we're already seeing that right with this, with his executive orders, with efforts to many of them challenged by the courts to reshape the federal government, to slim it down, to bring more of it under the control of the executive branch, to put things in the white house. and under trump's direct command. we're going to hear him tonight talk about that. i am told we're going to hear him talk about the flurry of activity and certainly draw the contrast to a much quicker pace from this president than his predecessor. i think we will also hear from him touting these the what he's done so far. be curious to know how much he leans in on ukraine, which of course. has been so central to the national conversation in recent days, and it will be difficult to watch. it will be interesting to watch, i should say, if trump talks, if the market has another rough day, if prices continue to go up because of the tariffs now in place, that's a backdrop to everything we're going to hear tonight. >> yeah absolutely. so many crosscurrents here jonathan lemire helping us break them down. thank you my friend. that was way too early for this tuesday morning. morning joe

starts right now. >> what do you. >> need to see from president. >> zelenskyy to restart. these negotiations? >> well, i just think he should be more appreciative because this country has stuck with them through thick and thin. we've given them much more than europe, and europe should have given more than us. because, as you know, that's right there. that's the border. >> as we said many times. the united states. has not given more aid. >> to ukraine. >> than the european. >> union appears. >> the u.s. will not be providing ukraine. with any more assistance. at least for the. >> time being. >> now that the trump administration is pausing military aid to that country as it fends off russia. we'll dig. >> into that major. >> move from the administration. meanwhile, the president's tariffs on canada and mexico. now are in. effect as of midnight. we'll break down the numbers and bring you the response from both countries. this all comes as the president. >> is set. >> to deliver a joint address to congress tonight. we'll go through what we might expect to hear from him there. and a republican senator who. >> shut down. >> a.

>> town hall early after facing criticism from the crowd, is now explaining why he ended that meeting. good morning. welcome to morning joe. it is tuesday, march 4th with joe and me. this morning, the co-host of our fourth hour, jonathan lemire. he's a contributing writer at the atlantic covering the white house and national politics, u.s. special correspondent for bbc news and host of the rest is politics podcast. katty kay, the host of way too early. ali vitali, u.s. national editor at the financial times, editor, loose and rogers chair in the american presidency at the vanderbilt university, historian jon meacham. he's also an msnbc political analyst. joe, good morning. >> good morning. i mean, there's so much to talk about. and just your introduction, you can talk about senator roger marshall saying it was a bunch of. >> city folk. >> yeah. driving in their limousines or mercedes. >> or whatever. we saw the people that stood up and were speaking. out for veterans. they they i. >> guess he doesn't know the

people of kansas. >> very well. >> they were not city slickers. they were the type. >> of people. >> that that. that working people. that show up in town hall meetings. i know what they look like, and i know he knows. >> what they. >> look like, too. and people saying. >> hey. >> we're not democrats. we're just very concerned about what's happening to veterans. and then tariffs going into effect yesterday the markets took a tumble. and they've taken quite a tumble. >> over the. >> past month. and is that's just not going to get any better with the continued threats of tariffs. and again the question that a lot of these countries are raising are some of our closest allies. >> why? >> but again, it's all the incoming. and then of course, the shocking news. >> that i. >> guess we shouldn't be shocked by now that donald trump is cutting aid to ukraine and justifying it based on facts he's been saying for the past week that just aren't true. europe. >> as you said. europe has.

>> given more money. >> to. >> ukraine than the united united states has. >> we haven't. >> given $350 billion. >> it's been. half of that. >> zelensky has not been an ingrate. willie, yesterday we played a clip. where he said, thank you more than andrew gold, and thank you for. >> being a friend. >> i want to thank you, thank you, thank you. i thank the american people. i think, i mean, i mean, seriously, somebody. >> should actually do. >> a dance. version of. >> andrew gold and zelensky. saying thank you. >> because it would be. like about a ten minute dance mix. so again, they. >> cut off. >> funding for a country invaded by. >> russia. >> and they're blaming it on him being an ingrate and not wearing a suit. i would say some people.

>> doctor brzezinski. >> a hair. >> did to ronald reagan to harry truman. would be shocked. >> at the state of affairs. >> but i think it's. >> important today that we dig. >> into why. >> of course. >> there have been. >> a lot of conspiracy. >> theories. >> and there's. >> always been a question hovering over donald trump's relationship with vladimir putin and how far back it goes and how far back it goes with russia. and when he visited the former. soviet union in 1987, we don't know what it is. it may be a lot more simple than that. he he he may just be beating down and trying to berate zelensky to get him to the table to talk peace. >> but of course, then the real obstacle is vladimir putin. >> who does not want peace. he wants to reconstitute the soviet empire. so if this is donald trump's art of. >> the deal. >> because somebody close to him

called me yesterday saying, listen, i think everybody's got this wrong. barack obama got a got a nobel peace prize. donald trump wants to nobel peace prize for ending this war. and he thinks this is the way he does it. the why. >> though, doesn't. >> really matter. it's the what that matters. and what is happening. >> is we. >> are abandoning an ally of friend, a democracy against russian aggression. and it's just frightening. >> as europe rallies to its aid to its side, gathers in london over the last day or two to support zelensky and to support ukraine. and you can add all this, joe together. and putin cannot believe his luck. there's a reason he preferred donald trump in 2016 and this time. but talking about halting offensive cyber attacks on russia from the defense department, a talk about easing the sanctions on russia, as you say. why? why is he

tilting so hard in the direction of vladimir putin right now? two u.s. officials tell nbc news this morning the trump administration is, in fact, pausing military aid to ukraine. this follows friday's tense oval office meeting between president trump, vice president vance and ukrainian president zelensky. the white house says the pause is to ensure aid contributes to finding a peaceful solution to the war. the news comes as president zelensky says he is working with american and european partners on a path to peace. zelenskyy made the comment on social media yesterday, just days after that contentious meeting with president trump. he also said he is ready to open up ukraine's minerals to u.s. investment. yesterday, president trump signaled that deal is not dead, but he continued to criticize the ukrainian leader, specifically calling out zelensky's comment to the associated press that a deal to end the war is, quote, very, very far away. >> now, president zelenskyy

supposedly made a statement today in ap. i'm not a big fan of ap, so maybe it was an incorrect statement, but he said he thinks the war is going to go on for a long time, and he better not be right about that. i think everybody has to get into a room, so to speak, and we have to make a deal and the deal can be made very fast. it should not be that hard a deal to make. it could be made very fast. now, maybe somebody doesn't want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn't want to make a deal, i think that person won't be around very long. that person will not be listened to very long, because i believe that russia wants to make a deal. i believe certainly the people of ukraine want to make a deal. they've suffered more than anybody else. we talk about suffering. they've suffered well. >> jonathan lemire. >> that that may be news. if russia wants to make a deal. that's something that the trump administration itself over the weekend said they don't know if putin wants to make a deal. marco rubio doesn't know if putin wants to make a deal. most people, most observers who see this say. putin does not want to

make a deal. so, okay, you're going to get everybody around the table and going to try to make a deal. fantastic. but the idea that you. bloody and rhetorically beat up. your side to get them to the table without even knowing if vladimir putin wants to make a deal. when people in donald trump's own administration said this weekend they weren't sure if putin even wanted to make a deal, it seems like quite an interesting way to go. >> about it. >> yeah, the. >> negotiations puzzling to many. zelenskyy, of course, has his wants peace. he has said that he'd like to regain the territory seized by russia. there's many in kyiv recognize that that won't be entirely possible. but this is his country. three years now continues to be bombarded even amid the last few days in the in the aftershocks of what happened in the oval office on friday, russia continues its attacks on ukraine. and let's put a fine point on this, trump's decision yesterday to halt aid. it's about $1 billion worth of arms

and ammunition in the pipeline and on order arms that that ukraine desperately needs to front. and what this pause does. let's think about this for a second. it benefits putin in so many ways. first of all, this just of course, these arms aren't going in the battlefield. that will allow russian troops there to take advantage, potentially to press forward. this is largely a frozen conflict, but russia has made slow, very slow grinding gains over the last year or so, in part because of its manpower advantages and the drone strikes that it's been using. but this might allow them to press the advantage. he also this might not spur russia to the negotiating table. it might do the exact opposite here where if he thinks this fight between trump and zelensky could keep these american arms on the sidelines, why not keep going? why katty kay? why would putin suddenly realize i should come to the table when i'm getting everything i want here? yes, we know the russian economy is weak. we know he suffered huge losses, but it's also his war machine. just in terms of pure

numbers dwarfs what ukraine can do. this would seem to be an incentive for him to keep going right now and not bring this conflict to an end. >> yeah. if you look at the actions. >> of the white house over the last few. >> days, including. >> of course, the decision not to. >> continue with. >> cyber cyber offensive attacks. against china. against russia. >> then. >> you might. >> think that the white house. >> was actually. >> trying to put. >> russia in as. >> good a. >> position as possible. >> going into these. >> negotiations. >> it's hard. >> to see how the white house could have done. >> much to improve. >> russia's chances. >> at the. >> moment. >> this cut. >> in aid. >> coming after such a dramatic, you know, few days in russia, ukraine, american relations. but actually if you just. combine that. >> and pull back for a. >> second with what donald trump. >> did to. ukraine last. >> night with overnight. >> imposing tariffs. >> on america's. >> closest allies. >> the strategy. >> from the white house. >> seems to. >> be. >> to shed as. >> many friends as.

>> possible. >> as fast. >> as possible. and the long. >> term question is, does. >> that leave america. >> safer, stronger and greater, or. >> does. >> it leave. >> it weaker? >> i mean. >> you just you just look. >> at the risk. >> at the moment. >> is you push the europeans closer to china, you push the canadians closer to china, you push the. >> south koreans. >> closer to a nuclear weapon. and it's hard to see how this strategy plays out well for the united states in the long run. >> it's hard to. >> see how it plays out well in the short run as well. i mean, i think. >> what the. trump people would. say is that if you caught them in. >> private moments is that friendship. >> and economic deals between the us and russia. between trump and putin, will unleash. all kinds of animal spirits and energy deals. >> and of course. >> the deal for ukrainian minerals, which presumably in one form or another, zelensky will be. corralled into accepting. that's going to be boom time for american businesses. his view of the

world is about deals. it's also about an affinity with putin. i'm not overlooking that, but it's chiefly his. if you want to summarize trump's view of economics, it's about having lots of deals. >> and punishing. >> those who are in. surplus with the united states. there are no friends in. that world. there's just deals that trump has skin in the game in. and so. that's how they would justify this as a success, because there is no sort of ethical, philosophical or strategic justification for what he's doing. >> and so there's the way that trump is trying to reshape the contours of this conflict and american foreign policy overall. and then there's the way that congress is responding to it, because broadly, we've seen republicans get on board with the way that he's negotiated with zelensky, backing him up on the way that he had in that stunning oval office exchange, dismissed the ukrainian president. but then there's also the way that speaker johnson is talking about ukraine, russia and the united states basically

ceding the ground on the ukraine aid that johnson fought so hard for just a year ago, seemingly willing to put his job on the line because he said, history remembers or history judges us. and so he's happy to see this space on aid. but this is still the way that he's talking about russia. listen to that piece of speaker johnson. >> i just hope that. they can. >> get things back on track and. >> that everybody. >> will. >> redouble their efforts. >> this is a historic opportunity. >> this potentially historic agreement. >> and. >> you know, obviously last week was a missed opportunity. but i. >> think if people are. >> operating in good faith, i. >> think we can get things back on the right. >> i'm hoping that we can. >> lower the. temperature and. >> get back to an agreement that's good. >> for ukraine, good for. >> the u.s. >> and frankly. not that. >> good for russia. do you think that. >> what are your thoughts. >> about the fact. >> that president trump. >> hasn't been able to say. >> that ukraine. >> that. >> russia started the war. >> and he's continued to. >> you know, not. >> all i'm focused on. >> is exactly what we need to do

to do right by ukraine. >> and, and actually address the rest of the american. >> people and. >> people. >> our allies in europe. >> we're not allied with russia. >> and i don't. >> believe any. >> russian propaganda. >> we have to bring an. >> end to the war. >> but the president is. >> doing is trying. >> to. >> set the table for that peace agreement that we made. and i'm very grateful that he's doing it. >> i encourage, as. >> i. >> did over the weekend, president zelensky, to come back to the table and accept the deal that was proposed, because. >> that is the solution. >> to get us. >> out of. >> this mess. >> is it a mistake? >> to go? >> i don't. >> believe. >> anything. >> you say. started with. >> and joe that hard to hear part at the end. there is actually a really important piece of this because even as johnson is trying to give trump the space to do exactly what he wants, however jarring it may be with this u.s. russia realignment, johnson is also

underscoring the thing that you heard from thune and from tillis, which is that russia remains an untrusted non ally, an adversary of the united states, and should be treated as such. the striking part about it is that, even as republicans say, that they are not willing to criticize the president for this realignment, and it's stunning about face for the way that u.s. policy has always been done in regards to russia. >> it is a stunning about face. john meacham. it is also the very interesting listening to republican senators and republican house members. you know, there's so many times over the past several years where mitch mcconnell believed one thing, and then he would come out and say something else. and what he was saying when he came out and said something else was basically what he was hearing from the republican caucus. he was the republican leader. and so you could always tell when there was a split between what mcconnell wanted to do and what the majority in the caucus wanted to do. obviously frustrated a hell of a lot of people for a lot of good

reasons. we're actually now seeing sort of the reverse in play from speaker johnson, a speaker that has a12 vote majority, a speaker that also has chairman mccaul, chairman turner and a lot of other russia hawks, unlike people that went into the administration, these republicans remain russian hawks, who i'm sure you remember during the biden administration were critical of joe biden for not doing enough for not delivering the f-16s, for not delivering more offensive, more deadly, more vicious weapons to the ukrainian people. so here you have mike johnson. mike johnson is in no position right now to parrot donald trump when he has a house membership. certainly some of the most powerful members in that house membership. angry at what happened to the white house last

friday. it's fascinating to see how it works itself out with these leaders. now. john thune has always been a russia hawk. so what john thune saying, what thom tillis is saying, you know, pretty much straightforward. but, you know, speaker johnson held up funding for ukraine for, what, six months last year? so for him to say that that is a direct reflection of what he's hearing from his caucus, right. >> and the tension is going to be principle, which is this long term, it goes pre cold war. but let's just use russia. as keep the focus on russia, a cold war principle that was at the heart of the internationalist republican. remember the there was a tension in the early days of the cold war. you know all about this between containment and rollback, right. that that president truman wanted to was was seen as the architect of

containment, john foster dulles and dwight eisenhower come in. and there's a sense that, no, we're not just going to contain communism, we're going to roll it back. we're going to liberate the captive countries. and that was an animating force on the right, except for the other animating force, or in addition to the other animating force, which was a kind of isolationism that if you look at the rhetoric of the mccarthy era, early 1950s, you see on the republican right and some democrats, you see this fear that we are being ripped off, that we're pouring money into nato, that we're pouring money into other countries, and we're not getting anything for it. so in this tension, you have the caucus, as you mentioned, some hawks who believe in the principle, who believe that you stand against

aggression because aggressors don't almost never stop. and you have this position that president trump embodies, which is in fact, it has roots, and it's the sense that america is somehow a sucker. and the animating drama for president trump is that he's not going to be seen as a loser. he's going to be a winner. >> well, i mean, american presidents have been made suckers of russian leaders and soviet leaders for 80 years. willy. i mean, you can go back to yalta, actually, and talk to john about this later. and you actually had fdr thinking he was winning joseph stalin over with a charm offensive, while winston churchill was left on the outside. you could again, we've talked about it before, but we can talk about jfk and his just his, his. >> his. his disastrous.

>> summit in vienna with khrushchev thinking that he could charm khrushchev and he just again, it was an international embarrassment. we can talk about george w bush saying he looked into the eyes of vladimir putin and saw his soul. a couple of years later, it was vladimir putin, i think it was at the munich security conference basically declaring war on the west. a couple of years later, he invaded georgia. we were weak. we were suckers. we did nothing. in 2012, you had barack obama telling medvedev, hey, got to get elected. after i get elected, then we can do more things. talking about the reset with russia two years later, an invasion of ukraine. we were the weak ones. we were the sockers, then the invasion of crimea, then commercial aircraft getting shot out of the sky for some reason, time and time again,

american presidents think they can deal with russia, that they can win them over with a charm offensive. they just between you and me is barack obama did in 2012. no, it doesn't work. and it's plain to see as a european. and they will tell you if donald trump gives up on ukraine, putin won't end with ukraine. next it will be moldova, then it will be lithuania, latvia, estonia. and then he reconstitutes the old soviet union. that's his end game. and right now we're doing nothing but making that end game more possible for him. >> yeah, putin's getting everything he ever could have dreamed of to that end, to continue that march to reconstitute the soviet empire. and we're going to hear more of president trump's defense of his new stance toward ukraine. in that address to a joint session of congress tonight. we'll talk

about that in just a bit. also, president trump's tariffs on canada and mexico taking effect overnight, along with added measures against china. we'll talk about the impact on the u.s. economy and wall street and those countries already retaliating. plus, a top fbi official has been forced to retire after criticizing president trump's efforts to identify agents who investigated january 6th crimes. nbc's ken dilanian joins us with some new reporting on that. and as i mentioned, what to expect ahead of president trump's primetime address before congress tonight, a very busy morning. we're coming back in 90s. >> all. >> something. sadly, windshield chips can turn into windshield cracks, but at least you can go

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visit indeed.com/hire consumer. cellular gets great coverage. we use the same. >> towers as. >> big. >> wireless, so you get the. >> same coverage. >> well. >> for unlimited talk and text. >> with reliable. >> coverage starting at just $20. >> call. >> or visit consumer cellular. my tariffs are actually we've had a lot of experience. >> with them. >> they're they're an act of war to some degree. over time their. >> attacks on. >> on goods. >> i mean. >> you know. >> the tooth fairy doesn't pay them. i mean. and you always have to just end. then what? you always have to ask that question that economics always say. and then what? >> that is, of course, legendary investor warren buffett. a warning sunday morning about president trump's tariffs, which did go into effect, 25% tariffs on imports from canada and mexico going in. overnight, the trump administration imposing an

extra 10% tariff on china on top of the already instituted 10% tax on chinese imports. both china and canada moved swiftly after midnight to retaliate, announcing their own levies on u.s. goods. canada vowed tariffs of up to 25% in late yesterday. the premier of ontario, doug ford, warned the economic back and forth will be a disaster for both countries. >> it's one person. >> that's coming. >> to attack us economically. your closest friend, your treasured ally. >> that will stand. >> shoulder to shoulder with you in every situation you face. and he's attacking the person. his number one customer. there's no country in the world that. buys more products off the us than we do. we're the number one trading customer to 28 states. and a lot of them are red states. they're going to feel the pain like they've never felt before. >> meanwhile, mexico's president expected to announce her response at a news conference in

mexico city later this morning. together, china, canada and mexico accounted for more than 40% of all u.s. imports last year. also, its top three export markets for the united states. let's bring in the anchor of cnbc's worldwide exchange, frank coghlan. frank. so how are the markets reacting to these new tariffs? looked like they kind of were anticipating them yesterday. >> yeah. good morning. >> right now we're looking at the futures i'm looking right now i mean. basically flat. >> moving fractionally higher or lower. but of course yesterday we. >> saw. >> a major sell off on wall street. >> with the. >> s&p 500 often called the broader. market having its worst day of the year, the tech heavy nasdaq down more than 2.5%. so these tariffs they're raising a lot of. questions for investors. business leaders. and small. business owners. we can't leave main street out of this. the questions. are will they spark inflation. will they metaphorically. >> be. >> the straw. >> on the back of the camel. >> for the. consumer that's already. >> stretched thin? >> and what will. >> other countries do. >> in response. >> from tariffs to other measures? today we saw china put. >> u.s. biotech. >> company illumina on. >> their list of companies.

>> that they believe. >> threaten national security. and while these kind. >> of things it's not necessarily official retaliation. >> there's other companies. >> that. >> work with in. china that need state approval for different business initiatives. >> one name often. >> mentioned is apple. >> they essentially need. >> chinese government approval to. >> launch their apple intelligence. service for iphones there. so as we look. >> at this. the question. >> is what kind of impact will tariffs. >> have on the u.s. economy and on the markets? >> we had. >> the head. >> of research. >> for jp morgan on my. show yesterday. >> according to her. >> research last year, the effective. >> tariff rate here in the us, it. >> was. >> about 2%. just over that. >> with these. >> tariffs that went into. >> effect today, that's going. >> to jump up to approximately 9%. and then we. also have a wall street that's become. >> increasingly sensitive. >> to economic. reports and economic data. yesterday we had one that certainly seemed to shock investors. it came from the atlanta fed. >> they put out a. >> forecast for gdp, gross domestic product. >> kind of the report card. for the economy. >> the updated on a regular basis. so back on february 28th, they had. >> a. >> forecast of gdp. >> being down. >> 1.5% for q1. yesterday they put out a new forecast.

>> down 2.8%. >> certainly a shock to the market. >> a big. >> change when it comes to that. so a lot of questions about. >> these tariffs and how is it all. >> going to play out. there was some thought before. >> that these tariffs they. >> were. >> a. >> negotiating ploy. but now we see the president's very serious. about implementing them. >> gdp down. inflation up. cnbc's frank holland. frank, thanks so much. we'll be watching those markets as they open a short time from now. joe. just looking at the wall street journal op ed page title, trump takes the dumbest tariff plunge. they write. we've courted mr. trump's ire by calling the mexico and canada levies the dumbest in history. and we may have understated the point, writes the wall street journal. closing by calling trump unbridled tariff man, saying he was always going to be a big economic risk in a second term. and here we are, writes the wall street journal. >> i mean, it's unbelievable. he says the 25% levies on mexico and canada will begin today. and again, here's the wall street journal editorial page willie was talking about. and ed luce,

you've got a lot of really smart people over at financial times that went to those really smart schools. >> i'm. >> sure, over in britain. so maybe, maybe you can help me out here. and i'm dead serious. i mean, this wall street journal obviously been consistent on this. when donald trump got into office, we talked about how the economy was strong. but i talked about we had three bubbles. we had the fiscal bubble at $36 trillion debt that at some point is going to be a bomb that's going to wreck our economy and the world's economy if we don't take care of it. no, it doesn't look like they're going to take care of that. we have a crypto bubble. that of course. >> is. >> is blowing up right now. and we have the stock market bubble. you. and so the point was we have to handle this with care. we can't go around talking about tariffs. we can't go around

talking about fights with our our best trading partners. and now here we are more than a month in. and what do we have. more threats of tariffs. you've got consumer confidence going down. you've got all those mergers that everybody said oh we're going we're going to dive into after those left wingers from the biden administration leave washington. they're saying that on wall street now, they're afraid to do anything because of the uncertainty that's surrounding it. and with consumer confidence down now, you're seeing the atlanta fed. and i suspect it's not going to be that bad. i mean, i don't think we're going to be like -3% at the end of the first quarter. but the economy is grinding down and slowing down. the stock market over the past month has dropped a great deal. you just look at tesla's stock numbers over the past month and see how they've dropped. look how the nasdaq has dropped. look how the top tech companies have dropped.

all of it around uncertainty. all of this talk. you know, a lot a lot of people assumed that this tariff talk was just sort of, you know, it just just posturing and negotiating. but even if it ends up being that it's having a detrimental impact on this economy and shaking investors and shaking consumers to their core. >> yeah. i mean. >> the school of. >> wishful thinking after. >> last november. >> was, look, we've got scott bessent. >> we've got howard lutnick, we've. >> got adults being appointed to these roles, and they're not going to let trump carry. >> out. >> such suicidal actions. >> and that explains. >> to some degree why the stock market remains so frothy during the during most of the transition and why bitcoin and others were surging. but the school of wishful thinking was wishful thinking. this is trump in charge. it's not scott bessent in charge. it's not howard lutnick in charge. and what he's just outlined, what

he's just announced with these tariffs against huge tariffs against america's three largest trading partners by. >> far. >> by the way, china, mexico and canada is the largest. tax increase on the american consumer since 1993. it's not a tax on foreign companies. it's a tax on the american consumer, something trump refuses to acknowledge but is borne out by all the economics on this subject. and at a time when, as you mentioned, joe, consumer confidence is not just falling, it's falling steeply. it's falling sharply. this is going to be a hammer blow because people are going to see higher prices. and those higher prices are going to cause the fed not to cut interest rates and quite possibly to raise them because they are inflationary. and we are then going to start to get into a situation where the atlanta fed's projections for the first quarter become reality

for two quarters, which is a shrinking economy, which is a trump recession and which was would would be an avoidable trump recession. these very avoidable self-inflicted harm that we're seeing at enormous speed. >> well, and that's one of the reasons that we and other people have been warning from the very beginning that there's a strong that donald trump inherited a strong economy. handle it with care, because there are a lot of plates that are spinning. and right now it appears that the goal is to let those plates fall to the ground and break and see exactly what happens. jonathan lemire. so what what i need you to do right now is tell our viewers, not. not what? not not what? you know, the reports appear to say or what warren buffett appears to say. what are people inside the white house? what are people closest to donald trump telling you? what

does your reporting tell you about the white house's view on why they are doing this? when the economy is in a precarious position? what what do they hope to get. >> out of this? >> it's two parts here, joe. first of all, there is just the pure politics part of this. trump we talked about this yesterday has believed in tariffs. it's one of the few through lines of his political ideology, even as he's shifted back and forth on many issues, including what party he belongs to. he has always believed in tariffs, despite what economists warn. and he promised them it was so central to what he talked about all last year on the campaign trail, in his early weeks in office. there was a sense there that he had to follow through. he couldn't be seen as just bluffing. i think there is a they believe that tariffs can be a tool. and again, we've just gone through the reasons why economists think it's a bad idea. they believe it can be tariffs can be a tool to push some of these trading partners, even our closest allies, to give up something, to

negotiate something here. i think for mexico, it remains the border. trump has been privately frustrated that that the border crossings though low, he wants them even lower. he wants to see more deportations. he feels like he needs to have a show with mexico. let's win. >> this with. let me ask you this though. i thought border crossings on the southern border were. were were pretty darn low. i thought that they were lower than they've been in years. that's number one. number two. i thought mexico was already moving troops to the border. number three, i thought the problem was not coming from mexico. the problem was coming from the united states, and that they're just not able to find quickly enough for the president's appetite. enough immigrants, migrants to deport. i thought that was the problem with the numbers is this. and this is not this is not a

leading question, but how is this a mexico problem right now? because i thought illegal border crossings were relatively low right now for mexico. >> they are. but this is still the trump's white house's point of view, which is that they still want it to be even lower. also, let's twin this with the reporting from last week from the wall street journal about how secretary hegseth from the pentagon suggested there might even be a u.s. military option within options within mexico, about because of the way the cartels they, the us claims, are working with the mexican government to get fentanyl across the border. that was the other part of this. it's not just migrants. it's about the drugs coming across the border. from the white house's point of view, mexico is pushing back, saying, well, the issue is the us not being able to curb the demand for those drugs inside our own borders, but they believe the tariffs can still be a tool. white house aides have told me that these may not be in place all that long. if trump can claim some sort of concessions, some sort of victory, whether it is on the

numbers or some other ill defined measure that allows him to like say, hey, another one, you know, look tough, get a win, we'll move on before there's too much economic damage. that may be how this plays out, but trump, in a way, i'm told by a few people, is sort of backed himself into a corner that he needed to, at least for a time, being put in place some tariffs. >> and then there's china. as president trump pushes ahead with tariffs on the united states top trading partners, china is hitting back with its own targeting american agriculture, as well as banning 15 american companies from doing business in china. let's bring in nbc news international correspondent janis mackey frayer. she is live for us in beijing. janis, how is this playing in beijing? >> china didn't. >> waste. >> any time. >> in retaliating against. >> the new u.s. tariffs. >> announcing their own broad tariffs. >> on american. food and effectively telling. u.s. companies. 15 of them, that they can no longer do business. >> here without getting special permission. >> now, this is a big hit for. >> american farmers.

>> especially in. >> the midwest. >> they export. >> a lot to china. it's the largest. >> food importer in the world. chicken. >> wheat. >> corn, cotton all subject to. a 15%. >> tariff and 10% tariffs. >> on sorghum, soybeans. >> pork, beef. >> fruits, vegetables. >> dairy and aquatic products. >> now these levies. >> take effect on march the 10th, which. >> is a. >> sign. that beijing is allowing. >> some time and room for negotiation. but the fact is there. >> has. >> been very little communication between. >> these two. >> sides since president trump announced tariffs last month. there's now together 20%. >> on nearly all chinese goods. now. >> the. white house says this is about fentanyl, accusing china of. >> doing too little to stop the flow. >> of it into the u.s. >> this is. >> something china. takes great exception to, pointing to counter-narcotics. >> cooperation with u.s. officials. >> beijing is. also warning. >> the u.s. >> about using tariffs. >> as a. >> national security. >> tool. >> and say that the trump. >> administration. >> to this point, doesn't appear. >> to know what it. >> wants from china.

>> there's a high level of ambiguity from understood from here, because one is that what exactly donald trump really wants from china? so simply to address. the drug issue, the or, you know, he wants something. of significant meaning of economic pact. what exactly is the package. >> he really. >> desire of. so, you know, retaliation is to express the chinese attitude. but eventually. >> china sees. >> that it's not really going to help. the us industry. it's not going to help the us economy. >> officially, china's. >> foreign ministry. >> has called. >> the tariffs blackmail. >> and they've hinted that. >> it might curtail. >> or even. cut counter-narcotics cooperation. >> they've done it before. >> so there's precedent for that. >> and it also. reiterated the. position that they think the. >> root cause of the fentanyl problem is in the us itself.

>> now, for the us businesses added to this, unreliable. >> entities list, it means companies like skydio, the. drone maker that supplies the military. they can't. >> buy. >> chinese made components anymore. without special permission. >> now, in terms of next steps, beijing could move to improve trade. relations with europe, which has its own complaints about. >> china and evs. >> and overcapacity and also facing. >> us tariffs. >> but the message the leadership here appears to be sending. is that unilateral. >> tariffs don't. >> work, and that. >> ultimately u.s. businesses and u.s. consumers will. >> pay the price. and i just. >> want to. quickly add something. >> on chinese consumers who are seen as. being quite conformist. >> and following the government guardrails. >> we have, over the past. >> year or. >> so. >> seen a move from that chinese consumers have made. >> from american. >> products to more chinese made products. >> what there is some discussion of is perhaps the potential for chinese. >> consumers to. >> outright boycott american.

companies like. >> starbucks. >> like mcdonald's. >> like. >> kfc, which would. >> of course, hurt. >> u.s. businesses even further. joe. >> all right, nbc's janis mackey frayer live in beijing, as always, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. you know, john, several years ago during the biden administration. so just so people don't think i'm talking about what's happening right now, but it applies generally a leader of a foreign country, say, after the united states had taken a pretty aggressive action economically against them. a leader of a foreign country say, you know, it's not 1992. like we don't have to just deal with the united states. like for those watching 1992, the soviet union had just fallen. china had not risen to the economic power it is now. but they said it's not 1992. joe, if you guys don't

want to deal with us, we'll just look east. we can deal with china, we can deal with india, we can deal with other countries. we can deal with in the eu. we've got we've got enough markets to work in. and it's it is fascinating that it does seem inside the white house you have a president and others. and in the republican party that believe that the united states and the world that we live in is like, you know, that we're the it's a unipolar world, that it's just the united states. but as i explained time and time again, you've got about a $26 trillion gdp every year. europe has a $26 trillion gdp every year. china's moving up on $20 trillion. india, an emerging economy that

continues to grow. you know, if we say take it or leave it for a lot of these countries, a lot of them will leave it and they will again, they will look east. they will look to europe. >> they don't. >> we aren't the only game in town anymore. but we became the most powerful country because we kept trade open with europe, because we kept free markets open across the world. and that benefited the united states and american consumers. >> you know, a hundred years ago, if we've been having this conversation, 1925, what would be going on? you would have this idealism after the first world war that we could outlaw war. you know, there was a treaty to outlaw war. two of the signatories were germany and japan. we had tariffs. we had a reaction against immigration. we

had significant demographic change. 1920 was the first time more americans lived in cities than on farms. and we had a technological change about how people experience the world and got information. it was the rise of radio, and we had these this reaction to modernity. this is a reaction we are living at this hour through a serious reaction to the dislocations and rough edges of globalization. and it's a fundamental it's a huge question. the answer that the incumbent administration is offering is a one that seems to me is an ahistorical one in terms of what's the road to prosperity, as you say? you know, we do use the wall street journal's old motto of free men, free markets. but president

trump has with 49.9% of the country, has decided to use a different set of tools. the question is, will? in fact, the results create the aura of success that he wants. because let's be very clear that one of the most consistent things in president trump's public and private life is he wants to be seen as successful. and if the current policy takes a lot of folks the other way, i suspect he'll change course again. >> the headline wall street journal op ed page this morning, trump takes the dumbest tariff plunge. jon meacham, thank you, as always. also u.s. national editor of the financial times, ed luce, thank you as well. we'll be reading your new column online titled trump's heist in broad daylight, in which ed argues there's nothing cryptic

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>> beautiful live picture with the sun up lower manhattan 651 in the morning here. the top fbi official at the new york field office is saying he was forced into retirement. assistant director in charge james dennehy, now out of a job after he urged his employees to dig in following the trump administration's efforts to get a list of agents who investigated cases around january 6th. in an email to staffers, dennehy wrote, i apologize to all of you for not being able to fulfill my commitment to you. i've been told many times in my life, when you find yourself in a hole, sometimes it's best to quit digging. screw that. i will never stop defending this joint, he wrote. i'll just do it willingly and proudly from outside the wire. let's bring in nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken delaney. and ken, good morning. good to see you. so let's talk about this is a big job. first of all to run the fbi new york field office. why ultimately did he step aside. >> that's right willie. it's a huge job. his title was

assistant. >> director. >> not the normal special agent in charge, because. >> new york city is a. >> flagship field office of the fbi. >> and james. >> dennis dennehy was a leader's leader. >> he spent seven years as a. >> marine officer. >> before joining the private sector. >> then nine. >> over 11. >> hit and. >> he joined the fbi and spent a. >> career working his way up the ranks. >> mostly as a spy catcher, as a. counterintelligence official, but in a lot of leadership jobs. and the quote you read there gives you an idea. >> of why he is so revered far and. >> wide inside. >> the fbi. >> and when that battle took. >> hold. >> when the trump administration appeared. >> to be. attempting a. >> mass firing. >> of fbi agents and. employees who worked on january 6th. >> cases. >> dennehy was. >> one of the people. >> who threw his. >> body on a grenade. >> in retrospect, he he did. >> something that. appeared to. >> spell the end of his career. >> he issued. >> an email to his staff saying, we're going to stand up. >> to this, and he and some of the other. acting leaders of the fbi managed. >> to stave off. >> what many people believe would have been a mass firing. >> as it as it is, more than.

>> a dozen. >> top officials. >> including dennehy, have now been removed from the fbi. >> so he he got crosswise with the. >> trump administration over that. >> issue. >> but also. >> more. >> recently over this. >> bizarre episode where the attorney general. >> pam bondi. >> is insisting that somehow the fbi is. >> holding back. files related to. >> the jeffrey epstein case. >> and our. >> reporting really is that there's nothing really new that's in these files. but apparently there. >> were some. >> files in the fbi. >> office up in new york that bondi wanted. she didn't get. >> so that. >> may have contributed to him being essentially ousted. >> from his job. but here you have a. >> person who devoted his career. >> to national security. >> one of the top leaders in the fbi. now out at a. >> time when the. >> fbi is really starving for experienced leadership, guys. >> so. so, ken, give us an update on that, if you will, on the on this epstein deal. that was a massive story on x. and among maga influencers, there

was the pam bondi directive. and then she ordered that kash patel basically deliver the rest of the files. to her office by 8 a.m. friday morning. friday morning came and went, and i didn't hear of a great document dump. in fact, i asked the reporters who didn't hear about that. what is the latest on that? did kash patel find hidden epstein files behind radiators in the new york field office? what happened to pam bondi? get any additional files on the epstein case? >> well, so. what happened. >> on. >> friday was that she handed the files that she was given to some right wing. influencers who looked and found nothing of significance. >> no. >> no, no. >> that was thursday. >> oh. >> excuse me, >> that. was thursday. >> they held it up and then she said, i demand these files be put on my desk by 8 a.m.

tomorrow morning. and that's the last we heard. or at least that's the last i heard. have you heard anything? or did any more files appear from new york to the attorney general's office on friday morning at the 8 a.m. deadline? >> i don't believe so. >> but last. >> night, she. >> said that she discovered. >> that the. >> fbi in. >> new york. >> or the new york. >> or the southern district. >> of. >> new york. was holding up was, was. >> was holding back. >> and that they had discovered hundreds of more files in their possession and. >> that they. >> are turning them. >> over now. >> and that may. >> have contributed to what happened to mr. dennehy. but look, mike. >> i don't cover. >> this case very closely, but my colleagues in new york who do. >> say that they don't believe their reporting. >> suggests there's. >> nothing significant. >> in any of these files. >> there is no. >> epstein client. >> list, which is the. >> holy grail. >> of these right wing influencers. >> so we'll have to see what's what's in these particular files that. >> i believe are on their. >> way to the. >> justice department as we speak. >> but this whole episode has.

>> been, you. >> know, kind of a source of, of laughter. among among. >> some people. >> but a source of real anger. >> on the right, directed at pam bondi. >> joe. >> and meanwhile, james dennehy, as you said, jen dennehy, a united states marine, a lifelong public servant who had one of the top jobs in the fbi now forced out of that job. nbc's ken dilanian. ken, thanks so much. still ahead this morning, democratic congressman richie torres bringing a guest to the president's address to congress tonight, a former federal worker caught up in elon musk's overhaul of government agencies. congressman torres will be our congressman torres will be our guest straight 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. recycled commercial. see,

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>> to got. >> off. >> to a weird start. >> before it. >> even started. all dressed up. >> how are you? pretty good. >> he's all dressed up today. >> okay. >> this is when i knew. >> we. >> were headeduble. this was not going to be a good meeting. >> everyone knows. >> donald trump. >> prefers his leaders shirtless and. >> on. >> a horse. >> there was tension in this. >> meeting right. >> from the. >> beginning. >> when. a far-right reporter. >> went all. >> mom before church. on zelensky. and my second. >> question for president. >> zelensky now. do you ever. >> why don't you wear. >> a suit? >> you're the highest. why don't you wear a suit? you're the highest level. >> in this country's office, and you refuse. >> to wear a suit. >> just want to see if. >> you do own. >> a suit. >> yes. >> no. >> it's an important question.

>> in the oval office. >> there is a. >> strict dress code of decorum. you must either look like a businessman or a. guy trying to hand you a. >> flier outside of a strip club. >> welcome back to morning joe. it's tuesday, march 4th. we're at the top of the hour. jonathan lemire, katty kay, still with us. and joining the conversation, chief white house correspondent for the new york times, peter baker, pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of the washington post. eugene robinson, award winning journalist and author michele norris. she's an msnbc senior contributing editor and journalist, editor and author of the fresh hell newsletter, available on substack. tina brown, good morning to you all. two u.s. officials telling nbc news this morning the trump administration is pausing military aid to ukraine. this follows friday's tense oval office meeting between president trump, vice president vance and ukrainian president zelensky. the white house says the pause is to make sure the aid contributes to a peaceful solution to the war. meanwhile,

reuters is reporting the united states is considering easing sanctions on russia as president trump moves to restore ties with moscow. that's according to a u.s. official and another source who spoke to reuters. the outlet reporting the white house has directed the state and treasury departments to draft a list of potential sanctions that can be lifted for upcoming discussions with russian officials. that reportedly includes removing restrictions on select entities and individuals like those russian oligarchs. joe. so there's when you put all these pieces together, pausing the aid, talking about easing sanctions on russia. and we're having reporting now out of the defense department that pete hegseth has told people there to stop offensive cyber against russia. there are many questions we could ask and questions that have been asked over the years. why, why, why is he leaning so hard in the direction of vladimir putin? >> yeah, the. >> question is why? but right

now, to the ukrainians fighting for their very lives, for their freedom, for their country. oh my gosh, we're going to work on your. >> sorry to interrupt you. we're going to work on your mic for one second. we're not picking you up peter baker, let's let's go to you on this. we're going to hear at this address tonight, the joint session of congress from president trump, where elon musk will be a guest, a defense of everything he's been doing in these first, what, six weeks of his administration, eight weeks, something like that, where he has now dressed down zelensky in front of the world while he sat in the oval office and now taking real concrete steps to hurt zelensky's fight against russia. >> yeah, really. first of all, it's been six weeks in one day. but who's counting? thank you. >> but yeah. >> in that six weeks, we have seen the most radical reorientation of foreign policy in our lifetime. right. we are today cutting off aid to ukraine, which is under attack by a more powerful nuclear armed

neighbor, and thinking about how to give that neighbor territory that it illegally seize by force to lift sanctions on them and readmit them to the international club. at the same time, we just slapped tariffs on our own neighbors. canada. our closest friend now has to pay for goods coming across the border will have to be 25% higher, which of course risks the economy here, according to economists. after all the complaints about inflation, trump is obviously playing with fire a little bit with that. and at the same time, europe is going its own way because it doesn't think it can rely on the united states anymore and believes that it has to step up. now, that's obviously something that trump has demanded that europe play more of a role in defending europe, but that's also a result of an incredible break between historic allies since world war two. >> and the. >> question. >> of course, still is where is congress? right. >> where is the republican party? >> the only member. >> of the senate that we've.

>> had speak out. >> joe, forcefully against the suspension. >> of aid. >> to ukraine. >> is susan collins. >> it doesn't. >> look like the republicans. >> i mean. >> just to look at the clips. >> of marco rubio a few years. >> ago, compared to. >> marco rubio today is. >> astonishing in terms of. >> his what. >> he. >> is saying about ukraine. >> and there does seem. >> to be. >> nobody around. >> donald trump and around the white. >> house who are saying, you know what? this strategy, if it is a strategy, may not be in. >> america's best interests. >> well, tariffs against our closest trading allies, sanctions lifted against a country whose leader thinks we are the sworn enemy, stopping aid to a country that's been invaded by that country, who considers america to be a sworn enemy. you have a lot of questions and a lot of questions on what republican senators and congressmen are going to say and do, and you are right. susan collins has spoken up. thom tillis has spoken up a bit. they're going to be running for reelection in a couple of years

our next year. i wonder if they're really going to want to run with vladimir putin as their running mate, because right now, that's how donald trump is setting things up. i, tina brown, though, fascinating, fascinating to watch what is happening in europe, specifically the united kingdom, as i said yesterday. ben landed a good deal over the past several years, and i've seen a country post brexit that was struggling with self-doubt, that whose economy was was struggling as well and sort of had lost a sense of purpose this past weekend that changed keir starmer actually looking almost churchillian and, and right now, right now, because the united states has said we don't want the title right now, keir starmer looking like the leader of the free world pushing back

against russia. and then, of course, you have king charles the third welcoming president zelensky. and strangely enough, not being offended by the fact that he wasn't wearing a double breasted suit. zelensky, talk about what we saw this weekend and this remarkable coming together of european leaders who say we have to do more and we can no longer depend on the united states. >> well, it. >> really was. an extraordinary moment, i think, in the evolution. of keir starmer. a sort of a pivotal point for. >> him where he. >> has emerged, you know, in the. crucible of this crisis actually. >> as a. >> statesman and a leader. and sometimes it. takes that kind of a crisis. >> to understand and to. >> lay bare what is actually. >> in the core of. >> a leader. >> because until. >> this moment, i mean, he won a. >> huge victory with. >> the labor. >> party last. >> year, but it. >> was. >> called, you. >> know, a. loveless landslide because, you know. keir was. >> always sort. >> of derided as being. >> you know, tactical.

>> but boring. >> you know. >> how journalists love. >> talking about. >> optics and all those other things. he had a bad. first hundred days. >> because there was a silly scandal about. >> a donor. >> buying him. >> designer eyeglasses. >> i mean, just. >> the worst beginning. >> but now. >> things. have got really serious. he's able to. >> step out. >> and he's been very. >> very skillful. >> i mean, first. >> of all. >> you know, presenting the. >> letter. inviting trump to for a second. >> state visit, you know. >> a second unprecedented. >> if he kept. >> saying very. >> special. >> using very formal words. >> state visit. >> for trump. >> you know. >> he played him like a violin. >> and you can. >> imagine the. >> foreign office advisers. >> who helped him craft. >> the letter, just running. >> around laughing. >> as they. >> crafted this letter. >> saying, this. >> will do it. >> this will. how many. >> words. >> like special can. >> we. >> put. >> in here? >> so that worked like a charm. >> and he. >> managed to forge a. relationship with trump that, you know, that seemed, at any rate. >> as if it was playing out extremely well. >> and in england, starmer got great. >> headlines for the. >> first time. >> really for. >> many. >> many months. >> that people are taking him seriously.

>> he's also. done something. i think. >> that was very clever. >> he didn't. >> pile in after the. zelensky catastrophe. >> meeting where. >> like all the other leaders, he held back, but he did something more smart. he came out of downing street and when zelensky arrived. >> and gave him a huge. >> bear hug, very. >> again, very unstable. >> like huge. >> bear hug on the on the sidewalk, which was all he had to do. he didn't say anything. he just. >> gave him. >> that big. >> bear hug. >> and similarly with charles, i think. we're seeing. >> again. >> charles is a great. >> statesman, and just having. >> zelensky go to. >> sandringham again didn't. have to. >> say anything. >> just had that picture. it was very. >> very masterful i. >> think in a reset. >> it really was a reset. again, for americans that haven't been following british politics closely. keir starmer, a technocrat, was supposed to be the answer to one dreadful tory prime minister after another over the past decade, and starmer had a terrible start this past week. and again, the view of him hugging zelensky on

starmer like this technocrat. but again, it played extraordinarily well inside britain, across europe and across the world. and you know, one other thing i just want to i want to focus on here because i'm often, you know, mika doesn't understand the royals. she doesn't understand the crown. she she will watch the crown with me. and she will love the drama of it, but it just doesn't ever seem to make sense. and when i start trying to explain how powerful elizabeth was, how when britain got in trouble with france in the early 1970s and they needed something, prime ministers would beg her to go to france and she would make the difference. and that happened time and time again. we saw it in the white house meeting when keir starmer handed the invitation to king king charles for the state dinner, and it mattered to donald trump. it's the ultimate meeting, that that meeting mattered. that

meeting mattered to very much to zelensky and the world with king charles the third. and you just said it. what us i does for the united states royalty does for britain. it is, as you said, the ultimate soft power explained. >> it really is. >> and i mean. >> the other thing is, you know, people say, well, who needs a monarchy? the fact is, is that in this world where nobody likes their politicians, this uber, you know, aura that. the that the monarchy brings, which is like neither one nonpartisan and, and a continuation of the country's history has enormous, you know, impact. and charles, you know, at this point he's always been underestimated a bit like keir starmer. but the fact is he is, you know, a very accomplished statesman. i mean, for the last, you know, 5 or 6 decades he's been going around the world. he knows everybody in, in. >> in public life. he knows.

>> their fathers. >> he knows their. >> uncles. >> he. knows the person. >> who, you know, who threw them out. he just knows a lot. and he knows how to conduct a meeting like that. and his embrace of starmer was just sort of perfectly played. he didn't have to say anything like his mother. it's all about not saying, but showing just with those kind of gestures. and i think it's enormously important for. the uk. a real something that nobody else can really offer is that and i think the state visit will be the same. they will lay out the golden carriages, they will, you know, they're going to have every conceivable aspect of ceremonial. >> glory, which they do better. >> than anybody else in the uk. and trump will. absolutely drool as he did last time. it's the picture he loves the most. the picture he shows the most is of him with queen elizabeth at buckingham palace. that's what he shows to visitors. >> now let's talk about this is what the situation ukraine. one of the many backdrops to tonight's speech. donald trump is not technically a state of the union, but rather an address to a joint session of congress

customary for a president in his first couple of months in office. how do you think the ukraine part will play here? because this is something where polls have shown, for the most part, americans have been supportive of ukraine. yes. over the last year or so, we saw republican appetite for supporting kyiv begin to dwindle. but we have seen even anecdotally over the last handful of days, that moment in the oval office on friday really seemed to resonate with people, people who weren't even necessarily following politics because they feel it taken from a distance. we seem to be abandoning an ally, and we know for generations now americans have been conditioned to not much trust russia. >> well, and russia has been the bad guy in this. and suddenly, wait, we changed teams. we're we're aligning with the bad guy. i have been traveling quite a bit for the last two months. i've been in minnesota, massachusetts, maine, washington state, oregon, in every one of these places, and especially in washington, d.c, people are hanging ukrainian flags in their in the front of. >> their houses. >> they're planting them in

their yards. americans decided to get behind ukraine. it was emotional for people. people saw what happened in ukraine and the way that the people of ukraine rose up. and so people in america are invested in this in the way that they aren't always invested in foreign policy. and i think he has a tough time explaining to americans how and why he made this decision. i don't think he well, i think what he doesn't say this evening will say almost as much as he does. i don't think he will try to explain that because tina's been talking about a monarchy. he sees himself as a monarch. he is he is governing like a king rather than a president. and he will receive applause from people on his side of the aisle who are applauding for someone who is abdicating, who is basically taking their power from them, and people who will have to go back and explain this. and if you think the town hall, if you think they were facing a hot gust of umbrage in the town halls leading up to this, wait till they go out and

have to explain why the us is suddenly aligned with vladimir putin. >> yeah. >> and as was pointed out earlier, many of these republicans over the last three years have been so stridently pro ukraine anti-russia most notably, the secretary of state, marco rubio, who is now changing his tune to please donald trump, eugene robinson. it will be a fascinating scene inside that chamber tonight, in some ways, probably a little bit like a trump campaign rally. there will be many fact checks over the course of the night, including how much support we actually the united states have given ukraine. he has been inflating that number by about threefold and saying, we give more than europe. that's not true. and we're getting ripped off and all the rest of it. how do you expect this night to go? >> well, he'll he'll say. he'll say that. he'll say all sorts of things that are not true. i think he'll he'll brag about how doge is rooting out fraud, which is which. it's not they're not fighting fraud, and they're not

actually making a dent in the deficit. he'll he'll brag about the economy and then, i guess, move on because the stock market is down, growth projections are down. everything is down. but he'll he'll say that everything's going great now that i'm here and you know, it'll be like that. and republicans who are in attendance will stand up and applaud. and because that's what they're expected to do and, and i, i wonder, you know, to, to michelle's point about ukraine and how people will wonder, well, what's the switch? i kind of wonder if a lot of donald trump supporters have not been by now conditioned to this sort of cognitive dissonance, where one day we believe this, and the next day we believe that. i

think when he makes these abrupt shifts, he probably loses some people, confuses other people. but but i think a lot of people are still kind of willing to go along with him. so we'll see what sort of impact this historic change in us foreign policy has on the president's support. and we'll we'll see how people in general react to it. >> yeah. when it. >> comes. >> to planning. >> as. >> he says. in the. >> art of the deal, he goes into. >> the office in the morning with a blank. >> desk and makes. >> some phone calls, and. >> that. >> then makes. >> up the plan. >> of course, the members on the republican. >> side will be standing and cheering tonight. but i'm. >> wondering. >> peter. >> if. >> you are. >> hearing any disquiet, either from the hill or from. >> within the white house. >> which is more your beat on issues like. >> potential medicaid. >> cuts on. >> ukraine. >> potentially, if that were to go sour on the tariffs, or is. anyone speaking. >> to you at all. >> about any concerns.

>> they may have about any of these. >> dramatic changes in american policy? >> plenty of concerns. nobody will be on the record, right? or very few. this is donald trump's republican party. and i think what we see here today, in this first speech to a joint session of his second term, how different it was from his last one, right? eight years ago when he first came there, there were republicans who didn't agree with him. mitch mcconnell and john mccain stopped him from lifting sanctions on russia in his early days of the first term. they had republicans who were willing to speak out and say things that might be considered to be, you know, unacceptable in the trump white house. and they survived, but today they're gone, right? he has purged the party of the of the mitt romney's and the liz cheney's and the adam kinzinger. and to the extent that they say anything that they that they disagree with him on, they do it in a very muted tone. they don't want to offend him. they don't want to get on the wrong side of a social media blast. and so,

yeah, this is donald trump's republican party. now, it's also interesting. remember that the last time he gave a state of the union, genuine state of the union, he was on trial in the senate for withholding aid to ukraine, right, in order to achieve a political end. now, this time, he's withholding aid to achieve a geopolitical end in terms of like forcing them to defer to his view of how a peace deal should be made. but it's a remarkable thing, actually, that we're here again, once again with ukraine at the center. >> you know, jonathan lemire, there is no doubt that there are republicans who will say things privately but not publicly. but there still is a good deal of support for donald trump. i think most polls would show it's about where it was in the election. i mean, if you look at averages, whether you're at 538 or rcp, i mean, most of the averages i see have around 48, 49 approval disapproval. some some polls have him up more than that. some polls have him down more than that. but it's still

pretty much where he was on election night. and if you read steve ratner's column today in the new york times, he talks about how big business is still with donald trump. they may not like some of the things that he does, and they're actually afraid to speak publicly in support of him. but steve's the headline on steve's guest essay this morning at times what big business leaders, including democrats, say privately about trump. they like the tax cuts. they they like the fact that he's putting corporate leaders inside his administration. they like the deregulatory aim of the trump administration. and they like all of this despite tariffs, despite, you know, what we're seeing from the fed that the economy is slowing down despite consumer confidence going down, despite interest rates staying up. they're still seeing some business seems to still be all in for him.

>> yeah. at least for now. i think this is sort of an inflection point here. tariffs now in place. i think there's still a sense in business community that though not a total bluff anymore because it's happening. but maybe this is short lived. maybe it's still more of a negotiating tool. and this could be something that passes relatively quickly. we've seen the impact on the market the last couple days. it's really tumbled, so we'll have to see how that plays out. and michelle, the other thing i know, you mentioned how much traveling you've done across the country since trump took office. and i'm curious as to what you're hearing from from citizens, republicans, democrats alike about two things. first, on the economy, just the fact that inflation hasn't been dented at all, that prices are still quite high and in some ways going up. but also this, this, the doge part of this with these dramatic cuts. and we talk a lot about this show that americans have this abstract notion of, yeah, the government should be trimmed down. it's bloated. but that changes when they realize, oh yeah, the cuts might impact me personally. trump's not going to be shying away from that tonight. elon musk will be sitting there in the chamber. >> and people sometimes do have

a whether abstract sense of government. it's a sort of big fuzzy thing that's out there that regulates us, but also it's the thing that delivers medicaid. it's the thing that delivers social security. those are foundational, bedrock programs. and when you start tinkering with those things, people get concerned. you know, even people who voted for donald trump. and i'm starting to hear as i travel a little bit of buyer's remorse from people, people who are wondering about the, you know, alan greenspan talked about irrational exuberance, the irrational acquiescence to these changes, like, why aren't the members of congress standing up and at least questioning some of these things? there are a couple of things that are worth noting, particularly in the midwest. when we talk about usaid, we often think of that as foreign policy. but what we forget is we're going to hear start hearing a lot about row crops, about wheat and sorghum and barley and soybeans, things that most americans don't think about. but all of those usaid packages with the little red,

white and blue flag on them, those the crops that are inside, those those burlap bags come from the midwest. and a lot of the farmers in the midwest are really proud of the work that they do. if you go to some of these combines, you'll see literally those usaid burlap bags framed in some cases, you know, held up on the side of barns. they're proud of the fact that they feed the world. and right now they're not going to be able to do that. it's the time where they're thinking about the planting season in the midwest. there's this phrase, you want to make sure that the crops are knee high by the 4th of july, which means you have to plan. you have to buy your crops at a certain point. you have to get them in the ground at a certain point. and so when those payments are not coming from washington, it totally it just botches up the system. and a lot of the farmers are starting to really feel that pain. and when you go out in the country, this is not abstract anymore. people are really starting to sense this when they try to call the government. people are trying to call social security. they can't get through right now. and, you

know, when you're talking about closing the national parks, most of the federal workers that have been fired, some 100,000, don't just live in washington. they live all over the country. and so we're not at the point where most people are 2 or 3 degrees removed from someone they know who has been directly impacted by these cuts, made by someone who is an unelected civilian who was wielding so much power over washington. >> right now. >> an important. >> point food assistance hits rural communities. head start. you know, it's not i think some donald trump probably thinks of these as like urban programs. but of course, as you've laid out so well, they're they impact people across the country and states red and blue. tina, i want to just briefly read from your fresh hill newsletter, which is a fantastic title. first of all, a low blows in the oval office. better yet, i'll let you explain it. just what you made of that spectacle that stunned so many people. and as john said, it really did break through. even for people who aren't immersed in politics. they stopped and said, what am i

watching? >> it was an obscene beat down, you know, of a brave war hero. and i think one of the most awful moments was when, you know, vance. kept saying, you haven't said thank. >> you. >> say thank you. as if he was kind of kicking him in the groin and expecting him to kind of crawl across and kiss the boot. you know, of the emperor trump. it was the most shaming spectacle, and it felt so much like a plant as well. the question from the maga reporter saying, you know, why aren't you wearing a suit? you know, i mean, winston churchill. >> wore. >> you know, a siren suit to meet with eisenhower, you know, which. was like a sort of romper suit. he called it a romper suit because he was trying to say solidarity, you know, for the english. troops during the war, they all know about. what he wears and why. so that was just an instant. >> you know. >> humiliation, frankly, it also felt i felt as if he was almost trying to bully zelensky out of office. it was almost as if he he's trying to create an atmosphere in which he's going to say, we would like peace.

putin would like peace, but we can't do. >> business with zelensky. >> and try to create a situation in which zelensky will be pressured to step down. and of course, that would be heaven for putin. he could then help to engineer, you know, a puppet leader. but they've they've underestimated ukraine before. and there's something wonderfully sort of tough, gritty. >> like this. >> little bantam guy, you know, who's who's led his country. it's remarkable really. you know how he's managed to stand up. i do think that he probably lacked the politics, if you like, of, of the, you know, the. >> european leaders. >> macron and starmer, it might have been smart for him to open up with. a flowery, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you. oh deity. you know for what you've done for me. kind of a speech that might have been smarter than him being a. >> little. >> chippy as he was, but it did not bear bear. this one just feels that trump is just dying to get up and say, i'm with him, putin. and maybe he will

tonight. >> you know, willie, there is a quote that tina would be very familiar with that i suspect we will look back and realize it applies to zelensky in the male sense. when margaret thatcher in 1980 getting absolutely pummeled, and i think jean was may have been reporting in london at the time, and thatcher's famous quote, this lady is not for turning. and she did not turn. and i suspect it's going to take more than jd vance yelling at zelensky to have him turn as well. >> i totally think that's correct. no doubt about it. it just makes him tougher. the embrace of europe was a beautiful thing to see, actually. i mean, i think it was a heartwarming photo ops. the bear hug of starmer and the standing there with king charles. it reminded people there's another world out there with people with more stature and more grace, more manners

than we're seeing currently in the white house. >> and in fact, that oval office meeting brought europe closer together behind zelensky and ukraine. author of the fresh hell newsletter, available on substack. tina brown, an msnbc senior contributing editor. michele norris, thank you both. good to see you. chief white house correspondent for the new york times, peter baker, thank you, as always, for your reporting. and the washington post, eugene robinson, thank you as well. gene, we'll be reading your new piece online, still ahead on morning joe. several democratic lawmakers planning to bring recently fired federal workers to the president's joint address to congress tonight. that includes congressman ritchie torres of new york. he joins us next, along with his guest for that speech. you're watching morning joe. we'll be watching morning joe. we'll be right back. it all started with a small business idea. it's a pillow with a speaker in it! that's right craig. pulling in the perfect team to get the job done. i'm just here for the internets. at&t, it's super-fast!

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real value from your life insurance when you need it. with abacus. >> live picture of the united states capitol at 734. in washington, a number of democratic lawmakers are expected tonight to bring recently fired federal workers to president trump's joint address to congress in an attempt to highlight the sweeping cuts made by elon musk and his doge team. musk will be there as well. tonight, let's bring in democratic congressman richie torres of new york and one of his constituents, who will be the congressman's guest tonight, former usaid employee nancy boland. she was fired on january 28th from her position as a senior health advisor. she spent more than 25 years saving

the lives of mothers and newborn babies. good morning to you both. it is so great to have you with us. nancy, i want to start with you. and if you could just talk a little bit about the work you've been doing for so many years and how you got the news that you've been fired. >> absolutely. thank you. i've been i've spent my whole career working to save mothers and babies, both in the united states, in new york city, in the bronx, and then working for usaid for about six years in the democratic republic. >> of. the congo and in washington. >> and it was a it was a privilege. it was an honor. i worked along really good, kind. >> smart people. >> who had dedicated their. careers to making the world. >> a better. >> place for mothers and babies and families. and so we worked. i was specifically working on newborn health, and newborn health is very dire in the world. about 6000 newborn babies

die every day throughout the world and about 800 mothers. and you can imagine, you know, the impact on families when the mothers die. and most. >> of this. >> mortality is preventable. >> but thankfully. >> usaid was able to. save about 7.4 million lives in the past ten years through their work to save mothers and children. and we were very happy doing this work, and we hope that the administration will reconsider and lift the frozen funds, the freeze on the funds so that this life saving work can continue. >> congressman, i. one of the most depressing things over the last couple of weeks has been the degree. >> to which. >> workers of. >> usaid, like nancy, have been demonized by the administration, being called worms by the administration when, as she says, they're out there saving lives, which, as a visitor to this country, i firmly believe americans want to do good around the world, i really do. i see it

time and again how kind people. >> are. >> how. >> welcoming people are. >> and yet. >> there's a. >> memo out that was in the new york times reported from usaid, 18 million additional cases of malaria, 200,000 children will be paralyzed. with polio annually. a million children won't be treated for severe malnutrition. why are these stories of what usaid does and what will happen to children around the. >> world where nancy's. >> work can't be done? why do you think they aren't out there more around the country? why are people not hearing these stories more? >> you know, donald trump has been flooding the zone, you know, with executive orders. but what we're witnessing is a senseless and cruel assault. >> on the. federal workforce. >> you know, usaid. has been on the front lines of combating. disease and poverty and starvation and terrorism. >> and violence. and even though it's done an. >> enormous amount of good. >> for an enormous number. >> of. >> people, you have elon musk demonizing. >> the whole organization. >> as a, quote, criminal organization. >> he's treating federal workers

like nancy boland not as human. >> beings. >> but as objects to be discarded. and so there's something profoundly cruel and callous and dehumanizing about the manner in which. dodge is robbing public servants like nancy of their livelihood and robbing the world of a vital public service. >> and there's. >> a false narrative out there that the united. >> states has. >> no vested. >> interest in. foreign aid. you know, when it comes to. public health. >> what happens in a foreign country. does not stay in a foreign country, right? >> we ebola, covid. >> avian flu. >> covid. >> mpox examples. >> mpox, which began in africa, ultimately spread to the united states. and in 2022. we saw the outbreak of mpox to 30,000 cases of. >> infection here. >> in the united states. so we in the united states. >> may. >> wish to escape the world, but the world is not going to. >> escape us as. >> america keeps learning time. >> and. >> time again. >> nancy, we. >> did hear elon. >> musk in. >> the cabinet meeting last. >> week say, okay. >> well, if we.

>> make mistakes, we'll fix it. for example. >> when we. >> shut down the funding of usaid, we inadvertently. >> shut down funding on ebola research and prevention as well. but we fixed that. we fixed that. there's been no glitch in the system. is it your understanding that that's the case? and the same was. also said of hiv treatments? have they reversed some of what they originally shut down or not? >> our understanding, especially related to information that came out yesterday, of documents that document the impact of these funding cuts already is that they have not been reversed, and that even if there was some intent to reverse, based. >> on. >> marco rubio's waiver for the life saving humanitarian aid, that they have not been reversed because the programs that executed those. those the those strategies have been stopped. s, you know, pepfar's program that saved 25 million lives and about

20 million people are dependent on those drugs. so our understanding is that it has not been reversed. >> so what elon musk. >> said in the cabinet meeting was not actually true. congressman, do any of your colleagues up on. >> the hill. >> on the republican. side expressed to you in private any concerns about. >> what might. >> happen to america's. >> standing around the world, how china might break in, what might happen to some of the children who. >> might die. >> because of these cuts? >> look. >> i. >> sense that republicans expressed. private concerns, but. >> publicly. >> all of them show nothing. >> but absolute obedience. >> to donald trump. >> you know, we no longer. >> have a normal two party system. >> the republican party. >> has become a cult of personality. around donald trump, and one gets the impression. >> that just about every. congressional republican lives in fear of donald. >> trump and refuses. >> to cross him and are willing to cede. for me, most of what we're seeing is not about democrat versus republican. it's about the executive versus the legislature. congressional republicans are willing to cede

congressional power to donald trump to an extent that we've never seen before. i mean, donald trump claims he has the authority to defund agencies that have been expressly authorized by congress. >> and again, many of your colleagues, congressman, are constitutional lawyers who are willing to allow this to happen. democratic congressman richie torres of new york and former usaid senior newborn health advisor nancy boland, thank you both. and nancy, thank you for your lifetime of work. we certainly hope you can get back to it as soon as possible. >> thank you. >> coming up this morning, the anti-defamation league has released a new report card for antisemitism on college antisemitism on college campuses. we'll break down those shipstation lets you keep up with the growth of your business. you can sync inventory and manage returns across all your sales channels. so you ship the right products, to the right customers. ♪♪ head to shipstation.com to start your free trial. then choose advil liqui-gels for faster, stronger and longer-lasting relief than tylenol rapid release gels.

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>> rachel maddow and team will. >> break down the speech and its impact at home and abroad. >> the joint. >> address to congress. special coverage tonight at eight on msnbc. >> the anti-defamation league is out with its new campus anti-semitism report card for 2025, after an overwhelming majority of jewish students on u.s. college campuses reported incidents of antisemitic attacks, threats and harassment last year. in all, 135 colleges and universities were assessed using 30 evaluation criteria. 36% of schools got a grade of either a or b, 21% received a d, and nearly 10% got an f. overall, 45% of schools did show improvement compared to last year. let's bring in the ceo of the anti-defamation league, jonathan greenblatt. jonathan, always great to have you on and talk to you. have things gotten better since the height of the

ugliness we saw a year ago? yeah. look, i mean, we're still living through this historic surge of anti-semitism. college campuses are still a locus of it. now, in some ways, it is better. i mean, the truth of the matter is that, willie, there just aren't as many demonstrations as there were last year. and yet those that we have, the intensity is real. what we saw at barnard college right here in new york city last week, where, like a phalanx of masked protesters stormed the building, assaulted a staff person and literally would not leave the facility, forcing the administrators who actually. >> went in. >> and kowtowed to these kids dressed up like isis fighters and negotiated with them. it's bananas. so you still have a lot of problems. i mean, to think that 30 some percent of the schools got d's or f's, and we're talking about places like columbia and barnard, we're talking about very prestigious institutions. there's no way that should happen in america.

as i said in the numbers, 45% of schools have improved over the last year. what changes have they made to earn a better grade? this is one of the biggest takeaways. so when we originally did this, the schools wouldn't work with us. and they said this wasn't a good idea. they didn't want to be graded. well guess what. in the last year, 70% of the universities worked with adl to improve their policies to make sure their students got trained on antisemitism like they do on racism or misogyny, to make sure that their staff people got trainings and to enforce consequences. and we should talk about this. the schools that got a's like vanderbilt, where president daniel diermeier has been an amazing leader, or alabama or fiu or elon university, brandeis, you have small schools and big state schools. but what's different? leadership leaders who lead and set a moral example create a cascading effect throughout the institution. and students know they can go to vanderbilt or the university of miami or alabama,

and they can learn without fear of being harassed and victimized simply because of, you know, how they pray or who they are. >> in just moments ago, actually, donald trump posted on truth social saying that all federal funding will stop for any college school university that allows illegal protests. and he doesn't quite go on to say what's illegal. and there's no mention of anti-semitism here. but of course, there's no place for anti-semitism. there is a place for peaceful protests in this, in this country. so in terms of your list, though, yeah, it's not clear what prompted this trump tweet of a few moments ago. you know, the schools that have fallen short, that still have, in your estimation, failing grades. what where have they what are they lacking? what can they change? well. >> number one, they need to enforce their policies. so again, if students are being harassed, if they're being assaulted, if their dorm rooms are being vandalized, if they're being screamed at in classes, the students who commit those kinds of offenses should be suspended. i mean, that may sound like a small thing, jonathan, but it's a big deal because most of these schools, these institutions, they're

simply not doing that. so, number one, enforce the policies that allow jewish kids to learn in peace. i think, number two, make sure that you're treating all the kids the same. so again, if you have orientation where kids learn about bias and bigotry, anti-semitism needs to be on the table. and then number three, if you have clubs or organizations like students for justice in palestine, whose entire point is to harass their jewish classmates, those organizations don't belong on campuses. they should be expelled. so why is that so hard? i think most rational people watching this right now go, how is a university still, like you just said, negotiating with people who harass students, scream at students in some cases break property. and you mentioned vanderbilt. i'm an alumnus of vanderbilt, and i consider chancellor diermeier a friend. he, from the beginning last year said, we're not putting our heads in the sand. we're going to have dialogs about this. we're going to invite people from both sides of the conflict in gaza and have conversations, and you can ask tough questions, and we're going to talk about it in our classes

and all of that. but what you can't do is harass your fellow students. you can't break into buildings, you can't injure people. and if you do, you're either suspended or you're expelled. why is that so hard for some schools? i mean, you got me. i think there are a few things that are going on. i think, number one, you have radicalized faculty in a lot of these institutions. we're trying to sort of relive the 60s and have very rigid, intemperate views about the state of israel or jews and conflate those things. and we're seeing it all across the board. that is just unacceptable. and then number two, it's some places like columbia, the governance is upside down. so faculty, the faculty senate actually has to decide on the penalties applied to students rather than the administrators. so that creates a problem as well. but i do think your point about viewpoint diversity really matters. sam black at dartmouth has done an amazing job of this, too. you bring kids together who may have different opinions in a normal, peaceful, civil way to talk that

out. that's what we need. kids go to college to learn how to be citizens, not how to train, how to be guerrillas. and we need less of that and more of the former. well, we'll take some solace in the fact that schools are getting better. some of them anyway. according to your report card, ceo of the anti-defamation league, jonathan greenblatt. jonathan, thanks as always. thank you so much. still ahead, the trump administration's new tariffs on canada and mexico are now in effect as of midnight, could open the door to a potential trade war. we'll tell you how both countries are responding and the impact this may have on prices here at home. also ahead, we'll speak with former bet ceo debra lee about a new book that details both the good and bad moments about being a high powered black female executive in the entertainment industry. morning joe is coming right back. >> cause i've been biting my. tongue all week. >> i keep on talking trash.

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night. that's an 8% drop from last year. the audience declined, ends a three year streak when ratings for the oscars were on the rise. sunday's telecast also marked the first time the show was live streamed, though hulu suffered a number of technical glitches, to put it mildly. during the evening we were just talking. i'm a conan guy from way back, going back to 93. love, conan o'brien. i thought he did a great job. >> pro conan. i'm always going to support any other red head on

tv. but no, i. >> thought for massachusetts. >> yeah, massachusetts roots for all the right teams. he. yeah, he i thought he was terrific too. i mean, he was goofy. he would this is the cohen that we've known for decades. i love his podcast, but this is a nice reminder of how fitting he is on television. >> he's so good at pulling out. sandler got his buddies to come through. and let's be honest, some of those movies, and particularly honora, which is supposed to be a great film, i haven't seen it yet, but most people haven't seen it. so it wasn't like people were staying up all night for that. >> yeah, that, that that's exactly right. you had a couple of blockbusters get nominated like wicked, but you knew that wasn't going to win. and honora, which again critically acclaimed now oscar winning but a very small movie. and it's interesting how that the oscars always runs into trouble when it's a movie like that that dominates, again, not taking nothing away from the accomplishment of that film, but it's just not a movie people know, therefore they're not necessarily going to tune in to watch. >> yeah, and they've been on a run of independent movies winning best picture. our tip to just one thing for the producers next year, you give out the

award to a famous person. at the beginning. they always do like a. >> best supporting actor. >> and then you go like two hours without seeing another famous person. >> you. >> know what i mean? maybe we mix it up. still ahead, we'll have much more about the trump administration's pause on military aid to ukraine and how it could impact the war in eastern europe. also ahead, major cuts to the federal workforce by doge have some republican lawmakers facing hostile crowds at their town halls, including a senator blaming outsiders agitators for the angry response he received. the angry response he received. we're i request a colon cancer screening kit from cologuard.com and if i'm eligible, it gets delivered to my drawbridge? aces. cologuard® is for people 45+ at average risk, not high-risk. false positive and negative results may occur. request a cologuard kit online. insurify. at insurify we make it easy to cut your car insurance bill in half. results may occur. half? how? just go to insurify.com and compare dozens of quotes in a few clicks. cut out the middleman, so you can cut your bill in half. go to insurify.com and and save up to 50% on your car insurance.

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>> to restart. >> these negotiations? >> well, i just think he should be more appreciative because this country has stuck with them through thick and thin. we've given them much more than europe, and europe should have given more than us. because, as you know, that's right there. that's the border. >> as we said many times, the united states has not given more aid to ukraine than the european union appears. the u.s. will not be providing ukraine with any more assistance, at least for the time being. now that the trump administration is pausing military aid to that country as it fends off russia, we'll dig into that major move from the administration. meanwhile, the president's tariffs on canada and mexico now are in effect as of midnight. we'll break down the numbers and bring you the response from both countries. this all comes as the president is set to deliver a joint address to congress tonight. we'll go through what we might

expect to hear from him there. and a republican senator who shut down a town hall early after facing criticism from the crowd, is now explaining why he ended that meeting. good morning. welcome to morning joe. it is tuesday, march 4th with joe and me. this morning, the co-host of our fourth hour, jonathan lemire. he's a contributing writer at the atlantic covering the white house and national politics, u.s. special correspondent for bbc news and host of the rest is politics podcast. katty kay, the host of way too early. ali vitali, u.s. national editor at the financial times, editor, loose and rogers chair in the american presidency at the vanderbilt university. historian jon meacham. he's also an msnbc political analyst. joe, good morning. >> good morning. i mean, there's so much to talk about in just your introduction. you can talk about senator roger marshall saying it was a bunch of city folk driving in their limousines or mercedes or whatever. we saw the people that stood up and were speaking out for veterans.

they they they i guess he doesn't know the people of kansas very well. they were not city slickers. they were the type of people that that that working people that show up in town hall meetings. i, i know what they look like, and i know he knows what they look like too. and people saying, hey, we're not democrats. we're just very concerned about what's happening to veterans. and then tariffs going into effect yesterday the markets took a tumble. and they've taken quite a tumble over the past month. and is that's just not going to get any better with the continued threats of tariffs. and again the question that a lot of these countries are raising are some of our closest allies. why us? but again, it's all the incoming. and then of course, the shocking news that i guess we shouldn't be shocked by now that donald trump is cutting aid to ukraine and justifying it based on facts he's been saying for the past week that just.

aren't true. europe. as you. >> said. >> europe has given more money to ukraine than the united united states has. we haven't given $350 billion. it's been half of that. zelensky has not been an ingrate. willie, yesterday we played a clip where he said, thank you more than andrew gold, and thank you for being a friend. i want to thank you, thank you, thank you. i thank the american people. i think, i mean, i mean, seriously, somebody should actually do a dance version of andrew gold and zelensky saying thank you because it would be like about a ten minute dance mix. so again, they cut off funding for a country invaded by russia, and they're blaming it on him being an ingrate and not

wearing a suit. i would say some people, doctor brzezinski, a hair to ronald reagan to harry truman, would be shocked at the state of affairs. but i think it's important today that we dig into why. of course, there have been a lot of conspiracy theories, and there's always been a question hovering over donald trump's relationship with vladimir putin and how far back it goes and how far back it goes with russia. and when he visited the former soviet union in 1987, we don't know what it is. it may be a lot more simple than that. he he he may just be beating down and trying to berate zelensky to get him to the table to talk peace. but of course, then the real obstacle is vladimir putin, who does not want peace. he wants to reconstitute the soviet empire.

so if this is donald trump's art of the deal, because somebody close to him called me yesterday saying, listen, i think everybody's got this wrong. barack obama got a got a nobel peace prize. donald trump wants a nobel peace prize for ending this war. and he thinks this is the way he does it. the why, though, doesn't really matter. it's the what that matters. and what is happening is we are abandoning an ally of friend, a democracy against russian aggression. and it's just frightening. >> as europe rallies to its aid to its side, gathers in london over the last day or two to support zelenskyy and to support ukraine. and you can add all this, joe together. and putin cannot believe his luck. there's a reason he preferred donald trump in 2016 and this time. but talking about halting offensive cyber attacks on russia from the defense department, a talk about

easing the sanctions on russia, as you say. why? why is he tilting so hard in the direction of vladimir putin right now? two u.s. officials tell nbc news this morning the trump administration is, in fact, pausing military aid to ukraine. this follows friday's tense oval office meeting between president trump, vice president vance and ukrainian president zelensky. the white house says the pause is to ensure aid contributes to finding a peaceful solution to the war. the news comes as president zelenskyy says he is working with american and european partners on a path to peace. zelenskyy made the comment on social media yesterday, just days after that contentious meeting with president trump. he also said he's ready to open up ukraine's minerals to u.s. investment. yesterday, president trump signaled that deal is not dead, but he continued to criticize the ukrainian leader, specifically calling out zelensky's comment to the associated press that a deal to end the war is, quote, very,

very far away. >> now, president zelenskyy supposedly made a statement today in ap. i'm not a big fan of ap, so maybe it was an incorrect statement, but he said he thinks the war is going to go on for a long time, and he better not be right about that. i think everybody has to get into a room, so to speak, and we have to make a deal and the deal can be made very fast. it should not be that hard a deal to make. it could be made very fast. now, maybe somebody doesn't want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn't want to make a deal, i think that person won't be around very long. that person will not be listened to very long, because i believe that russia wants to make a deal. i believe certainly the people of ukraine want to make a deal. they've suffered more than anybody else. we talk about suffering. they've suffered well. >> jonathan lemire, that that may be news. if russia wants to make a deal. that's something that the trump administration itself over the weekend said they don't know if putin wants to make a deal. marco rubio

doesn't know if putin wants to make a deal. most people, most observers who see this say putin does not want to make a deal. so, okay, you're going to get everybody around the table and going to try to make a deal. fantastic. but the idea that you bloody and rhetorically beat up your side to get them to the table without even knowing if vladimir putin wants to make a deal, when people in donald trump's own administration said this weekend they weren't sure if putin even wanted to make a deal, it seems like quite an interesting way to go about it. >> yeah. >> the negotiations puzzling to many. zelensky, of course, has his wants peace. he has said that he'd like to regain the territory seized by russia. there's many in kyiv recognize that that won't be entirely possible. but this is his country. three years now continues to be bombarded, even amid the last few days in the in the aftershocks of what happened in the oval office on friday. russia continues its attacks on ukraine. and let's put a fine point on this, trump's decision

yesterday to halt aid. it's about $1 billion worth of arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order arms that that ukraine desperately needs at the front. and what this pause does, let's think about this for a second. it benefits putin in so many ways. first of all, this just of course, these arms are going to be in the battlefield. that will allow russian troops there to take advantage, potentially to press forward. this is largely a frozen conflict, but russia has made slow, very slow grinding gains over the last year or so, in part because of its manpower advantages and the drone strikes that it's been using. but this might allow them to press the advantage. he also this might not spur russia to the negotiating table. it might do the exact opposite here where if he thinks this fight between trump and zelensky could keep these american arms on the sidelines, why not keep going? why katty kay? why would putin suddenly realize that i should come to the table when i'm getting everything i want here? yes, we know the russian economy

is weak. we know he suffered huge losses, but it's also his war machine, just in terms of pure numbers dwarfs what ukraine can do. this would seem to be an incentive for him to keep going right now and not bring this conflict to an end. >> yeah. >> if you look at the actions. >> of the white house over the last. >> few days, including, of course. >> the decision. >> not to continue. >> with. >> cyber cyber offensive attacks against. >> china, against. >> russia. >> then you might. >> think that the white house. >> was actually. >> trying to. >> put. >> russia in as. >> good a. >> position as possible. >> going into. >> these negotiations. >> it's hard. >> to see how the white house could have. >> done much. >> to. >> improve russia's. >> chances at the. >> moment. >> this. >> cut in aid. >> coming after such a dramatic, you know, few. days in russia, ukraine, american relations. >> but actually. >> if you just combine. >> that and pull. >> back for a. >> second with what donald trump did to ukraine last night with overnight. >> imposing tariffs on america's. >> closest allies.

>> the strategy. >> from. >> the white house. >> seems to be. >> to shed as. >> many friends as possible. >> as fast. >> as possible. and the long. >> term question. >> is. >> does that leave. >> america safer, stronger and greater, or does it leave it weaker? >> i mean. >> you just. >> you just look at the risk. >> at the moment. >> is you push the europeans closer to china, you push the canadians closer. >> to china. >> you push the south. >> koreans closer. >> to a nuclear weapon. and it's hard to see how this strategy plays. >> out. >> well for the united states in the long run. >> it's hard to. >> see. how it plays. >> out well in the short run as well. i mean, i think what the trump people would say is that if you caught them in private moments is that friendship and economic deals between the us and russia, between trump and putin, will unleash all kinds of animal spirits and energy deals and. and of course, the deal for ukrainian minerals, which presumably in one form or another, zelensky will be corralled into accepting. that's

going to be boom time for american businesses. his view of the world is about deals. it's also about an affinity with putin. i'm not overlooking that, but it's chiefly his. if you want to summarize trump's view of economics, it's about having lots of deals and punishing those who are in. surplus with the united states. there are no friends in that world. there's just deals that trump has skin in the game in. and so that's how they would justify this as a success, because there is no sort of ethical, philosophical or strategic justification for what he's doing. >> so there's the way that trump is trying to reshape the contours of this conflict and american foreign policy overall. and then there's the way that congress is responding to it, because broadly, we've seen republicans get on board with the way that he's negotiated with zelensky, backing him up on the way that he had in that stunning oval office exchange, dismissed the ukrainian president. but then there's also the way that speaker johnson is

talking about ukraine, russia and the united states basically ceding the ground on the ukraine aid that johnson fought so hard for just a year ago, seemingly willing to put his job on the line because he said, history remembers or history judges us. and so he's happy to see this space on aid. but this is still the way that he's talking about russia. listen to that piece of speaker johnson. >> i just. >> hope that they can get things back on track. >> and that everybody. >> will redouble. >> their efforts. >> this is a. >> historic opportunity. >> this potentially historic agreement. >> and, you know, obviously last week was a missed opportunity. but i. >> think if. >> people are. >> operating in good. >> faith, i think we get things back on the right. >> i'm hoping. >> that we can. >> lower the temperature and. >> get back to an agreement that's good for. >> ukraine. >> good for the u.s. and. >> frankly, not that good for russia. >> do you think. >> that what are your thoughts about. >> the. >> fact that president trump hasn't. >> been able. >> to. >> say. >> that. >> that russia. >> started the war. >> and he has continued to.

>> you know, not. >> all i'm. >> focused on is exactly what we. >> need to do to do right by. >> ukraine and, and actually address the rest of the american. >> people and people. our allies in europe. >> we're not allied with russia. i don't believe any russian. bring it into the war. but the. >> president is. >> doing is trying. >> to. >> set the table for that peace. >> agreement to be made. >> and i'm very grateful that he's doing it. i encourage, as i. did over the weekend, president zelensky, to come back to the table and accept the deal. >> that was. >> proposed, because that is the. solution to get us out of this mess. >> was it a mistake? >> that's not. >> just mr. speaker. >> i don't. >> believe any. >> russian state. >> when they started. >> they were the aggressor. >> and joe that hard to hear part at the end. there is actually a really important piece of this, because even as johnson is trying to give trump the space to do exactly what he

wants, however jarring it may be with this u.s. russia realignment, johnson is also underscoring the thing that you heard from thune and from tillis, which is that russia remains an untrusted non ally, an adversary of the united states, and should be treated as such. the striking part about it is that, even as republicans say, that they are not willing to criticize the president for this realignment. and it's stunning about face for the way that u.s. policy has always been done in regards to russia. >> it is a stunning about face. john meacham. it is also the very interesting listing to republican senators and republican house members. you know, there's so many times over the past several years where mitch mcconnell believed one thing, and then he would come out and say something else. and what he was saying when he came out and said something else was basically what he was hearing from the republican caucus. he was the republican leader. and so you could always tell when there was a split between what mcconnell wanted to do and what the majority in the caucus

wanted to do. obviously frustrated a hell of a lot of people for a lot of good reasons. we're actually now seeing sort of the reverse in play from speaker johnson, a speaker that has a12 vote majority, a speaker that also has chairman mccaul, chairman turner and a lot of other russia hawks, unlike people that went into the administration, these republicans remain russian hawks, who i'm sure you remember during the biden administration were critical of joe biden for not doing enough for not delivering the f-16s, for not delivering more offensive, more deadly, more vicious weapons to the ukrainian people. so here you have mike johnson. mike johnson is in no position right now to parrot donald trump when he has a house membership. certainly some of the most powerful members in that house

membership. angry at what happened to the white house last friday. it's fascinating to see how it works itself out with these leaders. now. john thune has always been a russia hawk. so what john thune saying, what tom tillis is saying, you know, pretty much straightforward. but, you know, speaker johnson held up funding for ukraine for, what, six months last year? so for him to say that that is a direct reflection of what he's hearing from his caucus, right. >> and the tensions going to be principle, which is this long term. it goes pre cold war, but let's just use russia as keep the focus on russia, a cold war principle that was at the heart of the internationalist republican. remember the there was a tension in the early days of the cold war. you know all about this between containment and rollback, right. that that

president truman wanted to was was seen as the architect of containment. john foster dulles and dwight eisenhower come in. and there's a sense that, no, we're not just going to contain communism, we're going to roll it back. we're going to liberate the captive countries. and that was an animating force on the right, except for the other animating force, or in addition to the other animating force, which was a kind of isolationism that if you look at the rhetoric of the mccarthy era, early 1950s, you see on the republican right and some democrats, you see this fear that we are being ripped off, that we're pouring money into nato, that we're pouring money into other countries, and we're not getting anything for it. so in this tension, you have the caucuses. you mentioned some hawks who

believe in the principle, who believe that you stand against aggression because aggressors don't almost never stop. and you have this position that president trump embodies, which is in fact, it has roots, and it's the sense that america is somehow a sucker. and the animating drama for president trump is that he's not going to be seen as a loser. he's going to be a winner. >> well, i mean, american presidents have been made suckers of russian leaders and soviet leaders for 80 years. willy. i mean, you can go back to yalta, actually, and talk to john about this later. and you actually had fdr thinking he was winning joseph stalin over with a charm offensive. well, winston churchill was left on the outside. you could again, we've talked about it before, but we can talk about jfk and his just

his, his, his, his disastrous summit in vienna with khrushchev thinking that he could charm khrushchev and he just again, it was an international embarrassment. we can talk about george w bush saying he looked into the eyes of vladimir putin and saw his soul. a couple of years later, it was vladimir putin, i think it was at the munich security conference is basically declaring war on the west. a couple of years later, he invaded georgia. we were weak. we were suckers. we did nothing. in 2012, you had barack obama telling medvedev, hey, got to get elected. after i get elected, then we can do more things. talking about the reset with russia two years later, an invasion of ukraine. we were the weak ones. we were the suckers. then the invasion of crimea, then commercial aircrafts getting shot out of the sky for

some reason, time and time again, american presidents think they can deal with russia, that they can win them over with a charm offensive. they just between you and me is barack obama did in 2012. no, it doesn't work. and it's plain to see as a european. and they will tell you if donald trump gives up on ukraine, putin won't end with ukraine. next it will be moldova, then it will be lithuania, latvia, estonia. and then he reconstitutes the old soviet union. that's his endgame. and right now we're doing nothing but making that endgame more possible for him. >> yeah, putin is getting everything he ever could have dreamed of to that end, to continue that march to reconstitute the soviet empire. and we're going to hear more of president trump's defense of his

new stance toward ukraine. in that address to a joint session of congress tonight. we'll talk about that in just a bit. also, president trump's tariffs on canada and mexico taking effect overnight, along with added measures against china. we'll talk about the impact on the u.s. economy and wall street and those countries already retaliating. plus, a top fbi official has been forced to retire after criticizing president trump's efforts to identify agents who investigated january 6th crimes. nbc's ken dilanian joins us with some new reporting on that. and as i mentioned, what to expect ahead of president trump's primetime address before congress tonight, a very busy morning. we're a very busy morning. we're coming back in 90s. ♪♪ with fastsigns, create factory grade visual solutions to perfect your process. ♪♪ fastsigns. make your statement™. been

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hotel trivago. >> tired of dealing with. >> mud and dirt. >> every time your dog comes in. meet muddy matt, trapping. >> mud and. >> water before it hits your floors. say goodbye to dirty floors for good. get yours at muddy max.com or. walmart today. >> tariffs are actually. >> we've had. >> a lot of experience. >> with them. >> they're they're an act of war to some degree. over time their. >> attacks on. >> on goods. i mean you know. the tooth fairy doesn't pay them. i mean, and. >> and you. >> always have to just end. then what? you always have to ask that question. economics always say. and then one. >> that is, of course, legendary investor warren buffett. a warning sunday morning about president trump's tariffs, which did go into effect, 25% tariffs on imports from canada, mexico going in overnight, the trump administration imposing an extra 10% tariff on china on top of the already instituted 10% tax

on chinese imports. both china and canada moved swiftly after midnight to retaliate, announcing their own levies on u.s. goods. canada vowed tariffs of up to 25% in late yesterday. the premier of ontario, doug ford, warned the economic back and forth will be a disaster for both countries. >> it's one. person that's coming to attack us economically. your closest friend, your treasured ally that will stand shoulder to shoulder with you in every situation you face. and he's attacking the person, his number one customer. there's no country in the world that buys more products off the us than we do. we're the number one trading customer to 28 states. and a lot of them are red states. they're going to feel the pain like they've never felt before. >> meanwhile, mexico's president expected to announce her response at a news conference in mexico city later this morning. together, china, canada and mexico accounted for more than

40% of all u.s. imports last year. also, its top three export markets for the united states. joe, just looking at the wall street journal op ed page titled trump takes the dumbest tariff plunge. they write, we've quoted mr. trump's ire by calling the mexico and canada levies the dumbest in history. and we may have understated the point, writes the wall street journal, closing by calling trump unbridled tariff man, saying he was always going to be a big economic risk in a second term. and here we are, writes the wall street journal. >> i mean, it's unbelievable. he says the 25% levies on mexico and canada will begin today. and again, here's the wall street journal editorial page willie was talking about. and at loose, you've got a lot of really smart people over at financial times that went to those really smart schools. i'm sure, over in britain. so maybe, maybe you can

help me out here. and i'm dead serious. i mean, this wall street journal obviously been consistent on this. when donald trump got into office, we talked about how the economy was strong. but i talked about we had three bubbles. we had the fiscal bubble of $36 trillion debt that at some point is going to be a bomb that's going to wreck our economy and the world's economy if we don't take care of it. no, it doesn't look like they're going to take care of that. we have a crypto bubble. that of course, is blowing up right now. and we have the stock market bubble. you. and so the point was we have to handle this with care. we can't go around talking about tariffs. we can't go around talking about fights with our best trading partners. and now here we are more than a month in. and what do we have. more threats of tariffs. you've got consumer confidence going down.

you've got all those mergers that everybody said oh we're going we're going to dive into after those left wingers from the biden administration leave washington. they're saying that on wall street now, they're afraid to do anything because of the uncertainty that's surrounding it. and with consumer confidence down now, you're seeing the atlanta fed. and i suspect it's not going to be that bad. i mean, i don't think we're going to be like -3% at the end of the first quarter. but the economy is grinding down and slowing down. the stock market over the past month has dropped a great deal. you just look at tesla's stock numbers over the past month and see how they've dropped. look at how the nasdaq has dropped. look how the top tech companies have dropped. all of it around uncertainty. all of this talk, you know, a lot a lot of people assume that this tariff talk was just sort of, you know, just just posturing and negotiating. but

even if it ends up being that it's having a detrimental impact on this economy and shaking investors and shaking consumers to their core. >> yeah. i mean. >> the school of. >> wishful thinking after last november was, look, we've got scott bessent. >> we've got howard lutnick. >> we've got adults being appointed to these roles, and they're not going to let trump carry out such suicidal actions. >> and that explains. >> to some degree why the stock market remains so frothy during the during most of the transition and why bitcoin and others were surging. but the school of wishful thinking was wishful thinking. this is trump in charge. it's not scott bessent in charge. it's not howard lutnick in charge. and what he's just outlined, what he's just announced with these tariffs against huge tariffs against america's three largest trading partners by. >> far. >> by the way, china, mexico and canada is the largest. tax

increase on the american consumer since 1993. it's not a tax on foreign companies. it's a tax on the american consumer, something trump refuses to acknowledge but is borne out by all the economics on this subject. and at a time when, as you mentioned, joe, consumer confidence is not just falling, it's falling steeply. it's falling sharply. this is going to be a hammer blow, because people are going to see higher prices. and those higher prices are going to cause the fed not to cut interest rates and quite possibly to raise them because they are inflationary. and we are then going to start to get into a situation where the atlanta fed's projections for the first quarter become reality for two quarters, which is a shrinking economy, which is a trump recession and which was would would be an avoidable trump recession. >> these very. >> avoidable self-inflicted harm

that we're seeing at enormous speed. coming up, a top fbi official is forced out after questioning the president's pursuit of agents who investigated january 6th. nbc's ken dilanian has that reporting. he joins us straight ahead on he joins us straight ahead on morning joe. it all started with a small business idea. it's a pillow with a speaker in it! that's right craig. pulling in the perfect team to get the job done. i'm just here for the internets. at&t, it's super-fast! you locked us out?! and when thrown a curveball... arrggghh! ahhhh! [crashing sounds] we had everything we needed. is the internet out? don't worry, we have at&t internet back-up. the next level network for small business. ♪♪ i sold a pillow! sunglasses. like a brand new pair of jeans. i feel like taking chances. i

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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. >> the top fbi official at the new york field office is saying he was forced into retirement. assistant director in charge james dennehy, now out of a job after he urged his employees to dig in following the trump administration's efforts to get a list of agents who investigated cases around january 6th. in an email to staffers, dennehy wrote, i apologize to all of you for not being able to fulfill my commitment to you. i've been told many times in my life, when you find yourself in a hole, sometimes it's best to quit digging. screw that. i will never stop defending this joint, he wrote. i'll just do it willingly and proudly from

outside the wire. let's bring in nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian. ken, good morning. good to see you. so let's talk about this is a big job, first of all, to run the fbi new york field office. why ultimately did he step aside? >> that's right willie, it's a huge job. his title was assistant director, not the normal special agent in charge. because new. >> york. >> city is a flagship field office of the fbi. >> and james dennis. >> dennehy was a leader's leader. he spent seven. >> years as. >> a marine officer. >> before joining the. >> private sector. then nine over. 11 hit, and he joined the fbi and. spent a career working his way up the ranks. >> mostly as a spy catcher, as a. >> counterintelligence official. >> but in a lot of. >> leadership jobs. and the quote. >> you read there gives you an idea. >> of why he is so revered far and wide inside the fbi. >> and when that battle took hold, when. >> the. >> trump administration appeared to be attempting a mass firing of fbi agents and employees who worked on january 6th cases. dennehy was one of the people

who threw his body on a grenade. in retrospect, he he did. something that appeared. to spell the. >> end of his career. >> he issued an. >> email to his staff saying, we're going to stand. >> up to this. and he and some of the other acting leaders of the fbi managed. >> to stave off. >> what many people believe would have been a mass. >> firing. as it is, more. >> than a dozen top officials, including. >> dennehy. >> have now been removed from the fbi. >> so he he got crosswise. >> with the trump administration over. >> that. >> issue, but also more recently over this. >> bizarre episode where the. >> attorney general. >> pam bondi. >> is insisting. >> that somehow. >> the fbi is. >> holding back. files related to the jeffrey epstein. >> case. >> and our. >> reporting really is. >> that there's. >> nothing really new that's in these files. >> but apparently. >> there were some files in the fbi office up in new york that bondi wanted. she didn't get. so that may have contributed to him being essentially ousted from his job. but here. >> you have a person who. >> devoted his career to national security, one of the top leaders in the fbi are now out at a time when the fbi is

really starving for experienced leadership, guys. >> coming up, president putin's three years of humiliation. our next guest says the russian leader cannot win his war against ukraine unless he persuades its allies to betray him. and applebaum joins us straight ahead on morning joe. >> i'm away alone. but all i heard. was a drunk. >> yoo hoo! >> you're making everything orange. >> we're showing we're consumer. cellular gets great coverage. we use the same towers as big wireless, so you get the same coverage. >> wow. >> for unlimited talk and text with. reliable coverage starting with. reliable coverage starting at just $20, call or visit (sigh) (snoring) if you struggle with cpap... you should check out inspire. honey?

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1-800-355-5939. >> five. >> or visit homeserve. com. >> coming up, james carville's recent advice to democrats on how to deal with president trump. >> so i. think we just have to play possum. >> for a. >> little while. >> just let. >> them keep. >> coming and. musk will turn out. if they keep him, we'll. >> be the greatest generator. >> is very. >> specifically the greatest generator of democratic turnout ever, more than barack obama. musk will turn. >> out. >> more democrats than obama could. >> our next guest argues carville's plan won't work.

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>> just take. >> my hand. >> darling. >> tonight, president. >> trump addresses both chambers of congress. rachel maddow and team will break down the speech and its impact at home and abroad. the joint address to congress. special coverage. >> tonight at eight on msnbc. >> what was it like. >> when trump got elected? >> what was the i mean, what. >> was. >> the reaction? >> you think about ice. >> coming to knock on your front door. >> 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. >> i used to hate to go to my own staff meetings because it was mostly men. there was a lot. >> of. >> testosterone in the room. they weren't necessarily supportive of me. i didn't have a lot. >> of people. >> i could trust in the beginning because i inherited a team. but over time, i hired more women. you know, i evened out the room, and i gave women more opportunities than they would have had under someone else. so i think the thing i would focus on the most is making sure there are more. female ceos and. creating a work environment where female ceos can be successful. >> that was the former chairman and ceo of black entertainment television networks, deborah lee. back in 2020, two years after launching bet, outlining her hopes for the future of women in corporate america, lee's own trailblazing career in the entertainment industry, and

her advice on how to achieve success in business are detailed in her memoir titled i am deborah lee, which is available now in paperback. deborah joins us now, i'm happy to say, following her 13 year tenure as ceo of bet, deborah now serves as a director on the boards of warner brothers, discovery, marriott international and procter and gamble. also with us for the conversation, special correspondent at vanity fair, molly jong-fast and president of the national action network and host of msnbc's politics nation, the reverend al sharpton. our thanks to you all for being here, deborah. congratulations. paperback edition of the book. >> thank you very much. >> when you wrote this, what were some of the goals you set out for the sort of the lessons or from your own experience that you wanted to impart on to others, particularly women, maybe even women of color in leadership roles? >> well, when i wrote this book, i primarily wanted to talk about my career. >> as a.

>> black. >> female ceo. i started out as general counsel of. bet and worked my way over to the business side. >> but i looked. >> around when i left bet and viacom in 2018 and realized there. >> were very. >> few black. >> female ceos. >> still after i had done it for 13 years. and i wanted. >> to. >> show young women that it was possible. you can do it. >> it's something you. >> can dream about. i never wanted to be a ceo, but it worked out for me and i worked hard. and i was, you know, associated with a great company. but i. >> wanted to tell my. >> particular story. >> so hopefully to inspire young women and men. and i've had men come up to me on the street corner and say, you know, miss lee, thank you for what you've done for the culture. i see what you did at bet. so it. >> was. >> a. personal story, but i wanted it to be one of

inspiration. >> and i think. >> it's needed even more so in 2025. >> yeah. >> for sure. >> one of the really cool. >> things you do in this book is you talk about, like, the disrespect that you encountered. >> and how you handled that. will you talk a little bit about that? >> yeah. >> it's interesting. bj's black company. >> so people used to. >> ask me what's harder being, you know, being black or being a woman. and i used. >> to say. >> oh there's it's really not a difference. and then when i ended up at bet, we took black off the table because it was a black company. and it wasn't until i was appointed coo, chief operating officer that i really learned how difficult it was to be a woman in the corporate world. that on. >> that. >> day, i remember women at be high fiving me in the hallway saying, we never thought this would happen. it's such a boys club. we never thought a woman would make her way to the top. but i also inherited a group of

executives that i didn't hire. >> that. >> bob johnson hired. all of who wanted my job. i mean, it was very clear. bob kicked me out of the office after out of the conference room after. he made the announcement. and i found out later that he told the executives, don't worry, she can't fire you, which is the worst thing you can do to a ceo. and six months later, he had to go back in the room and change that. because, you know, i'm a i'm a consensus builder and i want everyone to work together and, you know, enjoy building debt and building the brand and creating high quality programing. but so many of the male executives didn't want to be part of my legacy. >> so it took. >> me six years to get my own team, which is a long time. it shouldn't have taken that long. >> deborah, i've known you a long time and have worked with you. talk about what?

>> two things. that i think. you can address. >> one is that you were also very socially. involved in terms of what was good for. >> the community, and you. >> were a convener. >> people would come to your house and hear various speakers that were. engaged in. various struggles, not only in the black community, but generally. and you had that convening power. talk about that. but also talk about what a lot of us don't like to comfortably address is the misogyny in the black community. you had to face not only racism, but misogyny and more painful misogyny from blacks. i think that's part of what kamala harris. had to deal with. and i think that your book and career kind of speaks to the dual struggle that black women have to go through in some cases. >> yeah. i'll start with the first question. i grew up wanting to give back to the community. i went to a

segregated black high school in greensboro, north carolina. my dad was very political. even though he was in the army. it doesn't really make sense, but he was very political. and i was born during brown versus. board of education year. the year was decided. don't add up the numbers, but the year was decided. the reverend knows because we were right there. >> together in terms. >> of age. >> but so my father said, okay, this is an opportunity. >> for you. you're the first generation that can go. >> to. >> ivy league schools. his sister had actually gone to mount holyoke in the 40s. she was like one of. >> three black. >> students there. but anyway, it was put into me. get a good education, go to the best schools you can and figure out a way to give back. and he wanted me to be a lawyer. >> i didn't. >> necessarily want to be a lawyer. but i did it. and i, you know, went to brown undergrad. i went to harvard law. >> i had.

>> amazing opportunities. and by that, i mean the door. >> was open. >> i wasn't incompetent. i had to once i got through that door, i had to perform. but my goal in life was to figure out a way to give back to my community. i thought that was going to be through being like constance baker motley or thurgood marshall. but by the time i got to harvard law school, those days were over, and i was lucky enough to find bet and media. and so i found that doing high quality programing was a way to give back. and because bet had such a great brand, i was able to convene people, whether at my house or through the network. and i know you've been on many town hall meetings we had on the network, and that was part of my purpose. you know, i saw it as twofold, discussing issues that were important and also honoring those in our community that are

not normally nominated. i mean, honored by other award shows. and so that's what i tried to do. and it was very important to me personally. the second part is, yeah, it being a woman in the media space is not easy. and what we're hearing now about music labels and what happened there. and, you know, we've all been through the metoo movement. but you were kind of disregarded. and when i became ceo of bet, i had to build up my own relationships internally and externally. it was tough because people just still disregard women and don't take us seriously. and, you know, the hip hop artists were always kind. they used to always call me the queen and bow when i come by. but in real life, you know, they found it easier to deal with others at bet. and so i had

to work hard to overcome that. and, you know, just having a family was something that people weren't used to. right. so i don't think it's gotten any easier. but, you know, hopefully i've drawn some attention to it. >> all right. and the book, i am deborah lee a memoir, is indeed available at paperback now. author and former bet and so much more deborah lee. deborah, thank you again. thank you. up next here on morning joe, we'll have the latest on the major moves coming out of the trump administration today, including a pause on military aid to ukraine and the new tariffs on america's top trading partners. we're back in just two minutes with that. >> you probably know vistaprint for. >> business cards. >> yep. >> but did you know we also print. >> these and those. >> and that. >> and definitely this. >> okay. >> that's engraved. >> where we print with lasers at vistaprint. we print your brand on everything. so your customers can notice you. >> remember you.

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healthiness again. get 50%. >> off. >> your. >> first box. >> at ollie. com. >> there was this attitude of ungratefulness. seeing his smirk. >> seeing him. >> roll his eyes. seeing him refer to jd vance. >> the vice. >> president, as jd. >> he shows. >> up at his equinox chic outfit. >> to the doggone. >> oval office. >> president zelensky. >> was also antagonistic and. >> frankly. >> he. >> was rude. >> so impertinent. >> so. >> disrespectful. >> tone deaf, going. in and. fighting back, getting sassy with. >> the. >> president. and that was he was sassy. he was sassy. woo. >> he was. >> a real scalawag. you know what i would. >> say if i was there in the oval office with him, i'd say, you better watch your tone. >> mr. >> i think it was churchill who. >> during world war. >> two was roundly.

>> criticized. >> for being a bit lippy. excuse me, mister, we'll decide where you're going to fight them, whether it's on the beaches or not or whatever. poor guy. zelensky, his nation was invaded. he's against all odds, held off a much bigger army for three years. and we're. >> like, would it kill you to smile a little more? >> dressed a. >> little nicer? your beautiful country, nobody would know. show off what you got. you know what i'm talking about. maybe some of those rare medals i've been hearing. >> some about. >> yeah, all of this coming from all this, coming from people who had flags waved and would, would, would hold them up that would say, f your feelings about trump. and here, here we are. our feelings were hurt. america's feeling jd vance. his feelings were donald trump's feelings were hurt. i mean, because he actually told the truth. i it's fascinating. it's

fascinating. but it continues. and jd vance going on tv attacking our allies last night, we're going to get to more of that in a minute. attacking our allies who actually have fought side by side with america time and time again. welcome to the fourth hour of morning joe, reverend al sharpton and vanity fair's molly jong-fast are still with us, and jackie alemany joins us now, who we're very happy to announce she's being named an msnbc washington correspondent. and jackie will be co-host of msnbc's the weekend, alongside msnbc's jonathan capehart and eugene daniels, which will air saturdays and sundays from 7 to 10 a.m. eastern. jackie, congratulations and welcome. >> thank you. joe. thank you. so much. >> i. >> i brought. >> this up. >> before. >> but you. >> and mika. >> were the first people to. >> book me. >> on cable.

>> news in 2018. >> when i joined the. >> washington post. so this. >> really feels like. >> a full. >> circle round. >> trip ticket moment. >> and i'm. >> you guys have been. >> such a. >> champion of washington post journalism, too. >> and i'm i'm so. >> excited and. >> very grateful. >> well, we're very excited, very grateful. and i'm john i'm very grateful that mika like, sees talent, spots talent. mika has been my. >> fairy godmother. >> she she she really is. she's a champion. so congratulations. and we can't wait to see you on the weekend. jon, a lot to talk about right now. so much going on with the economy, so much going on with foreign policy. donald trump threatening, of course, tariffs to some of our closest trading partners, cutting off military aid to an ally who is under attack by a country that invaded and considers the united states to

be a mortal enemy, the vice president of the united states, going on air last night mocking and ridiculing the sacrifices that our allies have made, fighting alongside wars that the united states declared over the past 2025 years. a lot going on, a lot to digest. what do you got? >> yeah, our congrats also to jackie, and certainly so many of us owe a debt of gratitude to joe mika. no one is being sassy here, but let's get right down to the news. and president trump has indeed ordered a pause on all military aid to ukraine after that stunning oval office showdown on friday. this as president trump is set to deliver a joint address to congress this evening. nbc news senior white house correspondent garrett hake has the latest. >> overnight, president trump pressing pause on billions of dollars in american military aid to ukraine. it's the latest fallout from friday's explosive oval office meeting with ukrainian president zelensky. >> you don't have the cards. >> the white house saying in a statement that the president

wants peace and it will now review the aid, most of it in the form of american weapons and ammunition, to make sure it is, quote, contributing to a solution to the war. lawmakers on both sides criticizing the move, which could withhold support that ukraine has been depending on in its fight against russia. >> this is preposterous. >> it is laughable, it is childish and it is embarrassing for donald trump. >> i do not think we should be pausing our efforts. it's the ukrainians who are shedding blood. >> earlier, the president expressing optimism an agreement could still be struck to end the war. >> i believe that russia wants to make a deal. i believe certainly the people of ukraine want to make a deal. >> russia praising the move. this morning, a kremlin spokesperson saying a halt in u.s. weapons supplies, quote, could be the best contribution to peace, while at the same time, european leaders outlined their massive aid package. >> for. >> ukrainian defense. but last night, vice president j.d. vance. warning zelenskyy that he could not rely on europe. >> you need. >> to come to the.

>> negotiating table. and recognize. donald trump is the only game in town. >> it comes as mr. trump prepares to deliver the first address to a joint session of congress of his new term, where he will outline his priorities for the next four years and tout the accomplishments of his first 42 days. his last speech before congress in 2020, notably concluding with then democratic speaker nancy pelosi ripping a copy of president trump's speech in half. tonight, he'll be backed by a gop speaker, and vance and trump ally elon musk will also attend, according to a white house official. >> he's going. >> to. >> talk a lot about a lot of the. >> successes that we've had. >> he's also. >> going to be himself. >> which means he's going. >> to poke a. >> little fun, and we're going to have a good time tomorrow. let's bring in staff writer at the atlantic, anne applebaum. and so much to talk about, but let's just focus on the vice president for a minute who has said deeply unhelpful and at times false things about ukraine over, over the years and last night saying, oh, don't talk to

allies, don't talk to europeans that are coming together t suort you. donald trump is the only game in town and at the same time, mocking and ridiculing the sacrifices that our allies have made. supporting the united states in wars that we have declared over the past 25ears. >> so i'm in. >> europe, and actually yesterday i was in germany. >> and the day before. >> a couple days ago, i was in vilnius. >> in lithuania. and i don't think it's possible to exaggerate the scale of the shock and. >> surprise that. >> people feel here. >> some of it is about. >> ukraine, of course, but some of it is. >> also about america. i mean, i. think europeans. >> may be uniquely. >> in the world, maybe along with canadians. a few others. >> have this idea. >> of americans, some of it a little bit. >> maybe hollywood esque. >> you know, they're the good. guys who fight the bad guys. you know, they they they. >> show. >> up eventually. >> and they solve. >> the problem. you know,

they're the honorable ones who fight against treachery and evil. >> and of course, that's. >> a that's an old stereotype. and hollywood doesn't even make those kinds of movies anymore. >> but the degree to which the suddenness with. >> which that old. >> fondness and memories. >> of the second world war and memories of the cold war has. >> suddenly been swapped for something completely different, sort of a brutal, sarcastic, mocking america, an. >> america that. >> uses the language of russian propaganda to talk about its closest. >> allies. >> an america that makes apparently arbitrary decisions. >> i mean, i would say that the treatment. of zelensky in the oval office. >> and the tariffs. >> on canada and. >> mexico go in the. >> same basket. i mean, they're they're. both angry, arbitrary. >> kind of thin. skinned decisions that don't seem to have any basis. >> in any. >> in any rational argument. and this has already, i think, made. a had a profound change on the

perceptions. >> of america. >> and the world. >> and. >> the and the willingness. >> that our allies will have in. >> the future to work with us again. >> so here is more from that vice president vance interview last night, where he stated that the only u.s. security guarantee for ukraine will be the mineral deal, and then downplayed the role of british and french peacekeeping troops. >> and here's the thing. you know, when. >> you would. >> talk to. >> the biden. >> administration officials in private, it's. >> another example. >> of. >> a terrible situation. >> the biden admin. >> left the. >> trump administration. >> when you ask them, what's. >> the plan? okay, we're going to spend tens of billions of dollars. hundreds of billions of dollars in ukraine. what is your plan? and they would honestly tell you, well, we're just going to send them weapons for as long as we can and hope eventually they can turn the tide. hope is not a strategy. throwing money and ammunition at a terrible conflict. that is not a strategy. the only guy in town with a strategy is the president of united states. and everybody

needs to follow his lead. >> what scares me. >> is. >> zelensky when he says it's. >> going to go on for years. how many more lives are going to be lost? >> he's not going to. >> have a country to save. >> at. >> the end. >> of that. >> the minerals. >> deal would have provided the moneys to. >> rebuild their country and a strong u.s. presence, and maybe european. >> troops as well. >> and this is this is. >> an important part. >> of it. the president knows that. look, if you want real security. >> guarantees. >> if you want to actually ensure that vladimir putin does not invade ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give americans economic upside in the. >> future of ukraine. >> that is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years. the security guarantee, and also the economic guarantee for ukraine. >> is to rebuild. >> the country and ensure that america has a long term interest. you're not going to do that if you come to the oval office, insult the president and refuse to follow his plan for peace. i mean, this is this is

like, what was it, stranger things, where at the end of the season that everything turns upside down and the world is upside down underground. i mean, we have two people here talking. they remind me of what democrats were saying about daniel ortega and nicaragua in the 1980s. i mean, they're saying we don't get peace through strength. we get peace by undercutting our allies in europe and by capitulating to russians. well. name one time. nobody can name one time when capitulating to vladimir putin. are russians? are the soviet union paid any benefits at all? and we can go back to yalta. we after yalta, we can we can move forward. john kennedy being humiliated in his vienna summit with khrushchev. we can we can move forward. and

just with vladimir putin, talk about, you know, george w bush looking into putin's eyes and reading his soul. and a couple of years later, what happened? vladimir putin looked into georgia, invaded them, and we did nothing. barack obama in 2012. what did barack obama do? he whispered to medvedev, hey, after the election, we can do more things. yeah. after the election, russia invaded ukraine. russia invaded crimea. russia shot down commercial aircraft. every time we show weakness, russia runs over us. and right now you have those people. they did it in the white house saying this. what we're going to do, we're going to undercut our allies who have been beating the russians back for over two years now, three years. and we're going to start

basically sounding like we work on our t and we're going to copy russian talking points, and we're going to insult america's closest and most loyal ally. is that the that's what they were doing. the vice president talked about some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years. we're not on x here. like we can do fact checks. and this random country, great britain, the country, we have a special relationship. some random country. well, here's a list of recent wars that that random country fought alongside with the united states in 1990, the gulf war. the british lost 47 lives. 1992 the bosnian war. 59 british personnel died. 1998 the

kosovo war. they fought alongside of us 72 brits killed. 2000 the sierra leone civil war. two personnel died. 2000 war 2001 the war in afghanistan. 457 british personnel lost their lives. 2003 the iraq war 179 brits lost their lives, 136 killed in hostile incidents. and then you go on and you see that the overall war on terror was proportionately 12% deadlier for the united kingdom than it was for americans, based on the number of troops deployed and the number of troops killed. three times the number of british troops were shot and killed in afghanistan than they were in iraq, and a uk soldier was twice as likely to be shot and killed than there. u. s

counterpart. and applebaum, i don't know where to begin. i really don't. calling britain some random country when they have stood behind, you know, much to their detriment. tony blair basically gave up being prime minister because he sided with george w bush and the iraq war, because he believed it was that important that the special relationship be maintained. and here we have a vice president mocking and ridiculing our closest allies. >> he's mocking and ridiculing. >> a relationship that. >> for the british. >> has been central. >> to their. foreign policy for 100 years. british intelligence. >> works so closely. >> with american intelligence. >> it's hard to pick them apart. british strategy british. >> personnel, british aid. >> policy has all been adapted.

to work around. >> and with. >> american policy as well. the british think of themselves as partners of the united. >> states, and. they've been treated as. >> such actually. >> by by. all recent administrations. they've had. the special relationship, which. >> sometimes was was a personal relationship, whether it was reagan and thatcher. >> whether more strangely. >> it was george w bush. and tony blair has always been at the center of both of our countries. foreign policy. so. so, yes, it's insulting and rude. >> to imply otherwise. i mean, there were other things that. >> disturbed me about. >> that vance interview. one of them was the implication. >> that zelensky won't sign. >> a. >> minerals deal. >> he he will sign one. he came. >> to. >> washington to sign it. it was donald trump who decided not to sign it. the other oddity is. >> this pretense. >> and that signing the deal is equivalent to some kind of. >> strategy, some kind of negotiation. >> strategy, or some. >> kind of security. >> guarantee for ukraine.

actually. >> the us administration has still not told us. what the ceasefire would look. >> like, what the end of the war will look like. and people are beginning to worry that they simply mean that russia wins or that ukraine stops fighting. >> so there's so much lack. of clarity. >> you know, vance. speaks with. >> with great certainty. >> he's a. >> he's a good speaker. >> he sounds convincing. but when you pick apart what he says there is. >> there's so. >> little underneath it. it's disturbing. >> well, especially when it comes to ukraine and it comes to our allies and attacks on our allies. and john, he tries to backtrack like this morning. he i think he tweeted, speaking of x, i think you want to say, oh, wait a second, i wasn't talking about britain or france. no, that that's actually we're talking about the europeans and that's actually who's bringing the deal together. it was keir starmer and macron that were going to come together, work with zelensky, bring the deal to

the united states. and of course, the head of any coalition is france and great britain. and the people again, who stood by us in europe during all of these wars over the past 25 years, nobody was talking about luxembourg or liechtenstein. britain and france, the first among equals there. >> yeah. the vice president indeed took to x today to claim that this is absurdly dishonest. he wasn't talking about the uk or france. he was taken out of context. mind you, this appeared last night on sean hayes. who is this appeared on sean hannity. >> show about then? >> yeah, he. >> was talking about then because the way the question was set up, it is britain and it is france who are at the front of all of this. and everybody in washington knows this. everybody in europe knows this. i guarantee you, everybody in russia knows this. everybody around the world knows this. so the gaslighting, who is he talking about? he's talking about liechtenstein. is he

talking about luxembourg? because i didn't see their leaders talking about what they were going to do in defense of ukraine. i saw keir starmer and emmanuel macron basically say, we're going to work together. we're going to help on the minerals deal, and we're going to bring it to donald trump. and that's what jd vance was responding to. he said, oh no, no, you can only talk to donald trump. don't talk to our allies who have been with us for 100 years. >> yeah. if he was taken out of context, talk to the sean hannity's producers, i suppose, in his post this morning. vance does not identify. he just says there are other countries he was referring to. he claims it was not. uk for other countries. >> okay. >> we should. note we should note that uk and france have both actually committed troops to ukraine if necessary. we heard that from keir starmer again over the weekend. macron made a similar pledge. so jacki, you know we know that the what once was the party of reagan cold warriors anti russia will has been co-opted by donald trump and his maga foot soldiers. there's republican

support for ukraine has wavered certainly in the house less in the senate. some senators are still there. but talk to us about how this is being received on the building. you know so well the one behind you, the capitol, particularly as we go into tonight in this speech where trump will be there in the capitol addressing a joint session of congress. and his aides have suggested that ukraine is going to be on the agenda. >> yeah, john. >> i mean, as you just noted. >> this is the culmination. >> of. >> years of. >> ukraine skepticism coming to a head. >> some of. >> that skepticism. >> initially planted by j.d. >> vance when he. >> was in the senate. >> i mean, this is one of the things his aides have have. >> pointed to as a sign of. >> his leadership. >> in 2023, obviously, when republican senators put their first pause on ukraine aid. >> but there is still some. >> quiet. >> cautious optimism behind. >> closed doors that. >> trump is. >> going to ultimately. >> sort of clean up. all of this. >> chaos that. >> unfolded in. >> the oval office on, >> on friday.

>> and as. >> senior administration. >> official told the washington. >> post. >> that there if. >> ukraine does. demonstrate what they. >> call good faith efforts. >> to participate. >> in peace. >> talks, that they. >> could reconsider this decision. >> but in the. >> meantime, i think. >> you. >> know. there is a. >> lot of. >> looking towards. >> our. european allies. >> who. >> are putting together this. $20 billion backstop as and described to provide. >> ammunition. >> air defense systems. >> drones, weapon systems. >> but of course. >> you know. >> none of that. >> matches what the. >> american military and. >> the. >> u.s. pentagon could. >> ultimately provide. >> but it has been. >> extremely striking. to see people like. >> lindsey. >> graham do a complete 180. >> i mean. >> zelensky's point. >> on friday that he. >> made to. >> j.d. vance. >> when he told him. you come and. >> visit ukraine. >> you. >> haven't been to this country. >> you don't. >> know. >> what you're talking about. that is something. >> that lindsey graham. >> said verbatim after. >> j.d. vance wrote an op ed. >> last year about. >> calling into. >> question u.s. >> support for ukraine.

>> he he said. >> the. >> exact same thing. >> that that j.d. vance needed to visit ukraine. >> himself. >> get. on the. >> ground and see what. >> was going on. >> and learn more. >> about the situation. >> you know. >> a year later. >> you know. >> graham is at the. >> tip of the spear behind this. >> administration. >> basically praising. >> them for. >> for what unfolded. >> over. >> these past few days. >> yeah. trump white house suggesting that they could revisit the deal if there are, quote, good faith efforts from ukraine. who's the judge of that very subjective notion, to be sure. and we see what donald trump's standards might be. staff writer for the atlantic and appelbaum live for us in europe. thank you. and we really appreciate. we'll talk to you again soon. coming up here on morning joe, president trump's 25% tariffs on goods from mexico and canada took effect overnight. nbc's christine romans joins us with wall street's reaction. that's just ahead of this morning's opening bell. >> and.

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>> it's call 877 cash. >> now to get a $100. >> gift. >> card for. >> a free quote. >> we know for certain categories, like fruits and vegetables wear during this winter season. we depend on mexico for a significant amount of supply. now, those are categories where we'll try to protect pricing, but the consumer will likely see price increases over the next couple of days. >> over the. >> next. >> couple of days. so those. >> go in instantaneous supply chains. you think. >> about all the fresh produce. >> you know, we depend on mexico during the winter. we're going to try and make sure we can do everything we can to protect pricing. but if there's a 25% tariff, those prices will go up. >> for things like what? strawberries, avocados, bananas. >> what are we talking. >> you've got that list, right? >> is that so? >> those are some of the key items. >> and those prices could change within days. >> in. >> the stores certainly over the next week. >> so that was target ceo brian cornell just this morning on

cnbc. his comments came as mexican president claudia sheinbaum just announced moments ago that her country will put forth retaliatory tariffs this weekend. joining us now, nbc news senior business correspondent christine romans. christine, good to see you again. so let's talk about the state of tariffs. they went into effect last night. how is the market reacting? the bell is being rung at about one minute. yeah. just give us state of play. >> so yesterday was. >> a tough day. >> in the. >> market because it. >> became clear that. >> these mexico and. >> canada tariffs. >> were going to go into effect. >> and there will be retaliation. >> already we're hearing retaliation. >> and the president. yesterday also said he. >> was. raising the china tariffs. >> another another 10%. so you got 20% tariffs on stuff coming in from china, mexico and canada that started at midnight. so that means just like the. ceo of target said, the stuff that they're picking up at the port today, they will be handed. >> a. >> bill from customs that says you owe us another 25%. and so immediately. that is a cost for

business. the best buy ceo this morning also saying that its vendors are indicating that they're going to have to pass along. >> those. >> higher costs along the supply chain. translation you're going. >> to pay more for computers and smartphones. >> and. >> the stuff that you buy. you can see. the market. >> already open. >> lower here because it. >> is it's real john. >> it's on. >> and trade. >> wars are kind of like. >> a circular firing squad. >> once you all. >> start firing at each other with these, with these retaliations and other retaliations, there can be unintended consequences. there can. >> be. disrupted supply chains. >> the last time we were in this kind of a moment was in the first trump administration. that was a low inflation moment. so just the categories where you had tariffs rose, but everything else stayed pretty steady. we're in a higher than normal inflationary environment. that's why people are concerned. >> about these things. >> christine. >> the president addresses a joint members of congress tonight, senate and house. how does he stand. and deal with the fact that one of the things he ran on was prices were rising.

he blamed it on biden, and now he's causing a tariff, or he's announced tariffs that will cause inflation at a higher level, that we don't even know how long it will last. how do you reconcile that if you're trump? >> it's fascinating because he said he won. because of. >> the. >> groceries, because. people were upset about the groceries. and you just heard the ceo of a major company say the groceries are going to cost more money. because of these trade policies. i expect that he's going. >> to frame. >> this as him remaking. the american economy to bring back factories. >> to kill. >> the drug trade and to make america. >> rich again. >> and you heard from howard lutnick, his commerce secretary, this morning. just recently he said, people are. >> looking too. >> much at the near. term here, and they need to look further out to. >> how they're going to remake the economy. >> so it's so rich that this. >> near term disruption. >> doesn't matter. >> certainly investors. >> in the stock. >> market today. >> aren't aren't agreeing with that. >> perspective and are more concerned about what this is going to mean for supply chains,

for profits, for consumers and for the economy overall weakening, potentially weakening us economy. >> we'll certainly be watching how the markets react today and then again tomorrow morning as they digest what the president has to say this evening in primetime. nbc's christine romans. christine, thank you as always. so elsewhere, republican lawmakers are shrugging off recent disapproval and outrage at town hall events, instead blaming the backlash on what they say are paid troublemakers. president trump took to social media yesterday to claim, without any evidence, that these troublemakers were attending and disrupting town hall meetings as part of a game for democrats. similar sentiments were expressed last week by house speaker mike johnson, who claimed those speaking out against gop policies were simply unhappy dems. over the weekend, senator roger marshall of kansas even walked out of a town hall early after he was confronted by constituents. and then he claimed to nbc news that those

speaking out at that town hall were, quote, people from the big city. which one? here is one exchange from that town hall, followed by senator marshall's description of those who questioned him. >> i'm just doing right now as far as cutting. >> out those jobs. a huge percentage of those people. >> and i know you care about the veterans. the veterans. >> yes. >> and that is a damn shame. >> yes. >> yes. >> that is a standard. >> i'm not a democrat, but i'm worried about the veterans man. yes, sir. >> thank you. >> all right. well. >> i yield it to him. one of my elders. and i appreciate his comments. i think it's a great. i'm not going to. we don't have time for everyone to stand up. i do got two more commitments today. appreciate everybody making. >> the drive out. >> and god bless america. >> thank you. thank you. >> you're not done. >> our next.

>> who next thing. we're going. >> to take pictures. >> with you, buddy. >> right. >> to vote. >> you out. >> so the big. disappointment was here's a county. >> 3000 people less than 3000. >> they're all connected to agriculture. >> so they wouldn't. >> let me talk about agriculture or rural america. so people from the big city drove five hours so. >> they could. >> silence us. >> rural people. >> who. >> really are in tough times right now. >> over 85% of people. >> in that. >> county voted for president trump. >> i looked at. the car tax. >> okay. >> i'm not done. all i have to do is look at the car tags. >> when there's. >> more mercedes benz there than there are pickup trucks. i know they're not from america. >> from what we saw on the video just now, seem to counter the senator's claims. you heard the boos when he walked out. house minority leader hakeem jeffries pushed back on those very gop claims yesterday, saying we

don't need to send paid protesters into your town hall meetings. the american people are with us. and, molly, this dovetails nicely to what you've been writing about, because there are some in the democratic party who suggest the dems should sort of lie back right now, like to stay out of the way, let the republicans kind of damage themselves. but you take the opposite approach. >> yeah, i think that's a. huge mistake. >> especially because. >> we've seen republicans. >> unable or. >> unwilling to protect. >> norms and institutions. >> right. we did not. >> see any. >> senators, any republican senators stand up for the norms and institutions of. >> the cabinet secretaries. >> there are article two responsibility. they were you know, i don't know if they're all in on the maga agenda. >> or scared. >> of the. >> maga agenda, but whatever it is, we did not see them. >> stand up for. >> the norms and. >> institutions that we. >> love so dearly in this country. and so it falls to the democrats. and i think there's a real anger in this country. and we've seen it. there's a punter called chris kluwe who's been

talking about it in these town hall meetings. there's a there's this kind of. >> and i'm. >> not sure that. democratic politicians. >> see it or. >> even understand it or even. >> like it. >> you know. >> they have. >> really pushed back against this groundswell of people. but you're seeing throughout the country protests and a lot of anger. and remember, these cuts haven't even really. >> happened yet. >> so we still have this fulsome federal government. it is going to be the cuts they're talking about are humongous. and remember 30% of the federal government is veterans. so you're going to see a lot of jobless veterans. and i have trouble imagining that the people who are so angry are going to feel better when they are confronted with the reality of lots of local jobless veterans. >> i think it would have been quite a newsflash to the gentleman that stood up in that kansas meeting talking about veterans, that he was a big city

slicker that came in from a mercedes, in a mercedes, or the second guy who spoke, who was wearing a us army shirt. i mean, i don't know, maybe roger marshall is now going to say that prime time fox news hosts who are complaining about veterans being fired from the pentagon after serving this country honorably for 20 years. i wonder if senator marsh would say that their big city, big city slickers, you know, we've all seen town hall meetings and we've all seen things where you have people from the outside that come in to make a point. i you know, you also can tell when it's a groundswell. we saw it in 2009. during the obamacare debate, we saw people like claire, our own claire mccaskill going out, and thousands of people being there complaining about not being able to keep their own doctor. we saw that across the country when in the

1990s, we had to make some pretty tough cuts to balance the budget. you know, i had people that supported me the entire way saying, balance the budget, joe, balance the budget show. the second we started to balance the budget and started to make cuts. people showed up at the town hall meetings. what you did is you sat there, you listened. you explained what you were trying to do. and if there was any way that you could round off the sharpest of the edges, you took that as a great chance to learn and take it back to washington and your subcommittees, your committee on the house floor. that's how democracy works. that's how our constitutional republic works. you got these republicans running out of town hall meetings scared? that's a bad sign. you don't you you don't want to do that. you listen to your constituents and you respond. and even jackie, even republicans on capitol hill, i know you know this, but

i mean report. tell us what your reporting has shown, have complained about the doge cuts being, well, first of all, not being transparent, the process not being transparent, but also being so random that you do get the wrong people fired at times. and now a lot of republicans very concerned about massive cuts in medicaid, when anywhere from 33 to 50% of children in red state america, in rural america actually get their health care from medicaid. >> there are. >> certainly a lot. >> of complaints. >> about sort of the philosophical approach here and some of. >> the decisions. >> that are being. >> made that. >> are really. >> anathema, i think, to the maga movement. >> for example. >> why hasn't defense spending been targeted. >> the way. that that some of these other areas. have been. >> targeted right now? >> i mean. >> there are. >> there's. >> a huge constituency. >> in the america. >> first. >> movement that has.

>> wanted to. >> slash the sort of what they. >> call the industrial defense industry. >> and. >> they're not. >> seeing. >> that happen, but they're they're now seeing issues that directly affect their. >> constituents happening. >> and. >> joe, i mean. >> you. >> you you. >> know. >> this firsthand. >> i mean, this. >> is. >> legislating in congress 101 when. >> you. >> know. >> there are some things that you can sort of avoid on a national level. but when you're at these town. >> halls and you're you're in. >> the district and these things. >> are bubbling up. >> right off the bat. >> from constituents. >> that's when. >> you know that. >> that there is a. >> problem bubbling there. >> my colleague. >> emily. >> davies wrote an incredible. >> piece about a national. >> park service. ranger who was fired. >> during the first round of cuts, who voted for. donald trump because she thought she was going to get free in. >> vitro. >> fertilization through the government. this profile. >> goes through. >> how she is now. regretting that vote. >> i think there are. >> lots. >> of people. >> like. >> her. >> that we're going. >> to. >> keep. hearing from in the next few months. >> years. >> and some of those folks will be populating the capitol tonight as guests of democratic

lawmakers. jackie alemany, thank you so much. and we absolutely look forward to you coming on board as an msnbc washington correspondent and co-host of msnbc's the weekend. congrats again. >> thanks, jon. >> all right. still ahead here on morning joe, we'll dig into the emerging education gap in the united states between boys and girls. nbc's morgan radford joins us with with her new reporting on the changes some educators are making in hopes of closing that gap. morning joe is closing that gap. morning joe is back in just a moment. at&t has a new guarantee. because most things in business are not guaranteed. like a distraction-free work environment. -yeah,i'll circle back around. -get those steps in, kevin. your coworkers keeping things confidential. [phone ringing] oh, she's spilling all the tea. ♪♪ or office etiquette. yeah, that's not guaranteed. i know you can see me! you know what at&t guarantees? connectivity you depend on, the deals you want, and the service you deserve. can i get that logo bigger? or we'll make it right. that's the at&t guarantee.

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>> philadelphia. >> el paso. >> and the palisades, virginia. >> from msnbc. >> world headquarters. >> here in new york. >> there is a lot going on tonight. you've been in these rooms. how are you digesting it, and how do you think the world is digesting what trump is saying? what are people saying to you in new jersey about doge and what they're seeing? musk and his team do here. what are the global politics for some of these leaders, and why do you see them stating the opposite of what the united states president has stated? >> welcome back. first lady melania trump lobbied lawmakers on the hill for the first time yesterday over her support for a bill that combats revenge porn. the legislation, co-sponsored by senators ted cruz of texas and amy klobuchar of minnesota. so it is bipartisan. it would make it a federal crime to post intimate photos of someone real or not, without their consent.

the bill would also require social media companies to remove any posted intimate images on their platforms within 48 hours of being flagged. the legislation, as noted, already passed the upper chamber upper chamber with bipartisan support, but it now must go through the house. meanwhile, for years, we've seen data showing that boys and young men are falling farther and farther behind in their education. girls are now outpacing boys in the classroom and have and it's having long lasting effects. one study showing boys are less likely to graduate high school on time by as much as 10% in some states. now, some schools are starting to make changes in the hopes of combating this trend. let's bring in nbc news correspondent and news now anchor morgan radford, with a look at some of those changes. morgan, good to see you. is this becoming a national trend? >> it is becoming a trend and in some pretty creative and

interesting ways. schools are starting to address this in unique ways. and really look at the. fact that boys and young men are learning. and how they're learning differently. >> and how they can ultimately thrive. so we visited one. >> school that went all in on helping boys learn from. >> the. >> playground to the classroom. it's just past 8 a.m. here at. >> boys latin school in. >> baltimore. >> and while the classrooms. >> are empty. >> the school. >> is buzzing with activity. >> in the mornings we. have open gym for like play basketball. >> scale modeling. the reason? >> a wave of changes designed to solve a growing gender. >> gap in. >> education with boys at least half a. >> grade level behind. >> their female peers in reading in nearly every u.s. state, and nearly 1 million fewer young men heading off to college compared to their female counterparts. which is why, starting last year, this private all boys school. decided to do something about it with three big changes. a ban on cell phones. a first

period for activities and more time. >> for. >> hands on projects away from desks. >> show of hands. how many of you think these changes have been positive? >> all of you. >> yeah, i've been getting. >> better grades. i've also been happier in class. >> why do you think. >> you've been happier? >> because before, i was just, like, tired. and i didn't want to be at school. when i got woken up, i just feel like i'm ready for the day. >> we hear a lot of. >> discussions out in the world about how young men are. >> isolated, how young men. >> are angry, how young men are lonely. >> do you. >> see that playing out. >> in the world? >> i can't. >> really speak on loneliness, but. >> it does take. away a lot of negative emotions like anger, anxiety. >> if you don't have your phone. >> if you don't have your phone. yeah. >> it really just helps us all feel like we're connected and together. >> the american dream. >> headmaster. >> chris post, calls a win win. >> how much does. >> it cost. to make changes like these? >> it costs virtually nothing. a

few hundred dollars for a phone locker and for plastic tubs to. put your phone in. >> are these changes working? >> absenteeism is. >> probably lower. >> year on year. >> certainly there are fewer and. >> fewer student lateness. >> kids are excited. >> to come to school. >> the change. >> is. >> part of a growing nationwide movement to make education. more boy friendly. >> spurred in. >> part by a new organization called the american institute. >> for boys and men. >> the alarm bells are ringing now in classrooms, which is to say, just our boys aren't doing well enough. there are twice as many girls at the top of the class in the top 10% as there are boys. boys are much more likely to be suspended, much less likely to finish school on time. so the overall story is pretty clear that our education system is not serving our boys well enough. >> what would you say to critics who. >> say. >> look. >> girls could benefit from these changes too? >> why is this. >> specific to. >> young men? >> we want to find ways that lift everybody up, but which particularly offer a helping

hand to those who are falling furthest behind. and in schools, that's very clearly. boys. >> when you talk about boys being on sort of the lower end of this so-called gap in society, as you. >> mentioned, people in this political. >> moment might. >> call that d-i. they might say, well, why then would you sit here. >> and make accommodations for the group that is falling. >> behind, in this case, young men, and. >> that this is really just a. cultural issue? >> yeah, it's very interesting moment to be having this conversation, because that is something that that we're hearing in our work now sometimes. but data driven dei or whatever you want to call it, is just good policy. but it's very important that it's driven by the data. >> by looking at. >> my hair. >> for michael palmisano and his son, blake. have you noticed a change in your son since he's enrolled here? >> yes, very. >> much so. i've seen him ready to go to school instead of kind of retreating and pulling back. and i think so much of that is

that they let boys be boys, and they just. >> go. >> all in on that. >> all in on. >> a new high. >> school experience. >> and the expert you just. >> heard from, richard reeves, he really. >> stresses throughout. >> his writing that. >> this is not a culture war issue. >> and he's. >> careful to. >> point out. >> that these differences between. >> young men and women are, on. >> average. >> which means. >> acknowledging those exceptions in testing and learning ability that can fall within. >> frankly. >> any group. >> nbc's morgan radford with a very important story. morgan, thank you so much. coming up here on morning joe, some of the other stories making headlines across the country, including one high ranking texas official who is looking to rename new york strip steaks. we'll tell you why. next morning, jog right back. >> i am not just. searching muddy paws, dirty shoes. >> and endless. >> cleaning your floors.

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little bundle. >> of weird. >> by ollie. >> and we'll end now with two

other stories making headlines this morning. as the measles outbreak continues in texas, a second case has now been reported in new york city. the cases are unrelated, according to health officials. this comes as three cases have been reported in neighboring new jersey as well. now in texas, nearly 150 cases have been reported since late january. and texas lieutenant governor dan patrick wants the state to change the name of new york strip steaks. he says the state senate will file a resolution renaming it the texas strip, because the state has the most cattle in the us. patrick, we should have more important things to do, like the measles outbreak. defended the proposal on social media, writing liberal new york shouldn't get the credit for our hard working ranchers. will new york respond to the fate of texas toast up in the air? that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up our coverage after a quick

up our coverage after a quick final [birds chirping] [dog growls] ♪♪ ♪ who knows what tomorrow ♪ ♪ will bring ♪ [dog barking] ♪ maybe sunshine, ♪ [dog whining] ♪ and maybe rain ♪ ♪ but as for me ♪ ♪ i'll wait and see ♪ [knock at door] ♪ and maybe it'll bring my love to me ♪ ♪ who knows ♪ ♪ who knows ♪ ♪♪ we always loved cooking, and we found a restaurant that let us get in with no business background. then one customer came along, put us on tiktok, and the next night there was about 300 cars in line. to be able to have 28 employees, and everybody's paid well, it just makes us feel so much more accomplished that we can take our team and have them grow with us. we wanted to build a legacy, and that's exactly what we're doing on tiktok.

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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. chambers of congress. rachel maddow and team will break. >> down the speech and its impact at home and abroad. >> the joint. address to congress. special coverage tonight. >> at eight 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? >> 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