so certainly watching vance, watching others who might be on that schedule, and also just talking to the more grassroots folks who are there about what they think about this administration, i imagine it's going to be all praise, but it could be indicative of what the next year or two years. and then, of course, the next iteration of the republican party might look like. matt lewis, thank you for joining us with our with your thoughts as always. and that was way too early for this thursday morning. morning joe starts right now. >> trump is also. >> crippling other countries out there, starting with ukraine. this week he sent marco rubio to saudi arabia for russia, ukraine peace talks. >> but ukraine. wasn't invited. that makes it. >> that makes. >> it. kind of hard to. >> find peace, honey. >> oh my gosh, that was the most. >> amazing couple's. therapy today. >> you should. >> have been there. >> doctor. >> brad and. >> i agree everything is your fault. >> oh, and. >> i forgot. i'm leaving you. there you go. but then trump

called zelensky a dictator. >> who refuses. >> to have. elections and is very. >> low in. >> ukrainian polls. >> unlike trump's. >> democratically elected buddy. >> putin, who is very popular in russia. latest polls show 90% approve and 10%. >> are falling out. >> of a window. >> and there we go. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is thursday, february 20th. >> we have a lot to get to this morning. including donald trump's latest pro-putin comments, calling. >> the president of ukraine a dictator. >> we'll play for. you that and show you the reaction from. republican lawmakers. where's the line for them? meanwhile, the president is backing. >> the. >> house's budget bill to support his tax and spending cuts. >> we'll break. >> down the effect it could have on millions of americans. plus, delta is offering a lump sum for. >> the passengers. >> who were on the. plane that

crashed. >> landed in toronto. >> we'll have. >> the details. >> of. >> that offer. >> also ahead, we'll. >> get expert. >> legal analysis. >> on yesterday's. hearing in the corruption. >> case against new york city mayor. eric adams. as the justice department pushes for a dismissal of the charges. 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. >> it's so awesome. katty kay columnist. >> it is. >> so good. >> no, i. really i was it's amazing. columnist and associate editor for the washington post, david ignatius is here again with us and we appreciate that. >> and here we got. >> the managing editor of the bulwark, sam stein. >> that was. >> enthusiastic, enthusiastic. >> we need a little youth. >> pretty little youth. >> you been. >> saying that for 15? >> all right. >> this is where the fun ends.

let's get to the news. >> president trump. >> escalated his rhetoric on the ukraine war yesterday, falsely claiming that president volodymyr zelensky is a dictator. it came in a long post on truth. social yesterday morning that included a number of inaccuracies. then last night, trump essentially repeated the post while speaking at an event in miami. >> a dictator without elections. zelensky. better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. got to move. got to move fast. i love ukraine, but zelensky has done a terrible job. his country is shattered and millions and millions of people have unnecessarily died. and you can't bring a war to an end if you don't talk to both sides. you got to talk. they haven't been talking for three years. >> this turn on ukraine, of course, has a history. we all remember 2019, where trump wanted volodymyr zelensky to investigate hunter biden, get dirt on joe biden, basically

trying to shake down a foreign leader for dirt on a political rival. and he was withholding military aid. i think it was about $400 million back then. so this in some ways is not shocking, but the turning on a country that is fighting for its survival and fighting for peace for the rest of the world and fighting against oppression for a lot of people who love this democracy, that hurts to hear. >> on capitol. >> hill, some republicans were critical of the overall message trump's of trump's comments to russia. but most they just stopped, just. stopped short of actually criticizing the president. >> would you call. >> a ukrainian president. >> zelensky a dictator as president trump has? >> well. >> i like i said, the president speaks. >> for himself. >> i do. >> not agree. >> that president. >> zelensky is to. >> blame in. >> any way. >> can you talk? >> thank you. president trump.

>> has. weighed in. >> excuse me. >> by russia. >> i absolutely. >> would not say that zelensky started the war. >> it is. quite clear. >> who started the war. it was. absolutely russia at putin's directive. you don't. >> think that there should be. >> any confusion. >> with that? >> to the extent that the white. >> house said. >> that ukraine started the war, i disagree. i think vladimir putin started the war. i also believe. through bitter experience that vladimir putin is a gangster. he's a gangster with a black heart. he makes jeffrey dahmer look like mother teresa. he has stalin's taste for blood. and as i've said in another context, i wouldn't trust. >> this guy. >> like, i trust gas stations. sushi. >> but make no. >> mistake about it. >> that invasion was the

responsibility of one human. >> being on the. >> face of this planet. it was vladimir putin. in a. calculation to go through ukraine and. >> not stop. >> there. >> to go through moldova. >> to go through. >> the. >> balkans, to. >> ultimately go to the baltic states and send the. signal to china that. >> now is the time. >> that they can take. >> action in the south. >> china sea. >> that's what this is about. >> and that's what we as members have to communicate. >> you've seen dictators? >> i didn't hear that. i'll let other people. >> use their words. >> it's not a word. >> i would. >> have used. >> i used to be a divorce. >> lawyer, so. >> and i did. >> it. >> for about a year. >> the last thing. >> you do is you get the antagonistic. >> couples in the room at the end, not the beginning. i am okay with talking with russia. about what? where's your. >> head. >> space and relaying that to the ukrainians. >> there will be no deal. >> without ukraine being consulted. >> and on. >> board because it won't work. i talked to zelensky today. >> nobody is going to do. >> anything that that you're not. involved with.

>> but talking to the russians separately, i'm actually okay with that. then go back to ukraine and see what they think. and keep working. keep working. at the end, you got to get both parties into. >> the room. do you think that putin can be trusted in these negotiations? >> no. putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed. >> okay. >> that last. >> comment from republican senator roger wicker of mississippi was. >> from on tuesday. >> before trump. called ukrainian president zelensky a dictator. trump is also facing criticism from two of his former 2024 primary rivals. look at this. former vice president mike pence wrote in a social media post. quote, mr. president. ukraine did not start this war. the road to peace must be built on the truth. and former un ambassador nikki haley said, quote, these are classic russian

talking points. exactly what putin wants. so david ignatius, here we are again. it only gets worse. and while really consequential to hear this president turning on ukraine, when. >> you look at the. >> pattern of his. behavior with ukraine, i guess it's not surprising. it's also a huge distraction from the. >> breakdown of the federal. >> government that is happening in unlawful ways, as well as the controversial nominees that are getting basically, you know, corralled right through the senate and out into their positions with seemingly very little pushback or questions to some really scary concepts that they bring along. >> with them. >> so one. >> striking thing to me, mika. >> is that. >> republicans finally seem to have found their voice. in directly, clearly disagreeing with. >> donald trump. >> in his. >> criticism of zelensky and

this absurd. >> claim that ukraine started the war. that seems to have blown a circuit for the republicans. and it's about time. >> the concern i'm. >> hearing from. >> strategists. from military people who. >> follow this. >> is. >> is this negotiation heading into a sort of rough accommodation. between the united states and russia? >> two big guys who. >> are going. >> to figure out. how they resume their. >> relationship. >> and then a decision. by europe, whether europe stands with. ukraine and europe. >> provides the defense going forward. >> and if zelensky is really left out of the picture. >> by trump and watching his comments, you wonder if that's. >> not. >> where we're heading. >> will europe. >> step up? it's you know, six months ago it would have been impossible. three months ago, a month ago. >> to imagine anything like this. but this has become so personal. >> for trump. you know, you. >> need to. >> really think why. what is it?

where does this animus towards. >> vladimir zelensky. >> come from? is it he? he treats him like a little man. he calls him a comedian. he's like. a secondary. player with with contempt. >> i thought. >> the tweets, the tweet yesterday was snide. >> it was just. >> a gratuitous piling on. and he's continuing with the speech last night. so i just know where where we seem to be heading right now is an accommodation between the us and russia, and then a european decision to stand with. >> with. >> with zelensky. and that would mean a break not only with zelensky, but a real break between the united states and europe. that's the danger of the moment. >> and i think david's right. >> how personal this is. >> first of. >> all, modestly. >> successful comedian was the language that trump used in his truthsocial post yesterday. of course, zelensky, the president. >> of ukraine. and to mika's point. >> i think. >> some of this does stem from. trump's first. >> impeachment in 2019, when trump and had. >> enlisted rudy. >> giuliani and. >> others to try to get dirt. >> on the biden family.

>> he thought. >> biden would be his. >> likely opponent in 2020. he was. >> right about that. >> going over to ukraine, trying to find dirt about them there. zelensky did not cooperate with, as mika said, withheld the. military aid that led to an impeachment. and we know that there's a personal dimension to this between trump and putin as well. he's always been deferential to putin. he has lavished praise upon him even before he entered politics. and certainly afterwards we know how deferential he was in helsinki. he continues to be to this. to this day. and you're right, republicans were critical of what he said, but they still weren't critical of trump. they don't ever go after. trump himself. not yet. but this does feel like it. >> is a. >> moment in this conflict. the ukrainians and the officials. >> there. >> i've talked last couple of days, david, i'm sure you have as. >> well are. >> deeply alarmed. >> that there about there being. >> abandoned here by the united states, their biggest partner and ally, where it seems like. >> at least in. >> some degrees, washington leaning. >> towards moscow. >> now in this conflict, the wall street journal. adds their. >> voice to this. >> the editorial board continues its criticism of trump's

handling of ukraine with a. >> new piece. >> titled trump. >> tilts toward a ukraine sellout. >> it reads. >> in part this. >> the u.s. >> has. >> a profound. >> interest in denying mr. putin. >> a new perch on more of the nato border, which. >> is the real reason america has been right to arm. >> ukraine. >> a deal that amounts to ukrainian surrender will be a blow to american power that will radiate to the pacific and the middle east. >> it would be. >> the opposite of mr. trump's promise to. restore a golden age. >> of u.s. >> prestige in world calm. last week, mr. trump said ukraine. >> cannot join. >> nato and must must give up much of its territory. >> to russia. concessions to. >> mr. putin with nothing in return. mr. putin's response this week has been more drone attacks on ukraine, and here we thought mr. trump doesn't like being played. the better strategy than beating up ukraine is making clear to mr. putin the. arms and pressure he will face if the russian. doesn't wind down. >> the. >> war to. >> accept a durable peace.

>> as it stands now, they go on. mr. trump's seeming desperation for a deal is a risk to ukraine, europe, u.s. interests and his own presidency. and katty, i mean, it's spelled. >> out very well there. >> for so long. as we talked about yesterday on the show, the republican party, the. >> party of reagan. >> and. >> h.w. bush. >> the cold warriors. >> that was. part of. >> their their. >> whole orthodoxy. >> and now trump has abandoned that and seemingly on the verge of rewarding putin. for this illegal war, asking. >> very little in. return for that. >> the guy who wrote the art of the deal, there seems to be no real negotiations going on here. he's giving away the shop before talks even start, and it's one that could fundamentally reshape europe not just now, but potentially set up putin on a path for more going forward. >> yeah. >> first of all, it's very interesting that. >> the criticism. >> of. >> donald trump's. >> policies at the moment is coming as much from the wall street journal as it is from anywhere else. it's worth watching that. obviously. >> there. >> are things the journal likes about what trump is doing, but this in particular, they don't.

the people who cover russia and ukraine much more closely than i do are surprised by the degree to which donald trump has already played his cards. and once you put all of your cards on the table, you don't have very much left. so they say donald trump is in a weak negotiating position. now. he's put himself into that weak negotiation position. the russians, in contrast, are wheeling out some very skilled negotiators. my understanding is that the people that were in saudi arabia are much more proficient in negotiating than those who have tried to negotiate before, and more are more skilled in negotiating on russia, ukraine and this particular area than any of the americans who were sent. now, was that by design, were the americans? did the americans go in order to be rolled over? the speed with which this has happened has left europeans scrambling. there is an opportunity for europe to step up. they have the money to do so. they could fund at least the holding of a defensive line. but that paris meeting led to no unity. and that's the problem for europeans. >> it's easier. >> to be a skilled.

>> negotiator when the person across from you. >> gives you the store. >> right up front. >> like. >> here. >> take this. >> i actually. >> they even get. >> to the table. >> i had a. >> question for david. >> actually, because. >> my view of this is. >> colored by two. >> preceding stories. >> to what's happened, which. >> is one, the u.s. made an offer to essentially take over russia's, i mean, sorry, ukraine's mineral supplies. >> and zelenskyy. >> said, no. >> we're not going to do that. and i'm kind of curious. >> from your. >> reporting how much that has been affecting donald trump's mood and approach to zelensky in the past couple of days, the fact that zelensky just wouldn't give him basically a huge economic portion of the country. and then the second one. is there was a story a couple of weeks back about how trump wants this grand deal with russia and china, in which they would enter some sort of pact. >> and. >> they would reduce their nuclear. >> supplies and their armaments by, what. >> 50% or something crazy. >> and my view of. >> this is that everything should be seen through the prism, not necessarily of trump's antagonism. towards zelensky. but his desire for

some sort of grand deal with the russians. and what. >> he's. >> trying to do now is essentially get russia in a place where they can do a secondary deal off of this deal, in. >> which. >> there is some sort of global agreement for disarmament. it's very, sort of cold war ish and scope. >> so. >> sam, the thing that struck me the most in the last two days is the way in which trump is making this about donald trump. it's just. >> classic, you know. >> here's this war of enormous proportions. 700,000 russians killed or wounded in the last three years. and it's about donald trump. >> and it's about if. >> only they'd listened to me. and, you know, i could have made peace. and it's so there is this dimension. trump sent his treasury secretary, intimate adviser scott bessent, to kyiv last week with the demand it had. it was written on a paper and they this zelenskyy described it at munich. he kept pushing it toward zelensky. sign it, sign it. you won't get any

meetings if you don't sign it. and zelensky wouldn't sign it, he said. i don't know if it's constitutional. i've never seen this. i you know, i can't sign it. and so he wouldn't. is trump now peeved at that? what do you mean you're going to i gave you the deal and you wouldn't sign it. is that what this is about? yeah, i did hear a couple of people, sam, say that. >> that that's. >> that's part of what's going on here. i do think there is this broader ambition that trump has. and you put. >> it well. >> he envisions this great big mega deal. it's not just a deal. it's a mega deal. >> the ukraine war is small. in scope compared. >> to this. his ambitions. now extend to something with china and russia. and here, you know, we enter the possibility of a big arms control deal that actually, for the first time draws in china. we've had deals with russia, never brought in china. well that's that's a that's a big ambition. the problem is we are being seen as

abandoning an ally that fought and bled on our behalf. and the world isn't going to like that. i got messages from europeans yesterday who who were shocked to their core at what they were watching, and they're not going to forget it. >> and i think. >> that doesn't seem to have penetrated trump's thinking at all. >> we want to do a fact check of some of the. claims president trump made about the war in ukraine, the president said. zelenskyy talked the u.s. into spending $350 billion. that is false. america's response to the war has totaled $183 billion through september 30th, 2024. trump claims the u.s. has spent $200 billion more than europe. but according to the kiel institute, the u.s. has actually spent $18 billion less than european donors. trump said america would, quote, get nothing back from the money it has spent on the war. that is

misleading. according to a 2024 report by the american enterprise institute, 70% of ukraine aid has been spent in the united states or on u.s. forces. a lot of that money has gone to domestic weapons manufacturers, trump said. zelenskyy claimed he's missing some of the money sent to him. that comment also misleading. earlier this month, zelenskyy told the associated press he has only received about $75 billion from the u.s. and not the 183 billion that's often cited as what was appropriated by congress. not all of. that appropriated money is supposed to go directly to ukraine, though data shows. ukraine has, however, received $106 billion in direct aid from the u.s. trump said zelensky refuses to have an election and is low in the polls. that is inaccurate. a recent poll shows zelensky has a 57% approval rating among

ukrainians. elections in the country have also been suspended under the martial law that's been in place since the war started. and finally, trump falsely claimed millions have unnecessarily died as a result of the war. president zelensky shared an update earlier this month that 45,000 ukrainian soldiers and 350,000 russian soldiers have been killed, and the united nations estimates that more than 11,000 civilians have died. while that figure is likely underestimated, it is still far less than the millions that trump claims to have been killed. so we're working with trying to make sure the information that we get, even as president trump is speaking on truth social or doing his press conferences, we got to fact check it. >> yeah, an important fact checking. zelensky himself yesterday was critical of trump, saying he's living in a.

disinformation space. that's his phrase, saying he just. doesn't understand why trump is saying the things he's saying that are. so blatantly incorrect about this war and sam. but but it adds, though, the trump team is using that as more means to make this personal. we heard from vice president vance yesterday delivering a warning to zelensky, saying it wasn't wise to start these negotiations. it was. >> atrocious. >> i believe was his word by. >> quote. >> badmouthing donald trump. so they're already it's warning shot after warning shot after warning shot, including in that trump truth social post. the idea where he said if zelensky doesn't act quickly he won't have a country left. >> right. well. zelensky tried the other way too, remember? i mean, he visited with trump during the transition. >> he tried flattery. >> he's worked any angle, i suppose that he can. and it comes down to the fact that trump doesn't support ukraine's position in this war. trump calls him a second rate, second rate, mediocre. >> whatever it was. >> comedian. >> and he fully believes that

ukraine actually invited the invasion. and if that's the case, i'm not really sure what kind of approach is the right approach for zelensky. >> other than handing. >> over your country's mineral supply? >> zelensky's hand is that he knows that whatever america and putin come up with, cook up with between them. if he doesn't agree to it, if the ukrainians don't agree to it, this is not a peace that's going to hold. >> right. >> and i. >> think have made that very clear. they are prepared to fight whether or not some deal has been done. >> i think i think. >> it's fair to. >> to maybe make the criticism. >> of. >> zelenskyy that he should have tried the diplomatic off ramp earlier. and again, i'm coming. >> at it. >> from the set of morning joe. right. like but he people could have foreseen trump winning. and it's not entirely implausible to have foreseen where we are right now. i mean, trump was fairly open about his antipathy to this war. so, you know, i don't know what went into the negotiations prior to the election. i know that there was a real push by the biden administration to get as much money and support into ukraine as possible in

anticipation of this, but everyone knew at some point in time this could have happened. >> yeah. and to trump's point about volodymyr zelensky, the ukraine constitution allows for martial law to be put in place during wartime suspension of elections. and i think churchill did the same. so it's yeah, it can't be twisted too badly unless you want it to. so let's just stick to the facts here and move on. still ahead on morning joe, president trump calls himself a king as his administration moves to end new york city's congestion pricing plan. we'll discuss that new development. plus, a federal judge is still weighing whether to dismiss corruption charges against mayor eric adams. we'll go over yesterday's proceedings. and what could happen if the justice department's push to drop the case is blocked. also ahead, an upsetting scene on the tennis court in dubai. we'll explain what left one major

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of the other stories making headlines. >> this morning this week. missouri clinics resumed offering abortion care for the first time in years after a judge temporarily blocked a restrictive anti-abortion law. this comes despite a continued push by conservative state leaders to block a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights that voters approved in november. back in 2022, missouri was the first state to enact an abortion ban after the supreme court overturned roe v wade. following the news, republicans in the state said they vow to challenge the decisions. delta airlines is now offering passengers who were on the toronto flight that crashed and flipped upside down $30,000. it was not immediately clear how passengers can claim their money, but if all 76 passengers take up the offer, delta will have to pay out nearly $2.3 million in total. >> what a deal.

>> the airline is also telling passengers the offer has no strings attached and does not affect rights. so far, all but one of the injured passengers have been released from the hospital. right now, the cause of the crash remains under investigation. and a man was ejected from the dubai tennis championship this week following a visceral reaction to his presence by former u.s. open champion emma raducanu. the 22 year old player broke down in tears at the start of her second round match on tuesday, after apparently spotting the man among spectators. she then approached the umpire, explaining to explain the situation, and hid behind the umpire's chair. the women's tennis association released a statement explaining raducanu was approached in a public area on monday by a man who exhibited fixated behavior, and that this same individual was identified

in the first few rows during emma's match on tuesday and subsequently ejected. the association said he will be banned from all wta events pending a threat assessment. jonathan. >> wow, that's obviously. >> a scary. >> situation there. >> let's remember, of course, it was monica seles who was. >> stabbed. >> by a. fan once during a match about 20 years ago. we don't know what's happening here, but. certainly officials. >> always alarmed. >> when a player feels uncomfortable. we'll learn more about that in the days ahead, i'm sure. meanwhile, back here in the states, the judge overseeing the federal case against new york city mayor eric adams is delaying a decision on whether to grant the department of justice's request to dismiss the case. at a hearing yesterday, the judge questioned the acting deputy attorney general, emil bove, who originally ordered the charges be dropped. bove said he believes the case would hinder national security and immigration efforts by the trump administration. mayor adams lost

his security clearance as a result of last year's federal indictment. the judge also questioned mayor adams directly, confirming that he understood the charges against him could be refiled by the doj in the future. the judge indicated he would have a final decision soon, saying it's not in anyone's interest here for this to drag on. let's now bring in former state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg. dave, there's a lot of politics involved here as well, which we can get to in a minute. it's an election year for the new york city mayor's office. but let's start just sticking with the legal proceedings yesterday. what did you make of what the judge had to say his questions to all involved, and when your best guess, might we hear a ruling soon? >> jonathan, judge ho said that he wanted to get moving on this. didn't want to prolong it much longer. >> it was quite. >> a spectacle yesterday because. >> you had. >> the number two person, emile bove. >> at the. >> department of justice. >> donald trump's former criminal.

>> defense lawyer, showing up. himself to court. that's really unusual. it was the right thing to do, though. because he broke it. he owns it. this is his baby. and in court. he said that there was no quid pro quo. he said that under oath. but then his reason for the dismissal of the charges sure sounded like a quid pro quo. he essentially said. >> it's not. >> a quid pro quo. your honor, we just gave eric adams something. >> in. >> exchange for something. i'm not a. >> latin major. >> sure sounds like. >> a quid. >> pro quo. right. but in court. >> right? yeah. in court, he reiterated what he wrote in that earlier letter ordering the dismissal, where the decision was politically motivated. that he they wanted adams to assist with. trump's immigration crackdown. of course, the implication is, if that is, that adams didn't support trump's immigration policies, he would still be facing criminal charges. so first off, that's bad enough. as a prosecutor, you're supposed to uphold the rule of law, not undermine it to support a president's political agenda. but what's worse is that

the charges were dropped without prejudice. which means they could be refiled at any moment. >> so if you. >> think the charges are inappropriate, then drop the charges permanently or issue a pardon for the mayor. but when you dismiss it without prejudice, it makes it means that you're reserving judgment to see if the mayor plays ball. that's probably why the mayor was so compliant to the border czar when they were on the couch at fox news the other day, where it seemed. like the czar was pulling the mayor's strings. i mean, that's what happens when you have the sword of damocles hanging over your head. >> yeah. david, i was kind of wondering about that. is it possible? i don't know the procedures. is it possible the doj could amend its charge and get rid of that without prejudice. element of it? just say we're just going to get rid of it entirely. we don't think there's merit to the case. and therefore you lose that specter of politics playing. >> a. >> role here. and then the second question is, obviously, it's quite rare for a judge to come in and say, actually, no, we're going to not accept your

dismissal of this case, but let's say they do do that. how does this go forward? would the judge then assign a different prosecutor to take up the charges? because clearly the doj does not want to do this. >> it will be so awkward, but it's the right thing to do. i do think that judge ho should reject the dismissal. he's got three options. he can allow the dismissal, he can block the dismissal, or he can order an evidentiary hearing to get, like danielle sassoon, the former intern interim u.s. attorney, to come in and talk about why she resigned and why she said this was a quid pro quo. i don't think he's going to do the latter because that would prolong things. so i think he will probably reject the dismissal because he knows how bad this looks. and although it's rare for a judge to. block the prosecutor's decision to dismiss charges, it can and should happen when a prosecutor's dismissal is based on improper motives like politics, then such a dismissal would be contrary to the

interests of justice. so if judge ho decides to block the dismissal, then things will get really interesting because the federal prosecutors will likely sit on their hands in a standoff with the court. >> all right, president trump, i just want to get one more topic in here with you. dave declared himself a king as he celebrated his administration's bid to end federal approval of new york's congestion pricing. he wrote on truth social congestion pricing is dead. manhattan and all of new york is saved. long live the king. i mean, a little bit joking here. let's not, like, get triggered here, but i mean, it's just it's exhausting. the congestion pricing program was approved under the biden administration after years of challenges and implemented last month to raise money for the region's aging mass transit system. in a letter to new york governor kathy hochul, transportation secretary sean duffy called congestion pricing a slap in the face to working class americans and small

business owners. hochul vowed to fight the trump administration in court, saying new york is not ruled by a king. the mta also pushed back and announced it would continue to collect the tolls until a federal judge tells it to stop. how do you see this playing out, dave? >> yeah, it's going to go all the way up to the supreme court. ronald reagan must be rolling around in his grave. i mean, first he sees that trump takes the side of the russians, and now the whole concept of local rule. remember local rule. i'm old enough to remember when they tried to get rid of the department of education because they said that it's local rule. the local should govern education well. but when it comes to transportation, you're saying that that's coming out of the white house. that's why there's this inherent conflict. and i think it goes all the way up to the supreme court, because i don't think you're supposed to do this. you're allowed to do this. local governments are supposed to be able to make decisions on what goes on on their roads. and the federal government can't just veto it,

especially. >> even if. >> he's joking about being a king. you know that that's going to be used against president trump in court. they're going to say, this guy thinks he's a king and he shouldn't be allowed to do it. i do think it gets to the supreme court. and then who knows? because the supreme court has been very supportive of a very powerful executive in the white house. >> all right. former state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave aronberg, always good to see you. thank you very much for coming on this morning. so the senate is pushing ahead with kash patel's nomination for fbi director, despite being one of president trump's more controversial picks. senators are expected to hold a final confirmation vote later this morning. patel is expected to be confirmed today unless more than three senate republicans vote against him, which at this point appears unlikely. meanwhile, the top u.s. prosecutor in d.c. has reportedly launched an investigation into threats against federal workers specifically investigating

democratic senator chuck schumer after people working at dodge said they had been threatened. interim u.s. attorney ed martin wrote in an email seen by reuters that the investigation was inspired by a conversation with a dodge employee. martin wrote, late last night, i took a call from a senior dodge staffer. we spoke about some pressing tech issues, and then he told me about the threats against dodge workers. it is despicable that these men and women are being threatened. martin named the initiative operation whirlwind, stating that senator schumer is the subject of a threats investigation. reuters points out that schumer spoke out against supreme court justices neil gorsuch and brett kavanaugh at a 2020 abortion rights rally and said, quote, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. schumer walked back those comments a day later, saying, in no way was he

making a threat and that he meant political consequences. martin said he has not received a response from schumer regarding the probe, but a schumer spokesperson said the senator's office did respond to the inquiry on february 6th. jonathan lemire. >> yeah, so martin also sent a letter to democratic congressman robert garcia asking the california representative to clarify comments he made in an interview. that's according to documents obtained by the washington post. garcia made the statement on cnn after participating in the first house dodge subcommittee hearing in which he said this what the american public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. this is an actual fight for democracy. martin's letter to garcia said, the comment, quote, sounds to some like a threat to elon musk and government staff who work for him. their concerns have led to this inquiry. we take threats against public officials very seriously. i look forward to your cooperation. garcia told

the post that his office had not received the letter and added, quote, no reasonable person would view these comments as a threat. and it's interesting that the letter was sent to the washington post, yet we have not received it. we are living in a dangerous time, and elected members of congress must have the right to forcefully oppose the trump administration. david ignatius, first of all, we should note, of course, there's no politician who uses more incendiary language than donald trump. but yet we have now his administration, policing, language. it would seem here on the heels of what they're doing with the associated press in the gulf of mexico, we should note. but just talk to us about this juxtaposition about using the u.s. attorney's office to go after senator schumer, potentially this a congressman in california, you know, and we've heard so much from republicans about wanting to weaponize government. but yet that's happening perhaps the same day that kash patel and his enemies list become fbi director. >> so, jonathan, this is a snapshot of the new washington.

here is elon musk and doge exercising a kind of power to reshape the government that i can't remember in all the years i've covered washington. people by the thousands are being thrown out of their jobs. lives are being disrupted all over the world, and fairly modest criticisms are made of the doge operatives. and we suddenly have claims that these are legal threats against them. but it's just it's just a sign that all the levers of power now in the hands of donald trump and his allies, and that they had the ability to call you out right away as as in this instance, when kash patel takes over the fbi, he of all the people that i studied during trump's first term, was the one who was the most loyal. that's how he really came to trump's attention, was just battling his case when he worked for congressman devin

nunez, when he had other jobs, when he came into the white house, he was just always there to do the things that that trump most wanted. that's the person who's now at the fbi. you could argue it's the person most useful for trump, but most inappropriate in terms of the traditional role of the fbi. but again, a snapshot of where law enforcement is going. we're going to have to see whether the pushback that you'd expect from other parts of the government, which we're beginning to see with these criticisms of zelensky, happens in other areas where whether senators finally begin to find their throat and say, i'm not comfortable with this. but i wouldn't put any any big bet on that happening. not not right now. >> and is there a point at which members, constituents start to feel the impact of the cuts that are taking place and therefore their phones start ringing? you're hearing some anecdotal evidence of that from members saying that they've had an awful lot of phone calls from somebody

whose niece can't stay in a cancer trial program, for example, because of the nih cuts. if that starts happening more, then you could get more pushback. and you could also see his approval ratings starting to drop, which would have an impact. >> there were two meetings last week of people affected by the usaid cuts. and it's interesting, at those meetings, there were farmers whose agricultural products go overseas and food for peace and other other programs. there were business people who depend on these programs, speaking out against against the people who were who were running, running the cuts. but again, there's no sign whatsoever that those protests are having any effect. >> all right. the washington post, david ignatius, thank you. we'll be following this together. we appreciate your coming in again. and coming up, the. latest from capitol hill as the senate moves forward with its budget bill, despite president trump's endorsement of the proposal from the house. we'll break down both plans and the impact it could have on

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elevated. design for thoughtful living thuma. >> 46 past the hour. pretty look at the capitol this morning. senate republicans are pressing

ahead with a vote on their budget plan, despite president trump endorsing the house approach of one big, beautiful bill to enact his tax and spending cuts, the house will now move forward with a vote on their budget resolution package next week. if approved, speaker mike johnson hopes to have the final package in place by april. joining us now, we have the host of way too early, the great ali vitali, who is unflappable, as you will see on my instagram stories, and former treasury official and morning joe economic analyst steve rattner. steve, why don't you've got charts on this? set the scene for us on just how big, big the national debt problem is at this point. >> yeah. >> i mean. >> before we delve. >> into the details of the house package, let's let's just remind ourselves and everybody just. >> how bad. >> this problem already. >> is before. >> we get to anything else that might happen. so here's the. >> federal budget. >> deficit going back to 2018. and you can see we were down

here in the 500 billion or trillion range. and then. covid hits fine. the deficit jumps up. we would all expect that. and that's what government is here for. it did drop down again. but now it is on this relentless rise. and these are projections. the green bars going all the way out here to over $2.5 trillion of deficits. >> a year. >> this is not how it is supposed to work. when things. >> are. >> relatively good and the economy is growing, we should be having a lower. deficit and saving our firepower to use when we. >> have a problem. >> that's not what's happening here at the moment. even before you get to any of the president's new proposals, that, of course, has led to a lot more debt. debt. we now have 30 trillion, over $30 trillion of debt for the first time in our history, except world war two, we will. >> have debt. >> that's equal to 100% the size of our economy. it's gone up under republican presidents and democratic presidents. but the scorecard over the last 40 years, out of curiosity, is 14 or so trillion dollars added

under republican presidents, about 12.5 trillion under democratic presidents. so there are not clean hands on either side. and then, given the size of those deficits, not surprisingly, the debt, the debt will continue to rise sharply and well exceed the rate of growth of our economy. >> okay. so let's if you could explain to us how the gop plan will work, would work. take us through the numbers. >> so what. >> the house. >> approved yesterday. >> is what? >> as you. >> said, trump likes to call one big, beautiful bill. it encompasses all of the things they're trying to get done. there are some very complicated parliamentary reasons why it actually needs to be in one big, beautiful bill, but whatever. so the signature piece of it, of course, are tax cuts. and i'll talk a bit more about those later. but up to $4.5 trillion of tax cuts over the next ten years, and then spending increases, a few spending increases for their priorities. judiciary and homeland are both basically border oriented

spending and then defense, which both parties, to a considerable degree needs to have spent more on them. so roughly $300 billion more spending. but then they're talking about cutting a lot of spending. and so the energy commerce committee is tasked with cutting $880 billion worth of spending. it's expected that that could be heavily out of medicaid, could represent about 10% of our medicaid spending. and so they're very focused on spending on medicaid. but there's another guy who's not so focused on medicaid. take a listen. >> look, social security won't be touched other than fraud or something. we're going to find it's going to be strengthened, but it won't be touched. medicare, medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched. nothing. i won't have to. now, if there are illegal migrants in the system, we're going to get them out of the system and all of that fraud, but it's not going to be touched. we're going to love and cherish social

security, medicare, medicaid. we're not going to do anything with that other than if we can find some abuse or waste. we'll do something, but the people won't be affected. it'll only be more effective and better. >> so this wasn't a campaign promise. this is stuff he said since he's been president, contradicting what the house is doing. so it's going to be a very interesting process on medicaid, which is obviously a very sensitive subject. and by the way, programs like medicaid, like food stamps, that he's talking about cutting as much as 20% of the house, talking about cutting as much as 20% of red states actually get a disproportionate amount of this money. so it's going to be interesting to see how congress people hear what they hear in their districts and what they say. student loans. another big target could cut about 10% out of student loans. and then there's another 500, 500 billion of unspecified spending. 62 of it would be what's called oversight. those are federal pensions. so he's talking about cutting. they're talking about cutting $50 billion out of federal pensions. but when you

add all this up, the administration, which says it's going to reduce the deficit, actually has a plan to increase the deficit by $2.8 trillion over the next ten years. and so if you look here, this is the same chart we just looked at. you add in these new deficit increases. and you can see that instead of even dropping for a couple of years it doesn't drop at all. and it just goes up further and further. >> so lastly steve, you're going to show us how the gop tax cuts favor the rich. >> yeah, there's some interesting stuff in the in the tax part of this. and basically what they want to do. the central part of it is extending the tax cuts that were voted in 2017, that would expire at the end of this year. it was another bit of budget gimmickry. gimmick gimmickry would expire at the end of this year, absent a renewal. but those tax cuts are what we call highly regressive, meaning they favor the wealthy substantially over the less wealthy. so people in the lowest 20% of the economy would get a

6/10 of a percent increase in their after tax wages under this plan. and people all the way up through the fourth, through the top, through the 80% below the top, would get still 1.4% or less. when you get up here, the top 20%, the top 1%, you see the percent increase they get in their after tax income. let's turn that into dollars. if you're down here, you're going to get $1,000. you might get $1,900. if you're close to the top. the top quartile gets 9000. the top 1% gets an average of $70,000. so these are again what we call highly regressive tax cuts. generally, we like to see them favor people at the bottom, not at the top. these are the opposite. the other challenge they're going to have, which is going to be a little bit fun if the stakes weren't so high, a little bit fun to watch is that they've got this 4.5 trillion for tax cuts in this budget plan. as i said, almost all of that will be consumed by

extending these individual tax cuts that would otherwise expire. but during the campaign, the president ran around promising all kinds of other tax cuts no tax on social security income, restore the full deduction on state and local taxes, no tax on overtime. no tax on tips deductions. deduct in your taxes the cost of your auto loan. so he made all these promises. the whole thing adds up to about $7.8 trillion. so they're going to have to fit $7.8 trillion of promises into four and a half into a box. that's $4.5 trillion in size. and that's going to be an interesting push pull between the administration and the congress as well. >> morning, joe. economic analyst steve rattner with his charts and soundbites. thank you so much, steve. we really appreciate it. ali vitali. so where's this going to go? >> i agree with him that watching all of this come together is actually going to be really fun from a policy perspective, because they're

going to be trying to fit these things into that $4.5 trillion box, while also keeping the deficit hawks at bay. on the rightmost flank of the house republican conference, and then also trying to appease members out of places like new york, new jersey, who very much are interested in bringing back that salt tax deduction, raising the cap there. this was one of the things that trump did in his first term. it was seen as sort of a screw you to new york, quite frankly, when he took that salt deduction and took it out of the tcja. so a lot of these members trying to get it back in there, it's not in the house budget plan as it exists right now, but that's one of the things that house speaker mike johnson, it might seem small, but it could earn him six or so votes or lose him that. and then the whole thing doesn't matter at all because he can't pass it. and this is the wrangling act he has to do. >> sam, we've learned that steve and ali have a particular definition of the word fun. fun. but this is going to be politically treacherous here, potentially for republicans. remember what we saw during the transition where, you know, trump and musk already blew up a

deal on the hill, this one potentially even more serious. >> i was i was kind. >> of chuckling at steve, not because anything he said was fun or it's fine. i mean, it was because he's going through all this great math and important math and crunching all these numbers. and i'm just thinking, these guys don't care. they're going to they're going to say, oh, we have. >> this study that. >> shows that if we cut this tax cut, it's going to create this. incredible growth and everything will pay for itself. and here you go. i mean, it's like we can almost jump ahead to like the last chapter of this where they concoct some sort of rationale or some pretext for doing this. >> and then. >> they just pass it, and then they get shocked when the deficit goes. >> up yet again. >> because this is what always happens. now, the other thing that we should note is that in this whole milieu is like they're going to try to do a $4 trillion deficit ceiling increase, which none of them have ever voted for. not none of them, but like a good chunk of. them have. >> never voted for. >> so i. >> don't i'm. >> not. >> sure how. >> this all works, but they'll figure it out, i suppose. >> well, we'll see. managing editor at the bulwark, sam

stein, and the host of way too early, ali vitali, thank you both very much for being on this morning. coming up, we have more of donald trump's attempts to rewrite history, the history of russia's invasion of ukraine as he pushes a dramatic shift in u.s. foreign policy. plus, we'll have new reporting on the business leaders who are scrambling to make a deal with the trump administration for exemptions from the president's tariffs. that's all straight tariffs. that's all straight ahead on ♪ are you having any fun? ♪ ♪ what you getting out of living? ♪ ♪ who cares for what you've got ♪ ♪ if you're not having any fun? ♪ ♪ have a little fun ♪ previous provider is. >> terrible. >> surprise. we've changed your rate. >> we wouldn't get to talk to a

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>> that. >> does not. >> fade bewise all take. >> xyzal at night. >> ellen and the. doge bags. >> have fired so many people. they have. >> fired so many. >> people so quickly and so many. >> critical areas. >> with so little thought. >> beforehand that the government is now scrambling. >> to. rehire the. nuclear staff it. >> fired on friday. >> these are folks involved with designing, building and overseeing u.s. nuclear weapons. stockpile after concerns grew that their dismissal. >> could jeopardize. >> national security. i share those. >> concerns. >> but here is the wrinkle. >> in the rub. the government has. >> struggled to reach the people that were fired. >> after they were locked out of their federal. >> email accounts. >> so now we. >> got a bunch of. off. >> people with a lot of time on their hands who know how to. build nuclear weapons. well, at. >> least you couldn't find them. >> and it doesn't. >> stop with the nukes. >> yesterday. >> the department of agriculture. >> said that they.

>> accidentally fired officials working on bird flu. and are now trying to rehire them. >> whoops. that pandemic. thankfully, we all know that donald trump. >> has a steady hand. >> in a public health crisis. >> i tell you. >> what. >> folks. >> have we tried deep frying the birds in bleach? maybe hear me out. >> just crispy. >> you get. >> the birds, we. >> put. >> them in, we put them in, we put them in the maybe with a. >> maybe with a side of honey mustard, ivermectin. >> okay. welcome back to morning joe. it's thursday, february 20th i know i can't. >> i just. >> i can't even laugh. okay jonathan. >> let me try. >> no no you can't do it. but i'm glad to see you all. jonathan lemire and katty kay still with us joining the conversation, we have chief white house correspondent for the new york times. peter baker is here, senior writer for the dispatch. david drucker joins us at the table here. also with us, nbc news and msnbc political

analyst, former u.s. senator claire mccaskill. good to have you all on board this hour. let's get right to our top story. president trump is escalating his rhetoric on the ukraine war with new attacks against president volodymyr zelensky. here's what trump said yesterday, followed by the report filed by nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel. >> a dictator without elections. zelensky better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. got to move, got to move fast. i love ukraine, but zelensky has done a terrible job. his country is shattered and millions and millions of people have unnecessarily died. and you can't bring a war to an end if you don't talk to both sides. you got to talk. they haven't been talking for three years. >> president trump went on the. >> attack against. ukraine's president. >> zelensky. in a social media post. trump called zelensky. >> a dictator. >> without elections, continuing

with what seemed like a naked threat. >> zelensky. >> better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. >> in the. >> meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the war with russia. it's a pattern. on tuesday, president trump blamed zelensky. for starting the. >> war. >> even though it. >> was russia. >> that. >> invaded ukraine three years ago. >> because you should have never started it. you could have made a deal. >> president trump, president zelensky isn't taking it quietly. he said. president trump is in a disinformation bubble, suggesting he's following russian propaganda. former vice president mike pence weighed. >> in, posting. >> mr. president, ukraine did not start this war. russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. the road to peace must be built on the truth. this is far more than just a war of words or a clash of personalities. ukrainian troops depend on american support to defend

against daily russian attacks. without u.s. help, ukraine would struggle to keep the russians back. ivan, who under army rules only gave. >> his. >> first name, commands a tank brigade on the outskirts of kharkiv. does it feel. like decisions are being made about ukraine without ukraine's input? duck, duck? yes, yes, this is exactly the feeling we have, he said, adding it does influence the mood. it's very demotivating. >> nbc's richard engel with that report. the washington post editorial board says abandoning ukraine would damage u.s. credibility, and the piece reads in part, quote, it's hard to exaggerate how jarring the u.s. policy reversal over the past few days has been. what's more, lasting damage could be done to america's future credibility as a reliable partner in the world. it must give pause to all

countries that rely on u.s. security guarantees. these include south korea, japan and the philippines, as well as the self-governing island of taiwan that china covets. everyone wants to see this debilitating war ended, and trump is right to pursue a deal. but to sacrifice ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity for the sake of improved ties with the kremlin is not the way to achieve a just or durable peace. and peter baker, you are writing about this. trump flips the script on the ukraine war, blaming zelenskyy, not putin. i would say it's not the way to get to a durable peace. and it is the way to be used by vladimir putin, who has made a fool or attempted to do so to many u.s. presidents. >> yeah. yeah, absolutely. so trump is rewriting the history of what happened, right? it was ukraine. that's the villain, not a victim. it's putin that wants

peace as opposed to war. zelensky, in fact, conned the united states into into this war somehow. and it all feels like a predicate, right? it feels like a predicate to, in effect, abandoning ukraine in some level or another, or at least negotiating a peace that maybe seem favorable to the kremlin, in which americans will accept that. because remember how emotional americans were three years ago, almost to the day right when this war happened? americans did rally. >> to ukraine's side. >> whether they think they should spend that much money on it or not, they felt that ukraine was the czechoslovakia of this era. right? the blue and yellow flags all over the country. well, now trump is trying to say no, they're the villains. they're they're scamming you. they're taking your money. it's okay if they have to give up territory and accept an unfavorable peace. >> so, claire mccaskill, do republicans in the senate, do republicans in general have a chance? is there an opportunity? is there a way to be a hero here? >> you know, it's so dangerous at this point in time to say

this is a big deal, because there are so many things that are a big deal right now from the precarious position our rule of law is in, to their domestic policies and tax and budget and all that. but this, this is turning your back on 80 years of peace and prosperity to western aligned democracies. and it is deciding that america wants to be with the bad guys. he is trying to say that putin is a bad guy, isn't a bad guy. but the republicans in the senate know putin is a bad guy. they all know that. a few of them spoke out, which is great, but now they have to do more than that. they have to decide that they are not going to do trump's bidding when he is turning his back on people who love democracies and but, you know, trump thinks in his in his weird brain. he thinks if he makes if he's besties with the bad guys,

then somehow he's protecting america. he doesn't realize the consequences long term to the peace and the national security of the united states of america. >> so, dave, what are the knock on implications of this? because some people have said to me who study ukraine and russia much more than i do, that actually, there is not an automatic link between putin taking ukraine and xi jinping taking taiwan. they are different scenarios, but i think the damage is already done. as mika was suggesting from that washington post piece, in terms of reliability of american allies. and if you're sitting in seoul at the moment, why not expand your nuclear or nuclear capabilities? can you go forward thinking you can rely on the united states? if you're sitting in canada, why not think you know what? maybe those 25% tariffs might be off for the moment, but they may be back on again. and anyway, in four years time, we may get a democratic president, but we may not. is america now a country that is going to lurch from reliability to unreliability to reliability

to unreliability every four years, in which case allies are going to have to look elsewhere? >> yeah. first. >> let's step back for a minute. >> i just want to read. >> to. >> you what. >> what president trump told. >> me three years ago, almost, almost three years ago. >> he was out of office. i asked. >> him about the invasion of. >> ukraine in. >> a telephone interview, and he tells me. i'm surprised. i thought. >> he, meaning. >> putin, was. >> negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. i thought he was negotiating. i think he's changed. so president trump knows exactly the historical record on this. he he's maybe trying to rewrite it, but it isn't some warped view of what happened. he knows exactly what happened. >> so that's number one. >> number two, this idea that china isn't looking. >> at our posture. >> vis a vis our allies anywhere. >> in. >> the world, and our posture vis a vis an adversary of the united states that invades a sovereign. nation and making. calculations about what they can get away. >> with. >> is ridiculous, right? i think

it should also be noted that american presidents before. >> trump have tried. >> to lure russia and putin away. >> from china. >> and in to the arms of the united. >> states, and it never works. >> george w bush looked into the soul of vladimir putin, saw a good guy. you know, president barack obama vis a vis. hillary clinton. the secretary of state tried the big staples reset button. no, president trump tried it again in his first term. no. so this doesn't work. it's demonstrated. it doesn't work. you can make an argument that the united states has to try and negotiate. >> an end. >> of the war because of resources, but if. >> they do it. >> in such a way that puts the. >> united states. >> on par with. other powerful nations that talk about territory and sovereignty for its own sake, then other nations, including our allies. listen, maybe you want it. >> this way, and that's fine, but. >> you should acknowledge what it means. other nations. >> are then going to make.

calculations about. >> you know what? >> i'm in asia. >> maybe i should cozy up to china because it will make me safer. >> instead of trying. >> to partner with the united states. i'm in canada. maybe we should allow a chinese company. >> to set. >> up business in our port. now, of course we you know, we have a lot to say about that. but the reason people root for the united states and want to partner with the united states, no matter where. >> we. >> are, is because they know that we're not out to get them right. it's not. >> about. >> so much whether we protect them or not, but we're not out to take from them. and if we become like every other. >> nation. >> i think it ruins what has been our superpower. and this is from a selfish point of view. putting aside, you know, what senator mccaskill said very eloquently about. >> what's worked over. >> the last 80 years, where a. >> lot. >> of a lot of americans wonder, is it worth the investment anymore? people don't remember world war two, they don't remember the cold war. and so they question that. but from a selfish point of view, there are issues with this. and republicans on capitol hill know this, and they can make the

argument if they choose to. >> that's going to be we'll be watching republicans on capitol hill. i mean, this is in many ways hard to say, but it's not shocking when you look at trump's history with volodymyr zelensky, let alone putin and his seeming to cozy up. but with zelensky, there was the recent deal on minerals that trump put in front. if you call that a deal, just give me what you have. and also years back, trying to get information on hunter biden and on joe biden from the president, the leader of ukraine. >> which led to trump's first impeachment. >> and. >> holding back aid. >> yeah, holding back aid. and ukraine. one ukrainian official likened that minerals deal to like extortion. just like it will give you protection if you pay us. it's sort of like what, peter? what a mob, what a mob boss would do. but to mika's point, we did hear a little bit from republicans yesterday suggesting that trump was wrong. at least that that putin is the good guy, that certainly he's not. they're critical of putin, though they were very careful

not to be critical of trump. they didn't say they didn't denounce him in. >> any way. >> former vice president mike pence. >> mike pence has actually become one of for on a number of issues. >> he was the only one who said the president is wrong. >> on a number of issues. in recent months, mike pence has actually been sort of the face of the what's left of the republican opposition that never trump crowd, if you will. what do we think, though? i mean, you know, moscow so well, you've covered you know, washington so well. are these republicans eventually going to shift? are they going to demand that trump change tactics here, or are they simply going to say, well, this is what happens and give away the store? >> i mean, look at what we've seen in the last month, right? we're one month into the trump second term. we haven't seen a lot of republican resistance to things that they themselves have traditionally cared about. that's what's striking. if you go back to the first month of the first term, there was this move by trump to reduce or relieve sanctions on russia that had just been imposed because of their interference in the 2016 election on his behalf by the outgoing obama administration.

it was mitch mcconnell and john mccain. and republicans in the senate says, don't do that. we're going to stop you. if you do that, we're going to pass legislation imposing sanctions if you do that. and he backed down as a result, there is no mccain anymore. and mcconnell, who has become more of a resistance figure, ironically, in his in his, in his in his later years is no longer the force that he once was. and so, yeah, i think that they're going to tut tut a little bit, but there's nobody standing up to him in a in a strong way inside the republican party, despite a history of ronald reagan and george h.w. bush and so on during the. >> cold war. so, david, you have new reporting on how the business community is scrambling to secure exemptions from the trump administration, current and possible future tariffs. tell us about them. >> yeah, it's fascinating. the president, as he promised on the campaign trail time and time again, moved ahead at the beginning of this month with tariffs on canada, canada, mexico and china. then he except

for china. then he he put a delay on the canadian and mexican tariffs, you know imported commodities and goods. then of course he slapped 25% tariffs on aluminum coming from everywhere including canada and mexico. and what i found most fascinating were two things. one, you know, my sources told me that people in the business community were so surprised that either trump fulfilled this campaign promise or that they that he moved so quickly, they at least thought they would have until sometime in march to formulate a strategy or, you know, win exemptions in advance. and some of these firms that are impacted, by the way, are domestic united states manufacturers. but part of the manufacturing process for their product is in a partnering country. and so they they manufacture, they ship. and then it comes back into the united states for finishing. and so this isn't just a case of foreign manufacturers that would bear the brunt of this, or u.s. consumers that would bear the brunt of this. but it gets to

this thing which relates to the topic we were just discussing that on, you know, either on the republican side or the corporate side where there's understandable support for donald trump on so many fronts and on the business community because of his deregulatory policies, have been so good for corporate america and helped them generate so much growth. so that's very understandable. but they somehow thought, oh, he's not really serious about the tariffs. and a lot of them thought, well, you know, in the first term he said he was going to do a lot of this. but this time around i'm sure it'll be the same. he'll say he's going to do a lot of this, but he won't really do it. and he just didn't seem to listen. they didn't seem to listen to him, and he did exactly what he said he would do. voters heard him, and they liked the idea of a more level playing field. so to them, and until it impacts them adversely, they're not going to be upset about these. >> i can't tell you how many times i've heard this from people who are impacted by the tariffs and said, i just didn't think he'd do it. and, you know, it's like, how many siren calls can you give in the lead up to the election of that? he means

what he says. so many issues on so many issues, and he is doing what he said he would do. and people there are many people who voted for him. i've spoken to some who say i didn't think he was going to do that. >> they thought the second term would be like the first term, right? that it would just be surrounded by the same people that his core instincts either subverted or he would be convinced otherwise. and this time around, he has a very competent, capable team that is with him on these core issues. and so they are doing what you would expect. they are affecting the president's agenda. and now it's a matter of whether trump is right about tariffs or all the economists are right about tariffs. and if the economists are right, they'll be you know, there'll be blowback at some point. but the president firmly believes in this. so again, nobody should have been surprised. but they're now all scrambling trying to figure out how to get to the president personally to wian exemption. >> senior writer for the dispatch, david drucker and chief white house correspondent for the new york times, peter baker, thank you both so much for your reporting. we

appreciate it. and still ahead on morning joe, hamas is believed to have released the bodies of four more israeli hostages as part of the cease fire deal, including two very young children. israeli president isaac herzog will join us with reaction. and what comes next in the efforts to end the war. plus, we'll speak with democratic senator ruben gallego, a marine combat veteran, for his reaction to president trump's escalating his attacks on ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky. but first, democratic governor jared polis of colorado and republican governor kevin stitt of oklahoma will preview the agenda for this week's bipartisan gathering of the nation's governors. morning joe, we'll be right back. >> lumify.

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response. let's now bring in the chair of the national governors association, democratic governor jared polis of colorado, and the organization's vice chair, republican governor kevin stitt of oklahoma. our thanks to you both. mr. governor, mr. governor, for being here this morning. let's just start with, i think what grabbed all of us here, there are some things right now that are rare that are bipartisan. so talk to us about how you guys are getting along. and i was going to say, yeah, we don't see this too often. republican democrats are smiling even. talk to us about why that's so important. both of you. you first. >> yeah. >> well, first. >> off, you know, governors. >> have a unique. >> perspective that, you know, we. >> we share the. >> common purpose. >> to make sure we have the best education. >> system, infrastructure. health care system in our states, the best economy. >> so. >> so governors can uniquely. >> we. >> have to get things done. and we have a unique perspective on how to do it. >> so really. >> we work in. >> a bipartisan. >> method to really. >> what. >> are the. >> best ideas for educating our kids. and that's. governor polis initiative this year and the

national. governors association. >> and so. >> we have. >> a great relationship. >> and work. >> really well together. >> and it's. >> you know, it is nice to hear. >> some good news every now and then. but the good news is. >> the states balance. >> their budgets. we have. balanced budgets. it's a requirement in nearly. >> every state. >> we do that every year. we, you know, really upping the bar on how we can better prepare young people for the workforce and expanding apprenticeships. earn while you learn models, dual and concurrent enrollment in all of our states. we have a lot of kids that are riding high school, getting a skill or certificate, or even a full associate's degree at no cost to their family. and if they aren't going on to a four year college, being able to enter the workforce right away and earn a good living. so these are the good things happening every day that governors on both sides of the aisle are working on across the country. >> so you have set up in oklahoma, and it's part of the reason you're meeting is this let's get ready education initiative. and one of the things you want to look at is harnessing technology to improve learning for students. the democrats, fairly or unfairly, have often had a reputation as being a party that's kind of opposed to letting cutting edge

technology into places like education and healthcare. how are you countering that reputation and what are you? is i. >> well, i. >> haven't heard that. >> i haven't heard that. >> i'm a tech guy. >> so that kind of hits. close to home. >> i'm. >> you know, very pro tech forward looking. i mean, there's certainly i'm sure people on both sides of the aisle that want to preserve the status quo for the sake of the status quo. that's not what we're about. we're about just as you would in business. if you have a new technology saying, how can this. >> be prepared to disrupt the status quo, even if it annoys some of your. >> status quo? is failing too many kids across colorado and across the country in colorado, and i don't think any state, sadly, is an exception to this. we have entire schools where 7,080% of the kids are not reading or doing math at grade level. that is inexcusable, and we need to change that. and we need to have the moral fortitude to expand and replicate what works, but also to change what isn't working for kids and for families. >> so, governor stitt, you've renamed a section of highway in oklahoma, the donald j. trump highway. you've proposed a day

off or a national day. is it november the 5th? is donald j. trump day, you're clearly anyway, a supporter of the president is what i'm trying to say. but you're also very focused in your state on efficiency. and you've set up an efficiency a government efficiency commission. so what do you make of the way. and it's not at a state level. it is a national level. so it is different. what do you make of the way that elon musk is trying to do for the country what it seems like you're trying to do for your state? >> yeah. well. >> first off. >> the i. >> applaud what. >> what elon musk and the president. >> is trying to do. >> with look at efficiency. across the. national budget. >> from the. >> state perspective. >> i set. >> up oklahoma doge. because about. >> 40% of our money. >> comes from. >> the federal government. >> so if they're. >> going to cut the money to the states, the states need to have input into that. so my. >> purpose for. >> oklahoma doge was to say, hey. >> mr. president. >> if. >> we're going. >> to take a 10% cut in federal. >> dollars, here's. >> how we can do it without messing with. core services in the state of oklahoma. then you.

>> then you encourage. >> all the other states to use that same kind of method, because the federal dollars might need to be spent a certain way in oklahoma and a different way in. >> colorado or california. >> so we just. >> the states want to. >> have a. >> have. an input there. but the big picture. here is i think the american people understand that the. >> federal government. >> is spending too much money. we, as. governor polis said, have balanced budgets in our state. we need to look at the spending that we're that that we're doing. nationally, $2 trillion in excess spending is not sustainable over the long term. and so i applaud the. fact that they're looking at all of. >> these, these. spending across the world. >> so i don't think anyone argues that that's not a good idea. it's how it's being done that i think is very questionable, controversial and potentially dangerous. we have people being fired and rehired, you know, in a in a mad rush because they didn't even know what essential services they provided. so i'm i'm curious,

first of all, how how doge might have impacted any services that your states are trying to give to people. maybe i'll start in colorado. >> well, i think that's. >> another benefit of why the governors are here. look, i think most governors would agree. i certainly would, that, for instance, fema emergency management has many issues. the federal government should do better. they should restructure it. no one. >> is arguing. >> and, you know, but the wrecking ball approach might not be the most efficient way to get a better outcome for less money. i think that's the goal of the trump administration. certainly my. >> goal. >> to better outcome, less money. so, you know, leaving it alone is all the inefficiencies it has is not a good answer. sometimes the wrecking ball could make it worse, could make it better. but we as governors want to say, hey, here's what we need in an emergency. when there's a major fire in our state, when there's an earthquake, if there's a tornado, if there's a hurricane, here's what we kind of need the federal government to do. very often that might take the form of, yes, less. resources and more flexibility for states and governors to be able to deploy these resources rather than sometimes what it feels like,

which is putting a square peg in a round hole with some of these federal programs. >> what about tariffs? the tariffs affecting your state? >> i think tariffs are devastating. >> they're in many ways the most devastating part of president trump's agenda. i still hold out hope that this is a negotiating ploy, and that we'll wind up with less tariffs on imports and exports. he's mentioned reciprocity. colorado's economy is heavily import and export based. our biggest exports in the. ag beef grain. >> and this has. >> been devastating for us, bad for consumers raising prices, bad for manufacturing because many of our manufacturing has parts and components from around the world. so i still hold that hope. and of course, we'll encourage the president to find an off ramp here and decrease trade barriers for growing in america and made in america products. >> so, governor, i mean, obviously the whole purpose of this meeting is to stress bipartisanship, but the tone from the white house often is not in that way. president trump is deeply critical of democrats frequently as deemed enemies of the state at times is what would you would you like to see him

take a different approach to lead to more, perhaps bipartisan solutions? >> well. >> you know, our. >> the former chair, governor cox. >> of. >> utah, he had his initiative. >> called. >> disagree better. and so i think americans are wanting someone to lead. and so i could disagree with him a little. >> bit on. >> the tariff side. and, and but we can do it in a bipartisan friendly debate. >> right. >> isn't that what. >> our country is about is. >> like, what are the best. >> ideas and how can we how. >> can. >> we argue. >> and how can we how can we come up with the best solutions? >> and so. >> but but it's. >> hard when you lead. there's always people, you know, complaining and attacking. and so i know that it's tough when. >> you're a governor. >> or i can't even imagine as president of united states as he's trying to make decisions and he's trying to get a balanced budget. sometimes that's messy and you're having to make decisions. but, you know, my question to people, if you think about it, we don't. >> borrow money. >> to donate to a charity at the end of the year. >> but right. >> now we're borrowing $2 trillion to do all this humanitarian work around the world. and i'm not saying it's not important, but we have to.

congress has got to balance the budget. we have. >> got to. >> get our. >> spending 0.4% budget hungry. you know that, don't you? you know that the usaid budget is tiny amount of money. >> but it's but. >> it's a wasteful budget. you need to attack things like social security and medicare and medicaid, right, to have a real impact on america's spending. it's not going to be on the us aid. >> but i'm. >> a businessman. >> if it's more than a ham sandwich. >> we're going. >> to. >> look. >> at it. >> and so. >> looking at. >> it. >> is great. >> when. >> you. >> think about billions of dollars, i think most. >> oklahomans are. >> like, yeah, that's that's wasteful. let's spend it on us citizens. let's spend. >> it on infrastructure here. >> do you know? >> well, if it's if we're borrowing money to spend it in burma and around the world on, on, on certain initiatives, isn't that the president's job? doesn't he get the right. >> to look at. >> it to. >> but also. >> to say, hey. >> congress make decisions. >> but he's also the executive branch and we elect a president. and if you if the president if you can't, if you can't be the executive of the executive branch, what type of government do we have? >> right. >> look.

>> bureaucracy states have states have balanced budgets. >> and you know, i support and i did i was in congress as well, a balanced budget amendment to the federal constitution, because congress should be forced to make these choices on these trade offs. yes. >> makes sense. >> right. congress should. >> make these. >> choices 100%. >> right. >> but we. >> right now. >> they haven't even passed. how long has it been since congress has done a budget? >> they don't. yeah, they don't often do it. yeah. >> they have to. >> they agree on the spending plan. is what they generally agree on. and again everything should be on the table. i applaud the goal of reducing or eliminating the deficit. i hope that they can accomplish that. but that will force hard choices. right. and we're here to say, look, there are times where you can do more with less. and those are opportunities for this administration to have more flexibility for the states, often with less money than they were spending already. and we can get more done in emergency response is a great example of that. >> that's a great point because the states, if you think about it, we're the ones that are building schools, educating our children, building roads. so all the federal. bureaucracy and the federal spending, we are proposing block grants, and we

could get a lot of efficiencies by giving that more discretionary spending to the state level to actually meet the needs of oklahomans and coloradans and texans and californians. >> all right. democratic governor jared polis of colorado and republican governor kevin stitt of oklahoma, thank you both so much for coming on and enjoy the conference today. thank you. coming up, we'll take a closer look at how president trump's federal funding freeze is impacting farmers. plus, secretary of defense pete hegseth is considering firing. some top military officials will dig into that new reporting straight ahead on morning joe. straight ahead on morning joe. ♪♪ with fastsigns, create factory grade visual solutions to perfect your process.

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consider the case. last month, trump signed an order that would deny citizenship to children born in the united states if their mothers are undocumented and their fathers are not citizens or permanent residents. a federal court of appeals blocked the order almost immediately. and nbc news has learned that defense secretary pete hegseth is considering firing a number of military generals and flag officers as early as this week. that's according to two defense officials and three congressional officials, who say that pentagon leadership has shared a list with republican members of congress and senior military officials who could be fired, the sources reveal. most of those military officials have been either closely associated with biden's former defense secretary, lloyd austin, have worked on dei initiatives, or have voiced opinions that were viewed as politically out of

line with president trump and his agenda. according to one official, senior democrats have not been formally briefed on the plans. the generals and flag officers are expected to be replaced with nominees who are closer to hegseth and more aligned with trump. the pentagon did not respond to requests for comment on the story. claire mccaskill, your thoughts on this? >> yeah. >> i mean, this is really kind of dangerous territory. leadership in the military is earned. it is not given. and everyone in the military knows it. and everybody needs to remember here we have a volunteer military. so if you come into the military for a career and you think that you're going to work for decades risking your life, many of these are going to be decorated officers from combat, and then you lose your job over politics, and particularly the dei

initiatives, which, frankly, many of them were just following orders. so you're going to fire somebody who has a storied military career because they were following orders. that doesn't that's not the way to build a strong military force. now, let me say this. there are too many flag officers in the pentagon. and if they want to go after waste, it's like shooting fish in a barrel in the pentagon. i can assure you, there are plenty of jobs that are that are duplicative and could be eliminated in the pentagon. i spent a lot of time looking at waste and fraud in the pentagon. so i'm not against them having fewer flag officers. i'm against politicizing our united states military in a way they're planning on doing. >> yeah. >> all right. coming up, a conversation about what some say is the biggest issue in politics that nobody is talking about. our next guest joins us with his wake up call for progressives about what is stifling america's

ability to solve big problems, and what can be done to restore confidence in government. interesting question right now. interesting question right now. morning joe will be right back. baby: liberty! mom: liberty mutual is all she talks about since we saved hundreds by bundling our home and auto insurance. baby: liberty! biberty: hey kid, it's pronounced "biberty." baby: liberty! biberty: biberty! baby: liberty! biberty: biberty! baby: liberty! biberty: bi-be-rty! baby: biberty! biberty: and now she's mocking me. very mature. mom: hey, that's enough you two! biberty: hey, i'm not the one acting like a total baby. mom: she's two. only pay for what you need ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: liberty. the reason. >> i don't get it. >> do you have any idea how. >> much this. >> will cost at other

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or. slum clearance project like. >> say, lincoln square, whatever the objective may be.

>> or out of. >> the way. of an approach to. >> a bridge. >> that they're not. >> there, a lot of them are not going to like it. >> many of them. >> are misinformed. many of. >> them. >> in the end, come around to feel that they've done them a. >> great service. >> that was new york state official robert moses in a 1959 interview with nbc explaining his theory of power. moses, of course, was later immortalized by the author robert caro in the famed book the power broker. caro is moses, one of the most famous unelected bureaucrats in american history, gaining notoriety for displacing low income communities in new york city in the mid-20th century to build his infrastructure projects. joining us now a fellow at brown university, watson institute for international public affairs, mark dunkelman, he's the author of the new book with the title why nothing works who killed progress and how to bring it back. in it, mark argues that modern progressives have stifled their own policy agenda by enacting reforms intended to

stop another robert moses from ever existing. mark. also, full disclosure a good friend of mine from college, mark, great to see you this morning. congratulations on this book. i've already read it. it's brilliant. can't recommend it highly enough, but give us a better sense of that central argument that progressives, well-meaning progressives, have gotten in the way of projects that they inherently should be supporting. >> so the. beginning of. the of the progressive. >> movement was. >> an effort to build up big institutions that could do big things to wire up the tennessee valley. >> which is sort of. >> the quintessential. example of the new deal bringing electricity. >> to. >> poor farms in a swath of the country about the size of england, and was enormously powerful. the federal officials who did that could. >> make decisions sort. >> of not almost on a whim. >> there was. >> no no. pushback from the community, and. >> there couldn't be. >> and we woke up progressives in the 60s and 70s and realized that these officials weren't

always doing the things that were the best for the country, that some of them were self self-serving, corrupt. they were taking too much power for themselves. and we decided that the solution was to give more power to ordinary people, to fight back. and so for the last 50 years, we've really spent our time and focus trying to build new checks on federal power so that robert moses type figures don't abuse and coerce people who typically don't have a lot. >> of power. >> and the checks are now so voluminous that you can't get good things done just as much as you can't get bad things done. so we've got lots of projects we need to do in this country, but. >> it's just. >> too hard to get them accomplished. >> so, mark, in the book, you discern how the left and the right to be clear, the right as well are responsible for government not functioning properly. you write in part this conservatives can and should be assigned some bulk of the blame for convincing portions of the public that government is invariably bad. not only that, public authority is wasteful,

corrupt and ineffective, but that it is an agent of moral decay. that's long been their bread and butter, and they should own it. but progressives can't hide from the reality that we, too, have burnished the same narrative the movement's determination to protect against latter day robert moses types now serves not only to thwart abuse, but also to undermine government's ability to do big things by helping to render government incompetent. we have pried open the door for maga style populism, and we share culpability for the public's frustration. and mark, let's, you know, let's take this to the present day. we're seeing what elon musk and empowered by president trump are doing. they vilified government tearing it down and potentially its ability to do big things or even some small ones. >> i think that's right. >> the frustration that people have that government simply. >> doesn't work. >> was bound to be it was bound to open the door to a maga type populist movement. if our basic

premises that the democrats are the party of government and government isn't working, then that's a terrible political challenge for democrats who want to be elected. so our movement needs to be saying to itself, beyond the terrible things that trump is doing, beyond trying to convince the public that he is not worthy of our of our. >> support, or. >> is it is an ineffective and a lousy chief executive? we need to be showing that we are going to make government work again, that we're going to be able to empower the right people to make important decisions, like where a. >> bridge. >> should go, where a housing. >> project should be. >> built, how we're going to get clean energy back into the grid. these are things that we should be accomplishing on our own, and we should be thinking more about how we get that done, rather than creating additional barriers. i think that the public's perception is it's just impossible to get a good idea off the ground today. and so if government doesn't work, why are we going to give it more power? >> so, mark, we're in the middle

of this kind of extraordinary revolution in government. the progressive's argument is that at some point, musk will cut things so badly. i mean, perhaps not so extremely, but so inefficiently that the general public will start to feel the impact. there will be some kind of a crisis, and people won't be able to get the healthcare they need or the transport services they need, or something will go wrong if it doesn't go wrong. what does that say to democrats about the role of government and how government should have been reformed? >> well, i. >> mean. >> it's a i. >> don't know how it's going to turn out. i think i tend to agree with you that the sledgehammer he's taking to the federal bureaucracy is going to turn out poorly. for someone at some point. the point for us is that rather than us promising. >> more. >> and more from government, we need to be spending more time talking about how the things that government is doing need to be done. more effectively, so that the experience that you have with government is a positive one, and that when you see something like the stories

today about congestion pricing. >> in. >> new york city, which has been on the on the agenda since 2008, maybe. >> earlier. >> people have no sense that there's a single person who can make a decision about that. it's the president is the governor, is it the head of the mta? we have all these examples of just sort of a mish mash of authority diffused across various bureaucracies and various individuals in the real world. someone needs to make a decision, and our agenda as progressives needs to be. we are going to create a system where everybody has a voice, but nobody has a veto, and we can get things done expeditiously. >> yeah, a great point about new york state congestion pricing. the new book contains lots of examples and possible solutions. it's titled why nothing works who killed progress and how to bring it back. it is indeed available now out this week. author. mark. mark, congratulations and thank you for being with us. >> all right. still ahead, some members of the republican party are pushing back on president

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invited. >> that makes it that makes it kind of hard to. >> find peace, honey. oh my gosh, that was the most amazing. couple's therapy today. you should have been there. >> doctor. >> brad and i. >> agree everything. >> is your fault. oh, and i forgot. i'm leaving you. there you go. well. then trump called zelensky a dictator. >> who refuses to have. elections and is very low in ukrainian polls. >> unlike trump's democratically elected buddy putin, who is very popular in russia. latest polls show 90% approve and 10%. >> are falling out. >> of a window. >> and there we go. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is thursday, february 20th. we have a lot to get to this morning, including donald trump's latest pro-putin comments, calling the president of ukraine a dictator. we'll play for you that and show you

the reaction from republican lawmakers. where's the line for them? meanwhile, the president is backing the house's budget bill to support his tax and spending cuts. we'll break down the effect it could have on millions of americans. plus, delta is offering a lump sum for the passengers who were on the plane that crashed, landed in toronto. we'll have the details of that offer. also ahead, we'll get expert legal analysis on yesterday's hearing in the corruption case against new york city mayor eric adams. as the justice department pushes for a dismissal of the charges. 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. it's so awesome. katty kay columnist. it is so good. no, i really i was it's amazing. columnist and

associate editor for the washington post, david ignatius is here again with us and we appreciate that. and here we got the managing editor of the bulwark, sam stein. that was. >> sam's enthusiastic. >> enthusiastic. we need a little youth. >> pretty little youth. >> you've been saying. >> that for 15. >> all right. this is where the fun ends. let's get to the news. president trump escalated his rhetoric on the ukraine war yesterday, falsely claiming that president volodymyr zelensky is a dictator. it came in a long post on truth social yesterday morning that included a number of inaccuracies. then last night, trump essentially repeated the post while speaking at an event in miami. >> a dictator without elections. zelensky, better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. got to move. got to move fast. i love ukraine, but zelensky has done a terrible job. his country is shattered and millions and millions of

people have unnecessarily died. and you can't bring a war to an end if you don't talk to both sides. you got to talk. they haven't been talking for three years. >> this turn on ukraine, of course, has a history. we all remember 2019, where trump wanted volodymyr zelensky to investigate hunter biden, get dirt on joe biden, basically trying to shake down a foreign leader for dirt on a political rival. and he was withholding military aid. i think it was about $400 million back then. so this in some ways is not shocking, but the turning on a country that is fighting for its survival and fighting for peace for the rest of the world and fighting against oppression for a lot of people who love this democracy, that hurts to hear. on capitol hill, some republicans were critical of the overall message trump's of trump's comments to russia. but most they just stopped, just stopped short of actually

criticizing the president. >> would you call. >> president zelensky a dictator as president trump does? >> well. >> i like i said, the president speaks for himself. >> i do not. >> agree that. >> president zelensky. he is. >> to blame in any way. >> can you talk. >> you guys? president trump has weighed in. excuse me if i rush over. i absolutely would. >> not say that. zelensky started. >> the war. >> it is quite clear. >> who started. >> the war. it was absolutely. >> russia and putin's directive. >> you don't. >> think. >> that there should be any. confusion with that? >> to the extent that the. >> white house said. >> that ukraine started the war, i disagree. i think vladimir putin started the war. i also believe. through bitter experience that vladimir putin is a gangster. he's a gangster with a black heart. he makes

jeffrey dahmer look like mother teresa. he has stalin's taste for blood. and as. >> i've said. >> in another context, i wouldn't trust. >> this guy. >> like i trust gas stations. sushi. >> but make no mistake. >> about it, that invasion was the responsibility of one human. >> being on the. >> face of this planet. it was vladimir putin. >> in a calculation. >> to go through ukraine and. >> not stop. >> there, to go. >> through. >> moldova. >> to go. >> through the balkans, to. >> ultimately go. >> to the baltic states. >> and send the. >> signal to. >> china that. >> now is the time. >> that they can take. >> action in the south. >> china sea. >> that's what this is about. >> and that's what we as members have to communicate. >> you've seen dictators? >> i didn't hear that. i'll let other people use. >> their words. it's not. >> a word i would. >> have used. >> i used to be a divorce. >> lawyer. >> and i did it for about a year. >> the last thing. >> you do. is you get the antagonistic.

>> couples in the room at the end, not the beginning. i am okay with talking with russia. about what? where's your head space and relaying that to the ukrainians. there will. >> be no deal. >> without ukraine being consulted. >> and on. >> board because it. >> won't work. >> i talked to zelensky today. >> nobody is going. >> to do. >> anything that that you're not involved with. >> but talking to the russians. >> separately, i'm. >> actually okay. >> with it. >> then go back. >> to ukraine and. >> see what they think. and keep working. keep working. at the end, you got to get both parties into the room. >> do you think that putin can be trusted in these negotiations? no. >> putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed. >> okay, that last comment from republican senator roger wicker of mississippi was from on tuesday before trump called ukrainian president zelensky a dictator. trump is also facing criticism from two of his former

2024 primary rivals. look at this. former vice president mike pence wrote in a social media post. quote, mr. president, ukraine did not start this war. the road to peace must be built on the truth. and former u.n. ambassador nikki haley said, quote, these are classic russian talking points. exactly what putin wants. so, david ignatius, here we are again. it only gets worse. and while really consequential to hear this president turning on ukraine, when you look at the pattern of his behavior with ukraine. i guess it's not surprising. it's also a huge distraction from the breakdown of the federal government that is happening in unlawful ways, as well as the controversial nominees that are getting basically, you know, corralled right through the senate and out into their positions with seemingly very

little pushback or questions to some really scary concepts that they bring along with them. >> so one striking thing to me, mika, is that republicans finally seem to have found their voice in directly, clearly disagreeing with donald trump in his criticism of zelensky in this absurd claim that ukraine started the war. that seems to have blown a circuit for the republicans. and it's about time. the concern i'm hearing from strategists, from military people who follow this is, is this negotiation heading into a sort of rough accommodation between the united states and russia? two big guys who are going to figure out how they resume their relationship, and then a decision by europe, whether europe stands with ukraine and europe provides the defense going forward. and if zelensky is really left out of the picture by trump and

watching his comments, you wonder if that's not where we're heading. will europe step up? it's you know, six months ago it would have been impossible. three months ago, a month ago, to imagine anything like this. but this has become so personal for trump. you know, you need to really think why. what is it? where does this animus towards vladimir zelensky come from? is it he treats him like a little man. he calls him a comedian. he's like a secondary player with with contempt. i thought the tweets, the tweet yesterday was snide. it was just a gratuitous piling on. and he continued with the speech last night. so i just know where where we seem to be heading right now is an accommodation between the us and russia, and then a european decision to stand with, with, with zelensky. and that would mean a break not only with zelensky, but a real break between the united states

and europe. that's the danger of the moment. >> i think david is right. how personal this is. first of all, modestly successful comedian was the language that trump used in his truthsocial post yesterday. of course, zelensky, the president of ukraine. and to make his point, i think some of this does stem from trump's first impeachment in 2019, when trump and had enlisted rudy giuliani and others to try to get dirt on the biden family, who thought biden would be his likely opponent in 2020, he was right about that, going over to ukraine, trying to find dirt about them there. zelensky did not cooperate. the withheld his, mika said, withheld the military aid that led to an impeachment. and we know that there's a personal dimension to this between trump and putin as well. he's always been deferential to putin. he has lavished praise upon him even before he entered politics. and certainly afterwards we know how deferential he was in helsinki. he continues to be to this to this day. and you're right, republicans were critical of what he said, but they still were critical of trump. they don't ever go after trump himself. not yet. but this does feel like it is a moment in this

conflict. the ukrainians and the officials there i've talked last couple of days, david, i'm sure you have as well are deeply alarmed that there about there being abandoned here by the united states, their biggest partner and ally, where it seems like, at least in some degree, washington leaning towards moscow. now in this conflict, the wall street journal adds their voice to this. their editorial board continues its criticism of trump's handling of ukraine with a new piece titled trump tilts toward a ukraine sellout. it reads in part this the u.s. has a profound interest in denying mr. putin a new perch on more of the nato border, which is the real reason america has been right to arm ukraine. a deal that amounts to ukrainian surrender will be a blow to american power that will radiate to the pacific and the middle east. it would be the opposite of mr. trump's promise to restore a golden age of u.s. prestige in world calm. last week, mr. trump said ukraine cannot join nato and must must give up much of its territory to russia. concessions to mr. putin

with nothing in return. mr. putin's response this week has been more drone attacks on ukraine, and here we thought mr. trump doesn't like being played. the better strategy than beating up ukraine is making clear to mr. putin the arms and pressure he will face if the russian doesn't wind down the war to accept a durable peace. as it stands now, they go on. mr. trump's seeming desperation for a deal is a risk to ukraine, europe, u.s. interests and his own presidency. and katty, i mean, it's spelled out very well there for so long. as we talked about yesterday on the show, the republican party, the party of reagan and h.w. bush, the cold warriors, that was part of their their whole orthodoxy. and now trump has abandoned that and seemingly on the verge of rewarding putin for this illegal war, asking very little in return for that. the guy who wrote the art of the deal, there seems to be no real negotiations going on here. he's giving away

the shop before talks even start, and it's one that could fundamentally reshape europe not just now, but potentially set up putin on a path for more going forward. >> yeah, first of all, it's very interesting that the criticism of donald trump's policies at the moment is coming as much from the wall street journal as it is from anywhere else. it's worth watching that. obviously, there are things the journal likes about what trump is doing, but this in particular, they don't. the people who cover russia and ukraine much more closely than i do are surprised by the degree to which donald trump has already played his cards. and once you put all of your cards on the table, you don't have very much left. so they say donald trump is in a weak negotiating position. now. he's put himself in that weak negotiation position. the russians, in contrast, are wheeling out some very skilled negotiators. my understanding is that the people that were in saudi arabia are much more proficient in negotiating than those who have tried to negotiate before, and more, more skilled in negotiating on russia, ukraine and this particular area than any of the americans who were sent. now,

was that by design, were the americans? did the americans go in order to be rolled over? the speed with which this has happened has left europeans scrambling. there is an opportunity for europe to step up. they have the money to do so. they could fund at least the holding of the defensive line. but that paris meeting led to no unity. and that's the problem for europeans. >> it's easy. >> to be. >> a skilled negotiator when the person across from you gives you the store right up front. >> let's take. >> this, i. >> should they. >> even get. >> to. >> the table? i had a question. >> for david, actually. >> because i. >> my view of. this is colored by two preceding stories to what's. >> happened, which. >> is one, the u.s. made an offer to essentially take. >> over. >> russia's. >> i mean. >> sorry, ukraine's mineral supplies. and zelensky said. >> no. >> we're not going to do that. and i'm kind of curious from your reporting. >> how. >> much that has been affecting. donald trump's mood and approach. >> to zelensky in the past couple of. >> days, the fact that. >> zelensky just wouldn't. >> give him. >> basically a. >> huge economic portion of the country. and then the second. >> one is.

>> there was a story a couple weeks back about how trump wants. >> this. >> grand deal with. >> russia and china. >> in which they. >> would enter some sort of pact and they. >> would reduce their nuclear. >> supplies and their armaments by, what. >> 50% or something crazy. and my view of this is that everything should be seen. >> through the prism, not necessarily. >> of trump's. >> antagonism towards. >> zelensky, but his desire. >> for some. >> sort of. grand deal with the russians. and what he's trying. >> to do now is essentially. >> get russia in a place where they can do a secondary deal off of this deal. >> in which there is. >> some sort of global agreement for disarmament. it's very sort of cold. >> war ish in scope. >> so, sam, the thing that struck me the most in the last two days is the way in which trump is making this about donald trump. it's just classic, you know, here's this war of enormous proportions. 700,000 russians killed or wounded in the last three years. and it's about donald trump. and it's about if only they'd listened to me. and, you know, i could have

made peace. and it's so there is this dimension. trump sent his treasury secretary, intimate adviser scott bossert, to kyiv last week with the demand it had. it was written on a paper and this is zelenskyy described it at munich. he kept pushing it toward zelenskyy. sign it, sign it. you won't get any meetings if you don't sign it. and zelenskyy wouldn't sign it, he said. i don't know if it's constitutional. i've never seen this. i, you know, i can't sign it. and so he wouldn't. is trump now peeved at that? what do you mean you're going to i gave you the deal and you wouldn't sign it. is that what this is about? yeah, i did hear a couple of people, sam, say that that that's that's part of what's going on here. >> coming up, a federal judge is still weighing whether to dismiss corruption charges against new york city mayor eric adams. we're going to go over what happened in court yesterday, plus an upsetting scene on the tennis court in dubai. we'll explain what left

one major champion in tears. that's ahead on morning joe. that's ahead on morning joe. >> we love. business. it's not a nine-to-five proposition. it's all day and into the night. it's all the things that keep this world turning. it's the go-tos that keep us going. the places we cheer. trust. hang out. and check in. they all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. powering more businesses than anyone. powering possibilities. finally with magna left leg and back pain relief, a combination of four active ingredients that get to work fast. so get living. >> available at your local retailer or plant based healthy blood pressure support. there's

one brand at walmart that stands above the rest. it's super beats. discover why more cardiologists recommend super beats for heart health support than any other beat brand at super beats. >> com the guy made a left into the river. >> daddy's home. >> hey, you got that thing? >> yeah, you. >> got. that thing. >> throw it in the fridge. >> oh. >> what's this? >> you keep dog food in the fridge? >> it's not dog food, it's fresh pet. we'll eat real veggies for my boy, junior. >> no disrespect. >> but. >> what are we doing here? >> anybody asked? we were at. >> grandma's fresh pet. >> it's not dog food. it's food. food? >> the judge overseeing the federal case against new york city mayor eric adams is delaying a decision on whether to grant the department of justice's request to dismiss the case. at a hearing yesterday, the judge questioned the acting

deputy attorney general, emil bove, who originally ordered the charges be dropped. bovey said he believes the case would hinder national security and immigration efforts by the trump administration. mayor adams lost his security clearance as a result of last year's federal indictment. the judge also questioned mayor adams directly, confirming that he understood the charges against him could be refiled by the doj in the future. the judge indicated he would have a final decision soon, saying it's not in anyone's interest here for this to drag on. let's now bring in former state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg. dave, there's a lot of politics involved here as well, which we can get to in a minute. it's an election year for the new york city mayor's office. but let's start just sticking with the legal proceedings yesterday. what did you make of what the judge had to say his questions to all involved, and when your best guess. might we hear a

ruling soon? >> jonathan, judge ho said that he wanted to get moving on this. didn't want to prolong it much longer. it was quite a spectacle yesterday because you had the number two person at the department of justice, donald trump's former criminal defense lawyer, showing up himself to court. that's really unusual. it was the right thing to do, though, because he broke it. he owns it. this is his baby. and in court, he said that there was no quid pro quo. he said that under oath. but then his reason for the dismissal of the charges sure sounded like a quid pro quo. he essentially said it's not a quid pro quo. your honor, we just gave eric adams something in exchange for something. i'm not a latin major. sure, it sounds like a quid pro quo, right? but in court. right? yeah. in court, he reiterated what he wrote in that earlier letter ordering the dismissal, where the decision was politically motivated, that he they wanted adams to assist with trump's immigration

crackdown. of course, the implication is, if that is, that if adams didn't support trump's immigration policies, he would still be facing criminal charges. so first off, that's bad enough. as a prosecutor, you're supposed to uphold the rule of law, not undermine it to support a president's political agenda. but what's worse is that the charges were dropped without prejudice, which means they could be refiled at any moment. so if you think the charges are inappropriate, then drop the charges permanently or issue a pardon for the mayor. but when you dismiss it without prejudice, it makes it means that you're reserving judgment to see if the mayor plays ball. that's probably why the mayor was so compliant to the border czar when they were on the couch at fox news the other day, where it seemed like the czar was pulling the mayor's strings. i mean, that's what happens when you have the sword of damocles hanging over your head. >> and david samson here. i was kind of wondering about that. is it possible i don't know the procedures, but is it possible that the doj could amend its charge and get rid of that

without prejudice element of it? just say, look, we're just going to get rid of it entirely. we don't think there's merit to the case. and therefore you lose that specter of politics playing a role here. >> and then the. >> second question is, obviously, it's quite rare for a judge to come in and say, actually, no, we're. >> going to. >> not accept your dismissal of this case. >> but let's say. >> they do do that. how does this go forward? would the judge then assign a different prosecutor to take up the charges? because clearly the doj does not want to do this. >> it will be so awkward, but it's the right thing to do. i do think the judge should reject the dismissal. he's got three options. he can allow the dismissal, he can block the dismissal, or he can order an evidentiary hearing to get, like danielle sassoon, the former intern interim u.s. attorney, to come in and talk about why she resigned and why she said this was a quid pro quo. i don't think he's going to do the latter because that would prolong things. so i think he will probably reject the

dismissal because he knows how bad this looks. and although it's rare for a judge to block the prosecutor's decision to dismiss charges, it can and should happen when a prosecutor's dismissal is based on improper motives like politics, then such a dismissal would be contrary to the interests of justice. so if judge ho decides to block the dismissal, then things will get really interesting because the federal prosecutors will likely sit on their hands in a standoff with the court. >> all right, president trump, just want to get one more topic in here with you. dave declared himself a king as he celebrated his administration's bid to end federal approval of new york's congestion pricing. he wrote on truth social congestion pricing is dead. manhattan and all of new york is saved. long live the king. i mean, a little bit joking here. let's not, like, get triggered here, but i mean, it's just it's exhausting. the congestion pricing program was approved under the biden administration after years of

challenges and implemented last month to raise money for the region's aging mass transit system. in a letter to new york governor kathy hochul, transportation secretary sean duffy called congestion pricing a slap in the face to working class americans and small business owners. hochul vowed to fight the trump administration in court, saying new york is not ruled by a king. the mta also pushed back and announced it would continue to collect the tolls until a federal judge tells it to stop. how do you see this playing out, dave? >> yeah, it's going to go all the way up, perhaps to the supreme court. ronald reagan must be rolling around in his grave. i mean, first he sees that trump takes a side of the russians, and now the whole concept of local rule. remember local rule. i'm old enough to remember when they tried to get rid of the department of education because they said that it's local rule. the local should govern education well. but when it comes to transportation, you're saying

that that's coming out of the white house. that's why there's this inherent conflict. and i think it goes all the way up to the supreme court, because i don't think you're supposed to do this. you're allowed to do this. local governments are supposed to be able to make decisions on what goes on, on their roads. and the federal government can't just veto it, especially even if he's joking about being a king. you know that that's going to be used against president trump in court. they're going to say, this guy thinks he's a king and he shouldn't be allowed to do it. i do think it gets to the supreme court. and then who knows? because the supreme court has been very supportive of a very powerful executive in the white house. >> coming up, israeli president isaac herzog will be our guest to discuss the latest on the fragile ceasefire deal with hamas as the bodies of four israeli hostages are returned to their families. morning joe is back in a moment. >> we will keep you. >> and, doug. >> you'll be back. emus can't help people. customize and save hundreds on car insurance with

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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 at the final score. we are still in the first quarter. keep your pads on. >> the game has. just begun. >> president trump's first 100 days. watch. >> i'm going to be here five days a week again. >> read and listen. >> staying up half. >> the night reading. >> executive orders. >> for this defining time in the second trump presidency. stay with msnbc. >> welcome back. just past the bottom of the hour here. we turn now to some news overseas. hamas handed over the bodies of four

israeli hostages in gaza this morning. it's believed that the bodies are of a mother and her two young children, who were kidnaped during the october 7th attacks, as well as an elderly man. israel still needs to confirm their identities. following the handover, a convoy of idf vehicles transported the coffins through israel to a forensic institute in tel aviv. israeli citizens lined up outside waving their flags in support. joining us now, israeli president isaac herzog. mr. president, thank you so much for joining us this morning. let's just start there with this obviously somber moment. what more do you can you tell us about those who were returned to israel today? what does this mean for the nation? >> this is a moment of a true agony, pain. bereavement. you know, the story of the bibas

family has hit. in each and every person. >> of a morality in the world, because you're speaking. >> about a mother. >> and two toddlers, a baby and a little boy, and the. other person is oded. >>, an 86. >> year old, a retired peace activist who used to work with the palestinians on a daily basis to help them in any way they they need, and which is not confirmed yet. the bodies have not yet been identified. it's now in the forensic institute, and that is why we'll have to wait for official confirmation. but my nation is agonized, and it is a, you know, reminding us of a national memorial day. if you ask me, it's kind of a home. come to the entire pain that we've endured since october 7th.

>> mr. president, let's talk about we just showed a little bit while you were speaking there, some of the scenes from hamas in gaza that have accompanied the return of both hostages, where they've had to be paraded through jeering crowds and made to speak in some occasions. and now today, even we're watching here there were some cheers as these coffins were loaded into the ambulances. what is your reaction to that? >> so i think that is a true reality of what we israelis have been going through with these jihadists who've taken over gaza and turned it into an iranian terror base against israel, with their hate and with a lack of morality and with the barbaric approach to life. they believe in death. we believe in life. they think death is the role model. we believe life is the

role model. but it was so humiliating, so disgusting, so despicable. even the un commissioner on human rights condemned it strongly and forcefully. and that is the reality we have faced with. we did not seek that war. on october 7th, 2023, these barbaric guys went into israel raping, abducting, burning, taken hostage and killing people all throughout the border, in their homes, dwelling in their life and internationally recognized border, by the way, and with no real reason. but there was actually some progress going on between us and the palestinians, and some more effort could have given much more hope. but what they have done, these barbaric terrorists, they've ruined the hope of israelis and they ruined the hope of palestinians, too. and i

think it is what you call pure cruelty. and one has to understand that to fight pure cruelty, you have to fight totally and uproot pure cruelty, because terror is what leads to this vicious cycle in our region. >> mr. president, let's get your reaction to what we heard from president trump here in the united states just a week or so ago, where he suggested the palestinians be displaced from gaza, that the us would come in, in his words, take over and be part of some sort of rebuilding project there. this idea was condemned by a lot of your neighbors there in the region. what do you think? was this a was this is this a feasible idea, or is this something that could potentially inflame the area further? >> so i think president trump shed like a light as zoom a spotlight on the realities on the ground, meaning this idea of making the same mistake time and time again, meaning ceasefire,

then another terror attack. then there's war, then there's a terrible bloodshed. then there's ceasefire again for decades is obsolete. we have to look to new ideas. and his plan, which was made public a few weeks ago when prime minister netanyahu met with president trump in the oval office and since then shaken the entire region and is bringing about the fact that egypt and jordan and other arab states would definitely have a voice to express. and we should, of course, listen to them because they are partners in peace agreements with us, are about to come forward with a new plan because we need to have the region come forward with a new plan. it doesn't make sense to leave gaza under the reign of terror for again and again and again, simply creating a mess and wreaking havoc throughout the region and with israel. it

doesn't make sense. we have to change the reality so that both israelis and palestinians and arabs and neighbors can dwell in peace. we can reach peace. but for that, we have to change some core root causes as such as terror. and that is, i think, the main expression of president trump's words. >> and lastly, sir, briefly, that's the long term vision here in the short term, how confident are you that the ceasefire will hold, particularly as phase two approaches? >> so on saturday, six more hostages are due to be freed. and of course we are paying a heavy price. we are releasing terrorists. unfortunately, we have killed many israelis, but this is part of the painful deal that we are at in order to save and bring back our brothers and sisters. now we have to go into

an negotiating form for the next phase. and i am hopeful and i'm definitely extremely supportive of getting to the next phase so that we can bring everybody back home and we can create a trajectory that changes reality in the middle east, especially between israel and gaza, so that we see a different future for the people in gaza and the people of israel. so it's a complicated structure. it sometimes needs to square the circle or vice versa. but i think that with determination and with the incredible support of president trump and the us administration and with forceful negotiations, the reality will dawn also on hamas and on the people of gaza, that they have to release all israelis. we right now we have 69 israelis left in gaza of various

nationalities, but mostly of israelis. some of them are assumed dead and many are assumed alive. and we want to see each and every one of them back home. this is our national aspiration and psyche, and we are working towards that goal. >> all right. >> we'll be watching for the days ahead for the next hostage release. israeli president isaac herzog. mr. president, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you. and thank you, jonathan, for expressing emotionally the a huge emotional pain that we are all enduring right now in israel. thank you. >> all right. >> thank you for being here. still ahead here on morning joe, we'll take a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning, including delta's new offer to the passengers on board this week's crash in toronto, where the plane overturned. miraculously, all survived. morning, joe. back in just a moment.

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>> time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. this week, missouri clinics resumed offering abortion care for the first time in years after a judge temporarily blocked a restrictive anti-abortion law. this comes despite a continued push by conservative state leaders to block a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights that voters approved in november. back in 2022, missouri was the first state to enact an abortion ban after the supreme court overturned roe v wade. following the news, republicans in the state said they vow to challenge the decisions. delta airlines is now offering passengers who were on the toronto flight that crashed and flipped upside down $30,000. it was not immediately clear how passengers can claim their money, but if all 76 passengers take up the offer, delta will have to pay out

nearly $2.3 million in total. what a deal. the airline is also telling passengers the offer has no strings attached and does not affect rights. so far, all but one of the injured passengers have been released from the hospital. right now, the cause of the crash remains under investigation. and a man was ejected from the dubai tennis championship this week following a visceral reaction to his presence by former u.s. open champion emma raducanu. the 22 year old player broke down in tears at the start of her second round match on tuesday, after apparently spotting the man among spectators. she then approached the umpire, explaining to explain the situation, and hid behind the umpire's chair. the women's tennis association released a statement explaining raducanu was approached in a public area on monday by a man who exhibited fixated behavior, and that this

same individual was identified in the first few rows during emma's match on tuesday and subsequently ejected. the association said he will be banned from all wta events pending a threat assessment. jonathan. >> wow. yeah, that's obviously a scary situation there. let's remember, of course, it was monica seles who was stabbed by a fan once during a match about 20 years ago. we don't know what's happening here, but certainly officials always alarmed when a player feels uncomfortable. we'll learn more about that in the days ahead, i'm sure. >> coming up, our conversation with award winning actress daisy ridley. she joins us with a look at her brand new action movie that is straight ahead on morning joe. >> consumer cellular. >> ranked number. >> one. >> in network. >> coverage and customer satisfaction. hi. my friend. >> linda has. >> you guys and gets. >> way better coverage than i do. >> sounds like linda. >> has you. >> beat only. >> in coverage.

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real value from your life insurance when you need it with abacus. >> donald trump is. >> defending the mass firings of federal watchdogs. >> our federal government. now can discriminate against the citizens of the country. >> we are all watching. >> and waiting. >> to see who is. >> going to hold. >> the line. >> don't miss the weekends, saturday, and sunday mornings. >> at 8:00. >> on msnbc. >> what was it like when trump got elected? what was the what was the reaction? do you think about ice coming to knock on your front door? >> t for president trump's first 100 days. alex wagner travels to the story to talk with people most impacted by the policies. >> were you there. >> on january? >> i was there on january 6th. >> did it surprise you that you were fired, given how resolutely nonpartisan you have been? >> and for more in-depth reporting, follow her podcast, trumpland with alex wagner. >> you. >> someone got inside one of the

cleaners. find them. >> hey, joey, get. >> a grip. your brother needs you. >> put it down. >> are you deaf? >> see if. >> you can do better than the last. >> three times. >> you sent. if i did, the cleaner. ignore me. you got this, joey. everyone's got a personal joey. if you touch him, i will end you. >> that was a look at the new action film titled cleaner. it stars actress. >> daisy ridley as joey. >> a military veteran and a window. >> cleaner at a high rise. >> in london. >> whose ordinary. >> workday takes a dramatic. >> turn when radical. >> environmental activists. take 300. hostages at her building, including joey's own brother. let's bring in.

>> daisy ridley now. daisy, thank you so much for. >> being with us. >> it you're introduced. >> as a cleaner. >> and i think. >> calling this movie. >> cleaner would. >> be like calling a biopic. >> on winston churchill painter, because you're so much more. >> than a window cleaner. talk about what we quickly. >> learned as as viewers of the movie. >> we quickly. >> learned that. >> the character i. >> play, joey. >> is in a rush. she's already having a bit of a day, gets to work. >> and things should be proceeding as usual. >> and she loses. contact with her. >> boss. >> has to climb to figure. >> out what's. >> going on, and there is. >> a siege. >> and she has. >> to then work. >> because she's. >> outside of the building. she has to work to get in the. >> building and. >> try and save everybody's. >> lives. >> including her brother. >> and there's a bit of a redemption. >> story here, isn't there? >> because joey feels. >> guilty about how badly she's treated her brother.

>> her whole. life. >> and so rescue would equal. >> redemption, right? >> yeah. >> it's. >> a really beautiful. >> i think. >> martin campbell. >> who's obviously known for amazing action movies. >> his films always have. >> such heart. and the heart of this movie is joey and her brother, and they. >> had a very difficult childhood. she is. >> in more of a. >> caregiving position. >> and she's. >> trying. >> but she has not always succeeded in being a great sibling. so when. >> the time pressure is on. >> and she realizes. it's now or never. >> she is trying to atone. >> for the way she hasn't been. >> the best. >> sibling. you do your. own stunts. you did your. >> own stunts. >> in the star. >> wars movies. >> so talk. >> to us about. >> what that's like. >> and is. >> it scary? >> and do you. >> have scars? >> i do have scars. there was. one moment in this that. >> i. >> hit the set so hard. the everything rattled. i thought i broke something. so i was in a

lot of pain. and also i had a fake tattoo and it cut through the tattoo. so the tattoo had to live on my skin because i couldn't quite. yeah. >> there. >> it's sort of an amazing. >> adrenaline rush. >> but also. >> it's i. >> love learning. >> a new skill. >> for a job, a physical skill. and particularly. >> with this. >> joey is. >> so in her body. >> she loves fighting. >> she loves climbing. >> so much of her physical. world leads to how she proceeds in the movie. >> could you actually talk a little bit more about what you did to prepare for that to become joey? i mean, did you go to a rock climbing wall? what exactly did you do? >> i did. >> some climbing. >> in the studio. i had weirdly trained for another film that ended up not happening, so i had some rock climbing experience. >> but it. >> was about six weeks. and every day we'd do 3 or 4 hours of fighting choreography. and then i had to get very comfortable on ropes. i had to learn to. >> clean. >> windows, which is really difficult. so that was in the run up to it and then trying to

maintain that through the film. >> yeah. >> sounds like. >> preparation for this show. we make fun of all those things before he comes on the show. daisy, let's take a look at another. >> clip where your character, joey has to fight for her and her brother's survival. h. it's no fun to go go go go. jump, jump. yeah yeah yeah. oh! no! stop it! yeah yeah yeah yeah. oh! oh! >> yeah. >> oh! oh! no! oh. >> god. >> yes! oh!

>> joey! >> i've got. >> to say, i mean, this. >> is, like. >> the highest. >> compliment possible. there's some. >> john mcclane. >> there, isn't there? >> there's. >> there's a little bit. >> of. >> die hard in there, is there not? >> well. >> i jokingly called it dry shod because we were originally supposed to film on the shard. i feel like it's a real love letter to die hard, except i'm on the outside of the building. but it's. i mean, die hard obviously is one of the greats. so who would not want a little of that? >> and we'll ask. >> you, the most important. >> question i asked. is it a christmas movie. >> or not? >> i it's not, but i was like. >> we could have made. >> this a christmas movie. >> this is a movie. >> for now. yeah. >> okay. so you're. >> a no. >> one die hard being. a christmas movie. all right, well. >> thank you so much. >> the new movie cleaner looks fantastic. >> and it's in theaters starting this friday. >> actress daisy. >> ridley, thank. >> you so much. >> greatly appreciate it. thank

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with results. you can see with results. you can see faster. lose 15% o community id our strength and share our hope. it's the way dinner on the table brings a family closer together. it's the way we make sure his first chapter book is the first step on his path to greatness. it's the way we rally in hard times and rise back up stronger than ever. united is the way we come

together so everyone can thrive. join us at unitedway.org. granger for the ones who get it done. >> firing a bunch of people. big willy. >> nilly styles. >> also off. >> the. >> people that they want to keep working. >> earlier this week. >> to protest the layoff. >> of 80. >> workers, the fda food. >> safety chief resigned. great. >> we lost the guy in charge of food. that's one of my favorite things to put in my mouth. the fda official in. question is jim jones, not the kool-aid one. and his title is and we're not making this up. deputy commissioner of human foods. >> not to be. >> confused with the commissioner of humans who. >> are food. >> who is, of course. >> the. >> late, great hannibal lecter. >> it turns out, being an unelected donor running an.

unauthorized employee kill. >> squad might. >> get you sued at some point in the future. so in new legal filings, the white house claims that elon musk is not in charge. at doge. >> what? >> it's literally named after his favorite meme. this is the. >> most. >> confusing leadership structure since ruth's chris steakhouse. who is chris? why does he seem to belong to ruth? >> wait wait wait. >> does that. >> mean. >> we're eating? chris? >> is he the steak? is he. >> the human food? >> christie. >> okay, there you go. welcome to the fourth hour of morning joe at 6 a.m. on the west coast. i think it might be time to wake up. and 9 a.m. in the east. we have a great group here, but we're going to start with our top story. the public war of words between president trump and ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky is escalating, with trump now

claiming zelensky is a dictator. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has the latest. >> reporter president trump. >> is escalating. >> his attacks. >> on. >> president zelensky, describing the ukrainian president as a dictator who's been conning the u.s. out of billions in aid. >> the only thing he was really good at was playing joe biden like a fiddle. >> reporter trump said he's negotiating to end the war with russia, adding this ominous threat. >> a dictator without elections. zelensky better move fast or he's not going to have a country left. >> president trump lashed out. >> after president. >> zelensky accused him of parroting russian disinformation. in particular, trump's false claim that ukraine started. >> the war. >> three years ago. >> even though. >> it was. >> russia that invaded, a senior ukrainian official tells nbc news. relations soured after zelensky refused to sign a document presented by a trump official promising to give the united states 50% of ukraine's rare earth mineral rights.

>> yes. >> president putin is clearly pleased by the rift between his enemy and its most powerful backer, complimenting president trump, saying he's ready for a summit and it will be a pleasure to meet donald. well, in washington, some pushback, including from republicans. >> make no mistake. >> about it, that invasion was the responsibility of one human being on the face of this planet. it was vladimir putin. >> in the eastern city of kharkiv, ukrainian civilians feel increasingly abandoned by the united states. at a school this morning, previously supported by usaid and now, without that funding, children learn underground out of reach from russian bombs and missiles. lyudmila ivanova is a math teacher. what do you make about the things that president trump is saying and doing about ukraine? it is very sad because we feel we have lost a partner. >> and a. >> friend, she said. we hope that soon president trump will change his position.

>> all right. nbc's richard engel with that report, along with jonathan lemire and me. we have democratic senator ruben gallego of arizona. he's a member of the homeland security committee and an iraq war veteran. also at the table, co-host of the weekend on msnbc, symone sanders townsend and host of msnbc's inside with jen psaki, jen what youhi morning when i came ? this is. >> like a confessional. i poured an entire. >> cup of coffee on jonathan lemire computer. >> what? >> why? >> it's a good. >> thing i don't. >> write. >> oh, yeah. >> it was accidental. >> a job at the atlantic. >> yeah. >> so i did offer you. >> a pony. >> a computer. >> accidents happen. >> coffee? any combination. >> the crack it team here at nbc has the computer. they're trying to resuscitate it. >> good luck with that. >> his response was, this isn't ideal. >> was it. >> a. >> large going to be.

>> a. >> meme someday? >> yes. >> that's what we started. >> and we're still sitting next to each other. >> all right. >> senator, let's get back to more serious items. obviously, donald trump's stance on ukraine, which you know, is not shocking when you look back at the relationship, even during his first presidency, things he said and did, even withholding aid from ukraine at the same time, this is a shocking change in what might be the world order and how our allies are responding. >> i mean, he is quickly moving from not just. >> destroying relationship. >> with ukraine, but restoring a relationship with all of our allies and not just in europe. >> i mean. >> if you are one of our. >> asian allied. countries right. >> now, you're questioning the. >> validity of a. >> alliance with the united states. if you're taiwan, if you're philippines. philippines is actively trying to push back on chinese, trying. >> to claim some islands in the south china sea. why are you looking at this. situation and. >> saying. >> that i can trust them? and something has. >> happened here. because it's not just trump. trump has either been taken as a fool or is feels

scared or weakened by in the presence of donald trump. but what is going on with. waltz and rubio. >> the. >> supposed adults in. >> the room that everyone thought was. >> supposed to be there? they're also just buying right into all these talking points and going along with destroying that. >> relationship that we've talked. >> about. for many years in. >> the. senate and. >> in congress. i served. >> with with both. and they're going to actively hurt and weaken united. >> states national. >> security all around the world, because we're. >> only strong as long. >> as we have strong allies with us. >> vladimir putin jen psaki has a history of attempting to make a fool of american presidents. you served in an administration and talk about that fraught relationship and what you make of what is happening now. >> well, it's been fraught for some time. i think it's important to remember that there has been such a massive evolution over the course of, i would say, a decade of so many leaders in the republican party, some who are still elected, that you're serving alongside senator lindsey graham. senator marco rubio, senator lisa murkowski,

to some degree, senator john thune, who all felt strongly attacked the obama administration, attacked john kerry at the time that that ukraine needed to be armed, that there was more that needed to be done to support the ukrainians. many democrats felt that way that way at the time as well. and now here they are, and they seem nonplused by donald trump and the trump administration negotiating without the ukrainians at the table, being willing to give away the land that they they've been fighting for so many years, that evolution is quite dramatic. i think they're fearful, of course, of their political place and the impact of trump being upset. but it is it should be stunning to people. >> even in more recent history, it was one year ago this week that 22 republican senators defied donald trump and voted for a massive funding bill that included $60 billion to ukraine, among them now majority leader john thune. we heard a little bit of pushback yesterday saying that, well, we don't necessarily think putin is a good guy, but they still were very loath to

actually criticize president trump himself. do you see that potentially changing? because if not, let's talk also about what this could mean. putin is going to get far better terms, it would seem, to end this war than we could have imagined over the last three years, considering how poorly it started for him. and he's also got an economy that's on war footing. who's to say he won't just try again in a couple of years? >> i mean, this is very true. i senator. it really makes me think about the fact. >> that. >> look. >> yes, wars are. >> eventually ended at negotiating tables. >> it is diplomacy that. >> ends wars. but you fight these battles. >> on the battlefield to put you in a. >> better position. >> to be able to negotiate. >> at that table. >> kyiv is still standing. under the control of ukrainians. >> because of president. >> zelensky. >> someone whom. >> let's just be very clear. >> even. >> at the time, the americans didn't. >> believe that he was. >> going to. >> you and i were. >> in the administration at the time. the americans did not even believe that kyiv would last. >> a week. >> and now they have lasted nearly what we're going on. >> two.

>> almost three years. >> three years. >> i was actually. >> there before the fight, before the war broke out. >> about one month before. >> the. war broke out, i took a delegation, a congressional bipartisan delegation. >> that, including. >> included waltz to go see this. and we spoke to the ukrainians, and i spoke to ukrainian soldiers and marines that were, you know, way younger than me, but reminded me a lot of the fighting marines that i was with that really wanted to have a free ukraine. and the fact is, ukraine, this scrappy little country, has grinded down the second most powerful. >> country in the world and has grinded down. >> for two years, essentially securing. >> you know. western europe for at least a couple more years. >> and now we're about to give. >> them a little out. we're about to give russia an out. >> russia is weak. >> it is a weak country. >> and president trump and his administration are about. >> to give. >> him putin, a new lifeline. >> that they. >> do not deserve, that they do not need. >> it's only going to impact the rest of this world in a negative manner. >> i guess. but what follow up do you believe that vladimir putin will stop at ukraine. if the americans if donald trump

gives vladimir putin what he would like. >> allows him to keep the territory that he has stolen. essentially from the ukrainian. >> people, will he stop there? >> the history of russia. >> whether it's communist russia. >> tsarist russia. >> or whatever. >> the heck. >> putin is. >> is always to expand, always to try to get. >> more and. >> more and try to conquer more. >> and. >> more. >> especially anything that they consider their. >> former territory. >> but, you know, russia is. >> a weak country, and. >> for some. >> reason. >> this president. >> is just enamored with the idea of. >> russia being. >> the strong country. russia historically has lost almost. >> all of their wars, especially all their wars. of expansion. and we need to give and empower ukraine, the ability for them to actually absolutely destroy russia, because destroying russia means that. the rest of western europe is secure, too. >> there's the same tendency with president trump as well canada, greenland. and, you know, the way he looks at give me your minerals. and, you know. >> but he's. >> he's more willing to be bullies to our friends than to actual bullies, because he's a weak man at the core. he's afraid of. people like putin. putin is an actual strong man. so that's the way that he operates. >> as a. >> bully is he goes after people

that are tend to be friends who are going to react to him in a more, i would say, lenient way. but real bullies he's afraid of. this is why he talks so positively about, you know, north korean dictator, you know, china talking about russia. this is the type of person. he is. >> bullies can never. >> stand up to people that are stronger than them. >> some other issues at play this morning, an appeals court has declined to reinstate president trump's birthright citizenship order. this is trump's ongoing push to slash the federal government is now focused on the pentagon, with the secretary of defense planning on $50 billion in cuts. nbc news senior white house correspondent garrett hake has the latest. >> a legal showdown. looming over. >> a. >> key part of president trump's agenda. overnight, an appeals court ruling that his executive order limiting birthright citizenship will remain blocked. another court had ruled the order violates the constitution, which extends american citizenship to anyone born on u.s. soil. >> we'll end up winning that

court in the supreme court. >> but the president. is moving. >> forward on. >> another priority reshaping the federal government with new changes potentially reaching the nation's military and social security, as he requires that more federal departments line up with his agenda. trump also posting, quote, long live the king! yesterday, while aiming to get rid of new york city's congestion pricing, the white house, following up with doctored images, new york's governor writing, quote, we are a nation of laws not ruled by a king. as behind the scenes, the major material changes from elon musk's department of government efficiency continue. >> when you take a look at those and you see what's. >> happening this morning. >> the pentagon is in the cost cutting crosshairs of elon musk's department of government efficiency, with doge staffers now inside the defense department, according to senior officials. secretary of defense pete hegseth ordering the pentagon brass to find a way to cut the defense budget by roughly $50 billion, according to the defense department, while five sources tell nbc news some generals and other high ranking officers may also be on the chopping block. many of those

closely associated with former biden defense secretary lloyd austin or who worked on programs seen as politically out of line with the trump agenda. yesterday, the president also floated a new use for any doge related savings. >> thinking about giving 20% back to the american citizens and 20% down to pay back debt. >> but any such spending would require congressional action, and the president did not say where the remaining money would go. >> we're not. >> some deep state. >> that, like, has. >> ulterior motives. i want to go to work. i want to help veterans. >> in december. marine veteran andrew lennox started a job he considered a calling at the va hospital. >> in ann. >> arbor, michigan, working as an. administrative officer. he says his firing by email late last week surprised even his direct supervisors. what does that tell you about the reasoning behind it? >> it was arbitrary. >> and it. >> wasn't thought out. >> all right, where to begin? you know, again, i think president trump is tapping into

something that makes a lot of sense to people waste, fraud and abuse making cuts that. but again, it's how it's being done. whether how it's being done is lawful and whether how it's being done is productive and actually in service of the american people. jen psaki you want to take a stab at this? >> yeah. look, to your point. i mean, waste, fraud and abuse, the government. is bloated. it could become more efficient. there have been efforts to do this in the past by democratic and republican administrations. putting that aside, they are doing this in such a willy nilly way as my best way of describing it. i mean, there are examples. the nuclear experts within the department of energy who are responsible essentially for at different plants across the country, moving nuclear materials, taking them apart to keep us safe, ensuring they're refurbished and put back together. this is expertise that requires sometimes years, decades. they fired hundreds of these people. then they couldn't find their information to get them back. of course, you need their expertise in the government, just like of course

you need the expertise of the young man who garrett was talking to. and now what you're doing is you're dismantling the type of expertise and government that's needed to function. and the other thing i would say, and i know you've talked about this, senator, is that there are people's jobs and communities who are not democrats or. >> not blue. >> states who are helping their communities function or people are benefiting from these, like farmers and agricultural communities, like the people who are rely on the va, people who rely on medicaid and medicare, who are being impacted by these cuts. and we're going to see the impact of that more, i think, over the next couple of months, i bet. >> i just want to also point. >> out what. people want right now are to. >> bring down the cost of. everything eggs, housing. >> everything that's happening. >> right now. the president's doing everything, but actually dealing with what people voted for him to do, which is bring down the cost of living. and he's not. >> doing. >> it because he has zero interest in doing so. he's going to go and mess around and keep distracting us. at the end of the day, price of eggs are still

going up. apartments are still very expensive. you can't buy a house and it's all. >> starting to become. >> the responsibility of this president. because yes, you're going you're cutting veterans services. >> you're cutting also. child care centers. >> all these things that people need every day. you're claiming. >> it's for. >> the excuse. >> that you want more government efficiency, when in fact. >> you just want. >> to find money to give tax cuts to the rich. >> and what's going to happen is you're going to you're going to gut the poor. >> you're going to give the. >> texture to the rich. >> and at the same time. >> eggs are still expensive. you can buy a home, cars become more expensive, and there is no plan that. >> this president is presenting to help americans get out of the trouble they're in. >> right now. >> so, senator, it has been one month since president trump took the oath of i. >> have noticed. >> and long month. yeah. and you know but you one elected as a democrat in a state that he he won. yeah. the voters you talked to over this last month is he doing what he said he would do. is he helping them. you mentioned the cost of prices. but you also you're a border state about immigration. what is this what they were voting for. >> so in some regards they were voting for more border security.

and they did believe. that there are people. >> in this. country that are. >> criminals that are actually. >> dangerous, that should. >> be deported. what they don't want is mass deportations. they don't want families separated. and they certainly don't believe at all that birthright citizenship is in the best ending. birthright citizenship is in the best. interest or the values of this country. what i do hear when. i go home and i speak to everyday americans, arizonans. is that. they are mad that there is no concentration. >> on what. they thought was going to happen. >> a president that said, i'm going to take care. >> of you. i'm going to bring down. >> the cost of everything. i'm going to make your life better. >> and they. >> have not seen it after. >> one month. >> everything they're seeing right now is in benefit to the rich. and they these people are the ones that are really, really. >> hurting right now. the average american. >> is carrying $6,000 in credit card. >> debt. >> that they accrued just to survive inflation, and they're not hearing any type of leadership. >> from this administration. >> to try to. >> get them out of. >> this. >> and to the point of the president. republicans agenda, you've got a long night ahead of you this vote a rama schedule. tell us what we should expect. what are your concerns?

>> look, my concerns and to this. >> vote a rama is. and what. >> i'm going to be. >> focusing on. >> is how are we responding. >> to the needs of americans? because the voter. >> rama has nothing. >> to do with or i'm sorry, the. budget resolution. >> that republicans are introducing will not do anything to benefit everyday americans. >> again, it. >> is a series of tax increase, tax cuts for the rich. they're cutting medicaid. they're looking at. >> cutting medicare. these are the. >> words that were basically. >> a 24 hour turnaround. >> for what the president. >> said, saying he was not going to. touch either. >> and at the end of the day. it's the everyday. >> working class family that is going to be impacted. >> that's going to. >> be hurt. >> and instead of using this opportunity to. >> come together in a. >> bipartisan manner. >> to actually come up. >> with solutions. >> to make working class people, people that are really. >> hurting right now feel. >> a. >> little better. this president is going. >> to gut the poor to give money. >> to the rich. >> all right. democratic senator ruben gallego of arizona, thank you. thank you. one of you. gracias. and coming up, president trump said he is

considering giving a portion of the savings that elon musk's cost cutting generates. but could that reignite inflation? cnbc has andrew ross sorkin joins us next with details on a potential doge dividend. plus, we'll have more on the white house's bid to end congestion pricing in new york city. you're watching morning joe. >> pressing down on you? no manners for under pressure. building down your family. the streets. >> consumer cellular. >> ranked number. >> one in network coverage and. customer satisfaction. >> hi. >> my friend. >> linda has you guys. it gets. >> way better coverage than i do. >> sounds like. >> linda has you beat. >> only in. >> coverage and. >> plans start at $20. >> okay. price to. >> call or visit consumer cellular to switch today. >> for plant based healthy blood pressure support. there's one brand at walmart that stands above the rest. it's super beats. discover why more

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acadia brings us the details. >> there's about 100. >> of them out there. >> kevin leavitt hopes these solar panels would help his maine farm flourish. >> the hope here is that these. >> panels will produce enough electricity. >> that the. >> farm needs all year long. >> he was only able to. >> move forward with the pricey. >> project because of a federal. >> program that promised to shoulder. >> roughly a third of the cost after completion. but the. panels have been up and running for weeks, and no sign of the $45,000. >> he's been counting. >> on from the u.s. department of. >> agriculture. >> could you have ever imagined finding yourself in this position after. >> taking on. >> that agreement? >> no. everything is. >> in writing. everything signed. >> you're stressed out. you're on edge. it has a toll on you. >> president trump. has signed a. flurry of executive orders, pausing. >> federal funding. >> for review. >> including the inflation reduction. >> act, the climate. >> initiative passed during the biden. administration that has grant money built. >> in. >> for farmers like leavitt. to conserve soil, water and energy. >> i can't get any.

>> answers. >> but. >> coast to coast. farmers who overwhelmingly. >> supported trump in november. >> are voicing confusion and concern. >> i've already done. >> a bunch of. >> the. >> work. >> already paid for the material. >> i already paid for the labor. >> so i'm out all. >> that cost. >> it's going. >> to reach into every state and every. community nationwide. that's how far the reach of the department of agriculture. >> is. >> a usda spokesperson. >> says secretary rollins is aware. >> farmers have. >> been waiting on payments during. >> this government wide review, and is working to make determinations as quickly as possible, citing plans to share information later this week. until then, what do you want people in washington. >> to know? >> enforce the contract that they gave to us, that they gave to everybody else. >> and do. >> what it says. >> or else what? >> or else there might not be farms. >> that was nbc's. >> emily ikeda with that report. joining us now at the table. look who it is. staff writer at the atlantic. mark leibovich is here. mark, good to see you this morning, guys. so let's let's talk about this. some of the

unintended consequences, right, of what we've seen from trump and elon musk. in some ways, the freezing funding, just the plight of the farmers also slashing these government agencies. this is going to impact. we're already hearing stories, including some being put forth on fox news yesterday. i'll note of people who were clearly voted for donald trump, but suddenly have had their jobs taken away because of what they're doing. >> yeah. >> i mean, there is a precedent. for this. i mean, i remember in his first term there was a wave of early. >> stories saying, oh, can you believe it's happening? we're going to talk to. >> some trump voters. >> and they're surprised that. >> you know. >> their life has been distracted like this. things have been interrupted. >> the question. >> is. >> how much do they care? i mean, how much. not not the farmers care, but but how much does elon musk and donald trump actually care? did they sort of build this into the plan that, you know, look. >> we've already. >> been elected. >> well. >> trump's been elected twice. the you know, they've. >> already voted. >> for us. >> i mean, is it sort of a slash and burn thing? i mean main

obviously is a blue or blue ish state. i mean, i guess did they. >> did the. >> northern electoral. vote go to i. >> think trump got the one. >> trump got. >> the one. right. >> never mind. but no, i mean it is. >> you do see a lot of this trickle. >> down thing. >> but. >> this doesn't it doesn't seem to be part of their. strategic thinking politically. and it's also a question. >> of whether. >> this is a. >> politically harmful. >> thing to them in the long run. >> other than a. >> few stray voices that you hear in media reports now. >> there might be a. >> lot of. >> them. >> but it's not. >> exactly a drumbeat that they're paying attention to. >> so as we saw earlier in garrett higgs report, president trump said he may give americans back some of the money saved by the so-called department of government efficiency. trump said he is weighing giving 20% back to taxpayers, but did not offer any details. joining us now, co-anchor of cnbc's squawk box and the new york times columnist andrew ross sorkin. i can see the signature on the checks now. andrew, what does this mean? how would this work? >> you know, i think it would mean getting checks very similar

to the stimulus checks that were sent out with the president's signature, as you mentioned, during the pandemic. >> having said. >> that, almost by default, it's inflationary. >> almost by default. >> you start to think about some of the speculative things that happened during that period economically. and you start to say to yourself, if the goal of. >> doge is to save. >> money. is. >> to ultimately, you know. >> get our. >> house in order. $36 trillion of. debt out. >> there, this. >> would not be the way to do it. having said that, i'm sure it would be very popular, you know, publicly to get those checks. but in terms of doing what the president said, in terms of trying to get get rid of this fiscal problem we have, this would not solve. >> that. >> at all. so, andrew. >> yesterday. >> president trump deemed himself a king, and he did so because he and his department of transportation scuttled or said they would scuttle new york city's congestion pricing program, which has been in place

for about a month and a half or so. proponents of the plan say it's already had a real good impact. traffic has decreased in manhattan, so the governor, kathy hochul of new york, said she would try to fight this with legal brawl certainly will ensue. but tell me you've been following this. talk to us about what you're seeing here in this battle. >> this is a political battle, but it's also. >> a bigger question about states rights versus the federal government. and it's almost ironic in that this president, in particular, has talked about states rights at great length when it comes to issues like abortion and other things. new york and new york city in particular depends on public transportation. it is built for public transportation. unfortunately, the economics of public transportation have required more money than. this city has. and so one of the things the city, of course, implemented was this idea of congestion pricing, in part. >> because. >> there was too much, too much traffic in the city, which also was creating its own bottlenecks in terms of the economy, but also as a way to raise money.

now, all of this was granted and approved by the federal government already. so to take this back becomes both a financial problem for the city. but i think does set up a. big court. battle over this. of course, the. political side of this is that. >> there are a lot of republicans that are. >> living in long island who are being affected by this. there are folks in upstate new york, in westchester, in new jersey, in connecticut. and, you know, when you start to think about the red blue divide, you can start to understand why the president thinks that this is a popular issue for him to go after, even if it's one that in court he may lose. >> so. >> mark, let's get you in on this. to andrew's point, no doubt it is an interesting dynamic of federal versus states rights. but it also feels like for donald trump this might be a little personal. sticking it to new york city, manhattan, that his hometown that has rejected him and of course tried and convicted him just in the last year. >> sure, he did well in long island. he did. >> better in new jersey than he did in the past. i do think that this is. >> not so much this is a local.

>> story, obviously, but it's also a national story. i mean, americans see. >> this, you know, they basically love their cars. >> they do not like tolls. they don't like, you know, unseen. >> costs, like. >> what congestion. pricing is. >> i mean, most people. >> don't see this bill. >> so basically they just. >> sort of look. at the basics of this and they. >> see donald. >> trump is. >> on our side. he's on the. >> side of. >> a status quo and just, you know, cutting cutting costs. >> and, you know, they don't sit in traffic in new york city all day. so i think, you. >> know, this is one of. >> those issues kind of like, you know, no taxes on. >> tips, things like that, that. >> has an easy populist appeal. >> the popular in new york city, though. >> yeah, exactly. >> it does pull well there people. >> exactly, exactly. all right. before you go, andrew ross sorkin, you have an announcement this morning about a project you've been working on that is eight years in the making, which makes you kind of like you're like the mike barnicle of business because it takes him, like, longer than that to write a book. >> it's taken a long time. but we're announcing this morning it will be. >> out in october.

>> i've been working on a book that's really the prequel to too big. >> to fail. >> which, of course covered the financial crisis in 2008. >> this is. >> a book that goes back and really peels behind and gets you behind the curtain. inside the room of 1929. you know, joe and i talked a lot about comparisons between the sort of bubble economy that we live in today, and i hadn't mentioned it on the air yet, but so much of what we're living through today is actually reflected in 1929. and so i've tried to write a character driven nonfiction account of that period. it's based on diaries and letters and memos, and i think really puts you in the room in a way that it's never been done before. and hopefully we'll have an opportunity to talk about it in october when it comes out. >> cannot wait. congratulations. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, thank you very much. all right. artificial intelligence is impacting the way we live, work and learn. but schools, teachers and students are still navigating exactly how to handle

the new technology. one example, late last year, an honor student in massachusetts was given a d on a history project because he used the help of ai to complete his paper. the parents sued the school in federal court, and in november, the judge in the case issued a preliminary ruling in favor of the school district, stating their policy on ai use was sufficiently clear. kind of makes sense, right? i mean, isn't that like. yeah. let's bring in editor at large at newsweek, tom rogers. he's also executive chairman at clay grid, a cloud ai grid company. his latest piece for newsweek focuses on the future of ai and education. it's entitled i use degraded by a d grade. what happened, tom, and how are you? >> great. >> great to see you, mika. >> well. >> this issue. >> is going to. >> be a bigger and bigger in the classroom. as ai.

>> proliferates and becomes. >> more and. >> more a tool that is used. in academia. in this case. the parents in their lawsuit claimed. >> that. >> there was no plagiarism involved. that the student. >> who had perfect. >> act scores. clearly a. >> top student. >> had used it. >> to outline. >> his. >> paper and therefore. >> was not. >> involved in. >> what might be considered cheating. on the other hand. >> teacher involved in. >> it said it was the. worst case of. academic integrity violation they had seen in years. the school actually didn't have a clear policy at. >> the time. >> of the incident. >> but later. >> after the. >> incident amended. >> its cheating. >> policy to say unauthorized. >> use of. >> technology. >> including ai. >> was an academic integrity violation. >> pretty soon that's.

>> going to be kind. >> of. >> like saying. >> unauthorized use of books is a. integrity violation. so, as you. >> said, the court preliminarily ruled for the. school district. >> not on the basis of. >> the policy. >> that. >> had been. in place, but. >> really on the basis that courts. >> shouldn't get involved. >> in overturning grades of a school. this has not. been set for. >> trial yet. >> so there's more to come. >> but it really seems like it's going to stand. >> for the d grade case. >> that degraded the use of ai. and there's. >> huge reason. >> not to degrade the use of ai. >> so in the piece you write in part, some 24 states have published guidelines for school districts on how to create generative ai policies. massachusetts, where this federal case now lies, is not one of those states. one of the key challenges, of course, is that formulating a policy around

something that is evolving so quickly is incredibly difficult. there is no doubt there will be enormous value that comes from the educational use of ai. but along the way, there is sure to be much additional controversy. school policy decisions in this arena should be biased in the direction of adopting ai capability, and not driven toward trying to discourage students from embracing it in some proper use of ai should be encouraged, as opposed to this case where the d grade appeared to degrade its use. this is going to be an ongoing challenge for schools that are going to need their own guardrails, but ai has guardrails depending on what ai you use, right? >> and. >> you know, you can. >> see on the one. >> hand, obviously having. >> i do. >> a. >> paper for. >> you verbatim. >> would be a. >> huge no no in.

>> terms of academic integrity. >> what's going on. a lot. >> today. >> i think, is. >> students have ai generated paper and then. >> basically change every sentence in. the paper to. >> reflect their. >> own voice. >> so. >> you know. >> okay, that's. >> a bit more of a gray area, but. >> also not a good use. >> of ai. >> on the other hand, we've. >> fully accepted. >> the internet as a research tool. >> and gone away. >> from the. >> card catalog. >> in libraries and. >> the dewey decimal system as your basis of research. >> so with ai. >> if you. >> go and. >> say. >> give me. >> every good. >> quote that should be quoted in a paper. >> and the page number, and then outline it for. >> me, and then you write from there, is that. >> a good. >> use of ai? >> is that. >> something that schools are going to shun? >> what's clear. >> is that ai. is going to make. >> a huge contribution. >> when it comes. >> to. >> language. >> verbal tutoring, where you can.

>> customize and. >> personalize a ai. >> assistant as. >> a. >> tutor that. >> can teach at the level. >> of the. >> child, at the pace of the child. and it's a form. >> of. tutoring that. >> is beyond the pocketbook of most. >> american families. >> and is going to be a huge enhancement as we think. about what. >> doge is doing to. >> looks like. >> dismantling the department of education. >> this could be the cavalry. >> this could be what saves. >> the educational system going forward. but obviously it's. >> going to create a lot. >> of controversy. >> along the way. but the bias. >> should be in favor of embracing. >> it, not rejecting it. >> the new piece is online now. newsweek editor at large tom rogers. thank you very much. so interesting. i always the one thing i, i agree, we have to embrace it and we have to understand it and it's progress and it can do so much good. the one thing though that i mean, just like phones, like i don't remember any phone numbers anymore. do you like the process of learning? i think it could be

challenged here because isn't like the process that going through, looking up things, finding it, putting it all together. how does that i don't know how. >> i mean, my kids are nine and six. they're in elementary school. >> so what are they using ipads or. >> they do to some degree. they're kind of math and reading programs that i think are quite because it follows the pace of the kids. but the challenge, i think, to your point one is this is the future, right? i mean, people are already using this in the workplace, but the critical thinking of it, are they going to read the 400 page book that we all read and then figure. >> out how. >> to outline it themselves? or are they going to say outline for me a paper on moby dick? and i think that does take away some critical thinking. i'd also say in his piece, if i read it correctly, they cited the guy, cited the kids cited as a source. that's how the teacher knew. how are teachers. >> supposed. >> to know? teachers supposed. >> to know? this is. >> a challenge, jonathan. you're going to have. to the next piece with i since she ruined your computer. >> oh well, no.

>> that's how i know. it's just the process. >> your thoughts? well. >> my thoughts are. >> i mean, i do think. >> i do worry about what it. >> does to our brains. i mean, yes, it. saves time. yes, it's i guess it's efficient in. >> some ways. >> if used correctly. >> i mean, but, you. >> know, it's going. >> to do remarkable things. >> it could, but remarkable. >> but it. >> already is. >> it already is. but i mean sometimes like. >> i'll put like a gps. >> thing in where i. >> even, i kind of know where it. >> is, but i don't really want to. >> think while i'm driving. >> and that's i don't think. >> is good. >> i mean. >> because i am not using my brain the way i used to, and. >> i. >> do. >> sort of wonder. >> is the hassle. >> but also kind of challenge. >> of a brain. >> to outline moby. >> dick, which, you know, you could say is busy work. >> you know, maybe. >> you don't need to do this. i mean, am i suffering? especially. >> you know. >> we need to exercise our brains. >> like we. >> need like the department. >> of education will be there to help the students figure. >> out. >> their critical thinking in. >> the first place. and maybe. >> i will be. >> a staff writer at the atlantic. mark leibovich, thank you so much. great to see you. symone sanders townsend, we'll

be watching the weekend, saturday and sunday at 8 a.m. eastern right here on msnbc. and along with jen will be doing morning. mika and jen will be watching inside with jen psaki sunday at noon and monday at 8 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. and we'll see both of you, along with huma on the next morning mika episode, which will post tomorrow on peacock and youtube. coming up, we'll take a look at the other stories making headlines this morning, including a creation by microsoft that some scientists did not believe was possible. we'll explain next on morning we'll explain next on morning joe. with fast signs. see the visual possibility in your business. with signs and graphics, you can save anything. transforming your space begins at our place. fast signs make your statement.

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cooled to extremely low temperatures, they behave in unusual and powerful ways. many believe quantum computers could one day efficiently solve problems that would be impossible for classical computers to do elsewhere. archeologists have discovered the tomb of an ancient egyptian pharaoh, the first since king tut's final resting place was found all the way back in 1922. officials say the pharaoh is believed to have ruled for about half a decade, some 3500 years ago. it is the last of the lost tombs of the kings of ancient egypt's 18th dynasty, which reigned for over 2000 years. and the special operations k-9 for the secret service, who subdued an intruder on the north lawn of the white house in 2014, has died. the dog named hurricane, a belgian malinois, served during president obama's second term and later became the most decorated dog in u.s. history.

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ceremony, accepting her first major acting award in her 40 year career for her performance in the substance. she's just one of the actresses symbolizing the gains women have made on the big screen in the past year. in fact, a new usc annenberg study finds that for the first time, gender equality has been reached across the years, 100 most popular films. and here to tell us more is doctor stacy l smith, the founder and director of the usc annenberg inclusion initiative and a lead researcher on the study. also with us for this conversation, msnbc contributor huma abedin, who is vice chair of the forbes and know your value 3050 summit, which is less than two weeks away. and we've got some big announcements coming up on that. also with us, maggie mcgrath, editor of forbes women. so, doctor smith, tell us exactly what this study found and why it is such a critical milestone for

women in entertainment. >> great to be here, mika. this study we looked. >> at the. >> top 100 films. top grossing films in the us that, of course, have global appeal. and for the first time in the 18 years that we've done this study, 1800 films over half featured girls and women in the lead. now, this is absolutely remarkable because just last year, only 30% of the top grossing films were centered on girls and women. so i. >> dare i. >> say, the first time in the history of cinema, because. >> if. >> we go back all. >> the way. >> to the payne fund studies and some of the early research in the 1930s, we've never seen numbers like. this before. and the big question is, can they do it again next year? >> mr. smith, you also looked at films led by women 45 years of age and older and films starring women of color. the takeaway was not as positive. tell us, tell

us what. what you learned. >> well, it's. really important to always be intersectional. >> with the research. >> and on this particular. >> brief, we look at gender, age an race ethnicity. and when you look. at women as you show on screen here, 45 years of age or older, only eight films were centered on women in that particular age bracket. >> but but there's plenty. >> of roles for. >> men of. >> that age bracket. >> but when you look more intersectionally and we look. at women of color 45 years of age and older. >> there's only one. >> nika king. so we're. >> really not. >> seeing proportional representation. we know women of color represent 20% of the u.s. population. and so there's a real under indexing here, which is why it's important to always be intersectional. >> in the work. >> we can say overall, there's an important finding of 54% of films feature girls and women, but there's a lot more work. >> to.

>> do when. >> we think. >> about skin tone. >> when we. >> think about racial and ethnic identity. >> and of course, when we think about age. >> i love it. yes, there is doctor stacy l smith, thank you very much. and speaking of women in entertainment, we're going to be talking to several at our upcoming 3050 summit in abu dhabi. and today we have one speaker announcement. we have a few that we can't make yet for various reasons. but, maggie, tell us who we got. >> that's true. there are still a few that are off the record for. >> the time being, but. >> we have. >> already announced actor and humanitarian freida pinto, bollywood's highest. paid actress. deepika padukone, bestselling author alka joshi, investors like alexis ohanian and sharif sharif invest in arts and entertainment. so on that theme, i am so pleased to say today. that we have someone tremendously accomplished from our 30 under 30 community joining us, and that is marsai martin. she is just 20 years old today, but she was nine years

old when she was cast in the show blackish. she received a number of award nominations for her work in this show. but she is not just an actor. >> she is a. >> producer and actually, at the age of 14 and 241 days, set. the guinness. >> world record. >> for being hollywood's youngest ever executive producer. >> for her. >> work on the film little. >> and she's. >> actually said in interviews that she started pitching the idea for this film when she was ten years old. she started her own production company. she is an entrepreneur with a nail care line, and just to broaden out the conversation, i think one of the reasons we're so excited to have her is. we talk all the time through the 50 over 50 list, that we should not discount people for being over a certain age. >> marseille offers. >> a really important corollary to that argument, which is that we should not discount the work of someone just because they are under a certain age. >> okay, i love it. we're going to be hearing a lot more from maggie and huma as we gear up for our upcoming 3050 summit in

abu dhabi, which is going to take place march 5th through the eighth. that's on and around international women's day. the summit focuses on creating cross generational alliances, also cross cultural alliances, providing guidance and insights to women at every stage of their career, while also offering diverse perspectives and rich cultural immersion to learn more about our life changing gathering, head to forbes.com and know your value.com and watch this space. we have some big announcements on who's going to be there coming up, and that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in one minute. >> thanks for calling. consumer cellular. >> ranked. number one in. network coverage and. customer satisfaction. hi. >> my friend linda. >> has you guys and gets. >> way better coverage than i do. >> sounds like.

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