara. yeah. >> lawrence. did you get any sense of political regret from the president, any kind of new understanding of self or self-awareness that could give the democrats some cues about what to do as the opposition party? some kind of sense that he may have done things differently if he had the chance now, and what that might look like. >> well, two things about that. the final question on my index card that i didn't get to was regrets question mark. because and so sorry, we don't we don't have that in there. but interesting component of what you just said is after the president gave his farewell address where he was laying out a different approach than he did, certainly as a candidate and certainly as president, things like, you know, term

limits for supreme court justices and ethics code for supreme court justices and all. and that, that stuff about the oligarchy. a democratic senator said to me, if that had been the campaign, we would have won. and so there are democrats looking at that farewell address saying, we see something there that is for us to go to go forward with. >> and rev, i mean, he did say that i think lawrence and the president talked about not necessarily a regret, but maybe he would have spent more time on the politics of economic policy versus the economic policy itself. only the example of not signing the checks that went to american citizens. >> yeah, i thought that was interesting. i think that one of the things that comes to mind when you think of joe biden is that he was very much more into transformative kind of politics

and transactional. and so i remember and it came to mind when lawrence was talking about him dealing with term limits and ethics for supreme court justices. he had us fly with him on air force one to the lyndon johnson library just a couple of months ago, where he said this publicly, but nobody was was rallying around that. it was a speech. everybody was glad. and that was in, in and out. and i think part of the frustration of joe biden in my conversations with him is that he wanted to transform a lot of things and rather than transact. so it never got to the to the politics of the day, of which he might have been a victim of, because he got a lot more done than he got credit for. oh, 100%. >> jonathan lamar so, lawrence, let's let's talk about this is not about jimmy carter, someone we've all been thinking about in the last couple of weeks. obviously, when he left the white house, he had decades where he made a real difference in his post-presidency. barack obama left the white house as a young man. joe biden is 82 years

old. this is not just a goodbye to the presidency. it's in many ways, goodbye to his life in public service. a remarkable 50 years talk about like, as he thought back on his career in total, his reflections on on the america that he's leaving, what he's and what he's worried about going forward. >> you know, he is an optimist. and this is a common condition. i found, somewhat to my surprise, when i was working in the senate, which was during the biden era in the senate. i remember one day the great senator bill bradley from new jersey was in the back room of the senate finance committee, where i was staff director, and he was giving an interview to a newspaper about the basically the clinton health care bill and how it's kind of a struggle. and we're and so i the part that i overheard as i was going back out to the hearing was bill had painted a picture where the reporter inevitably kind of said, well, it kind of sounds pretty hopeless or something. and i heard senator bradley say, well, i'm an optimist. and he

and he went on from there and i realized, oh, that's the difference between me and every member of this committee. i am not an optimist. it's why it's one reason why i'm not in your field is i'm much too cynical or, i think, realistic about things. and so i've, i've, i've grown accustomed to that condition that i do not share, that people like joe biden and bill bradley and people who grew up in an earlier america than i did and grew up with aspirations that i certainly never had to be in these kinds of positions. and they, they, they are the kind of that kind of optimism is absolutely necessary in this work as as joe biden said, quoting george mitchell the other day, diplomacy is 700 days of failure and one day of success. i mean, that's a special kind of person who can take the 700 days of failure, hope for the one day of success, knowing they might not get the one day of success. and every one of those days say to you and mean it. i'm an optimist. joe

biden is an optimist. >> and that's how things get done. something we tried to say here a few days ago. it's a game of inches. it's not three yards and a pile of dust. it's a game of inches politics. and it's extraordinarily difficult at times. but you have to be an optimist or you give up on. i'd love for you to ask lawrence a question, but before you do, let's talk about joe biden's continued concern about the rise of oligarchs, the rise of billionaires. i mean, the fact that you have billionaires that that are going to be pushing to deregulate industries to make their multinational corporations richer, to get more tax cuts, to make their billionaire buddies richer, that are going to pressure the government to make their monopolies safer from

pulling the levers from being broken up and a lot pulling levers. and this comes, by the way, after 40 years of the greatest income redistribution in the history of humankind from america's middle class to america's billionaire class and that economic transfer that's just speeding up by the minute. >> you know, i that is absolutely right. and i think i want to suggest that that farewell address is a milestone culturally in this country, because even a decade ago, i mean, i wrote my book winners take all, which was about oligarchs and the rise of these trends. you're talking about six years ago. and i remember i would talk to relatively progressive people who were like, you're being too harsh to be critical of these billionaires. they have foundations. they're doing nice things. fast forward six years, it's a different conversation.

the president of the united states talking about this, using the word oligarchs on google. i think that night, what is an oligarch was the leading search term. and the reason it's important is i think americans are much smarter and sensitive to threats to democracy that that look like an insurrection or look like voter suppression. we're aware of that kind of threat to democracy. ultra wealth that can buy political power, that can control what people are seeing on their algorithms, is a kind of power kind of threat to democracy, that americans have been less intelligent in resisting. and to have this president who's not bernie sanders, who's not elizabeth warren, who's not aoc, to have this president going out with that, the threat of ultra wealth, right to democracy, i think, is a is a deeply important cultural milestone. >> but yeah, i'm i'm a small government conservative. i do believe for all of its flaws,

capitalism works. it moves people out of poverty, but uncontrolled, unregulated capitalism wrecks lives. and i think most importantly, what i what i was saying in the lead up to this, this election was we have to not only worry about threats to american democracy. for those of us who believe that american capitalism works when regulated properly, we need to be concerned about threats to american capitalism and what we've all, you know, grown up believing until this generation that what every parent has always believed under this system, i did better than my parents, right? yeah. my children are going to do better than me. so i'm going to work harder at the plant. i'm going to work harder, you know, at the

hardware store. i'm going to work harder at the restaurant because i'm going to be able to get my kids into a college, and they're going to be able to do better, better than me. that's what american capitalism provided for, for certain segments of society for a very long time. that's going away. yeah. >> well, i think that compact, that agreement is collapsing. and i think that is the source of a lot of the anger in our politics. also, a lot of the ability of people like donald trump to exploit that anger. it makes society weaker. it makes our ability as as americans, as part of a democracy to band together in democratic, small d coalitions, weaker. and, you know, i think you don't have to be an expert. you don't have to have an mba to know that these big companies have essentially invaded our lives. and it's it

feels a lot like a monopoly. i mean, we're buying and engaging with a handful of companies every day when we're on our phones, when we're purchasing things from amazon, whatever it may be, americans don't need an mba to know what's going on. and i also just have to say that i think it's concerning to me that we are, i think, uniquely in some ways, struggling to have this conversation that you have begun early because of the fear that we all have of socialism historically. so you can't even really have a conversation about it, which is ironic to your point, joe, because capitalism, i thought, was supposed to be about competition. and that's not really what is happening. >> and so here's a great example of that. so you look at what happened in silicon valley and even people who invest in startups. there, they're

supporting candidates who are actually fighting people like lina khan who want to break up the monopolies. they one of the stories i always told, and mika, unfortunately, would always hear this on, you know, whenever we were at colleges or if we were at. but she always heard the story over and over again. and it was it was i was talking about america and american capitalism. i said, steve jobs is right. that apple ad was right. we're a little crazy. like we're different. we think different. i said, only in america could a group of 6 or 7 hippie burnouts from berkeley go to their dad with a $5,000 loan and say, hey, can we use your garage? sure. and they started microsoft. you can't do that no, in many cases, because microsoft is a monopoly, right? amazon is

a monopoly. i mean, i could go down the line. ten tech companies are a monopoly. capitalism is all about competition. you have a crazy idea. i mean, that's by the way, that's what is amazing about an immigrant comes to america. and i hear this all the time. i wish you were here because she would talk about it with in britain. you talk to friends. in france, you talk to friends around the world. you come in from another country, you're suspect in america. you come here, you have an idea that's going to make people money. they'll be. come on, let's start up this company. i mean, look at all the immigrants in silicon valley. that's what we used to be. it's getting harder and harder, though, like you said, because the entry as an entrepreneur is so much harder because if you get too far down the line, you

will be crushed by microsoft, you will be crushed by amazon, you will be crushed by spacex, you will be crushed by all of these other companies. >> and even if you're not a direct competitor to amazon, if you own a small business, you're getting fleeced. so we've made it very difficult for small and medium sized businesses to operate in this country, and very easy for the monopolies to. >> and i think what compounds it is, those of us that have been out of the being able to enter to the higher echelon of american business, now we're fighting die. so you're knocking the ladder down and you have these tech oligarchs running things, and now it looks like they're influencing government. so if you've not only got musk and et al dealing with that, we control the these tech empires. and now we influence the president. and the president is saying we're going to end diversity, equity and inclusion.

then where does it leave a lot of people that fought women, blacks, others, the last 60 years to get in? and now you shut the roof off on us and you have the government to enforce it. that's the fear. >> that's why that word oligarchy on the screen right now is so important. this is not an attack on capitalism. it was an attack on people who use their economic power to buy political power and rig the game against everybody else with a dream. >> i would i would just say, i put it another way, this is not an attack on capitalism. this is a defense of capitalism. now, lawrence o'donnell, you've had time to go over the capitol dining room, have breakfast. we hope you've enjoyed your breakfast. we got sidetracked on a conversation about oligarchy and american capitalism. let's give lawrence exactly the last word. >> joe. as you know, the only memorable line of the eight years of the eisenhower presidency was in his farewell address, where he warned the country about the military

industrial complex and no greater authority to warn us of that winning world war two general becomes president of the united states, sees the development of the defense industries, which, by the way, did not exist before world war two. we really didn't. we were before world war two. we were like the 18th largest army in the world. and that's that's how ill prepared we were for that. and we had to build it all during. we had build, build the army during the war while winning the war. then it became a permanent institution and the enormity of it just kept growing. and the obviously the military spending, which people expected to decline after world war two, found a new way of increasing over time in this thing they called the cold war. and president biden's warning last night, i'm sorry, at the at the farewell address of the tech industrial complex does have it feels the ring of that

eisenhower warning the kind of ring that we will be remembering will be pointing to for a long time. >> all right. lawrence o'donnell, thank you very much. we'll be watching the last word weeknights at 10 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. anand giridharadas and member of the new york times editorial board, mara gay. thank you both. thank you all. we'll see you again soon. and still ahead on morning joe, we'll dig into the leadership shakeup within the house intelligence committee. as speaker mike johnson names a new chairman, member of that committee, democratic congressman jason crow of colorado will join us to weigh in on the change. you're watching morning joe. we'll be watching morning joe. we'll be right back. life, diabetes, there's no slowing down. each day is a unique blend of people to see and things to do. that's why you choose glucerna to help manage blood sugar response. uniquely designed with carbsteady.

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elevated design for thoughtful living. therma. >> of all the things that i've done, this has always been number one baseball. the commercials, the films, the television series. i could never wait for everything to get over, to get back to baseball. i still, and this is not sour grapes by any means, still think i should have gone in as a player. thank you. >> that was broadcaster bob

uecker. during his 2003 hall of fame induction speech in cooperstown, voice of the milwaukee brewers. for more than half a century, uecker died yesterday morning. in a statement released by the club, uecker family said he faced a private battle with small cell lung cancer since early 2023. nicknamed mr. baseball, uecker had a forgettable career as a player, posting a 200 lifetime batting average. after six seasons as a backup catcher in the majors. but he found his fame off the field as a colorful broadcaster whose sense of humor and self-deprecating style earned him popularity and deep affection. uecker appeared in more than 100 times on the tonight show with johnny carson. that tells you everything you need to know. he reached most households, starring in tv commercials and a sitcom, and played a prominent role on the big screen in the 1989 comedy

major league and its sequel. uecker called brewers games all the way up until the team was eliminated from the playoffs this past season. he was 90 years old. let's bring in the host of pablo torre finds out on meadowlark media. msnbc contributor pablo torre. >> pablo, before you were born, i mean, uecker would be on those miller lite commercials. and the crazy thing is, you know, everybody's huffing and puffing. you know, you could always made fun of himself. it was a self-deprecating humor that made him such a beloved figure. and you think about a guy that was literally on the mendoza line, batted 200 and yet became so well known, so beloved in the hall of fame, and i'm sure made a pretty penny with all of these commercials. it's just such a such a message to athletes, you know, like, it's like engage. yes.

>> personality. >> smile. yes, if you want. if you if you want to, you know, be successful. >> well, look, success in broadcasting, i want to point this out about baseball. and you know this, joe, it's kind of easy to call a game that's really exciting, right? >> right. >> the blowout is where bob uecker shined. right. the game that's out of reach that everybody's like, this is going to be boring. it's story time with the patron saint of self-deprecation. >> yeah. >> the guy. look, baseball. baseball is the most hidebound, traditionalist sport loathe to show personality. and here is this guy who embodies the actual world of the clubhouse in which everybody is making fun of each other. everybody is kicking back with, in this case, famously, a low calorie beer, and they are making fun of themselves and others. and bob uecker, who introduced himself to me as a guy on mr. belvedere turned out, was also somebody who would call in his last season at 90 years

old. his last call, a grand slam by a 20 year old, just like the guy who had seen everything, done everything, said everything. it felt like. >> that's amazing. well, the divisional round of the nfl playoffs are going to be kicking off tomorrow afternoon in kansas city, with the chiefs hosting the houston texans. the commanders are going to be playing the detroit lions tomorrow night and sunday. the eagles host the la rams. and then of course, the big one. the ravens go on the road against the bills. you know it is. every single one of these games are intriguing. yeah the ravens and bills of course. it's just a tragedy waiting to happen. you have two extraordinary quarterbacks. >> whoever loses feels unfair. >> yeah it does. i mean, we have two great quarterbacks who should not take the abuse that they're going to take after whichever one of them loses. you look at the texans and the chiefs. the chiefs have barely scraped by the texans. i'm still trying to figure out what happened to that second half. lightning could strike their commander's lions. of course the

lions should win, but the commanders who knows with jayden daniels and then the rams and the eagles. i've got to tell you, the los angeles rams are what would churchill say. they are a mystery wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in an enigma or something like that. yeah. you the rams. you don't know what you're going to get with them. >> it's very confusing. >> a lot of we could we could have some upsets this weekend. yeah. >> i mean look, as i've said to you all season, there are probably three teams that i consider far and away in that top tier. two of them are playing each other. yeah. and when it comes to the rams, for instance, they just had nine sacks a record nine sacks in their win last week. yeah. look to me we start the conversation here with the chiefs because that's where we started the conversation. when i came on this show i sat here with you guys and said i'm pretty sure this is the chiefs super bowl to lose. just to recap, patrick mahomes has never lost earlier in the afc championship game. it's a remarkable run, with all due apologies to claire

mccaskill, that should be considered villainous by now, right? they are dynastic already. >> listen, i tell you, i grew up actually loving the chiefs. my team was the falcons, but i always loved the chiefs. but even i'm tired of them by now. yes. and yet, man, if you got to put money on somebody. in clutch there's patrick mahomes and then there's everybody else. he is officially on level with tom brady and joe montana when everything's on the line. right. >> and he should be resented as such. >> yes. >> it's a funny trick. i talk about this with john muir all the time. how is it that john muir, noted patriots fan is watching america? all due apologies to the swifties as well, of course. how are we? how are we letting them get away with being lovable and huggable and warm like they are goliath? and those quarterbacks you mentioned before? quickly, lamar and josh allen. you're totally right about the stakes for them. yeah, if they lose their

chokers. >> yeah i mean i mean jon jon it's so unfair. these these two guys are extraordinary quarterbacks. they've had extraordinary years. i don't care if lamar loses by one point and has a perfect quarterback. rating. everybody's going to say he just can't win the big game. and i think i think i think the judgment on josh allen will be even worse. and again, i think it's grossly unfair really. i know this is the way it lined up, but man, i wish these guys could have been playing each other in the afc championship game. >> yeah, i'm with you. these are the these are the two best players in the league this year. we know mahomes postseason resume. we're not taking anything away from him. but he didn't have the year up to his usual standards. these guys these guys did. and yes you're right joe. lamar jackson has this reputation as a playoff choker. he was certainly great last week. josh allen's had a few signature moves but moments in the playoffs but of course hasn't broken through. and pablo, it is a shame that these two have to play each other now.

and yes, i'll echo what you just said, that the chiefs, not only should they be villains right now, but boy, the schedule couldn't have broken any better for them. yes, they earned it. they were the one seed, although they won, i think, ten of their games by like one point this year. but they get a texans team that they will dispatch easily, and then they get to stay home to play the winner of this one. >> be careful. you never know with the texans. >> i'm going to take the opposite side of that i think i think this i think the chiefs will do it. >> okay. oh yeah. i mean i think i think they'll win. but you never know that with this texans team how close it will be really quickly. we got to go i'm going to force you all to predict. and let's just do the ravens and the bills. and i'll start here. i really think derrick henry is a difference maker. i'm i'm i'm rooting for josh allen because he suffered more. he suffered longer. but man lamar's extraordinary just like josh is. but the difference maker man i think it's derrick henry. >> yeah it's strange. the ravens

might be narrowly favored on the road in buffalo in this game. despite in january with 11 degrees in the forecast i mean buffalo just because i think josh allen has let's hope has has a superhero performance. it's a transcendent burden he has to uphold. but it's just it's a heavyweight fight with two big stars. but you're right. that second level player. yeah derrick henry henry james cook those running backs looks great too. i like yeah i'm going ravens. >> you're going ravens. yes. her daughter is a huge ravens fan john. john what do you think? >> yeah i mean the week open with the bills favorite pablo is right. the ravens now are a point and a half favorite depending where you look on on the road you know. and let's also recall they played in the regular season and the ravens crushed them 35 to 10. but that game was in baltimore. i'm going to go bills as well i think it's a classic game. i just think it's josh allen's year. and i

think they they pull it out in really, really cold conditions. >> so i hope the bills win. but we have pablo and john saying the bills are going to win. mika. and i think the ravens good choice joe. it's going to be good. >> all right pablo torre finds out on meadowlark media msnbc contributor pablo torre cannot wait to talk to you via text message when the bills went. >> that'll be awesome. >> he's a taunter. all right. good to see you. coming up, we'll get to the confirmation hearings for incoming president donald trump's treasury secretary. pick what he had to say about extending tax cuts for billionaires and eliminating the debt ceiling. and a programing note this weekend, on sunday today, willie sits down with hollywood icon glenn close to talk about the new movie that has her teaming up with jamie foxx and cameron diaz, the latest in an extraordinary 50 year career of unforgettable

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>> welcome back. 48 past the hour. i want to mention something exclusive and know your value and op ed from lonnie ali, the widow of boxing icon muhammad ali, to honor and celebrate what would have been muhammad ali's 83rd birthday today. lonnie pays tribute to her late husband and writes about the role compassion played during his extraordinary life. she also shares a study from her organization, the muhammad ali center, about the state of compassion in america, which is particularly relevant during these divisive times. you can read the piece at know your value, dot com and rev. another programing note it's going to be a big weekend on politics nation, with coverage of president biden's last full day in office and looking ahead to the trump inauguration on monday. your guests on saturday include senator lisa blunt, rochester and senior white house advisor steve benjamin. and then on sunday, rev speaks with

minority leader hakeem jeffries and martin luther king, the third, and his family. >> i want to i want to ask you, rev, just again, about muhammad ali. obviously, you had a very close relationship with him, and i know your value. of course, as mika said, his widow, talking about the compassion he showed in his life for others, especially after his boxing career. talk about that and how how we so badly need more of that today. >> i think that what a lot of people miss is how ali always wanted to be involved in doing humanitarian things. he went and got hostages. he would negotiate for people to get food and shelter, things that weren't in headlines. i remember when he would come to new york and i would go see him. he would say, let's go up to harlem and talk to people. i mean, he loved

people. and lonnie ali, his widow, has done a tremendous job with the muhammad ali museum there in louisville to really show and talk about and continue his work, even when he had parkinson's and couldn't speak well and was in a wheelchair. he wanted people to hear things, and lonnie helped him do that. i think it's a tremendous thing that she's doing in his memory, because that's who he was. >> absolutely. house speaker mike johnson has selected republican congressman rick crawford of arkansas to serve as the next chairman of the house intelligence committee. johnson made the announcement yesterday, just one day after ousting republican congressman mike turner from the role. speaking to reporters, johnson denied replacing turner because of pressure from trump or his allies. >> this is not a president trump decision. this is a house decision, and this is no slight whatsoever to ouring

chairman. he did a great job, but we just the intelligence community and everything related to gypsy, it needs a fresh start. and that's what this is about. >> to quote luke skywalker at the finale of star wars. >> eight. everything you just said was wrong because turner himself told cbs news yesterday that speaker johnson, when firing him when firing a man respected by democrats and republicans on that committee alike, said he was doing so because of, quote, concerns from mar-a-lago. let's bring in right now democratic congressman jason crow of colorado. he is a member of the house armed services and the intel committees. congressman, thanks so much for being with us. you know, congressman turner, chairman turner very memorably was the republican that stood up on the

house floor last year and warned republicans, you. you may not know it, but you are actually spreading vladimir putin's propaganda in the people's house. he did a great job as intel chair. do you? well, i don't want to i don't want to put it well, he commented on this. >> i said it was a foreboding. >> yeah. so do you. what? i'll just ask you this way. what do you make of the speaker of the house claiming this had nothing to do with donald trump? >> well, you know, in trump world, when you come to house republicans, the blurring of the lines, i mean, they might say that trump didn't actually pick up the phone and ask him to do something, but it's pretty clear what donald trump wants house republicans to do. >> you know, there is a large percentage of that caucus that travels to mar-a-lago consistently, that talks to donald trump consistently. >> and, you know, listen, mike turner, he's a good man. i've served several terms on the

intelligence committee with him. >> i've traveled to ukraine with mike turner. >> i've spent a lot of time with him. he's a traditional peace through strength republican. >> i disagree with him on a lot of issues, but he's a good man. he's a serious national security professional. >> he knows his stuff, and i'm very disappointed to see him go. >> by the way. by the way, the wall street journal editorial page, the conservative wall street journal editorial page agrees with you, thinks that this is very disturbing, especially in light of the fact that tulsi gabbard may be running the intel community. >> well, mike turner's original sin in trump world is that he's an independent person, right? >> he is a conservative republican, there's no doubt about it. >> but he's shown his independence from intelligence reform issues to ukraine to our alliances. >> you know, he's an essential member of the nato parliament, somebody who believes in alliances, who believes in friendships. and that just is intolerable in certain elements of mega world. >> do you know what the. is there a specific issue that may have turned run him afoul of

either donald trump or people around donald trump? was it ukraine? was it that he was such a strong supporter of ukraine? what what do you think it was? >> my sense is his support for ukraine and then his support for fisa 702, which is that really essential intelligence authorization that allows us to foil terrorist plots. >> so, i mean, it's a contentious intelligence tool, but a really important one we've made. >> and tulsi gabbard was opposed to that. and now has she has she switched now? >> now she's not opposed to that. >> she's flip flopped on that. that's right. and why why do you think she flip flopped on that issue. >> well, because the senate knows that it's an important tool and the incoming administration knows it's an important tool. >> now we've had to make reforms to it. and i was one of the people who called for reforms because there were violations. there were misuses of that authority. we have reformed it. we have addressed those violations. now the incoming administration. now they're looking at having to govern. and they know that this tool is a tool that is used to consistently foil terrorist

plots against americans. and they know that they need it. they know that with reform, we should have it. >> jonathan meyers in washington and has a question for you, jonathan. >> so, congressman, let's talk though about this new era that begins here in washington on on monday. you know what? how are you preparing yourself? is you the minority though a slim one in the house of representatives. but it is a united republican front here. and trump has made very clear he intends to hit the ground running. what is going to be the party's approach in terms of moments of where maybe compromise, but other moments of resistance? how do you sort that out in this particular moment? >> well, i think about how i was raised. i think about where i've come from. listen, i never should be a member of congress. >> nobody ever would have elected me in high school, most likely to be a member of congress, right? i was raised working in minimum wage jobs. i worked at mcdonald's. i worked at arby's. i helped work my way through college, working in construction. you know, i know

when i got up every morning and went to the construction site and you shake someone's hand, you know, you're feeling that person's hands. you're doing a callus check because more than anything else, they want to know, who are you? are you one of them before? are you before they know what you think? before they know what your opinions are? you know that is my north star. that is where i was raised. in a republican family, in a working class family in the upper midwest. and everything i do is going to go back to that. right. and this massive wealth distribution that you talked about earlier on this show that that's continuing to occur. people are frustrated as hell and we have to address it. so if there's going to be this distribution to an oligarchy, to the billionaires, i will resist it. i will call it out, i will fight it because the people that i was raised around, the people that i grew up with, they deserve that. >> so with that in mind, i want to ask you about this plaque. you and i think 57 other house democrats sent a letter to speaker johnson urging him to comply with federal law and put

up this plaque, which commemorates january 6th. that's right. what is going on with that and how do you respond if there's further refusal to put up a plaque that remembers something that happened at the us capitol? that was a seminal moment in our history? >> well, people have asked me, they say, well, why are you spending your time on plaques? right? of all the things, why is a plaque important? and i'll tell you why. we get really close to these officers, these capitol police officers, we see them. i mean, you remember joe. we see them at the checkpoints. we see them going onto the floor every day. we get to know their families, their names. after january 6th. one of them that i was particularly close to called me just hours after we had retaken the capitol, called me. his voice was shaking and he said, you know, he had just been brutally beaten, head to toe, covered in bruises. and he said, you know, i thought i was going to die, but i thought i let you down. i thought i let you and

the members down. my only thought was, how do i protect the members? how do i protect you? and this young man, you know, he's been traumatized. he still has disabilities to this day. you know that. that is why it's important. you know, these officers, these people who every day put it on the line for us to protect us. they deserve an accurate retelling of that day and what happened. and i'm not going to stop until they get that accurate retelling. >> so it the plaque is there. the law has been passed. what what has the speaker said? what is what is his what is his justification for not actually abiding by the law? >> well, as far as i know, he has none, right? it is law. we sent him a letter we've been pushing for over a year. he says he's looking into it very clearly. house republicans don't want to talk about january 6th, particularly heading into monday when we expect large scale

pardons of the very people who brutalized these police officers, who beat these men and women who took an oath to protect us. and if that pardon happens, you know, of course i'm going to call that out. so that's one of the reasons why we're doing it right now. >> we are going to be watching this. democratic congressman jason crow of colorado, thank you very much for coming on this morning. thank you. president elect trump's pick to lead the department of treasury, scott bessent, appeared before the senate finance committee yesterday. a hedge fund manager and billionaire political donor to trump's campaign, bessent, called for extending the 2017 republican tax cuts and was questioned about abandoning the debt limit. joining. >> let's bring in now columnist and member of the editorial board of the financial times. jillian. jillian, thank you so much for, for being with us. is one of these one of these appoint one of these selections

that is going to probably get bipartisan support, much like donald trump select for the cia, donald trump's selection for secretary of state. and several several picks. but in this pick in particular, i'm so glad you're on today because we wanted to talk about, first of all, what's happening at king's college and why it's relevant to this conversation. and secondly, your financial times column, which is which, by the way, is very reminiscent of bill clinton in 1993, the bond markets versus donald trump. explain. >> well, as you might remember, it was james carville who said, when i come back, i want to come back as a bond market because i can terrorize everyone. and i suspect that's going to be one of the themes of this year, because there's almost nothing right now that can discipline or rein in donald trump. but the bond market might be it, because

we saw this week that mortgage, 30 year mortgage rates have gone above gone above 7%. >> that's pretty stark contrast to where we were a few years ago. and the pressures in the bond markets because of the enormous government debt that the us is now grappling with, are mounting. yesterday, bessent sought to calm everyone down. it was quite a fiery, quite a long hearing, but he did pretty well. he tried to calm everyone down by indicating that he is very concerned about the debt. he wants to tackle the debt. he wants to keep the dollar strong. but he also insisted that he wanted to roll over the tax cuts, which is going to put even more debt on the us economy. and the question which groups like the international monetary fund and the world bank and others are asking, and we're in the middle of a conference, actually, at king's college in cambridge, to discuss the future of these bretton woods institutions. the question people are asking is that if the us keeps piling on more and more debt, how on earth is it going to manage its economy

responsibly and stably without triggering a wider crisis? and i don't think we really know the answer yet. and certainly a lot of pressure is now heaped on the treasury secretary nominee to show that he actually can navigate this very nasty, slippery tightrope. >> when i left congress, we had a $4 trillion, $5 trillion national debt that had been built up over 225 years over the past 20 years, that skyrocketed to 36 trillion with these tax cuts, with the with the spending both on on defense and domestically, we're going to have add another $10 trillion at some point. gillian, the bond markets are going to say enough. we're we're going to stop buying u.s. treasuries. >> absolutely. i mean, just this week, ray dalio, who is another big hedge fund luminary who's gone head to head with scott bessent in the past and started

publishing his own analysis of the history of debt crises and looking at the us situation and saying that he is, quote, deeply concerned that the us might go broke unless it acts pretty quickly. i mean, there are people in the markets talking about sort of debt death spirals. now, at the moment, there's plenty of sign that foreigners, foreign investors around the world keep gobbling up us treasuries. so do domestic investors, because they still believe that america is strong. however, the irony that hangs over any discussion about, say, the imf or the bretton woods institutions is that the us was seen as a bastion of economic strength, the model that other countries around the world wanted to follow. that was what the post-world war ii global order was built on, and it was assumed that the core of the system, i.e. the us, was more stable financially than anywhere else. if we are moving into a world where investors are getting worried about the outlook for bonds, then it's going to be questionable whether

we're still in that pattern. and you just have to look at what's happening with mortgage rates to see how this is feeding through to the way that american households are looking at the future right now. >> again, mortgage rates over 7% are not getting better. the economy again. people are even questioning whether the fed may have cut interest rates a little too soon. and as everybody who watches this show knows, i spent my time in econ 101 at the university of alabama in the back row, reading sports illustrated. but even i understand tax cuts are used to stimulate an economy that needs stimulation right now. our problem is we're actually on on a tipping point where we may be overheated. so you you add, you extend these tax cuts, you you increase spending, you add tariffs. i can't think of a

worse case scenario to add just massive inflationary pressures to the us economy. >> well, what scott besson's team appears to be betting on is that you're going to grow the economy out of this debt burden. and if you add inflation into the mix as well, they assume that if you get lots of growth and some inflation, the debt will miraculously shrink. but the thing that's really amazing about what's happened in the last few months and no one's talked about, is that mortgage, 30 year mortgage rates have jumped up above 7%. treasury yields have jumped up 100 basis points to 4.65 on the ten year yield since last autumn, even as the federal reserve has been cutting. so the fed's cut its own policy rates by about 100 basis points. and it's incredibly unusual to have a situation where the fed is doing rate cuts. but bond yields the price of borrowing in the markets. the level of mortgage rates keeps going up and up. and

one way to make sense of that is that the fed is losing a bit of control. >> i will i will only say, as a conservative who has usually supported tax cuts throughout my life, ronald reagan said his tax cuts were going to pay for themselves. they didn't. bush, 43, said his tax cuts were going to pay for themselves. they didn't. donald trump, in his first term, said the tax cuts were going to pay for themselves. they didn't. in all three cases, the deficits exploded and they will again. and as gillian is saying, that with a $36 trillion debt, that's something that i hope everybody in the incoming administration is deeply concerned about. when do we learn? >> columnist and member of the editorial board at the financial times, gillian tett. thank you as always. her latest article for the financial times is online now. >> gillian, thank you so much for being with us. >> all right. we turn now to the

cease fire and hostage release deal between israel and hamas. it's officially been agreed upon by negotiators. it now goes through an official ratification process. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has the very latest. >> this morning, the israeli government said it has accepted the deal. >> after a 24 hour delay. the security cabinet meeting to approve it this morning, paving the way for the truce and hostage releases to start as planned as early as this sunday. but for now, israel is still continuing the war in gaza. this boy tries to dig himself out of rubble after intense israeli strikes. rescuers pull him out alive. >> israel says it's bombing hamas and its weapons. >> the fighting is due to stop when the agreement goes into effect, and hamas begins releasing 33 initial hostages in batches. israel frees palestinian prisoners, allows

more aid into gaza and pulls back troops. israeli media this morning published a list of the first group of hostages, expected to be released over six weeks. it includes two americans, keith siegel and sagi dekel. the israeli government has not commented on the list. a third american, edan alexander, is expected to be released in the second phase, along with israeli soldiers and military age males. eli, david's 24 year old brother, evyatar, is also expected to be in that second wave. he says the wait is torture. >> i'm going to cry from from happiness and joy, but also it's going to be very sad for so many young men who will not be rescued soon. >> do you think it's a good deal in general, despite the shortcomings? no, it's a very bad deal. >> i think it is a very bad deal. but we cannot. we cannot

go against it because. because it saves lives. it saves lives. >> yeah. and richard, obviously when this news first broke, i'm sure you thought the same thing that i thought, which is, okay, this is maybe this is going to happen. it's probably going to happen because you have two american presidents that are now leaning on israel and hamas to make this happen. but you knew the obstacle was going to be bibi netanyahu not managing negotiations with hamas, but managing negotiations with the most extreme right wing members of his own cabinet. and sure enough, that happened. >> absolutely right. but we'll get this first phase. this is going to happen. it gets more difficult every phase you go on. so the second phase, which again is involves not just hostages for prisoners, the last remaining live hostages, a lot more palestinian prisoners. israel then would have to actually vacate completely the,

the gaza strip. and i think that gets more complicated. and the third phase, which talks about all the arrangements for what comes after, we're not even in that zip code yet. so i think this gets progressively more difficult as we go on. but my sense is joe. bibi netanyahu could not not go ahead with this first phase. it would have been like lucy in the football. right. expectations are so high emotionally, so desperate in israel to get this done. this had to go through. >> well, i'll say also, gadi bibi netanyahu knows what we've been saying here. he's not the most politic, most popular politician in israel. he's not close to being the most popular politician in israel, just like joe biden was the most popular politician in israel after october 7th, that is now donald trump, and donald trump is going to lean on him very, very hard. that's obviously what happened here. he's been saying for the past month he wants this resolved or there's going to be hell to pay. so i'm not exactly

sure where bibi netanyahu had left to go. >> no, i mean, i mean, it was interesting to hear joe biden very explicitly say that this was a deal that had been negotiated by his team, although he gave credit in these final days of getting it over the line also to the incoming trump administration, but clearly saying, listen, this was the deal that had been put in place back last spring, and it could have been in place then, but already this is being seen as the in the region, as the impact of donald trump coming into office. now, whether this means that america going forward is going to be seen as having more power in the region than it's had over the last two years, since the 18 months or so since the invasion of october the 7th. because one of the things that's been really laid stark over the last period since that hamas invasion is how little power the united states has had, how little power the biden administration has had to get the deal that it wanted to get done. they couldn't. america was not been in the position of

pushing hard to get this done. will that be different now donald trump is coming into office. there are some indications and some suggestions that this already shows that it is. but let's see. let's see if bibi netanyahu's coalition actually survives this. and let's see, as richard is saying, we get the first phase of this done. but this is a long period. and every stage that it gets more and more tenuous and more fragile. >> well, and you know, jonathan, for anybody that's been in the white house, reported on the white house, interviewed joe biden on our off the record. there's just no doubt biden had a horrific relationship with netanyahu for at least a year. really was angry that netanyahu would not not move towards a peace agreement. and so, yeah, so their relationship was was almost nonexistent because it wasn't in netanyahu's political

in his political favor to come to a peace treaty, bring the hostages home, do the things that joe biden and the rest of the world wanted, wanted to be done. so now you do have a new administration coming in, trump coming in, and their attitude is they're going they're going to pick up where they left off with the abraham accords. and we're fully expecting to have an israel saudi deal soon after. and i suspect part of what happens in gaza may have to do with money that saudi arabia provides for the rebuilding of gaza. >> yeah. first, on the biden part, he went to israel in the days after october 7th, literally wrapped netanyahu in a hug. but since then, the relationship slowly at first and then rapidly deteriorated. where? to the point where biden seethed with anger at how netanyahu would go back on on promises, would move the goalposts in terms of what deal would be made, how he would say

one thing privately and another thing very publicly, and how he would continue to kowtow to the conservative wishes of his cabinet. biden netanyahu for this war, you know, for prolonging a war that he believes hurt his reelection chances earlier, last, last year. this is a ffent moment now, though. netanyahu, for the most part, has enjoyed a good relationship with trump. they did have a brief falling out after netanyahu recognized biden's win in 2020. trump got mad at him for acknowledging that joe biden won the election. but but they have patched that up and they are close. and i'm told that part of this is that the netanyahu government wants to get off on the right foot with with the trump team coming in, that they had good relations last time. they want that as well. also, the chaotic, sort of bombastic approach that trump takes to the office where he said, literally, they'd be hell to pay in the middle east if a deal wasn't struck before he took office could have spooked all all parties involved. that said, there's still skepticism that this deal will hold, that netanyahu will follow through. i

was speaking to someone in the senate foreign relations committee just yesterday who had real concerns that at the end, netanyahu would find some way to submarine it if he thought it was for his own advantage. >> really? exactly. and i think he i think he he would have. but my question about netanyahu is, you know, his governing coalition is of the far right that that's not going to like this deal, that doesn't like this deal, that doesn't want any deal that wants the final end o, of hamas and, and essentially israeli annexation of, of gaza and the west bank or judea and samaria and, and so he has to deal with that as well. i do think that trump coming into office created a new situation. the other new situation is how weak hamas is right now. i mean, they have, you know, their patrons are in syria, or iran. that that whole axis or arc is

severely weakened. now, in the case of syria out of power, hezbollah is much weaker, hamas has no backup, and they've been battered. and so it's certainly in their interest to make this deal. >> and still ahead on morning joe, will tiktok get banned this weekend? we'll take a look at where things stand for the popular social media app ahead of a supreme court decision. morning joe is back in 90s. morning joe is back in 90s. will. show you. it all started with a small business idea. it's a pillow with a speaker in it! that's right craig. pulling in the perfect team to get the job done. i'm just here for the internets. at&t, it's super-fast! you locked us out?! and when thrown a curveball...

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tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. no way. no, no. it's unrelated. it has nothing, you know. >> all right. >> in the first term, it was china. china. china. i think it's tiktok now. >> all right. the supreme court is likely to share its decision on whether to ban tiktok today. last week, the court heard oral arguments over a new federal law that requires the social media app to divest from its chinese based parent company by sunday or face a nationwide ban. the biden administration says if the ban goes through, the white house does not plan to find companies that allow access to the app, deferring the implementation of the law to the incoming trump administration. in an appearance on fox news yesterday, trump's incoming national security advisor, congressman mike waltz, said the president elect will try to save the app. >> well, president trump and

this is in line with the legislation, will we will put measures in place to keep tiktok from going dark in the legislation, allows for an extension as long as a viable deal is on the table. and then, you know, essentially that buys president trump. time to keep tiktok going. it's been a great platform for him and his campaign to get his america first message out. but at the same time, he wants to protect their data. >> but, you know, the thing is, and congressman waltz, soon to be national security advisor, walt has has been gene robinson. a fierce critic of the excesses of communist china. what i'm so i would have always been horrified about with tiktok and have always encouraged my family not to have tiktok on their phone is you're you're letting

the communist chinese government control what you see through communist chinese government's algorithms, and then you're letting the communist chinese government scrape data from from you, possibly from your phone. are you laughing at me? are you you thinking i'm sounding too much like a 1950s cold warrior? a cold war warrior? >> no, actually, i'm surprisingly sympathetic to where you're going on this. okay, good. okay. >> that was that was that was a mocking, surprisingly sympathetic. >> but but i find it insane. i find it absolutely insane that that there is an app out there where we're allowing the communist chinese government to surveil our children, to surveil our families, to surveil our businesses, to surveil our politicians, to surveil our campuses, to surveil america. this is insanity. so, i mean, i

am hopeful that the incoming national security advisor and the incoming president. i know it would be unpopular to ban this, but i hope that they are unbelievably aggressive in putting up a chinese wall, so to speak, between the communist chinese government and whomever takes control of this app. and by the way, that shouldn't be elon musk, because he is so in bed business wise with a communist chinese government. he would be the last person that people like congressman waltz should, should, should trust having control of this because he would do exactly what the communist chinese government would want him to. >> yeah. he's not he's not the one to give the keys to the to the henhouse. you know, if you've heard what outgoing fbi director chris wray has been saying, he has been warning of

this, this sort of vacuum cleaner of information, this, this, this vacuum, that's that, that in china that is sucking in america's american's data, all kinds of information in any number of different ways, and certainly through tiktok as well. and he and he warns how dangerous this is going forward. so you don't have to be kind of an unreconstructed cold warrior to be concerned about any foreign power. you know, amassing, infiltrating our, our, our cyber realm, our cyber, cyber lives to this extent and collecting that much information. and you have to worry about what, in the worst case, it could be, it could be used for in the future. so this

is you know, chris wray has been has been trying to sound an alarm on this. and one hopes that something that the incoming administration will take seriously and will try to address. >> yeah. at the moment there isn't any evidence. i mean, there hasn't been any evidence up to date that the chinese state has decided to use tiktok to attack america or divide america. but what's one of america's weaknesses? one of america's weaknesses is that everybody is siloed. we're enraged. bubbles. we don't like each other in the country. and if you can't beat america militarily or you can't beat it economically, communication mediums are an incredibly powerful tool. ask any regime throughout history, right? if you control communication, you can do an awful lot of damage to your adversaries. what's to say that it's not just the data they're accumulating, but it becomes a two way street, and that's used to increase those divisions and weaknesses that already exist in american

society. i would feel if you're going to cite national security as a reason to put tariffs on canada and mexico, but you don't think there's a national security concern with giving access to china to have one of the most powerful communication tools in american media. that seems a little bit of a disconnect. >> up next on morning joe, we'll bring you joe's sitdown interview with severance star adam scott and director ben stiller as season two of their acclaimed series drops today. >> i think also, season one happened to drop in the spring of 2022, right in the, you know, right as we were kind of coming out of the pandemic and everyone was kind of reexamining their relationship with work and with their work life balance and the show, it's not something we % really kind of zeroing in on that. >> my experience with empire was amazing. the price that i got along with the service, the

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keep your business growing. head to shipstation.com to start your free trial. team will bring you key moments of the day, followed by analysis from our prime time anchors as the new term begins monday, beginning at six on msnbc. >> donald trump plans to reshape the u.s. government as we know it. >> democrats have wasted no time in laying the groundwork to fight the incoming trump administration. >> the conversation right now is like, oh, we have to win back working class voters. >> but who are people talking about? >> it's no surprise that this is a time of reflection and reassessment for democrats. >> donald trump wants a presidential cabinet full of loyalists that are going to push through his extreme agenda. >> don't miss the weekends, saturday and sunday mornings at 8:00 on msnbc. >> we continue our look this week at the darkly funny

dystopian drama severance on apple tv+. the emmy award winning show poses the question what if we could completely separate our work and personal lives and follows a group of severed corporate workers as they piece together the mystery of their company? yesterday, we talked to the show's creator and some members of the cast. today, as the long awaited second season debuts, it's joe's conversation with director ben stiller and star adam scott. take a look. >> who are you people? >> welcome back. >> marcus. in a minute. >> so you got to tell me what's up. like, this is taken, like three, three and a half years. you're about my age. yeah. that's like the distance between, like, boston albums in the 1970s. you're like, when are

they going to do the follow up to boston? i know, this took forever, man. >> i've watched my 50s just be devoted to them right now. >> so, yeah, a lot, a lot of things actually happened. >> it's never the plan to take this long between seasons. >> we had a number of issues. >> one of the biggest ones was the strike. the writers and actors strike. >> that hit us at a tough time. >> you know, all through it, we were just trying to remember that at some point, you know, we're people are going to want to see this show. >> and we just got to remember that we have to keep working at it and do the best we can, even if it's taking a little longer than we want. >> i know i communicated with you back when i was on social media. >> can i just say when the season finale of season one aired, the very first feedback i got was from you was a text saying, oh man, that season finale, and you got it at 5 a.m. >> yeah. i'll tell you why. and that's why i've never done this with any show. but, you know, i go on, i go on morning joe very early, but i would wake up

because they would drop it about like 330 in the morning. right? right. on fridays. that's how how much i loved it. and i would watch it from 330 to 430. before you start, before i started the show. and so i guess my question is, why did this show connect so much with people like me? you got like, i think 14 emmy nominations. like, what was it that made this show different than than so many others so special? >> i think it's part of it is the concept is just such an intriguing and smart idea in terms of the question of like, what would happen if we could actually keep our work selves and our, you know, our regular life totally separate. and if you didn't remember that and, you know, that idea, i think is just really intriguing to people. >> i think also, season one happened to drop in the spring of 2022, right? in the, you know, right. as we were kind of coming out of the pandemic and everyone was kind of reexamining their relationship with work and

with their work life balance and the show. it's not something we anticipated, but the show was really kind of zeroing in on that. >> yeah. >> i found it's hard to really explain to friends, how is this show explained to you? did you understand it when you when you first heard it? >> well, i loved the core idea. like ben was saying. i just thought it was incredibly clever. and. but then everything that surrounded that idea, the whole world and the characters, it was sort of this mix of all my favorite genres in one package. i remember walking onto the set the first day i got there in october of 2020, and seeing this whole world that ben and our production designer jeremy hindle had created and being like, oh, okay, first of all, this set is doing like half my work for me because i feel like i'm stepping into this other world. but also i can see now what this what what ben is

doing here, and it's something completely different. this season kicks off with with a scene where my character mark is running down a hallway, right. and part of the pure joy of working with ben is that he looks at something like that and he decides, we're going to make this special, and we're going to take this sequence of mark running down the hall and work on it off and on over, you know, 4 or 5 months, basically saying he's going to torture you. >> that's right. he's never going to stop. >> but i have to also say one of the shows for me that was a huge influence on severance is the office, and that's another show that's incredibly simple, brilliant. >> and one set self-contained that they they really are always in corporate culture right now, these huge corporations, you know, this kind of faceless, nameless sort of sometimes ideology of the company, these big companies. right? it's weird. so, you know, i think

people relate to that, to claire foy in the crown. amazing. you just look at her face. something would happen five seconds later. i'm serious. like, she'd raise her left eyebrow and you're like, oh my god, what happened? and there's so few actors that can do that. yeah. and i noticed not that i didn't notice it with stepbrothers, but i noticed it with adam. seriously, i would sit there and you can see the pain in his face. he would just do something really subtle and it would break your heart. i mean, that's magic, right? that doesn't happen much. >> yes, i agree, and someone who can embody this sort of tone of the show that goes from weird to dramatic to funny to emotional, and i think it's always exciting. >> and again, speaking about you like you're not here, but i saw adam's stepbrothers. i worked with him, you know, and we did walter mitty together. >> brilliant. >> funny. >> parks and rec. >> amazing. and i also know that he did a lot of movies where he

did serious work. and i know that he has that in him. he's always had that in him. >> and this part to me was taking something that you've seen him in, in a familiar way that you might not expect to go deeper with. and i and i knew he had that. it was a no brainer. >> and in the final scene in season one, your face, i gasp, he's alive! >> oh! oh! >> and then i think i screamed, sorry about that. no that's okay. i mean, it's incredible. were you surprised that it hit the way it did because it's so quirky? >> i mean, very pleasantly surprised because, you know, you always work on stuff. >> i mean, we've been doing this for a long time, and you never know how people are going to respond. you put the same amount of work into everything. >> yeah. >> but i was at the end of making the last episode of the first season. i had this moment of like, oh my god, wait a minute, we've been doing this.

nobody's seen it. >> we think it's good, but like, we've been doing this for like two years. >> nobody's seen it. >> yeah. >> in a way that's great to not have to test something to not to not have to respond to, you know that. and i've had my whole life, you know, doing comedies with studios, you test these movies, you go and put in front of an audience and somewhere and get scores. and this never had that. and i found it really freeing. >> is it a comedy? is it a drama? is it a is it twilight zone? i mean, that's the cool thing about this. it goes across so many different genres. >> i mean, i feel like if this show was deadly serious all the way through without a laugh, it would be a really tough show to stick with. but, you know, we have dan writing really funny stuff. ben's always looking around for levity here and there. so i think the show is really funny, but it's a bunch of different things at once. you know, it's all kinds of that's part of the attraction. >> i think that people enjoy that these days, not having something that's one genre necessarily. yeah. >> here's what's so crazy about this show. and i think the

reason why i would wake up at 330 in the morning to stream it on fridays was i was so invested in these characters, and i wanted them out. right. for me at least, there's an unusual connection to these characters. and i wanted them out. i wanted them out of their pain. what is it about these characters that you think people are so invested in? >> i mean, our cast is unbelievable. britt lower, john turturro, christopher walken, zach cherry, tramell tillman, patricia arquette, christopher walken. did i even say christopher? >> i mean, you can keep saying it is unbelievable. >> it is christopher walken and christopher walken. >> i'm a lion. go ahead. >> i call him chris. yeah, chris. ben's on chris terms. yeah. i mean, you know, dan created these incredible characters. we have an unbelievable cast. and you know, when we shot the first season, we were in the throes of covid. >> i think there's also it's an interesting time post covid too, because i'm sure you guys talk about this. the weird sort of

severing from memory of what we all just went through and how we're all moving forward and kind of almost really wanting to put it in the rearview mirror. >> it's an amazing you, you sometimes you forget that we all went through what we went through. >> i think we it's just a natural instinct. >> and so in a way that relates to, you know, what what mark is going through in the show. >> and i think you're right. >> i think we feel for these characters because there's that thing of, you know, what's going to happen? >> is he going to figure this out? >> and this just unique problem of having two halves of a self, you know, that you can be rooting for any mark and be rooting for mark or, you know, this season we explore the other characters audie's also, which has been really fun and interesting to season two of severance is streaming now on apple tv+, with new episodes every friday through march 21st and still ahead on morning joe. >> live coverage from capitol hill. as confirmation hearings

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msnbc original podcasts, exclusive bonus content, and all of your favorite msnbc shows. now ad free. subscribe on apple podcasts. >> it's important to remember that for all the statistics and square mileage and square footage and number of people displaced, they're all individual people with their homes, with their lives. >> driving around, there's almost nothing left standing. occasionally you'll see a house that's okay or a street that's okay, but that's occasional. >> i continue to see, and i want to shout out one more time, the first responders who are responding in this mutual aid effort from all over southern california. it really has brought out the best and most inspiring part about human beings. >> i think my greatest joy has been really the ability to travel around and, i don't know, lift up people. i think no matter whether it's celebrating teachers who, you know, you know, i love or whether it's going to some disaster and

people are just holding on tight because there's been a tornado or a fire and they just, you know, all hope is lost and just trying to lift them up and give them hope. and i think that's my greatest joy. >> that was first lady doctor jill biden speaking at our know your value event in the east room of the white house exactly one year ago, and not the first time i wore jeans at the white house. doctor biden has had an influential and historic tenure as first lady, caring for veterans and their families, spearheading the biden cancer moonshot and launching the white house initiatives on women's health research. doctor biden was also the only first lady to work a paid job outside of the white house, serving as an english professor at northern virginia community college, a teacher. joining us now from the white house, the first lady's communications director, elizabeth alexander. she also serves as a deputy assistant to

the president. also with us correspondent at vanity fair and host of the fast politics podcast, molly jong-fast. and the co-founder and ceo of all in together, lauren leder. so, well, first of all, elizabeth, i'd like to know how you're feeling at this moment as well as we look at doctor jill biden's legacy, how history will look at it. >> thanks for having me on, mika. i mean, i think that the first lady and i myself, as somebody that's been in public service, we're feeling an immense amount of gratitude this morning, gratitude for the outpouring of support, gratitude for all the people that make the government work, all the people that the first lady has met, all the inspiring stories that she's heard as you heard her say, as she's traveled across the country. she had her last event at the white house yesterday. her last solo event celebrating military families. and that's really how she wanted to close out this chapter at the white

house, is celebrating military families through her joining forces initiative. >> also, we're proud. >> we're proud of what this president has achieved, his tremendous accomplishments and grateful for all the people that have made it work. >> and there were a lot of people who have been mentioned in recent headlines pertaining to tension about how this end has come. what do you make of that? and how is the first lady responding to that? >> you know, we're not focused on that. i mean, all of this reported tension, i think all these body experts who are trying to analyze the first lady and the vice president and other things which those body language experts have been in the room prior to the carter funeral that sparked all of that, when they chatted for 30 minutes and were hugging and catching up on the biden's new great grandbaby. >> i just think that that's just a whole lot of nonsense. the president and the first lady are focused on working for the american people. we're running

out the tape. he's president until 1159 on on monday morning. and you've seen he made some announcements today about commutations. he's got a full schedule today. they're going out to andrews today to thank service members that have supported andrews air force base, to thank service members that have supported them. they're off to south carolina on sunday to go to church and return to the state that launched his presidency, that they both have a deep personal relationship to. so that's what they're focused on. >> lauren. yeah. >> so elizabeth, thanks so much for coming. i'm always fascinated by the way in which the roles of first ladies, it kind of takes time for the historical world in a way, to really understand their full contributions. >> to me, the women's health initiative is one of these sort of pieces that i, you know, could have really vast and long lasting impact on the country and on millions of people. >> can you help us understand, given the change of administration, are you confident that those important initiatives will remain? are they protected in some way so

they can't be rolled back? what are you hopeful for in terms of the lasting impact of that incredibly important initiative? >> well, we are we are hopeful that it will remain a focus of the federal government. >> women's health research has historically been underfunded, and that has resulted in huge research gaps and huge gaps in knowledge. doctors don't have the answers to provide their patients because they don't have the research or the data. the first lady and the president have made this a focus for the last year, and since the president and first lady launched this initiative in november of 2020, 2023, they've galvanized $1 billion already in federal research dollars and have also changed the way nih and other federal researchers approach health research involving women from the beginning. so there have there has already been tremendous change. the first lady is very interested in this topic. she

wants to continue working on women's health research and advocating for more research post january 20th. and i think she's very excited about that. >> elizabeth. >> hi, it's molly jong-fast. i'm wondering, one of the sort of hallmarks of this administration has been passing incredible progressive legislation, chips and sciences, and being completely unable to transmit these wins to the american people. or do you have regrets about the administration's lack of being forward facing? and if you think that that is sort of how we got here, or how do you think we got here? because biden really did pass a mountain of amazing legislation that's almost historic. i mean, i think that so much credit goes to president biden and his 50 years of public service and his legislative expertise and his legislative skill that even in this hyper partizan environment, he got historic legislation passed. and while some of those

effects won't be felt by the american people in the immediacy, but they will be felt in years to come, i'm sure others will take credit for it, but i hope you, molly and lauren and mika and your other friends in the media will fact check them on that, because all of that credit is due to joe biden and the building blocks that he laid in his administration to put our economy on a strong path. >> communications director for first lady jill biden. elizabeth alexander, thank you, my friend. i'll see you soon. thanks for coming on the show today. thank you so much, molly and lauren, i want to ask you about something we talked about here and what you brought up pertaining to communicating the accomplishments of joe biden, because it's so easy to say, of course, after the fact, monday morning quarterbacking. so i totally admit that there's a little of that going on here. but why during the campaign, why was there such a need to separate kamala harris from joe biden's legacy? i mean, if the

campaign is asked a question, what's going to be different than joe biden, why can't the answer be what would you want different? he passed more bipartisan legislation than any other president in modern american history. and then you go down the list and you push back. but there was this sort of almost it almost felt like the campaign fell into the disinformation trap about the very presidency they should have been very proud of. yeah. >> sorry. >> i, i just think, look, the problem was donald trump ran for president for four years and biden was not forward facing. now, that was a choice. and then when harris took over, she was also not that forward facing. now, i don't know that they i think they could have been much more forward facing. they both are really good at communicating. and also the more you're out there, the more you're out there. what we saw with trump was he was out there so much that it didn't necessarily matter if he made a

mistake because there was so much content. and i think that is the secret. >> it's such a catch 22 for her, right? >> i mean, she was absolutely eviscerated for responding to that question on the view about, you know, there was nothing she would do differently. >> i mean, the right eviscerated her for that. and there are a lot of right wing or sort of right of center folks who believe that that was actually the moment she lost the election, because it was this sense of it being needing to be a change election. and it's hard to understand why biden couldn't, you know, garner the credit that he deserved. but so much of it, that right wing media ecosystem, the smear machine that we talked about all year, was unbelievably effective. she was in an impossible position. you separate yourself from the president. you're sort of hanging out to hanging someone out to dry who's been responsible for your success and the success of the administration. if you don't, it's, you know, you're eviscerated for not being your own person. it is an impossible faustian bargain. >> i just think more would have solved some of those problems. they were they did so like more out there, more of them out there and just out there like

the videos they did together, you know, the campaign could have done, you know, the tiktoks that she did. she was very good in their own media. and what we're seeing more and more with, with electeds is that they are doing their own media, and that's drowning out some of the noise for them, just looking at how we move forward as well. >> molly jong-fast, lauren leader, thank you both very much. and ahead on morning joe, we're going to go live to capitol hill just moments from now. for coverage of kristi noem's confirmation hearing. as the south dakota governor seeks to build support to become the next secretary of homeland security, we're back in 90s. >> did you know some liquid laundry detergents are designed to leave chemical residue on your clothes? try earth breeze laundry detergent sheets. unlike some liquid laundry detergents, earth breeze delivers a powerful clean with less chemical residue and no optical brighteners.

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will soon be taking questions from the senate homeland security committee. we will bring that to you, of course, live. let's go right now to capitol hill and nbc news senior national political reporter sahil kapur. sahil, good to see you this morning. so give us a sense. what should we expect once the hearing gets underway at any moment?

>> hey, jonathan. well, as you just showed there, kristi noem has walked into that hearing. she is 53 years old, a two term governor of south dakota. she was, before that a member of the u.s. house of representatives for eight years. so she knows these halls pretty well. she was first elected in the 2010 tea party wave, and has since transitioned to becoming a seamlessly, i should say, to becoming a maga republican. now, at this hearing, it's the senate homeland security committee, eight republicans, seven democrats. the chairman is rand paul. we expect him to gavel in the hearing any minute now with an opening statement. and the ranking member, the democratic senator gary peters, will also give his opening statement for five minutes. she's going to be introduced by john thune, the senate majority leader, who's also a south dakotan, as well as senator kevin cramer, a republican from north dakota. one of the biggest things i expect to come up in this hearing, obviously, is how she plans to handle dhs and its quarter of a million employees immigration enforcement. i would expect to be, you know, one of, if not the single biggest

question because it's so central to donald trump's agenda. remember, ice border patrol, all report to all would report to her and she would be in charge of president elect trump's mass deportation agenda. that's senator rand paul, the chair of the committee. looks like he's gaveled it. let's listen in. >> executed within the bounds of the constitution and with respect to the freedoms of american, of the american people. >> nearly two years ago, when i became the ranking member of this committee, my team sought to understand the extent of this bureaucratic labyrinth. >> we asked dhs for a comprehensive list of collaborative entities. >> it participates in task forces, advisory boards, coalitions, commissions, and the like. the response was astonishingly opaque. they stated there is not a single comprehensive list to address all the collaborative relationships that the department and its components engage in. in other words, we do so much stuff and we're so big we don't we can't describe it for you. but if we can't describe what we have, we got a

problem. in plain language, the dhs had really no idea. think about it. an agency commanding over $110 billion annually can't account for its own activities. this is not just bureaucratic incompetence. it's emblematic of a deeper issue an agency unsure of its own boundaries and commitments. how can an agency fulfill its mission or earn the american people's trust, if it doesn't even know the extent of its own operations? but the problems don't stop there. instead of focusing on critical threats like securing the southwest border, dhs has shifted its gaze inward, targeting law abiding americans. dhs under the biden administration has often used its vast powers to target americans exercising their constitutional rights. it's become an agency more focused on policing, speech monitoring, social media and labeling political dissent as domestic terrorism than addressing genuine security threats. while cartels, trafficked people and

fentanyl across an unguarded border, dhs has spent its time and resources creating partizan disinformation boards, spying on americans to invasive surveillance technologies. the mission drift is dangerous. every dollar spent monitoring law abiding citizens is a dollar not spent securing the homeland. every moment spent targeting political opponents is a moment not addressing real threats like border security, cyber attacks, or the rising influence of adversarial nation states. the priorities of dhs have been deeply distorted, and the american people are paying the price. and what about dhs response to covid 19, arguably one of the greatest threats to homeland security? the answer is clear nothing. they knew nothing of the origins. they didn't study the issue, and they had no information about gain of function research. we've seen firsthand how unchecked government overreach leads to waste, fraud, and abuse. we cannot let dhs become yet

another agency that operates behind a veil of secrecy. the american people deserve transparency, accountability, and leadership that puts national security and liberty hand in hand, not at odds with each other. today, we gather to consider the nomination of governor kristi noem to serve as the secretary of the department of homeland security. i hope this hearing will set the tone for this committee's work in the new congress to restore transparency and accountability to an executive branch that has grown unchecked. governor noem, if confirmed, you will lead an agency that has lost its way. your record as governor of south dakota and a former member of congress demonstrates your willingness to make difficult decisions in the face of significant political pressure and to put the interest of american people first. you have the opportunity today to address how your background and vision will translate to leading one of the most critical and scrutinized departments in the federal government. this is the first of many consequential moments for this committee as we renew our commitment to the

constitutional oversight role that congress must assert. i have no doubt that the nominee will consider, in the coming weeks and months that you will be up for the challenge. governor noem, thank you for your willingness to serve, and i yield to the ranking member for his opening remarks. >> thank you, chairman paul. governor noem, it's great to see you here today. and i want to first, thank you for making yourself available not only to the entire committee, but the discussions that we had in my office going perhaps a little more in depth on the issues than is possible in a hearing like this. and having that open and frank conversation is something that i appreciate. i also appreciate your willingness to spend time with committee staff as we conduct our due diligence and review of your qualifications and background to serve as secretary of the department of homeland security as our third largest federal agency with more than 240,000 employees and an operating budget of more than $100 billion, the department of homeland security requires strong, stable and principled

leadership. our nation faces serious threats and security challenges from securing our borders and combating terrorism, to preventing cyber attacks and responding to our nation's increasing number of natural disasters. and dhs is the first line of defense in all of those areas. i appreciated the conversations we had at today's hearing, where we discussed the importance of ensuring that our nation's borders are safe and secure. and while we must address the significant challenges we face on the southern border, we also need to ensure that there are sufficient resources to secure our northern border. something i know you're very familiar with as the governor of your state, including building out our northern border mission center. this is especially important in my home state of michigan, which has two of the nation's busiest border crossings, and we're going to be adding another span shortly. the gordie howe international bridge, which will open later this year to

facilitate the lawful trade and travel of to those ports of entry that are absolutely critical to our economy. i've worked on legislation to hire additional u.s. customs and border protection officers to meet increased staffing demands. we must secure our borders, but we also know it is well. time passed to streamline our immigration and our asylum process as well. in addition to border security, dhs is responsible for addressing many threats that face our nation. just a few weeks ago, unfortunately, americans were shocked to see two horrific incidents in new orleans and las vegas a deadly reminder that terrorism and radicalization remain very real and ongoing threats to our homeland. in my role on this committee, i've made combating foreign and domestic terrorism as well as extremism, a top priority in this complex environment. it is essential that dhs continue to focus on all terrorism threats, track and report data to

congress and to the american people, and coordinate between all components to ensure the department is effectively addressing all types of terrorist threats. we've also seen the persistent cyber attacks are still a very serious threat. in fact, an increasing threat. a recent attack from chinese based hackers infiltrated the treasury department on top of ongoing typhoon hack that comprised numerous u.s. telecommunications companies. there's no question that dhs must continue to lead the way in protecting our networks from foreign adversaries, cyber criminals, and so-called hacktivists. to prevent cyber attacks from becoming increasingly devastating to our security, as well as to our economy, and finally, the department of federal emergency management agency must continue to work hard to address the increasing number of natural disasters affecting our communities as a result of climate change, from violent storms like hurricanes that brought destruction to states across the south to the

devastating wildfires in california and countless other severe storms and flooding events all across our country. we need leadership at the department that will ensure our nation effectively responds to communities when disaster strikes them. the safety and security of our nation and the american people depend on the department's ability to effectively address these wide ranging threats. governor noem, thank you again for your willingness to serve in this incredibly important position. and thank you for being here today. i look forward to having a comprehensive discussion about how you intend to lead this critical department through a series of national security challenges, if indeed you are confirmed this morning. >> governor noem will be introduced by majority leader john thune and senator kevin cramer. senator thune, you are recognized. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member peters and members of the committee, i'm very pleased to be able to be here today to introduce south

dakota's outstanding governor, who has been nominated by president trump to serve as the secretary of the department of homeland security. i've known kristi noem for a long time. she has a very compelling personal and family story, which inspired her entrance into the public arena. and i'm sure you'll hear a little bit more about that from her. but i've observed, as she has gone through the state legislature as a leader there state house of representatives, the u.s. house of representatives, where she was our only member from south dakota, representing our state's interests there for eight years and now currently as south dakota's governor. and i think she brings to this job a number of things that are going to be really essential. and one is obviously a skill set when it comes to managing hard problems. she led our state through the pandemic, managed what were extraordinary circumstances all across this country in a way that made south dakota, frankly,

a magnet for people from other states who were trying to flee or get away from some of the heavy handed requirements that were imposed in other states around the country. our state stayed open, stayed free, and that was largely due to her leadership. and i would say, too, as we tackle what is an enormously complicated and hard issue, which is our southern border, it's going to require a skill set, which i believe she possesses. it's going to require a tremendous amount of persistence and determination, which i think she has an enormous amount of energy, which she has in abundance. and frankly, what i would say is just absolute toughness. it's going to take some some tough and hard leadership to get things back in order. and i want to refer to something she said in her state of the state address earlier this week to south dakotans. and that is that over the past four years, we've seen a complete disregard for the security of our borders and the safety of the american people to say nothing for the rule of law chaos at our

southern border. and the biden administration has left our country vulnerable to a whole host of security concerns, from terrorist entries to cross border criminal activity like drug trafficking. i think it's well documented, and i think it's high time that it gets fixed. and we have somebody nominated by the president that i believe has the capabilities, the qualities, the experience. and again, frankly, the determination and toughness to solve what is a very, very tough issue and one which is desperately in need of solutions. so i'm pleased to be able to be here today to introduce our great governor and to thank you for your consideration. i look forward to this committee acting on her nomination, and i look forward to voting for her on the floor of the united states senate, to be the next secretary of the department of homeland security. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator cramer. >> thank you, chairman paul. >> ranking member peters, colleagues, once again, i find

myself in full agreement with the majority leader. >> it's a good place to be in our business. >> so this is a very special opportunity for me. and the first thing i want to do is thank nearly all of you. i got into almost every one of your offices with christie as her very amateurish sitting senator sherpa. and the blessing for me was not only to be with my good friend and former colleague, but to learn a lot about this, this committee that i'm not on, and to get an inside view. and gary, especially learning how we can work together at the northern border and how similar, although very different michigan and north dakota are. so thank you for your hospitality. you are all very kind to, to christie and to and to me. but christie is a former colleague. you know, when you're the only member of the of a body of 435 from an entire state, it's really important to have friends. so together, christie and i were to two out of 435. and if we could get montana, wyoming and alaska,

there'd be five of us that could take on the fight. but i know this. i remember our very first year, my first year, it was not hers. my first year in the house, the unthinkable happened, and the house of representatives failed to pass a farm bill. and all i can tell you is the least secure homeland person in america was the speaker of the house and the majority leader. the next day, when christie and i doubled up and eventually we got a farm bill done. i say that because we are living at a time and, senator peters, you used the words strong, stable and principled. i can't think of three better words to describe kristi noem than those three words. i would add this. i'm not surprised that president trump turned to governor noem, securing the homeland is the number one priority, our number one priority, our number one constitutional priority as a congress. and it is for sure the

number one priority of the voters in the last election. and it is the number one priority for president donald trump. so naturally, he would say, who is the toughest, smartest, most capable protector that i know? i think i'd like to find a ranch woman, mom, grandmother who knows how to protect her own. and when you grow up on a ranch in the prairies or the west, nobody else is going to look out for your critters. no one else is protecting your family. you do it. and she brings this skill set. as senator thune said, as a leader, as a legislator, as a member of congress, as a governor, a very important, by the way, when i get into the room with other governors, senator hassan, i might as well have just left because i was now part of a club that where i

don't belong. but anyway, it was very, very rich because there's a there's an alliance there that's really, really important. and so for me, it's just a really special opportunity to be able to, to be here with, with her and to have had this time in your offices introducing her to you. but i want to wrap up because last with this, because last night i received a very touching letter, unsolicited by either christie or me, from the tribal chairwoman from the standing rock sioux tribe, which straddles north dakota and south dakota. they don't really care who wins the south dakota state north dakota state football game, but they do care about about their reservation. and chairwoman alkire sent me this letter. standing rock is the home of sitting bull, in case you were wondering about the credentials of their ability to protect the homeland, i'll just read a few words on multiple occasions, governor noem has invited the standing rock sioux

tribe to her table at the south dakota state capitol to enter into meaningful discussions. that's what i witnessed when she came to your offices. and janet writes, it is of great excitement and enthusiasm that our north dakota governor, doug burgum, will be at the helm of the department of interior. and my hopes remain high that you will feel the same about governor kristi noem at the helm of the department of homeland security. these two governors understand the needs in indian country and what words like tribal sovereignty, jurisdiction and consultation mean to the indigenous people speaks volumes to her leadership and to her character. it's my honor to support her and turn it over to her. thank you for this great introductions. the committee has also received several statements in support of governor noem's nomination, including a letter from 22 fellow governors, the international association of firefighters, and six other

organizations. without objection, these letters of support will be made part of the hearing record. and i know our senators have to go, but thank you for coming and doing those introductions. it's the practice of this committee to swear in witnesses. governor noem, please stand and raise your right hand. do you swear that the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? governor noem, you are now recognized for your opening statement. >> well, thank you, and good morning, chairman powell, ranking member peters and distinguished members of this committee. i'm honored to appear before all of you today as the nominee for the secretary of homeland security. i want to thank president elect donald j. >> trump for his confidence in my leadership and the people of south dakota for their fantastic support throughout my time in public service.

>> i would also like to express my sincere gratitude to senator cramer. >> he has been an invaluable resource to me throughout this process and given me much wisdom as well as insight into the thoughts and the procedures of the senate in this body. and i'd also like to express my gratitude to senator thune, the majority leader of this esteemed body. >> he's been an advisor to me for many years, as well as a friend, and i'm so grateful for the generous support of these two men and their willingness to be here this morning, to speak on my behalf and to introduce me to this committee. now, i'm a wife and a mother and a grandmother, a farmer, rancher and business person. >> i've served in our state legislature, in congress for eight years and also a governor. >> i've spent my entire life in rural america. i understand what it means to work hard every single day, and to build a better future for your kids and for all of our communities. i come before you today with a deep sense of responsibility and a humility as the nominee to

lead the department of homeland security, and also a commitment to the more than 330 americans who we will work together to help serve and to keep safe and secure in their homes and in their communities. now, before i proceed, i want to introduce to you my husband, brian, who is here with me today. he is my constant 24 over seven reminder of our dedication to public service and that it's not a solo effort or done alone. he has been a rock by my side and i appreciate all of his love over so many years. i'm grateful that he's here with me today. now, securing our homeland is a serious, sacred trust that must be relentlessly pursued and can never be taken for granted. being safe within our borders here in america is critical, and yet americans feel less safe than they have felt in decades. for the first time in 30 years, more than 40% of americans are afraid to walk alone at night within a mile of their homes.

president elect trump is going to change that. i've seen firsthand the challenges and the opportunities facing our great nation. in the 20 years since the department of homeland security was formed, the nature of the threats to our homeland has grown and they've evolved. this department was created in response to the failures of the government that led to the september 11th, 2001 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. and that reality is not lost on me, especially in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks over new years. now, i've led south dakota for the last six years with a focus every day on making our state safer, stronger, and freer. i focused every day on making the best decisions, not just for right now, but for generations to come. i've overseen a state budget of over $7 billion and a state employee workforce of more than 13,000, including more than 7000 that report directly to the governor. i've addressed important issues

like cyber security, human trafficking, drug interdiction, and also natural disasters. the same challenges that are facing so many of you and the people that you represent back home. i've secured our state and supported the rule of law, and if confirmed as the eighth secretary, that is the same approach that i will take to leading the department of homeland security as we face the evolving threats of the 21st century. the mission and the success of dhs is more critical than ever. we must be vigilant and proactive and innovative to protect the homeland. the challenges in front of us are extremely significant, and we must secure our borders against illegal trafficking and immigration. we must safeguard our critical infrastructure to make sure that we're protected against cyber attacks, respond to natural disasters, and also terrorism. i firmly believe that we can meet those challenges head on with resolve innovation. we can use collaboration with federal and with state partners and senators. i want your input.

border security must remain a top priority. as a nation, we have the right and the responsibility to secure our borders against those who would do us harm. and we must create a fair and a lawful immigration system that is efficient and is effective, and that reflects our values. president trump was elected with a clear mandate. he needs to achieve this mission because two thirds of americans support his immigration and border policies, including the majority of hispanic americans. i was the first governor to send national guard troops to our southern border when texas asked for help, and when they were being overwhelmed by an unprecedented border crisis. if confirmed as secretary, i'll ensure that our exceptional, extraordinary border patrol agents have all the tools and resources and support that they need to carry out their mission effectively. the same is true of my commitment to the outstanding men and women of the u.s. immigration and customs

enforcement. they are responsible for apprehending, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants and getting criminal aliens off of our streets and out of the country will help american communities be safer again. the bravery and the dedication of the border patrol and ice are unmatched, and i will restore dignity to their work. the rising threat of cyber attacks also demands our utmost attention and our critical infrastructure. from energy grids to financial institutions, is under constant attack by foreign adversaries and criminal actors. as secretary, i will prioritize a comprehensive whole of government approach to cybersecurity. in fact, in the coming days, we have to plan bigger and think faster and smarter. i fully acknowledge that people in washington, d.c. do not have all of the answers, and therefore i will leverage private public partnerships. i'll advance cutting edge, state of the art technologies to

protect our nation's digital landscape, and i will have a proven track record of doing this in south dakota. to back me up, i've helped make dakota state university a global leader in cybersecurity education because we recognize the need to address this emerging threat, and i will take a proactive approach if given the opportunity to serve as secretary. now, president elect trump has been a tremendous friend to law enforcement over the years, and i will do the same in my role as secretary. as governor, i've worked closely with law enforcement to make south dakota safer. i've overseen hundreds of state troopers in the south dakota highway patrol, and on several occasions, i've convened groups of law enforcement from across our state to address policies that will make our people safer. in fact, while some in this country were attacking law enforcement and defunding them, we took the opposite approach. in south dakota, we recruited law enforcement officers to move to south dakota, a state that respects their service and their sacrifice. and we revamped our

law enforcement training to provide the first ever state led, tribal focused law enforcement training academy. i'm very proud of the work that we've done in cooperation with our tribes to help make their communities more safe, and we must remain vigilant against terrorism and against others who wish to do us harm to our country and to our great people. i will ensure that our intelligence and our law enforcement agencies are working together, hand in hand, that they're fully equipped to detect, prevent and respond to threats from radical ideologies and foreign adversaries. this requires resources, coordination and collaboration across all levels of government. and once again, i will seek your wisdom and i will seek your input into the months ahead for the sake of the people that we both represent. we have to get this right. now, i recognize that homeland security isn't just about prevention, but it's also about resilience. when disasters strike, as we know they will, the department of homeland

security must be ready to respond swiftly, efficiently and effectively to protect the lives and the property of americans. as governor, i've worked with fema in response to a dozen natural disasters in south dakota. these have included historic floods, tornadoes, blizzards, wildfires, a derecho, and even a global pandemic. as secretary, i will enhance our emergency preparedness and strengthen fema's capabilities, and we will ensure that no community is left and that life saving services like electricity and water are quickly restored. as secretary, i will oversee the secret service, an agency that is in serious need of reforms. we all saw the threats to president elect trump last year and the consequences of failure. now, that should never happen again. and i've worked closely with my own gubernatorial protective detail, and i'm familiar with what works and what doesn't work. and i'll bring that experience towards strengthening the secret service

once again. i'm committed to working with this committee, with congress, and with the dedicated men and women of the department of homeland security to fulfill our mission, and together, we can ensure that the united states remains a beacon of freedom, safety and security for generations to come. so thank you for the opportunity and the honor to appear before you today. thank you for the meetings and the time that you took in your office to discuss the department and what we can do in the future to make the american homeland much more secure. i look forward to your questions, and i hope to earn your trust and hopefully also your vote as we embark on this critical work together. and with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you, governor. we will now proceed to questions. each member will have seven minutes. we will have a vote that will start at 10:10 a.m, but we're going to continue the hearing and keep people in line. as you come and go to vote. we'll keep the hearing moving. i want to be clear from the outset that we

will not tolerate any disruptions. the capitol police have been asked to escort anyone immediately from the room if they disrupt the hearing. this is a standard question, governor noem, that we ask of all nominees. governor noem, do you agree without reservation, to comply with any request or summons to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of congress, if you are confirmed? yes, mr. chairman, i'm going to reserve the rest of my time for my questions and go to senator peters. >> thank you, mr. chairman. governor noem, the dhs secretary, has many competing priorities, as you well know. and you outlined certainly in your in your opening comments from our borders to wildfires to cyber attacks. but as you and i discussed at length, and i appreciate you bringing it up in your opening comments as well. we do have a northern border in addition to a southern border. that's absolutely essential that the dhs has the resources necessary at the northern border to carry out its mission, both between ports of entry and all

along the border. in fact, we've seen an increase in unauthorized crossings in recent years at the northern border. so my question for you is, if confirmed, do you commit to ensuring, along with the southern border, that the northern border is sufficiently staffed to maintain its security and robust trade between the u.s. and its neighbors, including at the gordie howe international bridge in my home state of michigan, have the resources they need to facilitate trade while keeping americans safe. >> yes. senator peters, you and i talked about this in your office and also with senator slotkin as well, how important it is to continue to remain focused on our northern border and all borders and ports of entry that the united states has. i think there's been some universal concern from some of the committee members that as we focus on the southern border and what we're seeing as far as the invasion there and the amount of people crossing that the northern border would lose focus, but that that will not happen and we will ensure that our borders are secure and we're addressing all threats that may

come in from any direction and also with the with the bridge as well, and staffing up on that, that as well. and i've assured senator slotkin as well that our focus is there to make sure that it is staffed appropriately. >> very good. and as we discussed, the department is diligently working to stand up the northern border mission center at selfridge air national guard base in michigan. following the authorization and funding that i was able to secure in the last congress. this center is critical to supporting the department's northern border security missions and addressing evolving threats. so a quick question. if confirmed, do you commit to working with me to fully build out the northern border mission center? >> yes, senator, we will look forward, and i look forward to working with you to ensure that that that is a priority and that it's adequately resourced and working with congress and senators to make sure that we have what we need to make sure that that mission for that base is fully fulfilled. >> great. thank you. on new year's, we witnessed two incidents that reminded us that

terrorism and extremism remain serious threats to all americans. both dhs and the fbi have consistently said that the most persistent threat to the homeland is from us based individuals or small groups radicalized by a variety of ideologies, from white supremacy to isis to al qaeda. we must certainly continue to focus on people who are radicalized here in the united states with the intent of terrorizing our communities. so my question for you, ma'am, is how do you plan to address this threat of us based terrorists? >> senator, this is a grave concern for our country, as we all agree that the number one threat to our homeland security is the southern border. in fact, since joe biden has been president, we've seen 382 individuals that have come over that border that are on the terrorist watch list. i behind me have the governor of louisiana with me, and he and his state and people in this country went through a horrific

event on new year's day and one that we never want to see repeated again. but this governor behind me is concerned also about an upcoming event, which is the super bowl coming shortly, which we need to do all that we can to work together, that he has the reassurance that the federal government, that the department of homeland security is prepared to help him protect that event and to keep people safe while they are there. those 382 terrorists are known terrorists that have come over our border. we don't know necessarily where they are because of what has been happening under joe biden's policies. now, president trump obviously won the last election with a clear mandate, and that mandate is for the american people to secure that border. but also we need to focus on domestic terrorism and homegrown terrorism, which you just referenced in your in your question, homegrown terrorism is on the rise. we see more and more incidents of people that are u.s. citizens that have become radicalized. and knowing when people are leaving the country and coming back and

changes to their behaviors and what their actions are is critically important. so the resources that the department of homeland security has needs to be utilized as far as identifying those threats and being proactive to prevent them, but also protecting civil rights and liberties in that process, and making sure that the department is on mission to do what it was called to do, why it was created, and what authorities that congress and the senate has given them. my hope is that governor landry and his his staff and his people and the people that attend the super bowl know that the department of homeland security is there, partner is on watch to protect them and to keep that event safe. i hope all americans know that leadership has consequences. i hope that we can get through and get your support for this nomination and get confirmed quickly, so that we can address the threats that we currently face and make sure we don't have any repeats of the day that we saw just starting this year on new year's day. >> in the last two years, we

have increased. we have seen increasingly aggressive and expansive cyber attacks against our federal agencies. just last month, chinese hackers infiltrated the department of treasury and stole potentially thousands of unclassified documents. so given these concerning trends by the prc to hold our federal networks hostage, do you believe that federal agencies should be required to implement cybersecurity upgrades and maintain the highest cybersecurity standards to protect sensitive or classified data and us citizen information as well? >> well, senator, the mission of cisa, which is the cybersecurity and infrastructure agency, the mission of it is to hunt and harden. it's to find those bad actors and help work with local and state infrastructure critical infrastructure entities so that they can help them be prepared for such cyber attacks and that they can make sure that they're hardening their systems to protect them in the future, recognizing the vulnerabilities

that they have. this has gotten far off mission. they're using their resources in ways that was never intended. the misinformation and disinformation that they have stuck their toe into and meddled with should be refocused back onto what their job is, and that is to support critical infrastructure and to help our local and small businesses and critical infrastructure at the state level, to have the resources and be prepared for those cyber attacks that they will face. you know, salt typhoon was a campaign of espionage by the prc and china against our telecoms, where large amount of data was was stolen and taken and people's private information was taken as well. and we've also seen china and the prc go after our critical infrastructure with the volt typhoon hack. and that was extremely dangerous because there was no reason for them to do that, just to steal people's data and information. the reason for them to go after that was to control our critical infrastructure, for the ability

to see if they could shut down a water plant, a utility company, and that was to cripple our country. so these threats are real. cisa needs to be much more effective, smaller, more nimble to really fulfill their mission, which is to hunt and to help harden our nation's critical infrastructure. >> thank you, thank you, thank you, senator scott. >> governor noem, congratulations on your nomination. thank you. i think you're going to do a great job. thank you. i think it's great that you're a governor and you bring, you know, bring that expertise to the table. so i just went through the campaign to get reelected. and it was after the butler shooting. i asked people, i said had all my events. i'd say, raise your hand if you think the acting director of the secret service is going to tell us what happened, not one person, i said, what about secretary mayorkas? you know, he's running hhs. what do you think? our homeland security. what do you think?

>> i said? how about christopher wray, you know, head of the fbi? >> not one person. can you just talk about in the importance of transparency and accountability in government and how you're going to bring that to the table? >> yeah. senator scott, thank you for that question, because that's what i have found across the country as well. and i know it's certainly true in my home state of south dakota, is that people don't trust the federal government. they don't trust our leadership in this current administration that's in the white house right now, to tell them the truth, to tell them the truth about what the threats really are about our agencies and departments when there are failures addressing them and fixing it. the secret service is one of those perfect examples. they they need leadership that understands why that secret service was created and what it needs to do. there's two elements, really, that the secret service is tasked with and that is protective detail and then also investigations. yet we see investigators within the secret service out there investigating antiquities and other things that are off mission, when they should be focused on making sure we're

addressing national security events with the protocols that are necessary and protecting the individuals that they're charged with, and getting that skill set and training that are necessary. that's been compromised by not having enough people there and being adequately staffed and resourced. but frankly, the leadership hasn't been honest about talking about it. we saw this with the drones over new jersey as well, the federal government not answering the questions from the public. and when they finally got a straight answer out of president trump, they felt reassured that somebody recognized that this this was something they were questioning and that they deserved answers. my goal and my mission is to build trust. we will undertake a large job and a large duty that that we have to fulfill that the american people expect us to do by securing our border, to make sure that our nation is a nation with borders, or where no nation at all, and that we are making sure that those criminal actors that are perpetuating violence in our communities and in our in our cities and towns and states are

removed from this country, that there's consequences for breaking the law in our country. again, there has to be consequences, because when americans break the law, there's consequences. and why would we ever allow someone to come in from another country and not allow them and not not have consequences, or allow them to continue to go forward and to commit rape and murders and other break other laws that that endanger our society. so we've had over 13,000 murders that are loose in this country that have come over that border. we've had almost 16,000 rapists and sexual assault perpetuators that are loose in this country right now, 425,000 plus people have criminal convictions that are here illegally in this country, that that our current administration is doing nothing to round them up and get them out of our country. we will be doing that immediately and that will be the priority. and that is one of the reasons that today the american people have lost their trust. president trump will build it back and know that

their federal government is accountable to them and is working to put america first again. >> so joe biden completely opened our southern border and dismantled our entire immigration system. as a former governor, i know that when the federal government policies are broken and failing americans, you see the impacts in your state, just like i did when i was governor. and you take the steps necessary to protect the families in your state. i know you've done that. one thing you did is you talked about before you sent troops, our national guard, to the southern border. can you talk more about how biden's open border policy has affected your state and communities, and the role your state resources play in helping secure the border? >> you know, we certainly have seen the effects in south dakota that many of your states did. and i would say every state has seen the effects of an open border and the policies that have been under the biden administration. we saw increased crime, but we also saw increased drug activity. we saw cartels and their affiliates moving into our state to proliferate trafficking. and we saw people being victimized and a lack of accountability with the federal

government. so when texas was addressing the situation and asked other governors for help, we sent help. i know many of the other governors at the time were sending law enforcement, but i made the decision that at that time that it was more appropriate to send the national guard, that our national guard could be activated under title 32 and sent to assist another state from the invasion. that was happening. and because the national guard is trained for just such a mission, because of this invasion, that it is a war zone down there with what they are going to see, the threats that they would see, and that they are trained specifically to interact with other agencies. the national guard is used to falling in with other agencies and cooperating with them, and could do that seamlessly. and their families and their communities are normalized to them being deployed. so we have, in south dakota, deployed our national guard to the southern border eight different times. two of them were federal deployments that the biden administration sent them down there. one was to send our

lakota helicopters, which were used for surveillance and the drug interdiction that was going on down there. but six other times, i sent them under state activation to partner with texas and other states in securing our southern border. they did security operations. they also did building of the wall and partnered with texas, recognizing the failures of the federal government, the failures of the federal government are significant, and we've seen our families and communities devastated by those effects, by the drug epidemic, by the trafficking that's going on, the increased crime. and we recognize that just because the federal government wasn't doing their job, we could not fail our state. and i needed to protect the people of south dakota. and the people of south dakota were overwhelmingly supportive of these deployments and very proud of our national guard. >> when i was governor of florida, there was a terrorist attack in paris by syrian refugees. so president obama was president. and i said, i'd like to know if you're going to send refugees to my state, that you

give us some background on them. you know, i assume you vetted them and tell us what's going on. >> you have to tell me, but you have to tell our state law enforcement and our local law enforcement that they said, go jump in the lake. >> they meaner than that. but they said, go. you know, you have no rights as a governor, which made no sense. we had over 70,000 people come here after our after afghanistan on planes into this country, completely unvetted. right. they've never given our governors any information. so would you change that? >> yes. the communication between states and the federal government has been absolutely broken. and that's what i love about this committee, is you do have governors sitting on this committee that have been in that role as a commander in chief and have the responsibility for being the ceos of their state. it's a different perspective than serving. i served in congress, too, and both are extremely important, and they're just different in that responsibility that weighs on your shoulder. i often told folks that that is the thing that that most times if something was going to keep me

up at night, it was the responsibility that i had being commander in chief, recognizing the decisions that i made. and i'm sure you had this feeling as well, senator scott, as governor, that impacted those families, those soldiers, and it impacted their communities when we pulled them out in the importance of that and when they were bringing refugees into the country, i as well communicated that to the federal government. they were bringing refugees. and i asked how they were vetted, how we were working with their home countries to find out who they really were, what their intentions were, and why they were coming to the united states and received no information from this, from this administration, that that vetting process was being done, that we knew where they were going. in fact, they kept us in the dark and didn't communicate to us even what states and where those refugees were being placed. so that is something that we need to change when we have programs that fall under the purview of the department of homeland security. there needs to be communication, especially with the governors, so that we can coordinate to ensure that it's the right thing for that state.

>> thank you. thank you, senator hassan. >> thank you, mr. chair, and welcome, governor noem. >> really appreciate you being here. >> welcome to your family as well. >> thank you. >> and families do share in this kind of public service, and we appreciate them very much. >> as we discussed at our meeting last month, as of former governor, i appreciate the important responsibilities that governors have to ensure the safety and security of their communities, including by managing public safety and emerging and emergency agencies. >> and i will say that in many ways, i agree with some of the things that senator scott just said about improving communication between the department of homeland security and governors around who is being sent to states. it's a critical issue. and something that i was frustrated by when i was governor. so i look forward to hearing more today about your priorities. if confirmed, about how if confirmed about how your experience as governor would

help you run the department of homeland security. let me just start by following up with a question that senator peters had also touched on. we have recently in new hampshire, seen a dramatic increase in unauthorized border crossings at the northern border. and when i was at the northern border recently, law enforcement told me about the need for more personnel and resources. we still don't have cell phone coverage in a lot of the stretch of our northern border. i've worked with senator cramer on bipartisan legislation to strengthen our northern border strategy because it's clear more support is needed. so, governor, if you're confirmed, would you deploy additional full time personnel and upgrade equipment along the northern border? >> you know, senator, i enjoyed our meeting that we had. and you identifying the northern border issues that are going on, the lack of security and the lack of technologies that you really need to cover some of the landscapes that are that are they're very different than the

southern border, some just as equally challenging, but all need to be addressed. so i definitely will be working with you to ensure that our northern border is adequately resourced as well. and we do have to have the resources in order to be successful. right. that's something i want to work with congress, with the senate and the house on, to ensure that the resources are there to meet the challenges that we have. we have not fully utilized the technologies that are available that are necessary to really secure this country and to compete with those bad actors which wish to infiltrate our country. and having the ability to utilize them will make us much more safe. so i'll work with you most definitely. and ensuring the northern border is protected. well, i appreciate that. >> and i just note too, that at the same time, there's real concern in new hampshire and all along the northern border that we strengthen the border and have the resources we need. we also have a really strong economic relationship with our partner, our friends to the north, and a lot of family relationships. so i think it's

important that we're smart in the deployment of technology. we don't want to impede that flow of economy and people. that's lawful. but we do want to make sure that we have the resources we need. i want to turn to the southern border now at the southern border, we need significant technological investments to support law enforcement personnel in their efforts to catch fentanyl smugglers, to stop human traffickers and seize the cash and illegal guns that criminals traffic southward to the cartels. and we talked about this a little bit. there's bipartisan support for these investments. and i've worked with colleagues, including senators lankford and cornyn, on legislation around these issues. governor noem, could you identify specific technological investments that you would make at the southern border? and are you willing to work with me on increasing southbound inspections? if you're confirmed? >> yes, certainly, senator, you've heard president trump talk about the need to build a wall and the wall and infrastructure is critically important. but also at our 382

legal ports of entry, we need to have technology so that flow can happen north and south, and it can happen in a legal manner to ensure that our commerce can continue to operate, and that we can continue to make sure that we're also secure. i think de minimis shipments are a concern, and the need to look at those, and how traffickers and fentanyl distributors are using that. i think we also need to use scanners, surveillance operations. there's new technologies out there to cooperate with satellites in some area where the topography does not necessarily facilitate having actual infrastructure, and then also the ability to make sure that we're utilizing that technology that allows us to know what is going south, that might be fueling some of the violence that ends up coming back north and ensuring that we're stopping that before it has the chance to supply those cartels and bad actors that would come in. >> yeah, i really appreciate that, because the southbound

flow, particularly of cash and weapons, fuels the cartels and strengthens them. and it's something that we really have to focus on. i also want to follow up on the issue of cybersecurity. recently, criminals launched a successful cyber attack on powerschool, a cloud based record management system that contains personal information about tens of millions of kindergartners through high school seniors, including many students and teachers in new hampshire. this cyber attack on powerschool comes as schools and local governments across the country have seen a surge in cyber attacks on their systems. and when a small school of maybe a couple of thousand system, maybe a thousand students or so, has to pay $2 million in ransom, i want you to think about what that does to one of our small communities. right. so, governor noem, if you're confirmed, how will you empower the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency to improve the cybersecurity of state and local

governments in the united states? >> well, thank you, senator. if i am confirmed and have the opportunity to serve as secretary of this department, i'll be following the constitution and the rule of law and then getting these departments back on mission to why they were created and why they are existing. the what cisa should be doing is helping those small entities, those schools, those local city governments, the state governments and the small businesses that are critical infrastructure that don't have the resources to stay on top of the critical protections that they need to enact. >> well, let me follow up just quickly on that one point. it's something we discussed when we had our meeting. i worked with senator cornyn on a bipartisan bill that became law that created a cybersecurity grant program for state and local governments. this is in addition to each state getting a cyber coordinator to help on the ground. we discussed this program, and i know you as governor, had some reservations about the structure of the program, but if confirmed, will

you commit to working with congress to adjust it? i'd love your input about what gave you pause. as governor, i think there were only two governors who didn't participate in the program, and i hope that as we work on the concerns you have, you'd work with me to adjust and reauthorize the program. >> yes, all all grants within the department will be evaluated. and when i come in and be looked at to see what we can do to make sure that they're actually fulfilling the mission to which they were established. what i would say about the cybersecurity grants in south dakota when i came in as governor, one of my main priorities was to bring the next industry into the state. and i determined that that would be technology and cybersecurity. in fact, we have dakota state university in our state, which is a cybersecurity national leader in training those cyber warriors that we need to protect us and keep us safe. i've since then partnered to grow and double the size of that school. we train a lot of nsa employees

in south dakota, and so understanding cybersecurity and my experience in that, i think is critically important to the department and bringing it to the table to do this. you talked about why we didn't take that cybersecurity grant in south dakota, and it's because the requirements of that grant would have caused me to grow my state government. the administration costs of it would have been much more than what it would have been able to facilitate at the local level in our state was already proactively helping these individuals that needed the resources to secure their systems. >> well, i appreciate that. i'm way over time. there were very few requirements purposely in that grant program other than to make sure the money was being spent the way we authorized, but let's continue to talk about that. >> thank you, senator hawley. >> thank you, mr. chairman. governor noem, welcome. congratulations on your nomination. i'm delighted to see you here. >> i do notice the chairman of the ways and means committee is over your shoulder there. >> i have to question your judgment about who your friends are based on that. >> the great, great chairman from the state of missouri. >> it's fantastic to have you

here. >> you know, the department of homeland security is not particularly old, but you already have the what i hope will soon be the distinction of succeeding the worst secretary in the history of the department of homeland security, alejandro mayorkas, has been an absolute disgrace to that department and, frankly, to this country. >> and i'm delighted to see you willing to step up and serve. >> let me just ask you something. >> i repeatedly asked your predecessor when he sat where you're sitting, whether the southern border was secure, and he repeatedly told me under oath, it is secure, senator. >> and he repeatedly said, under oath, our policies are working, senator, meaning the biden administration policies that, of course, gave us this devastating open border. so let me just ask you, is the southern border secure as we find it today, senator? >> no, the southern border is not secure today. but in just three days, we will have a new president in this country, president donald j. trump. and he will secure our border. >> that is refreshing candor. i'm glad to hear it. let me ask you about a young man from my

state. this is travis wolfe, who's 12 years old when he was killed just over a year ago by an illegal migrant who mowed him down. and i choose my words carefully, mowed him down in a motor vehicle, hit him head on doing 75in a 40. >> killed him. >> others were severely injured. just yesterday. a witness sitting where you are sitting today told this committee that migrant crime is, and i quote, not an actual concern, not an actual concern in a hearing before this committee advising us to drop the lake and riley act and not focus on migrant crime. you know, in my state, with the death of people like travis wolfe and officer david lee, who was assaulted and killed in saint louis, and officers in kansas city who have been assaulted by illegal migrants and others who have been and stabbed. would you agree with me that migrant crime sure as heck is an actual concern, and that you intend to do something about it? >> yes, senator. absolutely. and

i'm so sorry about travis and his. my prayers go out to his family. i can't even imagine what that is like. and thank you for telling his story, because there's so many families in this country that have that same story, and they don't understand why the federal government is allowing people to come into this country illegally and then perpetuate crimes against their people, and then give them resources and shelter and food and, and debit cards to go take care of their families when they go to work every single day to make sure that they're providing for their families and are held accountable to when they break our laws. >> let me ask you this. will you work with president trump to reinstate the remain in mexico program that the president had in place in his first term, which does so much to ensure that those who would seek to abuse our asylum system are not allowed into the country, and those who have legitimate asylum claims, their claims are processed in due order and in due course. but they wait in mexico until those claims are fully processed. will you work to reinstate that program? >> yes, senator. the president and i have talked extensively about this and will 100% partner

with him to reinstate the remain in mexico policy and make sure that it's in place. >> fantastic. i think travis might be alive today if that policy had been in place. let me ask you about cbp one, the phone app that i've called concierge service for illegal immigrants. i'm sure you're familiar with it. this was the biden administration's effort to allow asylum seekers to apply ahead of time using their phones, but denied any evidence that they needed asylum. there is a newspaper report, a press report that said the only problem with the app is it never asks users are you seeking asylum? they don't ask for any asylum evidence. they simply release these so-called asylum seekers who use the app into the country on parole. sometimes they're never given a hearing. the inspector general actually did a report, a full investigation report on cbp one and found that frequently, users of this app were claiming the same addresses in the united states as their intended destination, even though they didn't know each other, they weren't family connections. in other words, it has been