congress. we shall see, though, exactly what happens in three. >> months. >> once the or. within three months, once those policy recommendations come in, and. >> whether congress is required. >> to act. >> because that could be one of. >> the recommendations. >> that the. >> domestic policy council makes. >> yeah, that's going to be huge. and it would mark some major shifts for republicans if they're just willing to get on board with this now. oriana gonzalez, we'll definitely have you back to talk about that. thank you. thank you. that was way too early for this wednesday morning. morning joe starts right now. >> what we're about to do here is. >> a neighborly act. >> we're like a group of householders. >> living. >> in the. >> same locality. >> who decide. >> to. >> express their community. interests by entering. into a formal association for their mutual self-protection. >> all free. >> men, wherever. >> they may live, are citizens of berlin and. >> therefore. >> as a free man, i take pride.

>> in the words. ich bin ein berliner. >> i've spoken. >> of the. >> shining city all my political life. >> in my. >> mind, it. >> was a tall. >> proud city, built. >> on rocks. >> stronger than oceans, windswept, god blessed and teeming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and peace. >> it's more important for them than it is for us. we have an ocean in between and they don't. today i heard, oh well, we weren't invited. well, you've been there for three years. you should have ended it three years. you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. >> all right. >> donald trump yesterday. altering the cooperative. >> world order. >> that has been. >> championed by presidents. >> of both parties for more than 75 years. we're going to have much more on the. significance of those comments. it comes as new. >> intelligence suggests. >> that russian president vladimir. putin is not actually. interested in a peace deal.

we'll dig into that new reporting. >> we're going. >> to also go. through the fire ready, aim approach from elon musk's dodge team, which is now scrambling. >> to rehire. >> government employees. the trump administration. fired as the bird. >> flu outbreak worsens. >> and we'll bring you the latest on the plane crash in toronto. as we're getting a new look at the moment. things went horribly. wrong for that delta jet. good morning. >> and. >> welcome to morning joe. it is wednesday, february 19th. >> with us we. >> have the co-host. >> of the fourth hour. >> and contributing. >> writer at the atlantic, jonathan lemire. us special correspondent. for bbc news and host of. >> the rest. >> is. politics podcast. katty kay is with us. staff writer at the atlantic. >> frank ford is here. >> and i call this the zbig brzezinski. >> road to my right here, columnist and associate. >> editor for the washington post. >> david ignatius and us national. >> editor for the financial

times, ed luce, both great friends of my dad. >> so, joe. >> what a. >> morning and what a. >> great. >> panel we have. >> for the news that. >> we. >> are. >> dealing with today. >> well, especially. >> brzezinski row. >> there he. >> would have. >> said, i made both of those young men. i made. >> both of them. he he he had the greatest respect for. >> for sure. >> for the greatest respect for david. and we all can't, especially after. reading excerpts from. ed's upcoming. book on doctor brzezinski. we can't help but look back. >> and think about a man. >> who spent. >> his entire life trying to push. back against the aggression. >> of the. soviet union. >> against the enslavement. >> of eastern europe, the enslavement. >> of. his homeland, the. enslavement of. >> of 100 million. eastern europeans that the united. >> states every.

>> president from harry truman. >> through george h.w. bush. >> worked, and an. unbroken line. >> to actually liberate eastern. europe because it was the right thing to do, and also because it was good for. >> the united. >> states of america. freedom is proven to be good for. >> the united. >> states of america, for our leadership role in the world, for our. >> economy. which is, again. >> by far the strongest in the world and. the envy of the world. free markets, free people. that leads to good things, not just for the rest of the world, but for america. yesterday. >> what happened. >> last night? what happened at a press conference? absolutely. absolutely. turning years of. history of ronald. >> reagan standing. >> at the wall saying, mr. gorbachev. tear down this wall.

>> john kennedy saying. >> a torch. >> has. >> been passed to a new generation. >> harry truman declaring that america. >> would fight against russian aggression, against soviet. aggression everywhere. it does. it does far. >> more than. >> just change. an analytical construct. >> it changes the very meaning of. >> america itself. and it's not. just former republicans. it's not just former cold war warriors like myself. >> it's not. >> just conservatives who believe that. independence democrats believe that as well. as does the wall. >> street journal. >> editorial page, which is the voice of conservatism. >> and. >> has been for a very. >> long time. and its latest editorial titled. the rapid. >> rehab of vladimir putin. >> the wall street journal. >> editorial board writes in part, this global politics. >> can be an ugly. >> business, but.

>> the looming rehabilitation of. vladimir putin. >> is especially hard to take. mr. trump said last week after a. >> phone call with mr. >> putin, that he's convinced the. russian dictator. wants peace. he didn't say what. >> kind of peace mr. putin has in mind. >> though if history is a guide, it won't be what most americans. understand by the word. >> mr. putin. >> has been charged. >> with war crimes by an international. >> court, and the us. >> sanctioned his foreign minister in 2022, was one of. >> the architects of russia's. >> war against ukraine. >> we realize. that the. >> ruthless men who rule. >> much. >> of the world can't be ignored. >> but usually those. >> men are. >> rewarded with a visit to the us. >> as mr. trump. >> hinted last week. >> before they made any compromises. >> visits with soviet. >> leaders during the cold. >> war at least. >> had some preparation to. >> assume the us. >> would somehow get something from diplomacy. any peace mr. putin strikes has to be made. >> with all of its legacy of. >> destruction and mind. and i

just want to go. >> through really quickly. >> just in. >> case. there are people who forgot already. and we assume that there are some people who forgot already. exactly what. >> putin and invading russians have done. >> this is what the wall. >> street journal. >> editorial page says. the kremlin overlord. >> in 2022. >> started the biggest. >> land war in europe. >> since hitler. >> and his. >> quote. >> special military. >> operation has killed. >> or maimed. >> hundreds of thousands. of russians. >> and ukrainians. his missiles. >> have targeted. apartment houses. >> and train stations. >> his forces have tried. >> to. >> freeze ukrainian. civilians into. >> surrender by crippling. >> electric power plants. his troops have kidnaped. >> hundreds of ukrainian born children from their parents to new homes. >> in russia.

>> they have. >> tortured and executed ukrainian troops. >> in violation. >> of every. rule of international warfare. again, the. wall street journal. >> says, in violation of. every rule. >> of international. >> warfare, russian. >> hit squads have also been dispatched to assassinate enemies of his. rule at home and abroad. no one. >> should forget the death of alexei. >> navalny. >> the brave opposition leader who was. >> poisoned abroad and then arrested upon his return and then. killed in prison. it goes on and on. and that's the wall street journal editorial page. mika. >> rupert murdoch, of course. owns the wall. >> street journal. >> the new york post also. >> also condemning what donald trump said yesterday, trying to blame vladimir putin's. ruthless invasion. >> the largest. >> land invasion in europe since

adolf hitler. trying to blame. that on actually the victims of that invasion. >> we'll get to the new york post in just a moment. we want to get to richard engel, who. >> has a tight window. but here's. >> what the wall street. journal editorial board was reacting to. president trump blaming. ukraine for russia's invasion nearly three. years ago. >> he made. >> the. >> comments yesterday after reporters. >> pressed him. >> on ukrainian. >> officials not being involved in the diplomatic talks between. >> the u.s. >> and russia in saudi arabia. >> i hear that, you know, they're upset about not having a seat. well, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that. this could have been settled very easily. just a half a half baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without, i think, without the loss of much land, very little land without the loss of any lives and without the loss of cities that are just laying

on their sides. you have those magnificent golden domes that are shattered will never be replaced. you can't replace them. thousand year old domes that are so beautiful, you can't replace that. a whole civilization has changed because of what? so when they're worried about not being seated, you mean somebody that should have gone in and made a deal a long time ago? and i think i have the power to end this war, and i think it's going very well. but today i heard, oh, well, we weren't invited. well, you've been there for three years. you should have ended it three years. you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. i could have made a deal for ukraine. that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land. and no people would have been killed and no city would have been demolished, and not one dome would have been knocked down. but they chose not to do it that way. well, we have a situation where we haven't had elections in ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in ukraine, where

the leader in ukraine. i mean, i hate to say it, but he's down at 4% approval rating. and yeah, i would say that, you know, when they want a seat at the table, you could say the people have to wouldn't the people of ukraine have to say like, you know, it's been a long time since we've had an election that's not a russia thing. that's something coming from me and coming from many other countries also. >> that actually. >> is a. >> russia thing. >> that actually is a russia thing. you're talking about democratic elections in ukraine, but suggesting that somehow. russia is i mean, there's so many things wrong with that. i know you've. >> got a fact. >> check on it. i, i will say. >> first of all, the. >> idea that they. >> could. >> have just given away a little land to vladimir putin. wrong. he wanted kyiv. he wanted to be in kyiv in three days. he wanted odesa. he wanted to. >> rebuild the old. >> russian empire. by seizing their capital, kyiv and odessa.

>> so the idea that that is. so factually inaccurate, there's not. >> a single military historian, there's not a single person who's covered this war that would actually say that's. >> accurate. >> but there's so many other things in. those statements. >> that are just flat. >> wrong. >> factually, yes. >> a quick fact check on that last comment. ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky's public approval rating. has dropped since the early days of the war, but he still has support from 52% of ukrainians, according to a poll last month. let's bring in nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, live from the front line lines near. >> kharkiv, ukraine. >> richard. >> you've been. >> speaking with ukrainian soldiers. >> how are. >> they feeling. >> about these negotiations? >> so ukrainian soldiers. >> are watching this very. >> closely or as. >> close as. >> they. can in front line positions. they don't always have internet, but they do have

cell phone connections generally. and they've been watching this with a lot of concern. they are worried that decisions about ukraine are being made without ukrainian input. they worry that president trump and putin are in the process of chopping up this country. currently, russia controls about 20% of ukraine's territory in the east, where i am right now, also in the south. and they they are deeply concerned. watching this process, considering the fact. >> that president. >> trump has already spoken with vladimir putin, the fact. >> that. >> he started these negotiations. >> by talking. >> to. the russian. >> side. >> excluding president zelensky and then, as you said last night, blaming the entire war on ukraine instead of on the russians, who actually invaded soldiers here. >> are watching. >> this and thinking they're on the chopping block. they're about to be divided and have territories ceded to, to russia. as you know, there's an old expression in negotiations. >> if you're not at the table. >> you're on the table. and

people here feel very much that ukraine is on the table right now. and president zelensky commented just. >> a short. >> while ago about those comments from president trump saying that he's responsible for this war. if he'd only done some sort of deal early on, it never would have happened if he had ceded territory. and he said that president trump is in a disinformation. bubble parroting it sounds like russian disinformation taking russia's take on the war. and he said that he wants u.s. officials, particularly trump, trump's envoy, to come here more and learn more truth about the facts on the ground. and trump's envoy, former general kellogg, has just arrived in ukraine, and the ukrainians are eager to take him out to places like this to try and rewrite the narrative that, that, that, that president trump is describing right now. >> nbc's richard engel, thank you so much. we greatly appreciate it. yeah, ukrainian soldiers hearing this,

understanding that. their land has been invaded, their children kidnaped, their mothers shot and killed at point blank range apartment buildings attacked. david ignatius, you know, it's always been an article. >> of faith for republicans. >> and for. conservatives that you don't bow down to russian leaders. the consequences. >> are absolutely terrible. >> it's debatable. but, you know, republicans accused fdr of giving up eastern europe. at yalta. they attacked john f kennedy after the bay of pigs. you can go to jimmy carter negotiating salt two with the russians when they invaded afghanistan. you can actually go actually to george w bush again, once again trying to make nice with with russians, with vladimir putin saying, i looked into his eyes and i saw his soul. vladimir putin responded in 2007 with a fire and

brimstone speech, basically predicting everything he was going to do. then he invaded the country of georgia. barack obama talking about a reset and whispering to medvedev, hey, i can do more with you after the election and after the election, what happened? ukraine invaded crimea, invaded by putin, a commercial airliner shot down. we can go on and on. and then, of course, 2022, the largest land mass invasion of europe since adolf hitler. it is. >> i tell please tell. >> me how. >> how your. >> right now sifting through. all of this wreckage. of american u.s. foreign policy that has. >> kept the world. free for 80 years. so, joe. >> yesterday was in many. >> ways a. >> shameful day. >> for the united. >> states as you.

>> as. >> you just said. >> standing up. >> to russian aggression. >> for many decades. >> has been at the center of american foreign policy and at the center. >> of our identity as. >> a country. >> yesterday. >> two big things happened. >> first. >> the united states in the meeting in saudi. >> arabia. normalized a regime. >> headed by. >> somebody who's. >> been designated. >> as a. >> war criminal. >> and all. >> of the. >> crimes of. >> this war, the. >> killing, the just brutal. assault on. >> ukraine, illegal, brutal. assault was, in effect, washed away. >> watching sergey. >> lavrov. >> the russian. foreign minister, kind. of smirking and sitting there. >> with the same look that i. >> remember, you. >> know, for years and years. >> completely unaffected. >> by this war. >> we'll see what comes out of those talks in riyadh. >> but then to have that followed by by. >> president trump. >> in florida. >> with the shocking. >> comment that. >> the war was really the fault.

>> of the. >> victim, the war was really the fault of ukraine. >> you never should have started it. i can't believe. >> that a. >> president of united. states would have said something. >> as factually. >> wrong and insulting. >> as that. there's a way in which. >> for trump. >> it's about him. >> if only. >> i'd been there, this never would have happened. and so it must be. >> your fault, right? >> because. >> because i. >> could. >> have stopped this. >> so, as. >> i said, yesterday. >> was was a. >> day that. >> was shocking. >> there still. >> is. >> a pathway toward. >> negotiations. >> rubio. >> mike waltz, his. >> national security adviser. >> are. >> sensible people. >> their plans. >> for how to provide the. essential security. >> guarantees that ukraine. >> needs to become a real country. >> protected from from russia's attacks. >> so i don't want. >> to say. >> that. >> that's impossible. >> but it's going. >> to be much harder after.

>> what happened yesterday. >> well, and of course, we talked about mike waltz, we talked about marco rubio. those have been two well, you know, cold war warriors, in fact, they have been tough republicans in the united states, senate, republicans in the house. we've talked about it all the time. people like chairman mccaul and so many others who have gone to ukraine who understand that this is a russian invasion that has to be repelled. understand that if you acquiesce to vladimir putin invading russia, poland is next. it really is poland's next. other countries in eastern europe are next. if he gets away with this, you know, he got away with invading georgia. he got away with invading ukraine, crimea. i mean, he got the message that he could get away with this. if he gets away with invading ukraine and, and, and ends up being basically held

harmless. >> for all of the. >> horrific things that russia has done to the ukrainian people since 2022. then make no mistake about it, poland. is next. >> yeah. yes. and marco. >> rubio. >> secretary of state, rubio. >> knows that. >> mike waltz knows. >> that republicans in. >> the senate. >> who are. >> looking at these controversial nominations. >> and about to just. >> swoosh them through. >> with complete eyes closed. >> to all the controversial. >> and. >> dangerous aspects to some of them, they know this. >> as well. >> and katty kay, the. >> people of. >> ukraine. >> they know they. >> have been. >> fighting not just for their. >> identity, for their. >> survival. >> for their land. >> for their. >> home. >> for their. >> families, but for. >> the safety of the world. >> yeah. and they have been doing this incredibly valiantly, with very little cost to the

united states or to anyone else. it is not american bodies that soldiers have been dying in ukraine. it is not european soldiers who have been dying in ukraine. it is young ukrainian men and women who have been dying there. in order to protect the idea of containing russia inside russia's walls and not letting it think that it can just take poland or the baltic states. and the only good thing potentially, that could come out of this is that europe will finally have to accept, because the band-aid has been ripped off. there is no more pretense that it has to be responsible for its own security, and there is a way in which europe could actually finance a defensive line in ukraine. they have the ability to do this. but there is so much disarray in europe at the moment and so many weak leaders in europe. do you think that europe could step in? clearly? i mean, you listen to donald trump. they should never have started. this is his point of view on this. will europe be able to step in? >> i think it's less. unlikely

than. >> it. >> was a week. >> ago. >> before jd vance spoke. to european. >> leaders in. munich and generated more wtf moments in more. >> languages. >> i. >> think, than. any president vice presidential address in history from his audience. >> but europe getting. >> together and becoming an integrated. pooled defense. entity is a is a work of years. >> it's a project. >> that will take 5 to 10 years. it doesn't answer the needs today of european security. in the event that america essentially pulls the plug. i think nato. is i think article five of nato is essentially dead. >> i mean. >> if i were a baltic country or. >> a. or poland. >> and was. >> spending more than 3%. >> of. >> gdp, in. >> fact more. than the us is spending on defense. >> i would say. well. >> so presumably. that means article five applies. >> to. >> us. >> that we have a. >> full security. >> guarantee from the united states.

>> i don't think. >> donald trump's. answer would be the right answer. >> i think. >> that everybody. >> in europe. >> knows he is planning to. agree a vivisection. >> of ukraine. >> in which they take. >> the americans. >> take some critical. >> minerals. >> the. >> russians keep. >> what they've. >> got. >> and it's just. a short term freeze of a conflict. >> that. >> russia will. >> down the line, complete. i think. >> that's what everybody in. >> europe knows. and therefore. >> this is. >> a. >> an existential moment. >> for europe. >> it should be stepping up and just. >> a bit skeptical. >> it's going to do that quickly. >> so frank. i your latest piece is about. >> elon musk and doge. and yet there is you've reported out of ukraine. >> and the one. >> parallel here is it's. >> taking what what's normal. >> and turning it upside down and shaking. >> it and pouring. >> it all out. >> yeah. >> what's happening here? >> i would say. >> there's more. >> than one. >> parallel, because when. >> i look at what's.

>> happening in ukraine, it feels to me very much of a piece of what's happening here, that you have a russian style system that is beginning to creep into the united states. elon musk is an oligarch who has an incredible amount of political control, unchecked, untrammeled. we have people appearing at mar a lago, lago paying enormous amounts of money. >> in. >> transactional relationships with the president, united states, to have dinner, to beg for him, to show them favors. >> you have the. >> apparatus that the united states has installed to check russian. kleptocracy from infecting. >> the western. world that. >> has been. pulled back. you have an american state that had been committed to neutrality, that it wouldn't it wouldn't benefit the. friends of the president. it wouldn't punish his enemies. >> that is being. >> torn apart as we speak in, in very, very short order. and it feels to me like talked about

article five. it feels like the united states has its own equivalent. we can't we can't feel safe that the president isn't going. to install a russian style system here. >> joe. >> yeah. you know, nbc news has reported that united states intelligence agencies have determined that vladimir putin doesn't just want a sliver of ukraine. he wants to go all the way to kyiv. but of course, donald trump has suggested in the. past that he trusts vladimir putin more than he trusts his own u.s. intelligence agencies. even the u.s. intelligence agencies run by the people he put there. our own jonathan lemire was in helsinki in 2018 and actually asked donald trump the question, do you believe your own u.s. intelligence agencies about what they're telling you about

vladimir putin? watch this. >> just now. >> president putin denied having anything to. >> do with the election. interference in 2016. >> every u.s. intelligence. >> agency. >> has. concluded that russia did what? >> who? >> my first question. >> for you, sir, is who. >> do. >> you believe? >> my second question is. >> would you now, with the whole world watching. >> tell president. >> putin. >> would you denounce what happened in 2016? and would you warn him to never do it again? >> my people came to me, dan coats came to me, and some others, they said they think it's russia. i have president putin. he just said, it's not russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would be. i have great confidence in my intelligence people. but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. >> and jonathan lemire, you were, of course, there asking that question. many people looked back at the 2018 helsinki

press conference in shame, calling it one of the low points, certainly for u.s. foreign policy in the first trump term. suddenly that is eclipsed and seems a bit quaint by 2025 standards. >> yeah. >> what trump said yesterday. >> blaming ukraine for that war, erroneously, of course, to david's. >> point. >> as others have told me, trump. >> is sort of personalize this conflict. he has sided with putin. >> he needs to. >> make zelenskyy the bad guy. >> here. >> angry that zelenskyy didn't take the us offer that was. >> pitched to him over. >> the weekend. >> about the us taking. >> about 50% of that nation's valuable. minerals as a payment. >> if. >> you will. for us protection. some ukrainian officials deem that extortion, likening it to what. >> a mob. boss would do. >> and trump, as. we saw it there in helsinki in 2018, we still see it today, reflexively defers to putin. and it was so telling. that trump himself and putin. himself were not in riyadh yesterday. though there are there's talk of the leaders

having a summit before too long. >> you know how. >> ukraine did not have a place at the table and how u.s. officials. >> were so. >> again, deferential to what the russians were saying afterwards. >> when briefing reporters, the. >> secretary of state, marco rubio, national security adviser, made no mention of the war crimes that russian soldiers have been accused of, of how vladimir putin has been charged by the international criminal court, how the russian bombardment of ukraine continue to this day. instead talking about the economic opportunities that a us russia sort of. >> ties. >> increasing ties would lead to that. if they repair relations, it could be beneficial to both nations that that. there is no attempt. >> to. >> hold them accountable. >> and certainly. >> even lifting sanctions hinted. >> at. >> by rubio and others. so it seems now here, as zelensky canceled a trip to the region, you know, ukraine, obviously angry and alarmed at what they see here as developments from washington. real concern that as negotiations do really begin in

earnest, the united states. donald trump once again siding with putin. >> over. >> anyone else. >> well, and, david ignatius, let's just put a fine point on this, if we can. this is a war that has gone on too long. this is a war that joe biden's leaders told me in 2023. his generals told me in 2023 that there needed to be a peace deal, that the ukrainians weren't going to get every russian out of their land, and russia was not going to get to kyiv. so the fact that we would be talking with russia, i think we all agree. and you've said it from the very beginning. that is a good that is a good idea. of course, europe needs to be involved. ukraine needs to be involved, they said. marco rubio said they would be involved as the process went forward.

>> so let's. >> let's just put that fine point on it that you've actually been calling for these talks in the possibility of peace since before donald trump got sworn into office. the problem is we have a secretary of defense who who's given up one issue after another issue on the table before negotiations even started. and then i had to backtrack. and now we have a commander in chief that went out last night. basically as as. >> the wall. >> street journal has reported. basically trying to whitewash a horrific human rights record and an invasion of a sovereign european nation. >> so. >> joe, it. >> is time for a. >> peace in. >> ending this. >> terrible war. >> but it's. >> crucial that it be a just peace that does not.

>> reward the. >> aggressor. >> and that. >> it be a durable. >> peace that lasts. >> if it. >> lasts a year or two, it's. >> just going to blow up. >> in donald trump's. >> face before. >> he leaves office. i think that's one factor that he's. >> he. probably understands. >> i think it's important. >> for all of. >> us to. >> realize that. >> the assessment. >> of. >> western intelligence is that putin thinks he's winning. he has. >> not dropped. >> his desire to take kyiv. >> he has not. dropped his maximalist demands. >> he thinks that he. >> can work. >> with trump. >> to keep going. >> on his project. but he. >> continues to view the. >> nation of ukraine as an illusion. >> yeah. >> this is. >> not. >> a real country. >> he's he's. >> said over and. >> over. >> again, going back. >> to 2007. >> 2008. >> and that's. >> i think. >> the most frightening part of all. >> is that he's. >> he's still on the march. >> with this big army, and.

>> there's no. >> sign that the. >> the agreement. >> that trump contemplates. >> is. >> going to reduce. >> the pressure. >> that he's. >> going to put. >> on all. >> of europe. >> when i. >> was. >> in munich last weekend, i. >> heard over and over again from. >> europeans. >> joe. >> a sense. that they. >> are menaced. it's not just ukraine, they are menaced. >> by this. russia that is so. >> confident and now seems to have. >> united states. acquiescence to. >> its move. across western europe. >> making a. >> fool of the u.s. >> president, some would say the washington post. david ignatius. >> thank you so much. >> for your insights this. >> morning again. and still ahead on morning joe, a federal. judge has denied an effort by 14 states to stop elon musk from meddling with federal agencies. we'll explain. why the case is not over yet. >> plus. >> how the white house is trying to. >> explain musk's role. >> in the administration amid. >> new questions. >> this morning. >> about who. >> exactly is leading.

>> his department. >> of government efficiency. >> also ahead. >> is doge really finding billions. >> in government savings? >> we'll have a fact check. you're watching morning joe. >> we're back in 90s. >> don't get me. >> don't want to think about. >> don't want to think about. i'm not afraid of losing ever feel like a spectator in your own life with chronic migraine? 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. in a survey, 91% of users wish they'd started sooner. so why wait? talk to your doctor. botox® effects may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away as trouble swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. those with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. side effects may include allergic reactions

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>> special government employee here. >> at the. >> white house, serving. >> at the direction. >> of the president of the united states, donald trump. >> elon musk has. >> been tasked with overseeing doge. >> on behalf of. >> the president. >> i wanted somebody really smart to work with me in terms of the country. a very important aspect, because, i mean, he doesn't talk about he's actually a very good businessman. and when he talks about the executive orders, and this is probably true for all presidents, you write an executive order and you think it's done. you send it out, it doesn't get done. it doesn't get implemented. what he does is he takes it. and with his 100 geniuses, he's got some very brilliant young people working for him that dress much worse than him, actually. they dress in just t shirts. you wouldn't you wouldn't know they have 180 iq. >> so he's he's your tech support. >> no, no, he is actually. but he's. much more than that. >> i actually. >> am tech support though.

>> but he gets it done. he's a leader. >> in the. >> white house trying. >> to clarify the growing. >> questions as to who. >> exactly is leading. >> the department of. government efficiency. >> and elon. >> musk's role. >> at. >> the agency. specifically. >> it comes as a federal judge has. denied an. >> effort. >> by more than a dozen states to block elon. >> musk and his doge. >> team from accessing. federal data systems. in her decision, judge. >> tanya chutkan. >> acknowledged doj's, quote, unpredictable. actions causing considerable. >> uncertainty and confusion. but she concluded. >> the possibility. >> that doge could harm the states is not. >> enough to halt its activities. >> yesterday's ruling does. not end the case. >> the judge then. >> ordered both sides to, quote, meet. >> and confer about. >> how to proceed. >> meanwhile, the trump administration says it has accidentally fired several department of agriculture employees. >> who were.

>> working on the current bird flu epidemic. >> the usda. >> said yesterday they were, quote, swiftly. rescinding the termination. >> letters that had. >> been sent out over. >> the. >> weekend in the. >> past month. >> according to. >> the usda. >> 23 million. birds have been. infected with the avian. >> flu. >> leading to skyrocketing prices. in eggs. the average price of eggs last. >> month in u.s. >> cities climbed to $4.95. >> more than double. >> the low. >> of $2.04. recorded in 2023. >> i'll tell you. >> in new york. >> city there, you can't. >> find them. >> and if you do, there. >> are 23. 99 a. >> lot. higher than that. joining us, co-founder. >> of axios, mike allen. >> but first. >> editor and frank, you. >> both have new pieces on doge and elon musk. >> what's your. >> take on this? >> especially with i mean, the nuclear and now the. >> bird flu. >> they're pulling. >> back these. >> firings proving the point that they're. >> just hastily.

>> wiping the table. >> clean of people who perform functions that are pretty important to our country. >> being safe. >> they are putting. >> back some of. >> the firings, you know, nuclear safety experts, it turns out. >> are relatively. >> important. >> as are. epidemiologists and. >> so on. >> but let's not lose sight of the fact that. >> you know, elon. musk is closing agencies. >> that. >> regulate him. >> you look at the. >> consumer financial. >> protection bureau. set up after the oh eight crisis. to protect consumers from the kind of giant rip offs that helped lead to that meltdown. that's been that's been shuttered. this is the agency that evaluates fintech platforms. and musk wants. x to become the. wechat of america. wechat being china's. >> sort of. >> all purpose. >> payment system. >> that serves as everything else your booking system, your dating. >> system, your not just your financial system. this is more

than a conflict of interest. the english language doesn't. that's that's just not that's just. >> not the scale of what. >> we're seeing here. >> so he is preceding and. >> succeeding in getting rid. >> of getting rid of regulatory capacity. that that. >> he says. >> or believes holds holds. >> back his business growth. >> and frank, your piece is called the hidden costs of musk's washington misadventure. tell us about it. >> well. >> let's just take elon musk at his word, which we shouldn't actually, because i do believe that he's trying to erect a system that is fundamentally corrupt. but let's just say that he was genuinely trying to make the government more efficient. we could all probably agree that the government should become more efficient. this is the craziest way to do it, because he's going in without any context, without any concern for who are the high performing employees and who are the low performing. he's just it's a series of very random hammer blows in this desire to break. i

mean, his view is that you need to break in order to essentially fix in. >> the end, theoretically. >> but the problem. >> is, is. >> that in the course of breaking, you're creating all sorts of. costs. because. >> all. >> of the people who are going to be fired are going to sue the government. meritoriously. the government will have to defend itself against those lawsuits. so that's a set of costs. and in terms of destroying capacity, there's capacity that even if you are the most libertarian and randian guy in the world, in the end you're. >> going to. >> come to the conclusion that the government needs. >> to have that capacity. >> and so you're going to have to go out and replace these employees. with contractors who are going to be much more expensive, because you're going to need to pull them in at, you know, in these hastily drawn sorts of ways. and as we've kind of established earlier in the show, there is this, you know, corruption that's happening. >> you're not going to get. >> the best contracting talent. you're going to get the people who are the best connected to come in, and it's going to cost us an insane amount of money in the end, joe. >> well, and let's talk about

the politics of this for a second. this is the first act. this is the first scene of the first act of this presidency. and what you are going to see by just going in and, and, and randomly going across one agency after another is you're going to actually see people in red state america, people who voted for donald trump, people who need medicaid services desperately because that's the nursing homes that their parents are in in oklahoma, in wisconsin, in pennsylvania, in georgia, in north carolina. they're they're suddenly going to see these services taken away. their farmers are going to have to deal with the chaos you're going to have. oh, i don't know, institutions like my alma mater,

the university of alabama, that is going to get savaged by these cuts. you're going to have people, republicans who have children. i heard a story last night. republicans who have children whose lives were saved by vital nih research. having those research grants taken away. this is going to be the political equivalent of death by a thousand cuts. if they don't do this in a more responsible way. and mike allen, this is the next scene. if we want to see what the next political scene is here. and i'm not saying this is what i want to happen, i'm just saying this is what's going to happen. mike, you and i have been in washington long enough to know this. it's one thing to go against donald trump's tax cuts for the rich in 2017, as

democrats call them. and by the way, in so doing, they won the house and the senate in 2018, made big gains in 2018. it's one thing if you do that and say they're going to cut this, cut taxes for billionaires like elon musk and donald trump, and then they're going to be all these cuts down the line. what the trump administration is providing democrats right now are those cuts. they're giving them the punch line to, oh, they're going to cut billionaires tax cuts. but guess what they're going to do. they're going to take away medical research that saved your daughter or saved somebody in your family. they're going to take away and fire people in the faa. so those plane crashes that you're seeing, you're going to see more of them. and in fact, the united states record of no plane crashes since 2009, we're

going to look back on that as the good old days. they're going to see cuts in food safety, in water safety, in air safety. they're going to see cuts. as mika said, when we're talking about fighting the bird flu or other possible pandemics right now, they're doing their it's just like they're giving this to democrats saying, here, take this punch line. this is what we're cutting, cutting. the tax cuts for billionaires for. and then they can go down this list that we're seeing on the front page of the newspapers every day. mike, it is political. it is political negligence and malfeasance. plus, it's hurting people every day. >> joe, as we sit here on day 30. and by the way, mika, that means 1400 more to go in this term, right? we have barely. >> heard a.

>> peep from. >> republicans on the hill about what's happening down the street. but this is starting to build. so axios is just up with a piece from our hill squad. the growing gop doge revolt. and you have powerful republicans, including senator susan collins of maine, saying, whoa, a couple of things here. one, why is this being done so hastily. >> that. >> as ed referred, they're having to go back and undo some of them. why are they trampling on our prerogatives? and this is where the fight is really going to come, right? is over these agencies that are trying to shut down or sidelines, that congress sees as its prerogative. congressman don bacon, republican of nebraska, saying measure once. yeah. measure once, cut twice. >> so some would. >> say that's. >> the point, that the speed of it the crazy has gone through donald trump's executive orders

and policies and named the top six actions by the administration that your team says could have a. lasting effect on. >> the united states government as we know it. >> talk to us. >> about those. >> yeah. thank you, mika. and by the way, measure twice and cut once. >> exactly. >> mika. >> this is. >> this is. >> a domestic equivalent of what you were talking about in the first segment about the new world order. so here on day 30, jim vandehei and i, for a behind the curtain column, went through day by day, executive order by executive order and looked at trump's boundary busting provocations. and what we're thinking about is like, how can we sift out the noise in the first term? everything seemed unprecedented. if everything is unprecedented, nothing is. so what really changed? what really matters? and as you look through a couple of them, one, we were just talking about taking prerogatives of congress, things that are clearly delegated to

congress. secondly, empowering musk and everything that he has done. how would how would republicans like it if a democrat was being given that. >> kind of sway? >> rewriting a constitutional amendment on birthright citizenship, firing igs and watchdogs, the doj bullying, profiting off the presidency, all of these. these are all things that are going to last. and these are things that. >> as. >> joe was talking about, congress is going to start fighting back against congress and the courts. but i can tell you, i have lots of conversations inside mar-a-lago, inside the white house. they're ready for the fight. president trump is personally ready for the fight. he thinks that the people are on his side. they said to me, not many americans out there in most of america. morning, usaid. and he's just fully willing to test what he can get out of the courts. >> yeah.

>> go ahead. katie. >> that is true. maybe many americans are not mourning usaid, although farmers who had contracts with usaid may start complaining about it. and i guess the question is, at what point does the haphazard way that these cuts are being made start to impact individuals to a degree that members of congress then hear complaints? i mean, how i'm surprised it hasn't happened already, but will there be a moment where your senator from south dakota has his phone ringing off the hook because their constituents daughter, who's in a cancer trial, is no longer in that cancer trial because that's been shut or because they couldn't go to the national park that weekend because all of the parks are shut and, or have have has those done this in a way that actually the impact on regular citizens will be minimal? and i think that's the question, is the impact going to be big? and therefore we get complaints from constituents, including republicans, or is the impact going to be containable and therefore they get away with it? >> i want to. >> zoom in even more on that

point. >> what happens when. >> you hit the trump base? what happens if you hit republicans? if you hit farmers? now, what the white house says about this is not only do they think that they have the people on their side, and you have elon musk in the president's ear saying, radical reform, radical reform, the people voted for radical reform. and what the white house told us, jim vandehei and me, for this story on trump's boundary boundary busting is that people voted for us. we are now doing it, letting bureaucrats, as they say, civil servants, do. it is the opposite of democracy. and they're just committed. they're convinced that net these are popular and they're willing to take the fall out you're talking about. >> well. >> i mean, a lot of people are losing their jobs. >> at some point that that. >> that. >> you know, filters through. >> but to. everybody's point here. >> usaid, although. >> it has. >> tremendous value in. >> our foreign. >> policy. >> even our national security.

>> our place in. >> the world. >> i don't think. it's something that. people hard working. >> americans, paycheck. >> to paycheck. >> see the value in their lives. and i guess the big question is, when do. >> people really. >> feel what is happening. here as president trump works. >> to sort. >> of reshape? that's, i think, a kind way of putting it, the federal government. >> so as spacex moves in. >> to. >> try and take. >> control of the federal aviation administration. >> for. >> example. >> and joe mentioned that. >> at the. >> beginning, and we do see. >> more near misses. >> and threats of air collisions. >> that's a very tangible. >> effect of chaos. >> a safety regulator. we have. >> it sort of parallel to this. >> but a measles. >> outbreak in. >> texas. >> we're getting. >> rid of epidemiological. staff at the cdc. see, now, you know, measles is not a joke if you're not vaccinated. >> against it. a lot of. diseases are not a joke. if you're not vaccinated, vaccinated against it. >> so i think. >> there are. >> there are. >> all. kinds of things that the

public isn't. >> aware of, that they will. >> come to. >> value as. >> they lose it. >> it's like good health. >> you only value it when you when you've lost it. i mean, i do i do think, though, that this, this idea. >> that because because the american. >> public doesn't. >> value usaid. >> it is not of. >> value to america. >> is this sort of fallacy in this situation? >> it is. >> of enormous value to the united states. and it's. >> really pennies. >> on the dollar. >> now it's a minute amount loose. >> mike allen franc, for thank. >> you. >> all very much. we're going to bring all your new. pieces that for your respective publications that are online right now. >> thank you guys. >> and coming. >> up, we'll have the latest on the calls to remove new york city mayor eric adams. >> from office. >> as governor. >> kathy hochul. >> weighs her options. reverend al sharpton. >> spoke with hochul yesterday. >> about the issue. >> he'll join. >> us straight. >> ahead on morning joe.

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>> of. >> the hour. >> doge recently posted a. >> list of the. >> government contracts it has canceled. >> on its website, itemizing. >> what it says. is $16 billion in savings in what it calls. >> a wall. >> of receipts.

>> yet an investigation by the new york times found. >> almost half of those line item savings could be attributed. >> to a single $8. >> billion contract. >> for the immigration and customs enforcement agency. >> furthermore, according to. >> the paper, it appears. >> that the doge list vastly. overstated the. >> actual intended. >> value of that contract. >> a closer scrutiny. >> of a federal. >> database shows that a recent version. >> of the contract. >> was for 8 million. >> and not. >> 8 billion. >> in addition. >> yeah, it's kind. >> of. >> a this. >> is. >> a typo. evil stuff. yeah. >> i think. >> it's. >> a typo. >> million dollars. >> yeah. >> $1 billion. >> in addition. >> the. >> times notes. >> that since. 2.5 million. had already been spent on the contract, it's likely that canceling it saved 5.5. >> million at most. >> a spokeswoman. >> so instead of $8 billion instead of 8 billion, it's say 5.5 million. okay. got it.

>> right. and a spokeswoman for. doge did not respond to the paper's request to explain their accounting. >> joining us now. >> former biden. >> white house infrastructure coordinator and former democratic mayor of new orleans. >> mitch landrieu. he is co-chair. >> of american. >> bridge. >> a democratic political organization. also with us, the president of the national. action network and. >> host of. >> msnbc's politics. >> nation, reverend al sharpton. >> also with us. >> msnbc contributor. >> mike barnicle. >> is here, joe. >> he showed up. >> all right. this is exciting, man. we got we got everybody we need. let's start with mitch. hey, mitch. >> so you understand. >> i mean, you understand, as ross perot would say, where the rubber hits the road, where we can talk sort of generally, theoretically about government cuts. we can talk generally, theoretically about waste, fraud and abuse. and we all want to

get rid of waste, fraud and abuse. we've spent our lives. i know you have, too, trying to find it and get rid of it. but then you talk about these random cuts where, you know, as somebody said, you measure once, you cut two, three, four times and suddenly people are really working. americans are really feeling the impact of these cuts. >> well, this is where you. >> can find. >> out whether somebody is just talking the talk or walking the walk. when i became mayor of new orleans, three weeks after the bp oil spill hit, we had been through katrina, rita, ike, gustav, the national recession and the bp oil spill. my government was $100 million in the hole out of a $460 million budget. i had to cut 20% out of a budget in six months. i don't know anybody else in the country that's ever done that. but what i found is you better not cut stupid. you got to cut smart and you got to cut thoughtful. the american public can understand this, joe. you look like a pretty fit guy. you know, if i told you that you needed to lose 30% of your body weight, and i

did it by cutting off your leg, you would bleed to death, essentially. so the last thing you want to do is put an unaccountable billionaire bureaucrat in charge there, where there's no transparency and have them just cut in a chaotic way that's going to affect the lives, the real lives of people. so if you cut and firefighters in an area where there are fires, or if you're cutting food inspectors or you're cutting avian inspectors where there's a bird flu, are you actually starting to cut things that really, really matter in people's lives? people go, what the hell are you doing? i mean, damn. >> it. >> that doesn't make any sense. and that's what's happening right now. and i think the american people are getting wind of the fact that they're not even telling the truth about what they're trying to do, much less doing it well. >> well, you know, mike, you got to cut smart. and even when you cut smart, it's hard. it's really hard. you know, we had the 30th anniversary of the 94 congress. we balance the budget four times in a row. and, you know, newt gingrich's takeaway, it's really hard to do. like people say up night and day and night and day and did it for

three years to try to figure out yet, you know, over 200 people working together, going through the details of it on subcommittees levels, at committee levels, like in conferences. it was a night and day and night and day deal. it wasn't sending one person in to try to figure out how to do it, because that's just not going to work. even when you do it right, you're going to make some mistakes, but you'll get things done. there's not even an attempt here to do this in a meaningful way, to do it as as mitch said, you have to do it in a way where you cut smart instead of cut and dumb. >> well. >> you. >> know. >> joe. >> i. >> think what's going on. >> and we were talking about this. >> off camera. >> is there's a lot of people who are viewing this peripherally. >> every day. >> people are busy. they have. >> their own jobs, their own. >> lives, getting the. >> kids ready for school. >> but one of the things that's going. >> on is they're. >> confusing motion with achievement. >> so this flooding. >> the zone. >> people think, well, boy, he's really. working hard at it.

>> trump is. really working. >> hard. >> at it. >> but mitch, what happens when inevitably the medicare stuff doesn't show up for people? the social security checks. are short, the cost. >> of living index, and that. >> is bound to. >> happen, it seems. >> well, i think there's no question about it. listen, waste, fraud and abuse is something that everybody ought to work on every day. government is like your closet. you don't clean it out, it gets too much stuff in it and it gets really hard to use. but that's why you have inspectors generals. you remember one of the first things trump did, which i just find really curious, you're trying to downsize government. so you create a new department, then you're trying to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse, and you get rid of the guys whose job it was to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse. then you start cutting with 23 year olds who have never been there, and you find out they're starting to hurt the people that you helped. people might step back a second and say, look who's driving the car. i mean, who's really running the show? and does it really matter? waste, fraud and abuse. government ought to be fast. it ought to be efficient. it ought to be effective. it's not as much as it should. we ought to keep our pedal to the metal. but barack obama did that. bill clinton did it. a lot

of people have done it. but you better be smart about it and don't cut stupid. so. >> mr. mayor, how do. >> you how do. >> democrats then. >> communicate this? how do they? >> we know there's been. >> a lot of self-evaluation. >> in the party since election day. there's been a lot of concern the last few weeks about. focusing on a message. who should be the right spokesperson. >> for that message. >> if it's this, if indeed. >> part of this is musk and doge. >> and hey, he's cutting things that impact your life and your neighbor's lives. what's the best way? how should. >> democrats try to. >> break through the fire hose of. information and communicate it? >> well, first of all, it's hard to do. the president has got the microphone, he's got the supreme court. he's got both the congress. but you got to go out there and fight. i think you have to go ask people, you know, what the hell, what's going on? what happened? why did you decide to jump ship and go to the other side with somebody who obviously doesn't care very much about you? essentially what people are saying is, look, i just feel like things are hard right now. i just feel like people are not concentrating on the things that are that are affecting me and my dinner table. i got to pay the rent, got to pay the mortgage, the interest rates. i got to get the groceries down. but, you know,

you've noticed donald trump has spent more time redoing the kennedy center board than he has on bringing down cost, like he hasn't signed one executive order. he's waving that pen around like it's a magic wand. and if he's so powerful, i mean, why didn't he bring down the price of eggs? why don't mortgage rates go down? why gas prices going up? why is the stock market going down? every indicator for working men and women in this country has gotten worse since donald trump has been the president, but he's off giving away russia. giving away ukraine to russia is what he's spending his time on to taking over panama, taking over, you know, other countries, you know, kind of ticking off canada. and mexico is supposed to be our allies telling our friends in europe who we've stood shoulder to shoulder with when they stormed the beaches of normandy, to put that fascism, that they can take a hike. and he's not concentrating on the american people. and that's where i think that we have to focus our attention. >> so we have another. >> issue that democrats are grappling with. certainly here in new york city. >> is the fate of mayor. >> eric adams. you yesterday, you and others met with governor. hochul here in new york to discuss his future. >> just to. >> remind viewers, of course, you know, the trump justice department brokered a deal where

they make his, you know, his criminal charges would go away, but with conditions. and there's real concern among democrats that he is now the mayor. beholden to the trump administration and the trump agenda. give us the latest here. there's been talk the governor may even try to force his ouster. what's next. >> in my meeting with her, she concluded that she wanted to hear what everyone had to say. and i met with her one on one. then other groups met with her, and the conclusion that i had gained to with her is that we should first wait and see what the judge says today. there's a hearing today for the judge to either accept or not accept the justice department saying they wanted to remove the charges. the argument that's going to be made is that the three things that were listed in there, saying why the charges should not remain, this is the justice department writing the southern district, which led with seven assistant u.s. attorneys resigning. he's saying one, that

the time was too close to the primary. most people say that's absurd. it was nine months ahead. so everybody for congress is running nine months ahead of the next set. second, he's saying that he needs to be free to help the president with immigration and violent crime. but that's not a legal premise. that's policy at best, or political. and third, he was saying, he said in the in the memo that we have to deal with the fact that this mayor cannot be disturbed from doing his duties. and in fact, we feel this was a political vendetta. but a judge could say, well, give me the evidence that it was a political vendetta. show me where biden or damian williams politically decided to do this, particularly since the investigation started before he was even mayor and before biden was president. and i think it could go either way. once the judge decides, then the governor will have to decide on his

decision. if he if he goes with the justice department, there's no crime for her to call him back on. but then she can deal with public trust. how do you weigh that? and the 235 year history of new york? we've never had a governor remove a mayor. so this is serious. >> yeah. i was going to ask you, you know, if the election were 2 or 3 years off from now, obviously there would be a different choice to be made. but what do you say to those who say, we got an election coming up in three and a half, four months? we got a primary coming up in three and a half, four months. let the voters decide if that's the conclusion they come to, they can vote him out. >> that's probably a lot of the sentiment that is being heard. certainly i'm hearing that that if the judge does rule, take him out, then they're going to probably end up with the public saying, by the time you say she removes him, joe, and then they appeal it, by the time you go through all the appeals in the courts, you'll be at the primary anyway. so the question is, why would the governor even entangle

in that kind of political storm if the clock is ticking? because i'm sure if the if judge holt comes today or tomorrow when he makes his decision, whenever it is and pulls with the justice department and adams has charges or goes the other way, it's going to be appealed. if he goes against adams and they'll tie it up in court and you'll be looking at a primary in june anyway. >> yeah, certainly. legal considerations, also political ones, including the fate of former new york governor andrew cuomo. that hearing again today but unclear when the judge will make the ruling. reverend al sharpton, thank you so much for joining us this morning. american british co-chair and former white house infrastructure coordinator for the biden administration, mitch landrieu. thank you as well. good to see you, mr. mayor. mika, back to you. >> all right. >> president trump is blaming. ukraine for russia's invasion nearly three. >> years ago. >> he made the comments yesterday after. reporters pressed. >> him on. >> ukrainian officials not being involved in the diplomatic. >> talks between. >> the. u.s. and russia. in saudi arabia.

>> i hear that, you know, there's upset about not having a seat. well, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that this could have been settled very easily. just a half a half baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without, i think, without the loss of much land, very little land without the loss of any lives and without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides. you have those magnificent golden domes that are shattered will never be replaced. you can't replace them. thousand year old domes that are so beautiful, you can't replace that. the whole civilization has changed because of what's. so when they're worried about not being seated. you mean somebody that should have gone in and made a deal a long time ago? and i think i have the power to end this war, and i think it's going very well. but today i heard, oh, well, we weren't invited. well, you've been there for three years. you should have ended it

three years. you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. i could have made a deal for ukraine. that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land. and no people would have been killed and no city would have been demolished, and not one dome would have been knocked down. but they chose not to do it that way. >> all right. >> president volodymyr zelenskyy responded to. those comments, saying trump is trapped. >> in a disinformation bubble. >> and adding that his country was not for sale. >> so joe zelenskyy. >> pushing back against a lot of things that president trump said. >> that do. >> require some. >> fact checking. >> yeah, you do. >> require fact checking. >> actually, he says that zelensky's approval ratings are at 4%. actually, the latest poll i just saw had him at 57% right now. and of course, talking about how the ukrainians started this war. the wall street journal editorial page takes

great exception to that. and the fact that somehow vladimir putin is being embraced by donald trump right now is something that they believe is a terrible mistake. let me read from the editorial this morning. mr. trump said last week after a phone call with mr. putin, that he's convinced the russian dictator wants peace. that's not what the us intel agencies say, by the way. but he didn't say what kind of peace mr. putin has in mind, though if history is a guide, it won't be what most americans understand by the word the kremlin overlord in 2022 started the biggest land war in europe since hitler. and his, quote, special military operation has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands of russians and ukrainians. his missiles have targeted apartment houses and train stations. his forces have tried to freeze ukrainian civilians into surrendering by crippling electric power plants. his

troops have kidnaped hundreds of ukrainian born children from their parents to new homes in russia, writes the wall street journal editorial page. they have tortured and executed ukrainian troops in violation of every rule of international warfare. go on talking about the hit squads that he has deployed across europe, as well as the fact that he killed zelensky. let's bring in right now senior political columnist, not zelensky. i'm sorry. navalny. let's bring in senior political columnist for politico. jonathan martin, writer at large for the new york times. elisabeth bumiller, chief white house correspondent for the new york times peter baker, staff writer for the atlantic anne applebaum and nbc news national security analyst clint watts. and this is one of those situations. shocking. but given everything that donald trump has said since

2015 about vladimir putin, unfortunately not surprising, right? >> i think it's really important. >> to begin. with putin's goals in this war, that he. >> has stated repeatedly that. >> others around him have also repeated, that have been repeated on russian television in the last few days. putin's goal is the destruction of ukraine as a nation. he wants to replace the leader of ukraine, volodymyr zelensky, the elected democratic leader. >> with. >> the pro-russian puppet. he does not want to see ukrainian democracy survive. he wants ukraine to be folded into the russian empire. as of today, he has not given up any of those goals that he now hopes to pursue them through negotiation, through convincing trump that ukraine started the war. ukraine is to blame through appealing to trump's desire to end the war quickly and have a kind of propaganda victory. it's really important that people around the

president make sure that he understands what the result of a russian victory would be. when the russians, you just heard it from the wall street journal editorial page, when the russians occupy ukrainian territory in cities, they murder people, they rape women. they they conduct mass torture, they destroy buildings, they kidnap children. ukrainians don't want this to happen to them, you know, defeat or destruction of ukraine would lead to mass chaos. it would lead to millions of refugees. it would lead to permanent chaos in europe, as well as a triumph for the broader autocratic world, who are watching this negotiation very closely. i really hope. >> that. >> is taken away from this path and doesn't make this mistake. >> well, let. >> us let us hope for the good of the free world. we just read from the wall street journal, owned by rupert murdoch. let's read an editorial this morning from the new york post, also

owned by rupert murdoch. ukraine is the victim of this war, not to mention our ally, writes the new york post editorial board. and the president's off the cuff remarks about zelensky late tuesday were wildly their emphasis, not mine, off base quote. you've been there for three years. you should have ended it. you should have never started it, the new york post writes. he didn't start it. their emphasis, and he's had no chance. their emphasis to end it except by surrendering to the blood soaked invader. whatever negotiating tactics trump cares to use, he's turning the truth completely upside down. and that ought to be beneath him. peter baker, we've we've always seen that donald trump has a close affinity, it seems, to vladimir

putin. we remember back helsinki. we remember what he said in this show in 2015, where he refused to condemn vladimir putin and said the united states kills people as well. this false equivalency between barack obama and vladimir putin, in fact, there was no equivalency. he attacked obama and said at least putin was a strong leader who, yes, killed journalists and killed killed politicians. but here you have the new york post, the wall street journal editorial page. i know you've got republicans on the hill, on the house and the senate side who obviously are going to vehemently disagree with what donald trump has said. what can you tell us about what what what went into this, the thinking here and also what his negotiators, what marco rubio, who has been an ardent cold warrior throughout his career, what they must be thinking right now. >> yeah, i mean, look, this goes. >> back a.

>> long way for trump. he has bought. >> into the russian. >> line for a long time that it was ukraine, not russia. >> that interfered in the 2016 election. and they interfered, as he has been told, against. >> him. >> which. >> of course is not true. >> he was. >> that was. >> at the. >> heart of his first impeachment. >> where he. blamed ukraine for his. >> political troubles. >> ukraine, to him is an is an. >> adversary. >> not a friend. now, he said this before, but i don't think you ever. >> had quite as stark. >> an understanding of that as we did yesterday, where he talked. movingly about. >> the death and destruction and devastation in. >> ukraine, but didn't seem. >> to blame vladimir putin for any of it. he acted as if it was. >> all ukraine's fault that their own country had been invaded. he was acting as if ukraine's fault, that their own people were being killed. >> and slaughtered. >> and it was a really a striking, if not stunning, you know, exposition on his. >> part, not one word. >> of reproach for vladimir putin. >> not. >> one word of reproach. for russia, which started the war. >> everything about zelenskyy. >> and he talked. >> as you rightly said,

inaccurately, about all sorts of things, said the united states had spent three times as much as. europe on ukraine. >> that's not true. >> said that zelensky was. >> at 4%. >> as you rightly said. >> that's not true. >> also said that that bought into the russian. line that zelensky. should have. >> to have. >> elections before going into any negotiation. didn't say a thing. >> about elections in russia. >> by the way, where they've been tarnished and warped and manipulated for decades now under vladimir putin. only in ukraine should there have to be elections, not in russia. so it's a. very one sided. >> of course. >> look at this. and the. >> and the. >> side that american presidents have never actually taken before. the one pro-russia. >> jonathan martin, you're writing for politico after munich. >> how will europe handle trump? >> and i'd say. >> after munich and after these comments on ukraine, how will. europe handle trump? >> well, i. >> think there was shock. >> in munich about the vice president's speech there. and i think this is now well beyond shock. i think this is now turning. >> to a recognition. >> as peter mentioned. >> that that the us. >> is not on europe's side when it comes to this war.

>> in fact, just. >> the opposite. >> we're siding with russians. that's not hyperbole. i don't take my. >> word for it. look at the president's comments yesterday. >> so i think for europe, they have. >> to come to terms with how do we now approach not just this issue. >> but security. >> broadly with our 75 year partner across the. >> atlantic and what steps we have to take to defend. >> ourselves as well as ukraine. >> going forward. so i. >> think it's sobering for europe, i. >> think they're. >> not quite. >> ready to grapple with that. i think there are some folks. >> in europe. >> who. want to. >> put their own troops. >> in ukraine. others want to. just keep trying to restore relations with the us. i think yesterday is. >> going to. >> be a. >> real pivot point for. >> europe, though, because it's. >> going. >> to be hard for them to say. >> that this is. >> anything but what it is, which is a us president. >> siding with russia. >> let me bring it to what's happening here, and i'll do that by. >> reading from anne applebaum's piece. elisabeth bumiller. the title is. >> there's a term. >> for what trump and musk are doing. and the bottom line is, despite its name, the department

of. >> government. efficiency is not so far. primarily interested in efficiency. in other words, what they're looking for here is regime change. although they demand. >> transparency. >> musk conceals his own conflict of interest. although they do. >> say they want. >> efficiency. musk has. >> made no attempt to professionally. >> audit or even. >> understand many of the programs being cut. >> although they. >> say they want to cut costs, the programs. >> they. >> are attacking. >> represent a tiny fraction of the. >> us budget. >> the only thing these policies will do. >> are clear. >> and. >> are. >> clearly designed to do, is alter the behavior and values. >> of the civil. >> service suddenly. >> and not accidentally. >> people who work for the american federal. >> government are. >> are having the same experience. >> as people who find. themselves living. >> under foreign occupation. your thoughts? >> elizabeth? >> i think. >> this pulls into. >> this explains. >> two things. first of all, one of. >> the enduring. >> mysteries of the last 10 or

15. >> years is. >> is putin's hold. >> on donald trump. >> it was curious in the first term. >> remember when. >> in 2018, in helsinki. when trump said that he. >> believed putin over his own intelligence agencies. about interference. >> in the 2016 election? >> and i think one. >> thing we. >> can see now. >> is how much he. >> admires these autocrats, how much. >> he wishes that he. could have the. >> kind of. >> power. >> they do unchecked. >> power, not in a democracy. >> and that is. >> what we. >> are beginning to see here. >> we have. >> as ann writes. >> we have elon. musk completely. without any kind of restraints going into agencies in the middle of the night. >> trying to get. access to our social security information, to our. >> tax returns. it is frightening. and it does. does feel. >> like this is. >> a slippery slope. >> into an autocracy. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> i wrote this morning so far. anyway, president trump. facing little to no opposition from his fellow republicans, republican senators. >> yes. >> many of them privately disagree with how trump is handling the situation with

russia and ukraine, but very few have said anything in the open. it was just a year ago. >> a year ago. >> this week, that more than 20 republican senators defied. trump voted for a major funding bill that would continue to support ukraine, were not, at least so far, seeing fellow republicans do that right now, the party of reagan and george h.w. bush, cold warriors so far mostly silent on this issue. and if that were to continue, and to joe's point, marco rubio, himself a former russia hawk, leading the talks yesterday in riyadh and afterwards talking about lifting sanctions, no condemnation of the war crimes that russia has committed in ukraine. what would these negotiations talk to us about what these negotiations would look like if ukraine remains on the sideline, what's your reward? putin is getting here. sanctions are lifted. he has time to rebuild his war machine. he gains territory and is returned to a central seat on the global stage. >> that's right. >> just in. >> terms of the military. >> situation right now. >> it is a.

>> stalemate out in the front. it's really. >> the. >> industrial base. >> of the us. >> and the. >> eu supporting. >> zelensky, while russia and china also. >> an ally in this weird thing. >> you know, you've. >> seen this pivot. from the trump administration. ignore russia. let's go at china. their allies together. supporting on that side. and so when you look at the. state of the war, it's. >> really missiles and drones and. >> cyber. attacks against ukraine. >> meanwhile the ukrainians are trying to. >> hold the. line and fight back. >> so a settlement, some sort of peace settlement? yes, probably. >> in order. >> but doing it in. >> this way. >> does one thing. rest and, you. >> know, consolidate. >> and reorganize for the russian military. >> behind the lines. >> they've done this. >> over. and over again. >> they'll start. to prepare their. >> fronts again, and they will likely. try and advance to take all of. >> ukraine sometime. >> in the future. separately, you'll. see all. >> of their intelligence. >> officers, cyber attacks, all of these things with this group. >> called the. >> ssd, start to. >> reposition to do. >> broad based destabilization in other countries. look to the baltics. look at what they tried to do in.

>> the. >> moldovan election last fall and into the winter. so when you watch what's going to go on, it is going to be reorganized. prepare, look for. >> the next advance. >> and i think really in terms of any settlement, if you don't have the ukrainians there and they're not part of it, why would they abide by it? no one's really brought this up. the u.s. is going to turn to zelensky, say, you got to take this settlement, and then what are you ukrainian troops going to do? some might, but what others do, they might just keep firing weapons across the border. you might see drones still going into russia. so you have to have both parties at the table, because if it isn't enforceable, if it's not a real peace agreement, the war will continue on in a low intensity conflict almost indefinitely. >> so, clint. >> you were in. >> munich last week at. >> the conference. thus you had. >> a lot. >> of familiarity with the europeans who were there. i had someone. >> from the. former biden administration's intelligence units tell me a couple of days ago that what. >> in. >> effect they're doing is gift wrapping ukraine. >> for putin. how germany has an election next week. that's

right. poland is always right there. >> what is the. >> mood over there in terms of the russian perhaps onslaught right through ukraine? >> yeah. so it's interesting. >> everything's gone. >> from multilateral. >> which is what munich is all about to the us saying bilateral when it's bilateral everywhere you have broad based destabilization. >> you will see this. >> both militarily, the alliances that we hold, which really keep all of these authoritarians in place. the most. important one to. >> me. >> personally is the intelligence sharing. >> that's what. >> keeps all of us safe, and that often gets overlooked. think back to the taylor swift concert last summer, where there was an isis threat. that was many countries working together. you go bilateral, you don't have that anymore. and the next part then is economics. we are in a position right now. >> in. >> the world. >> where it's. >> all digital. >> infrastructure. >> cyber connections. >> and i move the us out of that into bilateral. what do people say? well, i had trust. i had security with the united states, with china. now it's low cost.

if i can't trust the americans, i'm not going to pay double. i'm going to move towards china. and they're much cheaper technology. it is handing the world over in many ways to these authoritarian countries. russia on the military battlefield. china and economics and cyberspace. >> nbc news national security analyst clint watts, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. you know, earlier in the show, we talked about the heavy cost of u.s. leaders underestimating russian leaders, soviet leaders. we talked about how conservatives long castigated fdr for his failed charm offensive at yalta. i talked about jfk and the bay of pigs. we talked about carter negotiating salt two as the soviets decided to go into afghanistan, a move, by the way, which would lead to their eventual collapse. but anne

applebaum, more recently, we've had one president after another underestimate vladimir putin. you had george w bush talking about looking into putin's eyes and seeing his soul. you had barack obama and the infamous reset with russia whispering to medvedev, hey, after the election, we can get a lot more done after the election. instead, they invaded ukraine. they invaded. they they invaded crimea. they didn't even talk about the 2008 invasion of georgia. on and on it goes. history just shows us time and again the consequences of capitulating to russians is more war, not peace. what are the consequences here? if donald trump follows through on the capitulation to vladimir putin, who's next after kyiv? is it poland? is it the baltic states? what happens next? >> so i think. >> it's important for americans

to understand that putin believes he's engaged in a global war, a war of ideas, a real war. he he he pursues this war through his fighting in ukraine, but also through sabotage, through propaganda. what he's trying to do is to roll back american influence all over europe and all over the world that he thinks that america gained after 1989, after the collapse of communism. he's trying to reverse those gains. he wants american power to be reduced. he wants american alliances to break up. he wants europe to be divided and squabbling so that so that russia, you know, to make to make europe safe for corruption so that russians can make decisions over, over everybody's heads. and he wants that to be the same elsewhere, too. he's doing this in conjunction with the chinese, who have a similar vision, who also want america out of asia, out of the pacific by conceding to putin, by allowing the collapse of ukraine or the surrender of ukraine, we

make that world more possible. we make it possible for the rollback of democracy and for the advance of dictatorships. i don't know whether or not trump understands this. i do know that people around him do. i know that republican congressmen who i met in munich, i was also at the security conference, understand it very well. many of them were trying to explain trump's actions. of course, this was before the press conference of last night. they were trying to explain them, contextualize them, you know, make clear that there was there was still a plan to maintain american power in the world. i hope that those republicans will start to speak up and make their views clear over the next days and weeks, because this is a really, really important moment for the united states. >> it certainly is. >> staff writer. >> for the atlantic. >> and, appelbaum, thank. >> you. >> so much for coming on the show this morning. we'll be reading. >> the new piece, which. >> is. >> on line right now. >> and still ahead on morning.

>> joe, what investigators. >> are now saying about the airplane. >> crash in toronto. >> that had. >> passengers suspended. >> upside down. >> after the jet flipped over on the runway. >> but first. we'll speak to a. >> member of. the foreign relations. >> committee. >> democratic senator. >> chris, about trump. >> blaming ukraine for starting the war with. >> russia and. >> the senator's. >> trip to the. >> munich security conference. >> you're watching morning joe. >> we'll be right back. >> oh. >> oh. >> something about the way we're working just isn't working. >> when you're. >> caught up in complex pay requirements or. >> distracted by. scheduling staff. >> in multiple time zones. >> or thinking about the complexity of working in monterrey. >> while based in montreal. >> you're not. >> doing the work.

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plus, ask how to get the new samsung galaxy s25+ on us. with allegra, it's a no brainer. >> disney's snow. >> white in theaters. >> march 21st. >> for three. >> and a half years, while this conflict has raged for three years while it's. >> raged. >> no one else has been able to bring something together like what we saw today, because donald trump is the only leader in the world that can. so no one is being sidelined here. but president trump is in a position that he campaigned. >> on. >> to initiate a process that could bring about an end to this conflict, and from that could emerge some very. positive things for the united states, for europe, for ukraine, for the world. >> well, i mean, yeah, i mean, i suppose joe biden could have gotten together with vladimir putin over the past couple of years, while the intel community is saying he still wants to invade all of ukraine and take over, take over kyiv. so as the wall street journal editorial page says, you need to have and secretary rubio knows this. you

have to have certain conditions met as you go down that road. i will say secretary of state marco rubio, that was after his meeting, by the way, yesterday with the russian foreign minister, sergei lavrov. i will say the marco rubio did say that ukraine would be involved and europe would be involved in negotiations, that this was just an opening round. but those comments came before president trump blamed ukraine for starting the war. let's bring in right now the democratic senator, chris of delaware. he serves on both the foreign relations and judiciary committees, and he was at the munich security conference this past weekend. i want to get to a peace deal. and what you think a peace deal should look like? because i think we all agree it's great. it would be great to get all the sides together and end this bloody war. but before we get to that, let let's talk about munich and let's talk about the comments yesterday,

you know, back when i was a republican, we liked the idea of peace through strength. ronald reagan negotiated a hard deal at reykjavik. he refused to give. he pushed gorbachev and the soviets to the wall, and they capitulated. and what we learned from ronald reagan and what we've learned from strong democrats like doctor brzezinski and scoop jackson and others. we've learned peace through strength works. we've understood that. we've also understood that capitulating to russia means more conquest down the road for russia, given what history has shown us. senator, i'm curious your thoughts about what you heard in munich, what you heard yesterday, and how we move forward from here to get a lasting, just peace in ukraine. >> well, joe, thank you. that's absolutely right. the way to achieve a lasting and a just

peace for ukraine and security for the united states and the american people and for the west, is for donald trump. >> to show that he understands. >> what it means to lead and to be. tough to sit across the table from vladimir putin, who started this war just three years ago by sending hundreds. of thousands. >> of. >> troops into. >> ukraine who. >> committed atrocities and occupied 20% of this nation, sit across. the table from him and threaten him. he is a gangster and a thug. senator roger wicker, republican chairman. >> of the. >> armed services. >> committee. >> made it clear that he understands that. >> putin is a. >> war criminal. not our partner, not our ally. and if trump were to say, you must stop and we're going to increase sanctions on you, we're going to send more weapons. >> into ukraine. >> we're locking arms with the europeans. >> and the ukrainians. >> and you will lose. >> then there. >> is a real chance that putin would say, and stop and be willing to accept a security. guarantee from the united states, western troops in

ukraine, and a permanent peace that would allow ukraine to remain a sovereign. >> and. >> free country. if, on the other hand, as seemed likely from. >> the comments of. >> secretary hegseth and the speech by vice president vance at munich, a place famous for. >> neville chamberlain's. >> surrender of the sudetenland and abandonment of the last, best. >> chance of stopping the nazis. >> if instead. >> they release or. >> reduce the. >> sanctions, they refuse an american. >> backstop, they begin. >> to suggest. >> an american. >> abandonment of europe and a betrayal of ukraine. donald trump will be known as the biggest loser of. >> the. >> 21st century. the man who chose a team. >> that includes. >> russia. >> north korea. >> iran and china over our team. >> that is. >> ukraine, germany, france. >> italy. >> great britain, the folks who have been our. >> partners and. >> allies for. >> decades and who share. >> our values. >> that appears to. >> be what he's doing. >> it does. >> and then what would be. >> the next steps in this? i

mean, we've got the. 82nd airborne at. >> the border between poland and ukraine. i mean, how where does this go? if he. >> if it goes as. >> badly as. >> is possible. >> he literally begins. >> to draw american troops. >> out of europe. >> and abandons not just. >> ukraine. >> but nato. >> and europe. >> that would be an awful outcome. it would profoundly destabilize. >> the world and make the american people. >> less safe. it would signal. >> to xi. >> jinping that. >> taiwan is. >> next on. the menu. >> and look, in his first. >> month. president trump has engaged. >> in a dizzying series of threats. he's threatened denmark and greenland, panama. >> and the panama canal, canada. >> to turn. >> gaza into. >> a riviera by relocating millions. he has confused our partners and allies in. >> a remarkable way. >> peter baker. >> so joe was actually. >> just talking about senator. >> sorry. secretary rubio. and i have to. >> admit that senator rubio, 2016. >> i think, would have been pretty up. >> in arms about. >> what we. >> heard yesterday.

>> and secretary. >> rubio, 2024 2025, probably won't be. what do you think. >> that tells us about. >> where republicans are? >> the republican. party of reagan, as joe said. i mean, this. >> is something that used to be a. core value. and in fact, when trump came in in 2017, the first thing he wanted to do was lift sanctions. >> it was. >> mitch mcconnell, john mccain. the republicans said, no, don't do that. we will pass legislation if. you do. and he backed off. >> where are those republicans? >> so senator rubio and i did a joint speech about opposing. russia on the floor of the senate. i believe it was senator rubio who. >> in the last ndaa. >> the defense authorization bill, led an amendment saying that the president can't pull us. >> out of. >> nato unilaterally. and i did have a chance to meet with him in munich, along with a bipartisan group of senators. and i think he remains, at his core. >> a normal republican. >> a reagan republican. but to your point about this administration, even though mike. >> wallace. >> the national. >> security advisor, marco. >> rubio. the secretary. >> of state, may know better than believing that abandoning ukraine is. >> in. >> our national security

interest. president trump is the one who i think yesterday said it's. >> ukraine's fault. >> they started this war, which is just wildly untrue, bluntly offensive to everyone who understands what's actually happened. >> in the last. >> three years. >> and the. republican senators. >> who were with me in munich. >> sitting across the table from. >> president zelensky, saying, we are with you now, need to put some spine behind their statements. >> i mean. >> elizabeth, what. >> the enduring question. >> what is. >> president trump's ultimate goal here? i mean, and. >> he is assisted. >> by by the vice president. >> j.d. vance, who said, as we in. munich that. >> that. >> germany should. should be included, should. >> it be, you know. be embraced. the. >> neo-nazi afd party. what is the ultimate. >> goal here in the grand scheme of things? >> so i think there's. >> a basic division. >> between moderate republicans and many other republicans. >> margaret. >> republicans have no value for sort of traditional democratic values. and j.d. >> vance.

>> in his speech where he focused. on the romanian election, where a. >> putin acolyte. >> nearly won, and denouncing romania for having invalidated an election where our intelligence services say the russians influence the outcome. and then, as you said, met with the leader of a. >> neo-nazi party. >> in germany the week of their election, which produced a strong rebuke from the german chancellor. their goals, i think, are to fundamentally remake the world order and. >> the united. >> states place in that order. more traditional republicans still believe in peace through strength and still believe in strong alliances. they're trying to get europe to step forward and increase their contributions to security. and by the way, in supporting ukraine, the europeans have done more than we. have in military, economic and humanitarian support. >> we're roughly. >> equal, but they're actually ahead of us. so that factual misunderstanding underlies a lot of this. the republicans i was with in munich would be happy if the result of this was a stable peace for ukraine and a.

significant increase in european contributions to nato. and i think that's their goal. but that's fundamentally different from betraying ukraine. >> senator, what. >> is the most tangible and immediate thing this week that john. >> thune, the senate majority. >> leader, roger wicker, armed. services chairman. >> susan collins, chairman. >> of. >> the probes, could do. to address what president trump said last night. what precisely can. >> they do? how can. >> they use their leverage substantively this. >> week to try. >> to course. >> correct what happened last night? >> we're going to be voting all night thursday night on something that's called. >> vote. >> a rama. there will. >> be budget. >> on the budget. there will inevitably be amendments proposed that would reinforce our commitment to. >> ukraine. >> our commitment to nato, and our intention. >> to continue. >> to spend to support their defense. i suspect there's going to be a moment on the floor where. >> folks are going to have to. >> vote one way or the other. >> okay. >> democratic member of the senate foreign relations and judiciary committees, senator. chris of delaware, thank you

very much for. coming on this morning. and coming up on morning joe. >> we're going to take a look. >> at the. >> remarkable career of. >> david frost ahead. of a new. >> msnbc docu series on. >> the legendary journalist. >> plus. cbs and fox. >> could soon have a new. >> challenger bidding. >> for sunday. >> nfl games. >> cnbc's andrew ross sorkin will join. >> us with that. >> development and this morning's other business headlines. >> morning joe. >> will be right back. >> premium cable. >> and, doug. >> you'll be back. emus can't help people customize and save. >> hundreds on. >> car insurance. >> with liberty mutual. >> you're just a flightless bird. >> no, he's. >> a dreamer, frank. >> okay, bob. >> and doug. >> well. >> i'll be. >> that bird really did it. >> that bird really did it. >> only 7 million us businesses rely on tiktok to compete.

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now. >> do you pray to. >> your god? to allah? i pray every morning at 5:00. and if our lord was with me, it ain't no way no man can win. no way. when i got allah and elijah muhammad can't. no human being win. there's no way, no way. because i'm representing god. i'm representing the freedom of black people in america. i want to be the one black man who stands up, look at white people and tell the truth. so i'm asking god, allah to make me strong. not for me. >> don't give me no money. don't give me the fame. >> i want to win. >> so. >> i can come home. >> and speak. >> for the brother who's living in rat infested houses, sleeping on. >> concrete in. >> the ghetto. can't go on television and speak. so god, i'm your tool. i'm your servant. let me. >> get this. >> man tonight and go out. blast it! >> wow. >> that was a look at. >> journalist sir. david frost's interview with muhammad. >> ali ahead. >> of. his rumble. >> in the jungle.

>> heavyweight fight against george foreman. >> now. the clip. >> comes from. >> the upcoming msnbc docu series. entitled david. >> frost versus. the six episode. >> series chronicles the remarkable career. >> of frost. >> and shows footage from his interviews. >> with some of the most notable. >> figures of. >> the 20th century. >> including the beatles. walter cronkite and, of course. >> frost's 1977 sit down with. >> former president. >> richard nixon, during which. we heard nixon's infamous. >> line when the president does. >> it. that means. >> that it is not illegal. joining us now, the son. >> of david frost. >> and. >> the executive producer on the project. wilfred frost. >> i can't think of a better. >> person to be the ep. >> on this six part docu series. >> tell us. >> about it. >> and what you were hoping to accomplish. >> well. >> good morning to you guys. thanks so much for having me.

>> you know, i. >> think our dad died 12 years ago. and the. initial incentive. >> was to. >> see. if we could do his legacy justice and. repay him for. >> what he gave us. >> my family and i, and i. >> hope. >> that we've done that. but as a journalist, you know, diving into his over 10,000 interviews with some of these seminal. characters that that made history. i think there's a. >> duty to get it out. >> there again and to. >> to contextualize it so that you really feel the words that the. >> protagonists are saying. and i think we've done that as well. and the key thing for me was not a one off film on dad, because i think dad more than anyone knew the interview is about his guests, not about him. >> but rather. >> six films. >> where he. >> happened to have a front row seat as history unfolded. and these are six individual films about those moments in history, >> primarily wilfred. >> obviously in america, we. >> focus on. >> david frost. >> and richard nixon. >> that was very famous. it still is very famous. >> but the. eclectic nature of

what your father did with his life and his career is truly amazing. what was he like in talking with him? >> his his. because of his eclectic. >> nature and coverage. >> what was it like speaking. >> with him as his son about what he was doing? well. >> you know what? >> one of my great regrets is that i didn't talk enough. about his career with him when he was still around. i mean, i think that as a son, you think, oh, i can always ask dad that tomorrow. there's plenty of time to talk to dad. until suddenly there isn't. and part of the labor of love of this project for me is kind of having that conversation with him after he left. and i'm able to do that because he left so much tape, of course. >> but the. >> other thing, i think the reason why that didn't happen is he didn't force his career on us at home. and despite being a showman, despite being so full of charisma, he was more modest than you might expect. and he didn't talk about himself that much. he was fascinated in

people, all people, not just ali and elton and nixon, but people at home. and actually, i think my brothers and i were just very lucky that that we got to experience his sort of infectious love of people more than anyone else. >> absolutely. >> let's take a look. >> at a clip of. >> your father, david. >> frost. >> interviewing daniel. >> ellsberg. the government worker who leaked. >> the pentagon papers. take a look. >> when you started on this course of action, did you see prison at the end of it? >> i wouldn't. >> have taken the step that i did with the knowledge that the executive would undoubtedly do what it is doing with respect to me, question everyone i knew. and bring me into court. i wouldn't have done it if i hadn't thought it was necessary to end the war. we see a president treating. >> the. >> american public. >> as an. >> enemy that had to be fooled. really? that's the lesson. >> of the. >> pentagon papers to me, that a succession of presidents have come. >> to think of the american. >> public as an, you could say, an object, but. basically an

adversary to be tricked, to be manipulated, to be lied to. it's a. >> point that's come. >> home to me very. >> much in the last year that we have an elected monarch at. >> home. >> peter baker. >> yeah. >> thank you so much for joining us today. and congratulations on the series. you know, the interview with nixon. which mike was. >> just talking about, has been endlessly, you know, second. guessed and relitigated and rethought. through obviously book play movie. it's such a famous, iconic moment. i'm wondering. >> whether you learned much. >> about your. >> father's view. >> of how that. >> a series of interviews. >> really went, and whether he felt that he really got what he wanted, that whether he felt that nixon, you know, really owned up to what had happened in a real way because it did sort of, i think, make such an impression on a generation of people. >> oh, absolutely. >> i think. >> it's definitely. >> the most important. interview that he ever did. maybe it's not quite my favorite, but the most important. it was 28 hours. i think i'm the only person in the

world that's ever watched all 28 hours through twice. i don't recommend it, by the way, because nixon can be quite long winded at times. but do you know what i think about the episode, which is episode four? david frost versus richard nixon on this is yes. it has been dramatized brilliantly by by ron howard into a movie. i think the raw tapes are more dramatic, and revisiting them as we have and creating this documentary film on it, i think brings it out even more powerfully. and, you know, i've always heard dad's side and we bring that into this, but but what we've also got is nixon's side. we've got ken khachigian and frank gannon who contributed to this, to have nixon's closest aides and advisers. and it's a really fascinating story to see that evolve. you know, what i just quickly add as well is i think people will be surprised the extent of the. front row seat that had to nixon's administration as it was unwinding in the first place, and that's captured in episode three. david frost versus jane fonda. and throughout this

series. you know, we throw in the other people that are relevant to that moment in time. so that episode is based on his main interviews with jane fonda. but that's also where that ellsberg clip comes up. and again, we've picked themes where we feel like they'll resonate today and. people will feel it's relevant. it's not just a look back. >> the six episode. series david frost versus runs sunday nights at 9 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc, beginning on april 27th. executive producer wilfred frost. thank you very much for coming on this morning. >> it's my pleasure, guys. >> thanks for having. >> me and elizabeth. >> and jane. >> i just sort. of want. >> to wrap up this hour with some final. >> thoughts on. >> the two big stories we're covering. obviously, donald trump's words on ukraine. incorrect. factually challenged, to say the least. and also the doge cuts, the ongoing doge cuts. i thought frank four was fascinating, making a. parallel to russia in a way, and anne applebaum. >> talking about. >> what we're seeing here,

there's a word for it. >> it's called regime change. elizabeth. >> well. >> i think what what just everyone agrees. >> that the government. >> needs more efficiency. >> the systems are old. there are there are overlapping. >> of course, but. >> this is everyone. >> most everyone i've talked. >> to agrees. >> this is not the way. >> to do it. >> that's not what's happening, actually. >> they're they're firing people and then hiring them back the next. >> day because. >> it turned. >> out we actually needed those people for. >> safety reasons. and so that's. what's that's. >> the it's. >> very much like. >> what elon musk did with with twitter. he you know, let's just shut it down big. >> parts of it. >> and correct the mistakes later. >> but this is. >> not the twitter. this is the federal government. >> yeah. >> you know. >> for almost ten years, i. >> think the biggest story. >> in american politics. has not just been donald trump. it's been the response to donald trump. >> and i think that's the. >> biggest story of this week. >> is what does the. >> gop do. >> in light of his. >> comments this week? they have a chance. >> it's not confirming. >> their last one. >> yeah. >> it's not confirming his

appointments. >> and some of them you don't like. >> they've got some baggage. >> but hey. i could extract. >> a concession from bobby kennedy that he won't. >> do this or that this. >> is something. bigger and. >> entirely different. this is. >> the policy of this country. >> toward russia and. >> toward europe, and. >> there either. >> with trump or. >> there with our traditional allies. and there. >> on the line this week, it's going. >> to be a really fascinating test of what. >> trump has. >> done to his. >> adopted party. >> yeah, and america's future. jonathan martin, elisabeth bumiller. >> peter baker. >> and mike barnicle. thank you all. >> very much for being on this hour. and still. >> ahead on morning joe. >> first it was nuclear safety workers accidentally fired. >> by the trump administration. >> now, it seems. >> employees overseeing the response to bird flu. have been. >> mistakenly let. >> go as well. >> we'll talk more about the administration's. >> slash and burn approach to its mass firings. plus, the latest from ukraine after president trump blamed kyiv for russia's invasion, something

that is not true. nbc's richard engel. will join us from engel. will join us from kharkiv, where back in asthma. does it have you missing out on what you love with who you love? it's time to get back out there with fasenra. fasenra is an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma that is taken once every 8 weeks and can also be taken conveniently at home. fasenra helps prevent asthma attacks. most patients did not have an attack in the first year. fasenra is proven to help you breathe better so you can get back to doing day-to-day activities. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems. serious allergic reactions may occur. get help for swelling of your face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. don't stop asthma treatments without talking with your doctor. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens or you have a parasitic infection. headache and sore throat may occur. get back to better breathing. get back to what you've missed. ask your doctor about fasenra, the only asthma treatment taken once every 8 weeks.

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the. >> same locality. >> who decide to express their. >> community interests by. entering into a. >> formal association for their mutual self-protection. >> all free men. >> wherever they may live, are citizens of berlin. and therefore, as a. >> free man. >> i take pride. >> in the words. ich bin ein berliner. i've spoken of the shining. >> city all my political life. >> in my. >> mind, it was a. >> tall. >> proud city, built on rocks. stronger than oceans, windswept, god blessed and teeming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and peace.

>> it's more important for them than it is for us. we have an ocean in between, and they don't. today i heard oh, well, we weren't invited. well, you've been there for three years. you should have ended it three years. you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. >> all right. >> donald trump yesterday. >> altering the. >> cooperative world order that has. >> been championed. >> by presidents of. >> both parties. for more than 75 years. we're going to have much more on the. significance of. those comments. >> it comes as new. >> intelligence suggests. >> that russian president. vladimir putin is. >> not. >> actually interested in. >> a. peace deal. >> we'll dig. >> into that new reporting. >> we're going to. >> also go through the fire. >> ready. >> aim approach from elon. >> musk's doge team, which. >> is now scrambling. >> to rehire. >> government employees. the trump administration. fired as the bird flu outbreak worsens. and we'll bring you the latest on the plane crash in toronto. as we're getting. >> a new look at the.

>> moment. things went horribly. wrong for that delta jet. good morning. >> and welcome. >> to morning joe. >> it is. >> wednesday. >> february 19th. >> with us we have. >> the co-host. >> of the fourth hour. >> and contributing writer. >> at the atlantic, jonathan lemire. >> u.s. special correspondent for. >> bbc news and host of the. >> rest is. >> politics podcast. >> katty kay. >> is with us. >> staff writer. >> at the atlantic. >> frank ford. >> is here. >> and i call this the. big brzezinski road to. >> my. >> right here, columnist and associate editor. >> for the washington. >> post, david ignatius. >> and us national. >> editor for the financial times. and lose both great friends of my dad. so. >> joe. >> what a. >> morning and what a great panel we. have for. >> the news. >> that we. are dealing. >> with today. >> well, especially brzezinski wrote there, he would have said, i made both of those young men. i made both of them. he, he he had the greatest respect for. >> for sure. >> for the greatest respect for

david. and we all can't, especially after reading excerpts from ed's upcoming book on doctor brzezinski. we can't help but look back and think about a man who spent his entire life trying to push back against the aggression of the soviet union, against the enslavement of eastern europe, the enslavement of his homeland, the enslavement of 100 million eastern europeans that the united states every president from harry truman through george h.w. bush, worked, and an unbroken line to actually liberate eastern europe because it was the right thing to do, and also because it was good for the united states of america. freedom is proven to be good for

the united states of america, for our leadership role in the world, for our economy, which is, again, by far the strongest in the world and the envy of the world. free markets, free people. that leads to good things, not just for the rest of the world, but for america. yesterday. what happened last night? what happened at a press conference? absolutely, absolutely. turning years of history of ronald reagan standing at the wall saying, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. john kennedy sang, a torch has been passed to a new generation. harry truman declaring that america would fight against russian aggression, against soviet aggression everywhere. it does. it does far more than just change an analytical construct. it changes the very meaning of america itself. and it's not

just former republicans. it's not just former cold war warriors like myself. it's not just conservatives who believe that independence democrats believe that as well. as does the wall street journal editorial page, which is the voice of conservatism and has been for a very long time. and its latest editorial titled the rapid rehab of vladimir putin. the wall street journal editorial board writes in part, this global politics can be an ugly business, but the looming rehabilitation of vladimir putin is especially hard to take. mr. trump said last week after a phone call with mr. putin, that he's convinced the russian dictator wants peace. he didn't say what kind of peace mr. putin has in mind, though if history is a guide, it won't be what most americans understand by the word. mr. putin has been charged

with war crimes by an international court, and the u.s. sanctioned his foreign minister in 2022, was one of the architects of russia's war against ukraine. we realize that the ruthless men who rule much of the world can't be ignored. but usually those men are rewarded with a visit to the u.s, as mr. trump hinted last week before they made any compromises. visits with soviet leaders during the cold war at least, had some preparation to assume the u.s. would somehow get something from diplomacy. nlds mr. putin strikes has to be made with all of its legacy of destruction and mind, and i just want to go through really quickly, just in case there are people who forgot already, and we assume that there are some people who forgot already. exactly what putin and invading russians have done. this is what

the wall street journal editorial page says. the kremlin overlord in 2022 started the biggest land war in europe since hitler. and his, quote, special military operation has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands of russians and ukrainians. his missiles have targeted apartment houses and train stations. his forces have tried to freeze ukrainian civilians into surrender by crippling electric power plants. his troops have kidnaped hundreds of ukrainian born children from their parents to new homes in russia. they have tortured and executed ukrainian troops in violation of every rule of international warfare. again, the wall street journal says, in violation of every rule of international warfare, russian hit squads have also been dispatched to assassinate enemies of his rule at home and abroad. no one

should forget the death of alexei navalny, the brave opposition leader who was poisoned abroad and then arrested upon his return and then killed in prison. it goes on and on. and that's the wall street journal editorial page, mika. rupert murdoch, of course, owns the wall street journal. the new york post also also condemning what donald trump said yesterday, trying to blame vladimir putin's ruthless invasion, the largest land invasion in europe since adolf hitler. trying to blame that on actually the victims of that invasion. >> we'll get to the new york post in just a moment. we want to get to. richard engel. >> who has. >> a tight window. >> but here's what the wall. >> street journal. >> editorial board was reacting to. president trump blaming ukraine for russia's invasion nearly three years ago.

>> he made the comments yesterday. >> after reporters pressed. >> him on ukrainian. >> officials not being. >> involved in the. >> diplomatic talks. >> between the. u.s. and russia in saudi arabia. >> i hear that, you know, they're upset about not having a seat. well, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that. this could have been settled very easily, just a half a half baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without, i think, without the loss of much land, very little land without the loss of any lives and without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides. you have those magnificent golden domes that are shattered will never be replaced. you can't replace them. thousand year old domes that are so beautiful, you can't replace that. a whole civilization has changed because of what? so when they're worried about not being seated, you mean somebody that should have gone in and made a deal a long time

ago? and i think i have the power to end this war, and i think it's going very well. but today i heard, oh, well, we weren't invited. well, you've been there for three years. you should have ended it three years. you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. i could have made a deal for ukraine. that would have given them almost all of the land. everything, almost all of the land. and no people would have been killed and no city would have been demolished, and not one dome would have been knocked down. but they chose not to do it that way. well, we have a situation where we haven't had elections in ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in ukraine, where the leader in ukraine. i mean, i hate to say it, but he's down at 4% approval rating. and yeah, i would say that, you know, when they want a seat at the table, you could say the people have to wouldn't the people of ukraine have to say like, you know, it's been a long time since we've had an election that's not a russia thing. that's something coming from me and coming from many other countries also.

>> that actually is a russia thing. that actually is a russia thing. you're talking about democratic elections in ukraine, but suggesting that somehow russia is i mean, there's so many things wrong with that. i know you've got a fact check on it. i will say, first of all, the idea that they could have just given away a little land to vladimir putin. wrong. he wanted kyiv. he wanted to be in kyiv in three days. he wanted odesa. he wanted to rebuild the old russian empire by seizing their capital, kyiv and odessa. so the idea that that is so factually inaccurate, there's not a single military historian, there's not a single person who's covered this war that would actually say that's accurate, but there's so many other things in those statements that are just flat wrong. factually, yes. >> a quick fact. >> check on. >> that last comment. ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky's

public approval. rating has dropped since the early days of the. >> war. >> but he still has support from 52% of ukrainians, according to a poll last month. let's bring in nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel. live from the front line lines near kharkiv, ukraine. >> richard. >> you've been speaking with. >> ukrainian soldiers. >> how are. >> they feeling. >> about these negotiations? >> so ukrainian soldiers are watching this very closely or as close. as they. can in front line positions. they don't always have internet, but they do have cell phone connections generally. and they've been watching this with a lot of concern. they are worried that decisions about ukraine are being made without ukrainians input. they worry that president trump and putin are in the process of chopping up this country. currently, russia controls about 20% of ukraine's territory in the east, where i am right now, also in the south. and they they are deeply

concerned. watching this process, considering the fact. >> that president. >> trump has already spoken with vladimir putin, the fact. >> that he started these. >> negotiations by. >> talking to the russian side, excluding president zelensky and then, as you said last night, blaming the entire. war on ukraine instead of on the. >> russians. >> who actually invaded soldiers. >> here are. >> watching this. >> and thinking they're on the chopping block. they're about to be divided and have territories ceded to. >> to russia. >> as you know, there's an old expression in, in negotiations. >> if. you're not at the table. >> you're on the table. and people here feel very much that ukraine is on the table right now. and president zelensky commented just a. >> short. >> while ago about those comments from president trump, saying that he's responsible for this war. if he'd only done some sort of deal early on, it never would have happened if he had ceded territory. and he said that president trump is in a disinformation bubble parroting

it sounds like russian disinformation, taking russia's take on the war. and he said that he wants u.s. officials, particularly trump, trump's envoy, to come here more and learn more truth about the facts on the ground. and trump's envoy, former general kellogg, has just arrived in ukraine, and the ukrainians are eager to take him out to places like this to try and rewrite the narrative that, that, that, that president trump is describing right now. >> nbc's richard engel, thank you so much. we greatly appreciate it. yeah, ukrainian soldiers hearing this, understanding that their land has been invaded, their children kidnaped, their mothers shot and killed at point blank range. apartment buildings attacked. david ignatius, you know, it's always been an article of faith for republicans and for

conservatives that you don't bow down to russian leaders. the consequences are absolutely terrible. it's debatable. but, you know, republicans accused fdr of giving up eastern europe. at yalta. they attacked john f kennedy after the bay of pigs. you can go to jimmy carter negotiating salt two with the russians when they invaded afghanistan. you can actually go actually to george w bush again, once again trying to make nice with with russians, with vladimir putin saying, i looked into his eyes and i saw his soul. vladimir putin responded in 2007 with a fire and brimstone speech, basically predicting everything he was going to do. then he invaded the country of georgia. barack obama talking about a reset and whispering to medvedev, hey, i can do more with you after the election and after the election, what happened? ukraine invaded crimea, invaded by putin. a commercial airliner shot down.

we can go on and on. and then, of course, 2022, the largest land mass invasion of europe since adolf hitler. it is. i tell please tell me how how your right now sifting through all of this wreckage of american u.s. foreign policy that has kept the world free for 80 years. >> so. >> joe, yesterday. >> was in many ways a. >> shameful day. >> for the. >> united states. >> as you. >> as you. >> just said. >> standing up to russian aggression for. many decades. >> has been at the center of american foreign policy and at the center. >> of our. >> identity as. >> a country. >> yesterday. >> two big things happened. >> first. >> the united. >> states, in the meeting in saudi. >> arabia. normalized a regime. >> headed by. >> somebody who's. >> been. >> designated as. >> a war criminal.

>> and all of the. >> crimes of this. >> war. >> the killing. >> the just. >> brutal assault. on ukraine. >> illegal. >> brutal assault. >> was in. >> effect. washed away. watching sergey lavrov. >> the russian foreign minister. kind of smirking. >> and sitting there. >> saying, look, that i. >> remember, you know, for years. >> and years, completely. >> unaffected by. >> this war. >> we'll see what. comes out of those. >> talks in riyadh. >> but then. >> to have that followed by by. >> president trump. >> in florida with. >> the shocking. >> comment that. >> the war was really the fault. >> of the. >> victim, the war was really the fault of ukraine. >> you you never should have started it. i can't. >> believe that president of the. >> united states would. >> have said something. as factually. >> wrong and. insulting as that. >> there's a way. >> in which. >> for trump. >> it's about him. >> if only. >> i'd been there. >> this never would. >> have happened. and so it

must. >> be your. >> fault, right? >> because because i could have stopped this. >> so as i. >> said. >> yesterday was was. >> a day that was shocking. >> there still is a pathway toward negotiations. >> rubio. >> mike waltz, his national. security adviser, are sensible people. >> their plans. >> for how to provide the. essential security guarantees. >> that ukraine needs. >> to become a real country. >> protected from from russia's attacks. >> so i. >> don't want to say that. >> that's impossible. >> but it's going to. >> be much harder. >> after what happened yesterday. >> coming up, we're going to continue this conversation. after a quick break. we'll have the. >> rest of our table weigh in on. yesterday's diplomatic talks between. >> the. us and russia. we're back in. >> a moment. >> hourly amazon employees. >> hourly amazon employees. >> earn an average of over $22. hey we're going big tonight let's go

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states. and the only good thing potentially, that could come out of this is that europe will finally have to accept, because the band-aid has been ripped off. there is no more pretense that it has to be responsible for its own security, and there is a way in which europe could actually finance a defensive line in ukraine. they have the ability to do this. but there is so much disarray in europe at the moment and so many weak leaders in europe. do you think that europe could step in? clearly? i mean, you listen to donald trump. they should never have started. this is his point of view on this. will europe be able to step in? >> i think it's less. >> unlikely than it was a week ago. jd. >> vance spoke to. >> european leaders. >> in munich and generated more. wtf moments. >> in more languages, i think, than any president. vice presidential. address in history. >> from his audience. >> but europe getting together and.

>> becoming an integrated. pooled defense entity is a work of years. it's a project that will take 5 to 10 years. it doesn't. >> answer the. >> needs today of european security. in the event that america essentially pulls the plug. >> i think nato is i think article five of nato is essentially dead. i mean, if i were a baltic country or a or poland and was spending more than 3% of gdp, in fact more than the us is spending on defense, i would say. well, so presumably that means article five applies to us, that we have a full security guarantee from the united states. i don't think. donald trump's answer. >> would be. >> the right answer. i think that everybody. >> in europe. >> knows he is planning to agree a vivisection of ukraine, in which they take the. >> americans, take. >> some critical minerals, the russians keep what they've got, and it's just. >> a short term.

>> freeze of a conflict that russia. >> will. >> down the line, complete. i think that's what everybody in europe knows. and therefore this is a an existential moment for europe. it should. be stepping up and just a bit skeptical. it's going to do that quickly. >> so frank. i your latest. >> piece is about elon musk and doge. and yet there is. >> you've. >> reported out of ukraine. >> and the one parallel. >> here is it's taking what what's. normal and turning it upside down and shaking. >> it and. >> pouring it all out. >> yeah. >> what's happening here? >> i would say. >> there's more. >> than one. >> parallel. because when i look at. >> what's happening in ukraine, it feels to me very much of a piece of. what's happening here, that you have a russian style system that is beginning to creep into the united states. elon musk is an oligarch who has an incredible amount of political control, unchecked, untrammeled. we have people

appearing at mar a lago, lago paying enormous amounts of money in transactional relationships with the president of united states to have dinner, to beg for him, to show them favors. >> you have the. >> apparatus that the united states has installed to check russian kleptocracy from infecting. >> the western. world that has. >> been pulled back. you have an american state that had been committed to neutrality, that it wouldn't it wouldn't benefit the friends of the president. it wouldn't punish his enemies. that is. being torn apart as we speak. >> in. >> in very, very short order. and it feels to me like, you know, ed talked about article five. it feels like united states has its own equivalent. we can't we can't feel safe that the president isn't going to install. >> a russian. >> style system here. >> joe. >> yeah. you know, nbc news has reported that united states intel agencies have determined

that vladimir putin doesn't just want a sliver of ukraine. he wants to go all the way to kyiv. but of course, donald trump has suggested in the past that he trusts vladimir putin more than he trusts his own u.s. intelligence agencies. even the u.s. intelligence agencies run by the people he put there. our own jonathan lemire was in helsinki in 2018 and actually asked donald trump the question, do you believe your own u.s. intelligence agencies about what they're telling you about vladimir putin? watch this. >> just now, president putin denied having. anything to. >> do with. >> the election interference in 2016. >> every u.s. >> intelligence agency has concluded that. >> russia did what? >> who? my first question. >> for you, sir. >> is who. >> do you believe? >> my second question is, would. >> you now, with the whole

world. >> watching, tell president putin. >> would you denounce what happened in 2016? and would you warn him to never do it again? >> my people came to me, dan coats came to me, and some others, they said they think it's russia. i have president putin. he just said, it's not russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would be. i have great confidence in my intelligence people. but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. >> and jonathan lemire, you were, of course, there asking that question. many people looked back at the 2018 helsinki press conference in shame, calling it one of the low points, certainly for u.s. foreign policy in the first trump term. suddenly that is eclipsed and seems a bit quaint by 2025 standards. >> yeah, what trump. >> said. >> yesterday, blaming ukraine for that war, erroneously, of

course, to david's point, as others have told me, trump is sort of personalized this conflict. he has sided with putin. he needs to make zelenskyy the bad guy here, angry that zelenskyy didn't take the us offer that was pitched to him over the weekend about. >> the us. >> taking about 50% of that nation's valuable minerals as a payment, if you will, for us protection. some ukraine officials deem that extortion, likening it to what a mob boss. would do. and trump, as we saw it there in helsinki in 2018, we still see it today, reflexively defers to putin. and it was so telling that trump himself and putin himself were not in riyadh yesterday. though there are there's talk of the leaders having a summit before too long. you know how ukraine did not have a place at the table and how u.s. officials were so, again, deferential to what the russians were saying afterwards. when briefing reporters, the secretary of state, marco rubio, the security adviser, made no mention of the war crimes that russian soldiers have been accused of, of how vladimir

putin has been charged by the international criminal court, how the russian bombardment of ukraine continue to this day, instead talking about the economic opportunities that a us russia sort of ties, increasing ties would lead to that. if they repair relations, it could be beneficial to both nations that that there is no attempt to hold them accountable. and certainly even lifting sanctions hinted at by rubio and others. so it seems now here, as zelensky canceled a trip to the region, you know, ukraine, obviously angry and alarmed at what they see here as developments from washington. real concern that as negotiations do really begin in earnest, that the united states. donald trump, once again siding with putin over anyone else. >> coming up, who. >> exactly is. >> in charge. >> of the department of government efficiency? it might. >> depend on. >> who you ask. we'll explain. >> that and talk. >> about elon musk's. role in. >> the trump administration. >> that's next on.

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not happening at all, or at least not yet. just try to remember we are not looking at the final score. we are still in the first quarter. keep your pads on. the game has just begun. >> i'm happy. >> to clarify. elon musk is a special government employee here. at the white house, serving at the direction of the president of the united states, donald trump. >> elon musk. >> has been tasked with overseeing doge on behalf of the president. >> i wanted somebody really smart to work with me in terms of the country. a very important aspect, because, i mean, he doesn't talk about it. he's actually a very good businessman. and when he talks about the executive orders, and this is probably true for all presidents, you write an executive order and you think it's done. you send it out, it doesn't get done. it doesn't get implemented. what he does is he takes it. and with his 100 geniuses, he's got some very brilliant young people working for him that dress much worse than him, actually. they dress

in just t shirts. >> you wouldn't. >> you wouldn't know they have 180 iq. >> so he. >> he's your. tech support? >> no, he is actually. but he's much more than that. >> especially on tech support though. >> but he gets it done. he's a leader. >> the white house trying. >> to clarify. >> the growing questions as to who exactly. is leading the. >> department of government. >> efficiency and elon musk's role at the agency. specifically. >> it. >> comes as a federal judge has. >> denied an effort by. >> more than a dozen. >> states to block elon musk and his doge team from accessing federal data systems. in her decision, judge tanya chutkan acknowledged doj's, quote, unpredictable actions causing considerable uncertainty and confusion. >> but she concluded. >> the. possibility that doge could harm the states is not enough. >> to halt its activities. >> yesterday's ruling does not end the case. the judge then ordered both sides to quote, meet and confer about how to

proceed. meanwhile, the trump administration says. >> it has accidentally. fired several. >> department of. >> agriculture employees. >> who were working. on the current bird flu epidemic. >> the usda. >> said yesterday. >> they were, quote, swiftly rescinding. >> the termination. >> letters that had been sent. >> out. >> over the weekend in the past month, according to the usda. 23 million birds have been infected with the avian flu, leading to skyrocketing prices in eggs. >> the average price of eggs. >> last month in u.s. cities. >> climbed to. >> $4.95, more than double the low of $2.04 recorded in 2023. i'll tell you, in new york city, there are. >> you can't find them. >> and if you do, there are 23, 99 a lot higher than that. joining us, co-founder of axios. >> mike allen. >> but first editor and frank. you both have new pieces on doge and elon musk. what is your take

on this? especially with. i mean, the nuclear and now the bird flu. they're pulling back. >> these firings. proving the. >> point that they're just hastily wiping the table clean of. >> people who perform. >> functions that are. pretty important to. >> our country. >> being safe. >> they are. >> putting back. >> some of the firings, you know, nuclear safety experts. >> it turns. >> out, are relatively important, as are epidemiologists and so on. but let's not lose sight of the fact that, you know, elon musk is i'm closing. closing agencies that regulate him. you look at the consumer financial protection bureau set up after the oh eight crisis to protect consumers from. >> the kind of giant. >> rip offs that helped lead to that meltdown. that's been that's been shuttered. >> this is. >> the agency. >> that evaluates fintech. >> platforms, and musk wants x to become the wechat of america. wechat being china's sort of all

purpose payment system that that serves as everything else. your booking system, your dating system, your not just your financial system. this is more than a conflict of interest. the english language doesn't. that's that's just not that's just not the scale of what we're seeing here. so he is preceding and succeeding in getting rid of getting rid of regulatory capacity that that he says or believes holds holds back his business growth. >> and frank, your piece is called the. hidden costs of. >> musk's washington misadventure. tell us about it. >> well, let's just take elon musk at his word, which we shouldn't actually, because i do believe that he's trying to erect a system that is fundamentally corrupt. but let's just say that he was genuinely trying to make the government more efficient. we could all probably agree that the government should become more efficient. this is the craziest way to do it, because he's going in without any context, without

any concern for who are the high performing employees and who are the low performing. he's just it's a series of very random hammer blows in this desire to break. i mean, his view is that you need to break in order to essentially fix in the end, theoretically. but the problem. >> is, is. >> that in the course of breaking, you're creating all sorts of costs, because a lot of people who are going to be fired are going to sue the government. meritoriously. the government will have to defend itself against those lawsuits. so that's a set of costs. and in terms of destroying capacity, there's capacity that even if you are the most libertarian and randian guy in the world, in the end you're going to come to the conclusion that the government needs to have. >> that capacity. >> and so you're going to have to go out and replace these employees with contractors who are going to be much more expensive, because you're going to need to pull them in at, you know, in. >> these hastily. >> drawn sorts of ways. and as we've kind of established earlier in the show, there is this, you know, corruption that's happening. you're not going to get the best

contracting talent. you're going to get the people who are the best connected to come in, and it's going to cost us an insane amount of money in the end. >> coming up, we'll talk to mike allen. >> about what he calls trump's. boundary busting provocations. >> morning joe is coming right >> morning joe is coming right back. guest of honor: everyone's here for me! shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects! only shingrix is proven over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix doesn't protect everyone and isn't for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. tell your healthcare provider if you're pregnant or breastfeeding. increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can happen so take precautions. most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling where injected, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor about shingrix today. 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!

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new world order. so here on day 30, jim vandehei and i, for a behind the curtain column, went through day by day, executive order by executive order and looked at trump's boundary busting provocations. and what what we're thinking about is like, how can we sift out the noise? in the first term, everything seemed unprecedented. if everything is unprecedented, nothing is. so what really changed? what really matters? and as you look through them, a couple of them, one, we were just talking about taking prerogatives of congress, things that are clearly delegated to congress. secondly, empowering musk and everything that he has done. how would how would republicans like it if a democrat was being given that. >> kind of sway. >> rewriting a constitutional amendment on birthright citizenship, firing igs and watchdogs, the doj bullying,

profiting off the presidency, all these these are all things that are going to last. and these are things that, as joe. >> was talking. >> about, congress is going to start fighting back against congress and the courts. but i can tell you, i had lots of conversations inside mar-a-lago, inside the white house. they're ready for the fight. president trump is personally ready for the fight. he thinks that the people are on his side. they said to me, not many americans out there in most of america, morning, usaid. and he's just fully willing to test what he can get out of the courts. >> yeah. >> go ahead, candy. >> that is true. maybe many americans are not. morning usaid, although farmers who had contracts with usaid may start complaining about it. and i guess the question is, at what point does the haphazard way that these cuts are being made start to impact individuals to a degree that members of congress then hear complaints? i mean, how i'm surprised it hasn't happened already, but will there

be a moment where your senator from south dakota has his phone ringing off the hook because their constituents daughter, who's in a cancer trial, is no longer in that cancer trial because that's been shut or because they couldn't go to the national park that weekend because all of the parks are shut and or have have they has those done this in a way that actually the impact on regular citizens will be minimal? i mean, i think that's the question is, is the impact going to be big? and therefore we get complaints from constituents, including republicans, or is the impact going to be containable and therefore they get away with it? >> well. >> to zoom in even more. >> on that point. >> what happens when you hit the trump base? >> what happens. >> if you hit republicans, if you hit farmers? now, what the white house says about this is not only do they think that they have the people on their side, and you have elon musk in the president's ear saying, radical reform, radical reform. the people voted for radical reform. and what the white house told us, jim vandehei and me, for this story on trump's boundary boundary busting is that people

voted for us. we are now doing it, letting bureaucrats, as they say, civil servants, do. it is the opposite of, of democracy. and they're just committed. they're convinced that net these are popular and they're willing to take the fall out. you're talking about. >> coming up, one of. >> our next guest argues the. >> trump administration's foreign. >> policy has become. >> crystal clear. >> and it's one. >> that shows little concern for both allies. and adversaries. the washington post's eugene robinson joins us ahead. >> with more. >> on that. >> morning joe is. >> coming right. >> coming right. >> back without a clue. this is steve. steve takes voquezna. this is steve's stomach, where voquezna can kick some acid, heal erosive esophagitis, also known as erosive gerd, and relieve related heartburn. voquezna is the first

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that is rebuilding to make sure it won't happen again? you've obviously made a decision to resign. are there any lessons that can be learned as you're talking to members of your congregation, what do you tell them about how to stand up for their own moral beliefs, but still find grace in this moment? >> doge recently. >> posted a. list of the government contracts it has.

>> canceled on its website, itemizing what it says. is $16 billion in savings in what. >> it calls. >> a wall of receipts. yet an investigation by the new york times found almost half of those line item savings. >> could be attributed. >> to a single $8 billion contract for the immigration and customs enforcement agency. furthermore, according to the paper, it appears that the doge list vastly overstated the actual intended value. >> of that contract. >> a closer scrutiny of a federal database. shows that a recent version. >> of the contract. >> was for 8 million and not 8 billion. >> in addition. >> yeah. okay, so this is a type of evil stuff. yeah. >> i think. >> it. >> was a typo. >> million dollars. yeah, $1 billion. >> in addition. >> the times notes. >> that since. 2.5 million had already been spent. >> on the contract, it's likely. >> that. canceling it saved. 5.5

million at most. >> a spokeswoman. >> so instead of $8 million. so instead of 8 billion it's a 5.5 million. okay. got it. >> right. and a spokeswoman for doge did not respond to the paper's request to explain their accounting. joining us. >> now. >> former biden. >> white house infrastructure coordinator and former democratic mayor of new orleans. >> mitch landrieu. >> he is co-chair of american bridge. >> a democratic. >> political organization. >> hey, mitch. >> so you. >> understand, i mean, you understand, as ross perot would say, where the rubber hits the road, where we can talk sort of generally, theoretically about government cuts. we can talk generally, theoretically about waste, fraud and abuse. and we all want to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse. we've spent our lives. i know you have, too, trying to find it and get rid of it. but then you talk about these random cuts where, you

know, as somebody said, you measure once, you cut two, three, four times and suddenly people are really working. americans are really feeling the impact of these cuts. >> well, this is where you can find out whether somebody is just talking the talk or walking the walk. when i became mayor of new orleans, three weeks after the bp oil spill hit, we had been through katrina, rita, ike, gustav, the national recession and the bp oil spill. my government was $100 million in the hole out of a $460 million budget. i had to cut 20% out of a budget in six months. i don't know anybody else in the country that's ever done that. but what i found is you better not cut stupid. you got to cut smart and you got to cut thoughtful. the american public can understand this. joe, you look like a pretty fit guy. you know, if i told you that you needed to lose 30% of your body weight, and i did it by cutting off your leg, you bleed to death, essentially. so the last thing you want to do is put an unaccountable billionaire bureaucrat in charge where there's no transparency and have them just cut in a chaotic way that's going to

affect the lives, the real lives of people. so if you cut and firefighters in an area where there are fires, if you're cutting food inspectors or you're cutting avian inspectors where there's a bird flu, are you actually starting to cut things that really, really matter in people's lives? people go, what the hell are you doing? i mean, damn it, that doesn't make any sense. and that's what's happening right now. and i think the american people are getting wind of the fact that they're not even telling the truth about what they're trying to do, much less doing it well. >> coming up, former. >> u.s. ambassador to russia. >> michael mcfaul. >> joins us. >> to weigh. >> in on. >> the prospects of. >> a peace deal. >> between russia. >> and ukraine. >> following yesterday's. >> diplomatic talks. >> in saudi arabia. >> morning joe. >> is back in a moment. >> lumify. it's kind of amazing. wow. >> lumify eye drops dramatically reduce redness. >> in one minute. >> and look at the difference. >> my eyes look brighter and whiter. >> for up. >> for up. >> to ei with hotels and vacation rentals, booking.com has something for everyone. seashells! you got anything more boutique?

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for instance. >> while he. >> was still running to be mayor of new york. >> no one could if he lived in new. york or in new jersey. once he became mayor, he appointed and later had to remove his brother as deputy police commissioner. he announced a

personal war on rats, introduced a times square robocop that failed as a police officer. >> but thrived. as a public. >> urinal. >> and claims. >> that the big apple is littered with. unique crystals that give out a special energy. yes, in fact, i saw a gentleman enjoying some of those unique crystals in the port authority bathroom yesterday. he definitely. radiated a special energy. but there's no. denying eric adams loves this city. just listen to how he praised all the possibilities of new york. >> this is a. place where every day you wake up, you can experience everything from a plane crashing into our trade center to a. person who's celebrating a new business. that's open. >> oh. >> not sure if. >> you want to promote your city using the worst thing that ever happened there. >> that's why. >> hawaii doesn't have posters that say visit pearl harbor. >> japan could be. >> back any day.

>> welcome to the fourth hour. >> of morning joe. it is 6 a.m. on the west coast. time to wake up, everybody. and 9 a.m. in the east, along with joe. jonathan lemire and me. we have washington bureau chief at usa today. susan page is here with us this morning. also with us, pulitzer prize. winning columnist and associate editor of the washington post. eugene robinson is back. good to have you both. here in d.c. we begin with president. trump blaming ukraine for russia's invasion nearly three years ago. he made those comments yesterday after reporters pressed him on ukrainian officials not being involved in the diplomatic talks between the us and russia in saudi arabia. nbc news chief foreign. correspondent richard engel has the latest from ukraine. >> promising to end the biggest war in europe since world war two. president trump. is now. >> blaming ukraine. >> for being invaded by russia three.

>> years ago. >> saying ukrainian president zelensky should have made unspecified concessions to placate russia and avoid the war. >> you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. i could have made a deal for ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land. and no people would have been killed. >> president trump has. >> launched a peace process, sending his top. >> foreign policy. >> team to saudi arabia to meet the russian side. they met for more than four hours, leaving the russian smiling. >> ukraine was not invited. >> president zelenskyy. expressing frustration at being. >> sidelined from the negotiations. president trump this morning saying. >> president trump. >> is. >> trapped in. >> a disinformation bubble, suggesting he's following russian propaganda. >> russia occupies about 20% of ukraine. ukrainians fear. >> president trump will. >> surrender the territory to putin on the front lines in eastern ukraine this morning. ukrainian troops are trying to

both defend their country from ongoing. >> russian missile. >> and drone attacks. >> and figure out if the united states is still with them. >> yvonne, who. >> by army rules only gave his first. >> name, is the commander of. >> a. >> tank unit outside kharkiv. >> does it feel like. >> decisions are being made about ukraine without ukraine's input torque? >> yes, this is. >> exactly the. >> feeling we have. >> he said, adding it does influence the mood. it is very demotivating. >> all right. that was nbc's richard engel with that report. joe, your thoughts? >> well, there's so much to talk about. i mean, as a somebody that grew up in a conservative household, as a conservative republican, we actually believed in what ronald reagan said about peace through strength. but also believed. and it's what republicans have always believed up until now. it's what conservatives believe that if you capitulate to the russians,

then all you're doing is inviting more conquest. conservatives have through the years, blamed fdr for a failed sort of charm offensive against stalin at yalta, for sacrificing a lot after world war two. of course, kennedy and the bay of pigs, that weakness was was pointed to jimmy carter negotiating salt two at the same time, the soviets invaded afghanistan, a move which, by the way, your father was prepared for and which eventually helped bring down the soviet union. but we even saw it, of course, this century, i say, even especially this century, where we see capitulation leads to catastrophe. 2004 george w bush says he looks into the eyes of vladimir putin and sees into his soul that he's a good man.

vladimir putin responds by becoming openly hostile a few years later and invading the country of georgia. barack obama famously wanted a reset with vladimir putin and was caught whispering to medvedev, hey, we can do more after the election. well, after the election, vladimir putin invades ukraine, vladimir putin invades crimea, vladimir putin's troops shoot down commercial aircraft and on and on. this is one thing that joe biden understood, that you don't actually look weak to vladimir putin because nothing good comes of it. and i must say, there's also another parallel with donald trump and the way he cut out afghanistan's government and negotiating with the taliban, even wanting to bring the taliban to camp david on september 11th. tragic results. i will say, though,

there is deep, deep concerns within the republican party right now. we'll see how many speak out, but deep concerns about what happened yesterday. and that's really reflected in conservative newspapers this morning. two owned by rupert murdoch. here's what the new york post said in their editorial this morning. hello. they say this hello, ukraine is the victim. their emphasis of this war, not to mention our ally, the president's off the cuff remarks about zelensky late tuesday were wildly off base. quote, you've been there for three years. you should have ended it. you should have never started it. the new york post writes. he didn't start it. he had no chance. again, their emphasis to end it except by surrendering to the blood soaked invader. whatever negotiating tactics trump cares to use, turning the truth completely

upside down ought to be beneath him. that's the new york post, the wall street journal editorial page says this mr. trump last week, after a phone call with vladimir putin, said he's convinced the russian dictator wants peace. he didn't say what kind of peace mr. putin has in mind, though if history is a guide, it won't be what most americans understand by the word. the wall street journal editorial page goes on and writes this the kremlin overlord in 2022 started the biggest land war in europe since hitler, and his, quote, special military operation has killed or maimed hundreds of thousands of russians and ukrainians. his missiles have targeted apartment houses and train stations. his forces have tried to freeze ukrainian civilians into surrender by crippling them and their electric power plants. the wall street journal editorial page goes on. his troops have kidnaped hundreds of ukrainian born children from their parents to new homes in russia. they have tortured and executed

ukrainian troops in violation of every rule of international warfare. then they go on to talk about russian hit squads have been dispatched across europe to kill people and said, of course, that no one, quote, should forget the death of alexei navalny, the brave opposition politician who was poisoned abroad, then arrested upon his return and killed in prison. let's bring in right now retired four star army general barry mccaffrey. he's an nbc news military analyst and former u.s. ambassador to russia, now the director of institute for international studies at stanford and an nbc news international affairs analyst. michael mcfaul. general, let me start with you. it seems trite, but i just got to say, in the cold war family i grew up in, we believed in peace through strength. and we believed that

capitulation, especially when you capitulate to russia, leads to only bad things. i'm curious, militarily, what could be the consequences of hanging our european allies and ukraine out to dry? >> look, it's. almost impossible to. >> process and. >> understand what's going on. the putin regime, not only it really, they're on their fourth invasion of sovereign countries right now. putin is a gangster, a kleptocracy. there's nothing that doesn't signal a threat to western europe. >> and the behavior. of russian. >> military actions and russian foreign policy. i cannot understand what. >> mr. trump is doing. >> essentially. >> nato. >> an organization to keep the peace in europe, to. >> keep the. >> us engaged. >> the two greatest concentrations of economic and

political power, the european union and the united states. is now being wrecked. article five assurance that the united states will be there to keep the peace is now gone. mr. trump, for reasons unknown. is essentially repeating the objectives of russian murderous aggression. the next step up. is poland, the baltic. >> states, finland. >> this is incomprehensible what he's up to. >> well, and that is the important thing. the next step up. and if you look at our intel communities, they will say he's he's not going to be pleased. donald trump is wrong. saying this could have been settled. he still wants kyiv. and after kyiv he wants poland and after poland he wants the baltic states. this is a man who wants to reconstitute, if not the old soviet empire. he wants to reconstitute the old russian

empire. and of course, poland is on the front line, aren't they, general? >> well, no question, but all of europe now understands that the guarantees, the assurance of u.s. military and political backing are essentially gone. there can be no trust. >> in the future. >> deterrence of nato minus the united states. by the way, this comes with a background of incomprehensible sort of babble. speak. >> of sees the panama canal, sees greenland economically, canada and becoming a 51st straight state, use military power against drug cartels in mexico. you know, it's just difficult to understand how anyone could arrive at these conclusions. by the way, we're looking at a secretary of state, former senator rubio, who has experience and judgment and history. keith kellogg is a

sound guy, knowledgeable, the national security advisor. why are these people not speaking out? where is where are the leadership of congress watching what's now occurring? it's placing the united states at fundamental risk going forward. >> well, and that's what we're going to be watching for throughout the day to see if any republicans, especially the republican senators and house members who have privately told anybody who will listen, whether they munich conference or whether in washington, d.c, how how strongly they support ukraine, how they see ukraine rightfully as victims of putin's invasion. ambassador mcfaul, of course, even the biden administration was looking at the possibility of talks with russia. cia director did shuttle diplomacy time and again, going to russia, trying to figure out a way to get peace talks started, where we weren't

negotiating from a position of weakness. but let's look at what's happened over the past week. we've unilaterally, unilaterally surrendered on so many fronts. we had the secretary of defense coming out saying, oh no, no, no chance of them getting into nato. no, no, no, they're going to have to give up a lot of land for peace. of course, you negotiate that over the table, of course. and he even had to back off of that. but now you have donald trump blaming ukraine. nobody in europe, nobody in europe, nobody outside of russia has blamed ukraine for this. so how far back does that set us at the negotiation table that not only have a just peace, but get a lasting peace? because as we learned, the united states ignoring the invasion of georgia, the united states ignoring the invasion of ukraine in 2014, the united states ignoring the invasion of crimea, the united states ignoring the shooting down of passenger jets.

all that did was encourage more russian aggression. so what are the consequences of this if we don't go in and negotiate a tough and lasting peace with vladimir putin? >> well, first, joe, you're laid. >> out about. >> peace through strength was fantastic. >> you should. >> take that clip. >> and send it to every member of congress, republican member of congress. you don't need. >> to. >> send. >> it to. >> the democrats. >> and you especially. >> to the senators and especially to the people. senator, >> senator. >> now, secretary rubio. he used to agree with you. i know that for a fact, and i am shocked that people are not thinking in those terms, because you're absolutely right. right now we look weak. we are acting weak. and weakness has. consequences for our national security first and foremost in europe. i was at that munich security conference. our european allies were in

absolute. shock about what the vice president said, or lecturing them about democracy when we're having struggles with our own. and by the way, thank you for mentioning alexei navalny, not talking about the problems of arresting and killing dissidents in russia. >> yulia navalnaya. >> his wife, his widow, was in the audience. by the way. but second, just to your point, we are just giving putin everything without even starting to negotiate. we're telling him he gets territory, he gets ukraine not to be neutral, not in nato. we're going to pull our troops out of europe, and we're going to force zelensky to have an election before there's going to be a negotiated a set of negotiations. we're giving him everything. and i've negotiated with the russians. they're tough negotiators. we need to negotiate. >> with them. >> but it is a horrific negotiating strategy to give them everything and demand

nothing in return. it's just a catastrophic moment for american power. >> well, and this is something that needs to be underlined again, mika, we were talking about we've talked about it throughout the morning. we need peace between ukraine and russia. the biden administration was searching for peace between the two, but they weren't going to go into negotiations in a weakened state. and so, yes, we need this war to come to an end. the new york times this morning reporting that up to a million casualties on both sides have taken place. this has been a war of attrition. the bloodiest, deadliest war in europe since hitler began his invasions in the 1930s. so, yes, peace. peace is what we want. but peace through strength, not peace

through capitulation. >> yeah. gene, your. >> latest column for. >> the washington post is entitled america's new foreign policy. who cares? and you write in part this who cares if russian dictator vladimir putin gets to keep a wide swath of ukraine's territory? he seized in a brutal, unprovoked invasion. who cares if the leaders of wealthy, technologically advanced nations such as britain, france, germany and italy effectively demilitarized beneath the us umbrella since the apocalypse of world war two, decide they now have no choice but to massively rearm. all americans should care about these radical departures from long established policy toward the rest of the world. trump promised to make america great again, but he is doing the polar opposite. his bellicose chest thumping makes this nation

smaller, weaker and more isolated, and negates the concept of american exceptionalism. bullying is a behavior that can intimidate, as anyone who has spent time in a schoolyard knows, but it does not project genuine strength. it reveals insecurity, weakness, overcompensation from some deficiency. trump's foreign policy is that of a paper tiger, not a real one. and this danger is right in front of us. i mean, the question of what next is, is, i think to many, quite frightening. >> no, it's right in front. >> of us. >> it's all around us. >> it's happening. i mean. >> just the last. few days, really. >> this is. >> the most. >> shocking and radical. >> and, and i think tragic. >> shift in. >> american foreign policy. >> in my lifetime. certainly the

lifetime of anyone. who's born after 1948 and the marshall. >> plan is. it is astounding. >> and. you know, you list what can what can go wrong from this. but it's. >> it's. scary to think of. >> the world. >> that we are bringing to be right. >> now that donald trump is. creating the ways he is changing. the. >> world order that. has kept the. >> peace in europe and that has. kept kept us safe for. 80 years now. i have a i have a question for general mccaffrey. if i could ask him, general. >> yep. >> tell me about. what does happen. what does france do? what does. >> the uk do? >> what does germany do in. >> in the.

>> in the face of the fact that the article five guarantee is gone? donald trump has just. wiped it out. they cannot. any longer be sure that the united states. is there to guarantee. >> the peace. >> in europe. so what will they now do? will they now rearm and what does that look like? >> well, you know, we've gone for generations where essentially nato was the cornerstone of u.s. foreign policy, of deterrence, of peace, facing down this massive soviet empire, all of which has disappeared. now we're facing russia, a dangerous gangster state. but essentially all they've got is oil and nuclear weapons and a dictator in charge. i think the europeans, along with most of the global leadership, are horrified. what's happened to the united states? they are a giant economic enterprise. they did, as the write up suggests, the

continent under the american umbrella. they've now got to scramble and try and put together a credible way of preventing further aggression. how do they do that? and i might add, thankfully, the french and the uk both have nuclear capabilities again as a deterrent against what is now turned into the constant threat of nuclear warfare by putin. just unheard of. i also have dealt with the russians over the years, negotiated moscow and vienna and talk to them. they never were like this. there's an they're an unconstrained threat to the security of europe and the united. states and. >> the world. >> and the world. yeah. >> okay. >> susan page, i'm going to let you take it to ambassador mcfaul. but as you do, is there a last minute late in the game opportunity for republicans, senate republicans to be heroes here for america?

>> well, it. goes to. >> i think, to. >> eugene's question. >> who cares. >> on which of these issues. will either. >> senior republicans. >> or the. >> american public. >> react in. >> a way that. >> prompts a reconsideration by the administration? and we have seen on none of these issues an ability to ignite that kind of response that might that might make a difference. but my question for ambassador mcfaul is this strikes. >> me. >> as shocking, but not surprising, because if. >> you. >> go back to president trump's first term. >> his admiration. >> for vladimir putin was was clear, and his disdain. >> for ukraine. >> was. >> pretty clear. >> too, when it when zelensky refused to do his bidding on investigating. biden and it led to his first impeachment. so. so i wonder if all this wasn't. >> kind of forecast. >> during donald trump's first term in the white house. >> that's a. >> great point. >> he never criticized putin in the four years he was in office, by the way, to remind the president and everybody else the

war in ukraine was going on for the entire time that he was president in eastern ukraine. but i got to tell you honestly, i am surprised because, yes, he had this admiration for putin, but he's also got this self-proclaimed reputation for a negotiator. i got right here. art of the deal. here it is. i've been reading it to look at the passage where you say, in order to get a good deal, you give your negotiator everything at the top, and then you try to ask for something in return. that's not a chapter in this book. i did not expect secretary of state rubio to just fold and go along with this capitulation strategy. so i got to tell you honestly, i thought, yes, he would push and pressure the ukrainians to negotiate. they also anticipated that, too. but nobody in their wildest dreams thought that he would just try to give putin everything. and i want to emphasize something joe said at the beginning, giving

putin everything he wants will not lead to peace. that will make him hungrier. that will make him more aggressive. there will not be permanent peace by giving putin everything. it's not too late for them to reverse. and i really hope those republican senators you're talking about. i know some of them. i know they agree with me. i know they're horrified. i also know they've been silent so far. now is not the time to be silent. this is a crisis of epic proportions for america's place in the world. they need to step up. >> well, and they need to know history. they need to pass that history along. what you just said about the consequences of capitulation. you know, in 1994, we signed a treaty with ukraine. they gave up nuclear weapons. we guaranteed in the west everybody guaranteed that their national sovereignty, that we would protect their borders. like i said before, in 2008, georgia

was invaded. the united states did nothing in 2014. that 1994 treaty was torn to shreds. and invasion of ukraine and invasion of crimea. we did nothing. what did that do? that emboldened vladimir putin, so he invaded ukraine. if we capitulate again, republican senators and republican congressmen, as well as democrats, of course, know what the consequences are. there more invasions and more wars. that's why we're where we are right now, because we didn't hold up our end of the bargain. and that 1994 treaty with ukraine, because we sat by and did nothing after the 2008 invasion of georgia, because we sat by and did nothing after the 2014 invasion of ukraine. after the 2014 invasion of crimea, again, every republican, every

democrat should listen to what general mccaffrey and what ambassador mcfaul said. weakness and capitulation leads to more war. ronald reagan was right. peace through strength. nbc news international affairs analyst michael mcfaul, thank you so much for being with us. and retired four star army general barry mccaffrey. thank you for being here. and thank you both so much for your service to this country. you, jonathan lemire, let's go to you. you again. we played a clip earlier of your question in helsinki, and it was a question that baffled people as much then as they're baffled. now when 2025, perhaps greater consequences now than then. but take us back to that 2018 question the answer and how revealing that was about donald trump's relationship with vladimir putin. >> yes, certainly. let's remember july 2018, in helsinki,

the mueller probe had been the talk of washington. you know, trump had been dogged by questions of his relationship with putin, with moscow. and i asked him at that moment about the 2016 election interference, who we believed all of his own intelligence agencies, who said russia interfered with the election were putin's denials. and he made clear he believed putin. and it was a firestorm, one of the rare moments, frankly, of his presidency, where republicans, almost with one voice, denounced what he did. and those moments where republicans stand up to trump have have grown fewer and farther between. there was a moment, though, a year ago, and that's what i wrote this morning in the atlantic. it was one year ago this week where john thune and 21 republican of his 2121 of his republican colleagues defied trump's wishes, defied many in the party and voted to authorize $60 billion in defense spending for ukraine went into. it was passed a couple months later when speaker johnson came. around on it. but that was a gutsy vote for them because

trump had, at that point, on his glide path to gop nomination, had denounced them, had told them not to do it. but they did. but this time around, most republicans, including thune, very quiet, have said very little about what trump is doing there. yes, there have been a couple of people susan collins, mitch mcconnell, a couple others have have said they weren't comfortable with what trump is doing. others have sort of wishfully said, well, ukraine should get a place at the table. we still hope that happens. but they're not denouncing what trump himself is doing. and mika, as sort of our theme all morning, is this idea that this was the party of reagan and george h.w. bush, of cold warriors, of hawks against russia. and right now, donald trump has not only thrown out that gop orthodoxy, but is bowing to an american adversary in vladimir putin. and at least so far, most republicans are staying quiet about it. >> coming up. >> president trump. >> announced yesterday the return of inflation, but claims he had nothing to do with it. >> we'll play. >> for you. his comments

straight ahead. fresh off streaming its first football games on christmas, netflix is now eyeing a much larger piece of the nfl pie. cnbc is andrew ross sorkin joins us next to explain. you're watching morning joe. we'll be right back. joe. we'll be right back. >> bop bop bop bop 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... arrggghh! ahhhh! [crashing sounds] we had everything we needed. is the internet out? don't worry, we have at&t internet back-up. the next level network for small business. ♪♪ i sold a pillow!

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impacts. opponents say the measure includes inaccurate information and argue that the vaccines have already undergone rigorous research. out west now, a cell phone ban in about 800 public schools in los angeles took effect yesterday, with no reports of any major issues. the ban in the nation's second largest school system also applies to smart watches, and any other device that can send messages, receive calls or browse the internet. phones can be used on busses to school, but are not allowed during lunch or any breaks. under the california phone free schools act, all districts, charter schools and county education offices must draft student cell phone policies by july 1st, 2026, and they can either limit or outright ban their use. and kfc is leaving kentucky. it's right

there in the name, but the fried chicken giant is moving its us headquarters out of louisville to plano, texas. the move will affect about 100 us employees who will be required to relocate. in addition, the company's remote workforce will also be asked to move to the campus where their work is based. kfc no longer in kentucky. back in washington, president trump yesterday tried to distance himself from the recent rise in inflation, and he tried to still place the blame on his predecessor, joe biden. let's take a look. >> and inflation is back. i'm only here for two and a half weeks. that was. inflation is back. no. think of it. inflation is back. and they said oh, trump and i had nothing to do with it. these people have run the country. they spent money like nobody has ever spent. >> that's fact. >> check. actually the biggest. >> debt ever.

>> accumulated was during president trump's first term. first four year term. let's bring in our the co-anchor of cnbc's squawk box and the new york times columnist andrew ross sorkin. andrew, i just i you and i we're we i just want to obsess on something here, you and i. are worried. >> about. >> again, this economy that has been so strong for so long is in such a fragile place. and there seems to be so many questions right now. i keep reading stories about companies that thought they were going to merge and going to expand that are just waiting to now because of the tariffs put in place, because they're scared all the new tariffs, the threats of tariffs will lead to inflation. you've got president trump that's pressuring the fed to actually lower interest rates when actually interest rates should be maintained or actually maybe possibly even go up

because the economy is too hot. you've got the belief that the rule of law is under attack. and also, of course, our best trading partners are being attacked every single day. i mean, this is i've always heard that investors hate chaos. they like certainty. chaos. hate chaos. they like certainty. is all of this having. it's. there's not a leading question. i'm curious. what are your your trump supporting ceos saying to you or or things creating an environment that are making them uneasy about where the united states is going, not only economically but just generally? >> so it's actually quite. >> an interesting question because i think there's a mixed picture here. one is the uncertainty in this moment. clearly is stalling things, which is to say, if you were going to make a big investment today, you're not doing that

because you don't know what the tariff picture is going to look like in the next couple of months, potentially over the next year, maybe longer. you're waiting on the tax situation. what is going to happen this summer? i think those two are the biggies. there's also, by the way, even in this moment, just. the prospects of tariffs beyond stalling things, actually creating its own form of inflation. we haven't seen it yet in the data, but i imagine over the next couple of months we will. i've talked about it on the broadcast before. there's a whole number. of u.s. businesses, including the likes of ford and other automakers, for example, that are effectively hoarding supplies. so if they have parts and other things in mexico or in canada, they're bringing them right here at. great additional cost. >> to. >> them selves right now, in case tariffs go into effect. >> so those are costs. that are unclear about. >> whether they're going to be able to pass them on to consumers either. so there's definitely an unease 100% an

unease about where things are. and you're not seeing the kind of mergers. you're not seeing the kind of investment that you might have. >> anticipated. >> given some of the rhetoric and comments made back in november. having said that, i wouldn't say that the entire ceo class is saying, oh my goodness, this is terrible for the us at the moment. i think that's something. that is sort of in a wait and see. is this going to be good or is this going to be bad? and there is still, for some, at least in the business community, a kind of honeymoon period. i know there's others that may be watching us saying honeymoon. what? but i think that's sort of the maybe. a sort of in the middle balanced view of what is happening among the ceo class. and you're right, by the way, though, the legal system, that is something that i think. >> they are. >> watching very carefully, but again, waiting to see where things really land. yeah. and let's talk now about netflix. they of course, had a disaster. they had a disastrous streaming

event, but then followed up with with pretty strong performance streaming nfl games. now they want more. >> so this could be. >> a watershed. >> for the tv industry. once again. you know, the big. networks have always had the sunday afternoon games. they were the most valuable rights. these networks. >> like cbs, paid. >> a small fortune for the rights. and now netflix, which long said it didn't want to enter the live sports business. >> they've been. >> sort of slowly wading their way into the water and now saying that they want to get in on the action. if, in fact, a netflix were to be able to buy the license for sunday, it, i think would shake up the whole network business of tv, in part because the networks, the big networks have long used the nfl as a leverage point for everything else, as a way to market. all of their other shows and the like. and it would. also just change the ecosystem of

paying for comedies and dramas and other things, because it's clear. >> that a lot. >> of the streamers are starting to say that sports. >> is better. >> rating. >> which is true. >> than some other types of programs, which oftentimes are more expensive. and so. we will see whether they rewrite this world. all over again. yeah, it's really incredible the impact that the nfl has wherever it goes. and now it looks like it's going all the way into streaming. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. and mika, i know you're very excited about netflix getting involved in football as well. >> sure. whatever. i mean, that. >> sounds good. >> as long as they don't mess it up. coming up, we'll show you the incredible video of a woman who was rescued from a burning car thanks to a fast acting police officer. plus, the latest on the plane crash in toronto, as new video is giving investigators a better look at the final moments of that flight. that's all straight flight. that's all straight ahead on

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trumpland with alex wagner. >> 47 past the hour. we are learning new details this morning about the events surrounding the delta plane that flipped over on a runway in toronto. nbc news correspondent stephanie gosk has the latest on the investigation. >> this morning, investigators are. >> focusing on these crucial. >> moments when delta. >> 4819. >> hit the runway in toronto. all hoping the flight data and cockpit. >> voice recorders. >> may help. >> explain how this crash could have happened. everything appeared normal during the descent. at first, but when the plane. hit the runway, the landing gear on the right appeared. >> to blow off. >> followed by. >> the wing, sending. >> the plane tumbling. according to nbc news aviation. analyst john cox. review of crash footage. >> investigators are going to look very carefully at exactly what caused that wing to separate. >> they will also be looking at what role the wind. >> may have played.

>> weather reports recorded gusts. >> of up to. >> 40 miles an hour with drifting snow. >> the conditions were challenging, but nothing more than than professional pilots can handle. the airplanes designed for it, the pilots are trained for it. >> remarkably, all 80 people on. >> board survived. >> i was upside down. >> the lady. >> next to me was upside down. we kind of let ourselves go and fell. >> to hit the ceiling. >> which is surreal feeling. >> most of the injuries. >> were minor. >> according to paramedics. >> back springs head injuries, anxiety, some headaches, nausea and vomiting. >> delta airlines says 21. >> passengers were treated in the hospital for injuries and. 19 have been released. drop it. officials applauding. >> the efforts of first responders. >> and flight attendants. >> we saw the most important role that they play in action. the crew of delta flight 4819 heroically led passengers to

safety. >> oh, my. >> it's something passengers. >> like peter. kuckhoff noticed, too. >> does it seem now impressive when you look back at it that they handled it? >> they did. absolutely. i feel like everybody handled it pretty well, considering we were in a plane crash. >> incredible. that was. nbc's stephanie gosk with that report. we also want to show you a heroic rescue caught on camera, where a police officer and a firefighter were just at the right place at the right time. >> get out of the way. >> get out of the way! >> there you see the officer racing to break the window with his baton to help. save a woman from a burning truck. it happened in arizona yesterday morning. the woman's car was. >> hit by a. >> cement truck, causing her vehicle to overturn, and it burst into flames. moments later, an off duty firefighter helped pull the woman to safety.

incredibly, she was transported to the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery. and still ahead, our next guest is opening up about the medical trauma that she endured as a child and the impact this had on her self worth. we're going to dig into that and her message to parents and doctors. when parents and doctors. when morning joe returns in dry eyes still feel gritty, rough, or tired? with miebo, eyes can feel ♪ miebo ♪ ♪ ohh yeah ♪ miebo is the only prescription dry eye drop that forms a protective layer for the number one cause of dry eye: too much tear evaporation. for relief that's ♪ miebo ♪ ♪ ohh yeah ♪ remove contact lenses before using miebo. wait at least 30 minutes before putting them back in. eye redness and blurred vision may occur. ♪ miebo ♪ ♪ ohh yeah ♪ ask your eye doctor about prescription miebo.

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>> a slim. >> design, try it out for 99 days. risk free. >> welcome back. a new novel is tackling the difficult topic of childhood medical trauma, highlighting why parents may want to reevaluate the best way to talk to their kids about the pain they may experience during a doctor's visit or a medical procedure. the book is entitled i am the cage. it follows the main character, elizabeth, a 19 year old who runs away from her life and hides from the world in a small town in wisconsin, where

she must finally reach out for help after a snowstorm threatens her survival. joining us now, the book's author, alison sweet grant. she recently wrote a piece for the new york times about being honest with children, about pain and her own childhood medical trauma, which inspired her novel. so welcome to the show. alison, thank you so much for joining us. i'm curious. tell us more about the storyline here and what part of your own true life experience is reflected in it? >> yeah. >> thank you so. >> much for having me. you know, i am the cage is a coming. >> of. >> age novel. >> about a young woman who's. >> grappling with medical trauma and her search for healing. and it begins. >> as you mentioned. >> with a young woman who's hiding. she's isolated herself. she's completely cut herself off from the world. and she's hiding

from. >> everything that she knows. >> of course, of course something happens, right? >> she's caught. >> in this. >> major snowstorm. >> and she realizes. >> that she. >> can no longer hide throughout. >> the story. >> we're given glimpses into her past flashbacks, and. they're pretty harrowing ones. and we. >> come to understand why she's made the choices that she's made. why? why she is who she is. >> and. >> that that's. >> sort. of the snaps. >> yeah. you know, you know, alison on, on on the show, we always talk about a dvt concept when we're talking about when people come on and talking about mental health or challenges that they may have had. and it's about being able to hold two separate truths at the same time. and this book is about that. your story is about that. your life is about that. you talk about being able to hold gratefulness and grieving at the

same time, and how important it is to understand that sometimes those two emotions go hand in hand. tell us about that. >> this story is based upon a medical procedure that i experienced as. >> a child. experiences that i had. >> in the medical. >> system as a child. and i think it's really important to remember that. >> we can. >> be grieving and grateful at the same time. the procedure that. i had is remarkable and life changing in. >> many ways. >> but it can also. be pretty grueling. and i think it's okay to be grateful for the opportunities that i was given, all of the good things that. came out of it, but also feel. >> sad for the things. >> that didn't. >> go right at the same time. this book is. >> not a. >> memoir. >> but it. >> was inspired by my experiences, and i did try to inject my own emotion into the story as much as possible.

>> allison, this. is susan page. i wonder if, as if you have any. >> advice for parents, maybe their kids are going to have to undergo some kind of medical procedure that could be painful. >> what is. the what is the. >> right way to approach. this with kids. >> and especially with. >> with young kids? can you prepare them to. >> to take it in stride. >> so it doesn't mark them for the rest of their lives? >> well, the article that i wrote for the new york times focuses on pain, particularly in children and particularly in health care. and i think so often parents and providers alike, with the best of intentions, you know, want to protect children from pain, but often what they do in admitting the truth is end up just postponing it. and i. >> think. >> children can handle so much more than we think that they can. i think that they deserve honesty and dignity and a sense of control in a situation where

there may be very little to begin with. >> the new book, i am the cage, is on sale now, and the new piece for the new york times is available to read online. author alison sweet grant, thank you so much for writing the book and sharing this story with everybody. and coming on the show this morning. congratulations. thank you. all right, joe, as we close out, this is a this is a quite a moment in history. >> yeah, it really is. it really is. this is an extraordinarily important time for members of congress to stand up and speak out. and jean, to say publicly what they all are saying privately. >> you know, you know, the constitution gives congress the power. >> to declare war. >> congress has a role to play in our foreign policy. it has largely. >> been ceded. >> to the presidency.

>> over the years. >> but congress. >> yes. >> the senators, members of the house, they need to speak up. they know this is wrong. they know this is this is. tragic and disastrous and will lead to nothing good. now is the time to speak up. because it's happening. >> yeah. >> i and if it helps republicans to hear from again from reagan. reagan did what he did by believing in peace through strength and also understanding that america was a city shining brightly on the hill for all the world to see. let's not extinguish that light when it comes to freedom. finally, mika, i just we've read from the new york post. we've read from the new york times. we've read from the wall street journal today. i recommend people read from the williams record. go to williams record.com. they hear about mika brzezinski, class of 89,

reflecting on her career in journalism. >> okay. well, thank. >> you for that, jean. >> susan page, thanks for being on this morning. and that does it for us this morning. guess what. we'll be back bright and early. bright and early tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. on a. cabrera picks up the coverage in one minute. >> msnbc presents a new podcast hosted by jen psaki. each week, she talks to some of the biggest names in democratic politics, with the biggest ideas for how democrats can win again. the blueprint with jen psaki. listen now. >> all of this can be overwhelming, but it is important to remember there are still checks and balances. there's a lot being thrown at the american people right now, and it is really important to pay attention to it, but it is just as important to recognize how many of those things are getting announced. but they're not happening at all, or at least not yet. just try to remember we are not looking a