Morning Joe - DHS officers who shot Pretti were placed on administrative leave

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

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Do you trust Tom Homan? Well, look, this is a tough one. And what I said to folks here and folks on the street were saying this, and I agree with them, is I said Tom Homan is more of a professional. But the fear I have with that is, is it we going to get more of the same, but more efficient? All right, Governor Tim Walsh, weighing in on the change in leadership for the Trump administration's ICE operations in his state. Meanwhile, there is more contradictory information coming out of the top. Department of Homeland Security with the agency now claiming the agents who shot and killed Alex

Prattie have been on administrative leave since Saturday. It comes as the Department of Justice is racking up legal losses in Minnesota's federal courts amid challenges to immigrant detentions. MS Now senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin will join us in just a moment. Plus, will go through an alarming FBI raid yesterday in Fulton County, Georgia, tied to President Trump's fixation on his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Another concerning angle to that story, Director of National Intelligence Tulsa Gabbard, was with agents as they carried out the search warrant, raising questions about why she was there and prompting sharp criticism from the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. And we'll bring you the big moments from Secretary

State Marco Rubio's testimony yesterday, defending the administration's capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. A lot going on this morning. Good morning and welcome to Morning, Joe. It is Thursday, January 29th. A lot of different angles across the country to get to Willie, but I think we still continue our top story being right out of Minnesota. Yeah, without question. As you mentioned, Homeland Security now says two officers who shot and killed Alex Pretti on Saturday were immediately put on paid administrative leave. We've been wondering about that.

That's according to official with direct knowledge of the situation. The administrative leave was for three days with the option for the officer to take additional time off. The official said the agents since have met with a mental health professional. that's Border Patrol's standard operating procedure for any employee involved in a fatal incident. Both officers will be placed on desk duty upon their return as the investigation continues. That's also per policy. But it's still unclear if they now have returned to work. This all contradicts what former Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino said on Sunday,

telling reporters the officers involved were still working but had been moved out of Minneapolis. For more on this, let's bring in the co-host of our 9 a.m. hour staff writer at The Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, MS Now Senior Legal Reporter and Former Litigator Lisa Rubin, and MS Now Investigative reporter Mark Santia. Good morning to you all. Mark, let's start with you on this question that we've been asking yesterday. Where are these officers? Are they still out on the streets of Minneapolis?

The answer in the immediate aftermath of the shooting was no. Are they back on the streets now is the question. Yes. So one official, Willie, with direct knowledge, told us if those agents return to work, it would be modified duty, meaning we were told they would not be, they would not have field work. So it would be desk duty. It would not be out in the community. That's as this investigation continues. So that's what one official with direct knowledge told us. They said they were placed on paid administrative leave. They were offered, or the two agents who fired shots did meet with a health professional.

And again, as you said, that's standard operating procedure for the border patrol. The other officers, the other agents who are at the scene, they were also offered the ability to meet with a mental health professional But as of right now, the two officers who fired shots were told they are not in the community. They're not working field work. If they are back, they'll be at the desk, modified duty. Now, also yesterday, the president and the mayor of Minneapolis back and forth on social media, the mayor taking an ex saying the job of our police is to keep people safe, not enforce fed immigration laws. I want them preventing homicides, not hunting down a working dad who contributes to Minneapolis and is from Ecuador.

The president on true social said, quote, in part, surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Frye just stated that Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws. That's after having a very good conversation with him. Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that statement is a very serious violation of the law and that he's playing with fire? But Willie, this is something that we're seeing across the country, different sanctuary cities. This is not specific to Minneapolis, L.A., New York. the local police will work with the feds on guns, on drugs, on different task forces.

But they draw the line when it comes to immigration enforcement. LAPD telling us just last week that they'll stand a perimeter, they'll make sure that people are safe, but they don't interact. And they also told us they don't know when these federal operations happen. The local police aren't given a heads up. There's no courtesy call. Many times you'll hear that on a search warrant, just a heads up, hey, they're going to be on Smith Street. they don't get that. They don't have that with federal immigration enforcement, and they keep their distance. So this is not specific. And by the way, it's not just the mayor and the governor saying,

ICE, please stay away. It's the police chief in Minneapolis who said, please, you've been here, you've wreaked havoc on our city. Please leave. Back to the administrative leave, it does raise the question again, why the top of these operations just giving out bad information, which Greg Bevino sort of defiantly in the hours after said, yeah, these guys are still. still outworking. Was he lying about that? Did he not have good information about that? Why, as we've heard from Christy Nome at the top, this is a domestic terrorist, came to massacre people, all not true in the end. Why would Bevino say that in those early hours? Yeah, that I don't have an answer for. I think what we're hearing from different sources in the agency is sometimes

Bovino will move on sort of Bovino's own pace, Bovino's own time. But before, you know, before press conferences come out before messaging comes out. Usually what we've seen in the law enforcement is there's a meeting. People sort of compare notes in this situation, and we've seen multiple times that doesn't happen. Vica? Well, and Willie, to your point, Bovino's bad information, and that's being kind. Christy Nome's lies, the apparent defamation of the person killed in both cases, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. What that does, that rush to judgment and the defamatory statements, it destroys the public trust. Most members of the public, if they follow the news closely or if they're busy, they understand the need for an investigation

before you make such a disgusting statement about a person. And back to being on administrative leave, that would have helped to let the public know that the two shooters in the case of Alex Prattie were taken out of the field. But of course, that wasn't given to the public until now, which leads me to ask, Mark, what about the ICE agent who killed Renee Good, who apparently had been traumatized in an incident months before where he was hit, by a car and severely injured and was a little upset, according to the vice president of the United States. That was his excuse for the guy pulling the trigger. He was a little upset and thought maybe the car was going to hit him. Why was he out in the field and is he out in the field?

What do we know about him? We're waiting to hear more about him, Miko. We reached out. We did reach out with that specific incident. Still waiting to hear back on that. Every agency, we're told in the federal government, they have different standards, different rules. as if their agent or officer engages in deadly fire, deadly force. So we know for Border Patrol, that's an immediate administrative leave for three days. Again, so we're still waiting to hear back on the federal officer who killed Renee Good. And we're hoping to get that today. Meanwhile, when it comes to immigration detention hearings in Minnesota federal courts, Lisa has been part of the MSN now team reviewing those cases. And of the 61,

that came before judges last week. The Department of Justice and Immigration Enforcement lost all but one. So, Lisa, what are we talking about specifically here? What kind of cases are these? We're talking about what's called habeas cases, and technically that means basically a petition to be released. We're talking about immigrants who were detained,

almost all of them as part of Operation Metro Surge. And our colleague Fallon Gallagher and I had this idea. We know that what's been happening on the streets of Minnesota is extraordinary. And we have seen some high-profile cases, including the one brought by Minnesota and the Twin Cities, to block the continued operation of metro surge. But what else is going on in those courts? So we took a look at the habeas cases, decided over a one-week period.

As you noted, there were 61 of them. And 60 of them, the immigrants won. And what they won was either their release in 40 of these cases, or they got an order from a judge saying, you have to have a bond hearing for these people. If you don't have a bond hearing, you must release them an X number of days in some of the cases. But 40 of the cases, 40 of these 61 cases, you have federal district judges in Minnesota saying, this person must be released. Why? Because either there was no administrative or judicial warrant when you arrested them. You didn't give them the hearing to which they were entitled by due process. And in many of the cases that we saw,

Willie, I think these are the most heartbreaking of all. People had reason to be in the country lawfully. We found one case of someone who is a DACA recipient. That's the deferred action for childhood arrivals. So the dreamer cases, we had one DACA recipient. We had someone who had a determination that they were a victim of violence under the Violence Against Women Act and therefore had authorization to work and remain in the country lawfully. We also found instances where people were taken literally as they were going to pick up medication. There was one woman, a Kenyan woman, went to a CVS to pick up her seizure medication, taken. right there. And in all of these cases, judges of both political stripes of varied professional

backgrounds are saying, this is enough, this may not happen. We were shocked at both the quantity and the results of this body of cases. And Lisa, it's so important to highlight these individual cases, these human stories, as you say, to put a real face on what is happening there. But also, there is the big picture matter about challenges to whether ICE even has constitutional authority to be in there in the state of Minnesota right now. Where does that stand? is a big sweeping cases that pit feds versus state. So, as you noted, there is this one case before Judge Kate Menendez, one of the same judges who decided these immigrant positions that we were looking at.

That is still pending. The state and the Twin Cities have asked her for a temporary restraint order to block ICE from continuing the operation of Metro Surge and barring that to put a bunch of limits around what ICE and CBP can do on the streets as they're continuing that operation. Last night was the last opportunity for them to put. put in papers before her. She had asked for some supplemental briefing after a multi-hour oral argument earlier in the week. We expect that we could get a decision, Jonathan, as early as today.

But she said earlier in this week, please do not mistake the time I take writing this opinion for any less of a sense of urgency on my part. Because it's so important that I get it right, I am going to take the time I need to make sure that I do. Lisa, in these 60-some cases that you looked at in Minneapolis, I'm just looking down a list of them. And we're talking about procedural matters of no warrants and not acting correctly. But also, it's just to underlines the point that they're not going after the worst of the worst as promised. These are not this list anyway. These are not murderers and rapists.

These are DACA recipients. These are asylum seekers. It's a Kenyan woman going to CVS to get her seizure medication. The list goes on and on and on. This is not a list of the worst of the worst. Yeah, I was going to say, we found one case where the judge said no. That was a case where the person had come here lawfully. They had refugee status. They had entered the United States legally. And then they committed real crimes. They had convictions for aggravated robbery and for first degree assault. That is a person to whom the judge said, no, I'm not going to release you. What is going on here is in fact lawful and constitutional. But by and large, repeatedly we see situations where the judges are saying no criminal history. The circumstances of the person being taken off the street is not lawful. To me, this undersclusive. much of what we are seeing from our reporting on the streets and what we're hearing from the men and

women on the street that folks like Alex Tabin and Jacob Sovoroff have been talking to. When they say they're out on the street protesting because ICE is doing something wrong in their community, this body of cases seems to underscore that point. Great reporting here. Thanks so much for bringing it to us. MS Now senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Thank you. MSN now investigative reporter, Mark Santia. Thank you for your reporting as well. Mika. Let's bring in MS now senior political and national reporter Jacob Soberoff, who joins us live from Minneapolis. And Jacob, you spoke with Minnesota Governor Tim Walsh. What did he tell you?

Yeah, Mika, the big question I think on the ground here is what will the arrival of Tom Homan, one of the architects of the family separation policy during the first Trump term portend, will it be an operational shift from Greg Bovino's literal throwing interior? gas canisters of killing of American citizens, of terrorization of the people of the city of Minneapolis and St. Paul as well. And so that's where I started with Governor Walls when I went to see him for his first sit-to-up interview since the killing of both Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretty. We had a wide-ranging conversation, but I wanted to start with Homan. Here's a little bit of what he said. Do you trust Tom Homan? Well, look, this is a tough one. And what I said to folks here and folks on the street were saying this, and I agree with them is, is it, I said Tom Holman is more of a professional. Tom Holman called me, not something Brevino or

Nome would ever do. But the fear I have with that is, is it we going to get more of the same, but more efficient at this oppression? Well, he was one of the most extreme people when it comes to immigration policy in the federal government. That's right. And I think that's the fear. I think right now, though, that Tom Homan's taken his marching orders from the president. And what I understood and the reason that I believe there's an opportunity for something to do here, because just to be very clear, what the White House wants is for these scenes on the streets to stop because it's tanking their approval ratings and according to the president, it looks bad. If Tom Holman does anything here that makes that continue on, the president's going to be on him.

I think that there's a lot of people who are very skeptical, obviously, about Tom Homan's arrival here, given his track record, given what he said to me on the second day of the rating. here in Los Angeles when they started in June that someone was going to die. And not only has someone died, two American citizens have died, as have many migrants in some of these operations from California all the way across the country. And Donald Trump has backed up Tom Homan all along. They stood side to side at the Republican National Convention. Tim Walls had the opportunity to speak with the president of the United States, as you guys

know. And I want to know a little bit more about what that conversation sounded like. here's what Governor Walls told me. What else did he say to you, other than saying he wanted to work together? I mean, what did he tell you about? What did you talk about? He told me that he doesn't understand what's wrong with Minnesota. I don't know what's wrong with you people.

I said nothing's wrong with Mr. President. We're one of the most effective states and one of the best places to live. And he told me that, well, look to him, we did this in New Orleans. We did it in Louisville. There's no problems. And I said, you didn't kill anybody in Louisville or New Orleans. And the operation here looks very different from that. And then he told me it was successful in Venezuela.

He talked to you about Venezuela. He did. I'm not sure what gave him the indication that at this point in time, what's happening to my state that I'm interested in Venezuela, but he told me how well that went, which really was strange to me was he saw an operation in Venezuela against a foreign nation. In the same context, he saw an operation against a U.S. state and a U.S. city. I thought that that was a fascinating bit of information.

about that phone call shared by Governor Walls, that, Meek it that the President of the United States, in his estimation, is looking at Minneapolis and St. Paul and the operations here, just like the ones he conducted in Venezuela using the U.S. military, as if this city in the Midwest is some sort of foreign target in a foreign country. Yeah, yeah. You know, that's, again, brings us back to the question, what's wrong with Minnesota, which is absolutely ludic. I mean, if you, I think what Minnesota is asking for at the very, very least is that ICE follows the law, that ICE coordinates with local officials, that ICE lets the state investigate what happens in their state, especially when U.S. citizens are murdered on the street. And what's wrong with Minnesota? I don't think there's anything wrong with Minnesota. I think there might be some. wrong with ICE. I think that's what everyone's concerned about here. And if you look at the

reporting that you've done, what judges have ruled, federal judge said, please don't destroy the evidence. Well, how about give the evidence to the state so they can do an investigation? Carol Lennox reporting that Minnesota's chief judge says that ICE has violated court orders more times this month than some federal agencies having their entire existence. The problem's not Minnesota, Mr. Homan. And, I mean, Tom Homan has a history of doing a job like this under different administrations. He has the capacity to do it well. The question is, will he?

And what did you get from that interview in terms of, you know, is his intention to change the procedures that are playing out across the state? that are inciting fear, violence, chaos, or are we going to see more of the same? My sense is more of the same. I think that this is a change of personnel, not of policies and procedures, unfortunately. Tom Homan is one of the most extreme voices in the Trump administration when it comes to immigration policy. He was one of the intellectual founding fathers of the family separation policy, as Caitlin Dickerson pointed out in her Pulitzer Prize-winning article, about the policy. And so I said, you can watch the full interview online, but I said to Governor Walls, you know, respectfully, don't you think it's a little naive to think that

being optimistic and being hopeful about a postural change on the ground, just because Tom Holman comes in is something that's going to happen. And I think he admitted as much, and he's trying to stay optimistic, but optimism is not what got us here, was the people that came out to the streets. It's the people that protested this. It's what stopped family separation in the first place in 2018, and it's what also in the governor's estimation made Donald Trump send Greg Bovino packing from here and bring Tom Holman in in the first place. But Stephen Miller is still in charge in Washington. Stephen Miller is the one who is pushing the largest mass deportation campaign in American history modeled after that 1954 program that deported a million Mexicans

and some Americans. And as I said, now we've seen American citizens killed here in addition to migrants being killed in these operations. And this is what they've telegraphed all along. It's what is continuing. The operations are still continuing me on the ground here today. And so we're supposed to hear from Tom Homan this morning here in Minneapolis. We'll see what he says. Hopeful, I guess. MS. Now senior political and national reporter, Jacob Soberoff, thank you so much for your reporting. We really appreciate it. So new video appears to show 37-year-old nurse Alex Prettie, who was killed by 30.

federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday in a separate altercation with federal immigration agents 11 days before his death. We don't know what happened in the events leading up to the incidents, but here's the footage. It shows Preti wearing some of the same clothes as Wes when he was killed, cursing at federal agents and spitting at one as they are getting into a car. When the agents begin to drive away, Prattie kicks and breaks one of the vehicle's tail line. The agents then get back out of the car and wrestle pretty to the ground for about 20 seconds before letting him go. The news movement outlet who shared the video say they worked with the BBC to verify which used facial recognition software to determine within 97% confidence that it is pretty in the video. Two government officials confirmed to MS now that the video is being reviewed by investigators, but if not confirmed,

whether or not the person is Prattie. And Willie, some on the right have pounced on this video with Craven Abandon, saying that this is proof that Prattie deserved to die. Some far-right podcasters who also have law degrees, just embarrassing the institutions where they got those degrees, connecting Prattie's killing to his behavior before. he was killed or carrying a gun saying that, you know, they wouldn't be dead because they wouldn't go to a protest with an open carry legal weapon in their holster. And therefore,

somehow Alex Preddy, given that video or even the seconds that you see leading up to his killing, somehow deserved it. I mean, I know it's hard to imagine, but there are people saying this and using their platforms to spread this hatred. Yeah, I mean, in the desperate search by some partisan hacks to find a justification for the shooting death in the streets of Alex Pretti, some of them think they've found something in the video that you just played and described. That was 11 days before Alex Pready was shot. It was also in Minneapolis. It does look like him based on his clothes and his appearance.

And BBC says they've all but verified 97% that. it's him. All those things are true and maybe not the way you or I would have behaved at a rally or a protest or whatever it is. But my God, are you suggesting because he heckled officers and then kicked in their taillights that 11 days later he deserved to be effectively executed in the streets of the city? Is that the case you're making? That's insane. Yeah, it is. I mean, how in good faith? How can you make that case? And it also, Jonathan Lemire, shows 11 days earlier, those agents, when confronted by Alex Pretti, they subdued him, they got him on the ground,

and then they released him. They did not fire eight to nine shots into his body. Yeah, now that's a good point. Even that, watching those images, it feels like, these are people, agents are dressed for war. Their head to toe and camouflage, tear gassing folks left and right. That, to many, would still seem extreme, but it's non-lethal, and they brought Mr. Pretti down and eventually let him go. And yes, he kicked the taillight off.

of that car. Perhaps in that could be a vandalism charge of some sort or some other very minor misdemeanor. But regardless, no matter what he did then, nothing is warranted of what happened to him 11 days later. He did certainly nothing this past Saturday to necessitate being shot repeatedly on the ground in the back after already having been disarmed. And I think that's the bigger story here, to your point. Perhaps this is not how many people would have conducted themselves in that moment. It's also no excuse whatsoever for what then happened. And it's a bad faith effort by some on the right to suggest, oh, this wasn't any kind of choir boy, even though he literally was, and that he was an instigator and brought upon himself what happened to him 11 days later.

And it's the ultimate example of what these ICE agents are doing, breaking through laws and different boundaries that are set up to have us live in a fair and free society. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll get to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's day on Capitol Hill as he was grilled by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about the administration's actions in Venezuela. Plus, we're learning this morning about the FBI executing a search warrant at the Fulton County Election Office. We'll tell you more about that. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Accuethers, Bernie Raynow. Bernie, how's it looking? I'm Nick. I sound like a broken record, and now I'm dating myself.

No one has records anymore, but it's just cold across the northeast, but it is going to be dry. Your acuether exclusive forecast, temperatures in the 20s, cloud some sun, a couple of flurries near the lakes. Now, the southeast, bright sunshine, not quite as cold as what we've seen, but it's still chilly. 48 degrees, Atlanta, 56 in Dallas, beautiful weather in Miami. Speaking of beautiful your exclusive Aque Weather travel forecast, I'm not looking at any delays. They help you make the best decisions and be more in the know. Download the Acky Weather off today. The FBI executed a search warrant at the Fulton County Georgia Elections Office yesterday,

a spokeswoman for the county confirming to MS Now agents at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center were focused on the 2020 race where Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump and flipped the state. Agents search for evidence of alleged voter fraud and potential violations of a federal statute that requires officials to maintain presidential election records for 22 months. That's according to a copy of the warrant obtained and verified by MS now. Fulton County has been the epicenter, as you know, of President Trump's long-running conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him. An inaccurate claim he repeated again just last week in Davos. It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.

It's probably breaking news, but it should be. It was a rigged election. Can't have rigged elections. Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was spotted visiting the elections office during the search, raising lots of eyebrows. There she is in the hat. Intelligence Committee, Vice Chair, Senator Mark Warner, Virginia, slamming Gabbard for attending the raid, writing in part, she's, once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for the office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she's supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy. This all comes just one month after the Department of Justice sued the county and as President Trump pushes for more than $6 million in attorney's fees from the now dismissed Georgia criminal election case. Let's bring

an MS now senior national security reporter David Rode. David, good morning. Extraordinary, obviously, that the Director of National Intelligence would have anything to do with this domestic raid, execution of a search warrant by the FBI in Fulton County that fits into this larger picture of an election now more than five years in the past that Donald Trump is fixated on. What more do we know about how this came to be and what went down yesterday? We know very little, and that's part of what's so alarming. It's just a raid that happens very quickly. And Tulsi Gabbard's presence there as the director of the director, this is the equivalent of the CIA director showing up in a county election warehouse and taking possession of all the ballots that were cast there. And, you know,

if a Democratic CIA director did this, there would be immediate concerns about, you know, some kind of conspiracy theory. And I just want to repeat dozens of judges, federal judges, you know, her Trump appointees, the Supreme Court all agreed that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. President Trump is wrong. You know, he continues to claim this. He can't accept it, I guess, personally. And so it's just extraordinary that we're back at this point. And their target of their ire is the Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger,

who received a phone call from Trump asking him to find votes. So these are Republicans that are, you know, saying these are, you know, this is the results of the election. And you have the federal government coming in. There's a state law that bans, Brad Raffensberg or the Secretary of State from turning over these voter records, the privacy information of Americans that should not go. That's state's rights. A big Republican credo. All of this is just alarming and, you know, a really dangerous precedent as we approach the midterms. Johnny wrote an entire book about this, the big lie. In Georgia, the vote was counted three times by Republicans in the state. Republican Secretary of State.

Republican governor, they all said, we counted, we counted again for you, President Trump, and we counted a third time by hand. You lost the state of Georgia. And judges, as David points out, have upheld that notion as well. And yet here we are in the year 2026 with federal agents going into Fulton County, Georgia to look for more information on this conspiracy theory. We all remember the phone call that President Trump made to Georgia's Secretary of State, say, find me the votes, listed the 11,000 or so that he needed to actually flip Georgia. This can't be said enough. This is extremely dangerous. This is certainly still relitigating 2020 in election Donald Trump lost, but he has spent all morning, he was up very early, on true

social, reposting wild baseless conspiracy theories about the election, and just a few minutes ago chined in, in his own words, Trump won big, crooked election. So he is still not let go of what happened in 2020. He seemed to shadow at foreshadow at Davos that there would be criminal prosecution's coming related to 2020. And David Road, my question to you is, sure, this is about 2020, but for many, the alarm bells are going off because this is actually about 2026 and 28. You know, twin this with Pam Bondi's letter to Minnesota earlier this week saying, we want your voter rolls. Now there's access here. There's growing concern among Democrats about voting rights advocates and those, frankly, who just care about our democracy, that this

administration is going to try to put their thumb on the scale for its upcoming elections. And what they'll do is sort of question the results in many states. There'll be legal battles, and they'll look for a friendly judge that will throw it out, a Trump appointee. And most Trump appointees have actually, you know, have ruled in the right way in these election cases, the factual way. And the concern is that, you know, they'll find one who will do that. We saw that with Aileen Cannon who threw out the classified documents case. But the CIA, again, through the Cold War, had a terrible history in the FBI of surveilling Americans, of surveilling Martin Luther King, groups on the right and the left. And this whole raft of reforms, this is what Senator Warren was

talking about, to make sure these powerful law enforcement and intelligence agencies are run in a non-political way. And you have Tulsi Gabbard, who fell out of Trump's good graces, seeming to do everything she can to investigate and, you know, I fear, you know, prove the president's, quote-unquote, prove the president's conspiracy theory that he just, just can't accept he lost. And so it's just so deeply alarming and so damaging because people aren't going to trust the FBI or the CIA. And we need facts, you know, just to run the country. So, David, I mean, just to Jonathan Lemire's point, I've heard from a lot of elected leaders that the midterms could potentially be a big problem, that the president is obsessed with the

midterms, that the midterm elections could be their focus here, are their focus, to somehow do something like some of the things you just mentioned. Just talk a little bit, if you could, about the president speaking in Davos, about you're soon going to find out, making a connection again, as he has before, with operations within the DOJ and the FBI, that's not how things are supposed to go, is it? No, not at all. And this was the danger. You know, John Mitchell under President Nixon investigated anti-war groups and investigated various groups and people that were seen as enemies of the president. And it's, we're beyond saying the Justice Department of FBI have been weaponized, they're now being weaponized to potentially change the outcome of the midterm elections.

That's potentially it hasn't happened yet, but that's how concerning and serious this is. And it's all these safeguards that were put in place after Watergate are just being eviscerated. And look, because one man, President Donald Trump cannot accept that he lost the 2020 election. And that's just the reality I think that we face here. All right, David, thank you. Coming up, the Federal Reserve will leave interest rates unchanged for the first time since July. Steve Ratner is here to dig into the reasons behind that decision. We will have much more. Morning Joe, when we come back. Beautiful shot of Capitol Hill for you this morning at 44 past the hour. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on Capitol Hill yesterday where he defended the administration's actions in Venezuela and spoke about what comes.

next. In his first public testimony to Congress since the U.S. military captured and arrested Nicholas Maduro, Rubio insisted the mission was not an act of war and said that at this time, Washington does not intend to take any further military action in Venezuela, although he did not completely rule it out in the future. Lawmakers from both parties criticized the lack of transparency ahead of the raid. If there was time to practice, there was time to consult. And consulting with Congress is not just some high-minded principle, not some abstract thing, not a nice to have.

It's a got to have. The truth of the matter is that this mission could not have been briefed to Congress because it wasn't even in the realm of possible until very late in December when all of our efforts to negotiate with Maduro had failed. and the president was finally presented these options that made these decisions. If a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president,

and blockaded our country, would that be considered an act of war? It's hard for us to conceive that an operation that lasted about four and a half hours and was a law enforcement operation to capture someone we don't recognize as a head of state, indicted in the United States, wanted with a $50 million.

My question would be if it only took four hours to take our president, It's very short. Nobody dies on the other side. Nobody dies on our side. It's perfect. Would it be an act of war? We just don't believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of war. But would it be an act of war if someone did it to us? Nobody dies. Few casualties. They're in and out. Boom. It's a perfect military operation. Would that be an act of war? Of course it would be an act of war. I'm probably the most anti-war person in the Senate. And I would vote to declare war if someone invaded our country and took our president. Let's bring in the Council on Foreign Relations, Mike Frommon. Mike, thanks for coming in. Let's start where Rand Paul left off. What did you make of Rubio's testimony yesterday?

And also that interaction with Rand Paul about, you know, notifying Congress, but also whether or not this actually is an act of war. Well, I imagine the answer to Senator Paul's question would be, of course, we would consider it to be an act of war. And there's, look, a longstanding debate between Congress and the executive about when War Powers Act should be invoked. As I recall, when President George H.W. Bush took the action against Noriega there, too. They did not call it an act of war, and they did not go to Congress for advanced approval. But I thought what was interesting about Secretary Rubio's testimony yesterday was really the strategy he laid out for Venezuela, what has been done over the first few weeks since the attack,

and what the pathway is going forward. And there are a lot of open questions about the future of the oil industry there, about the future of democracy and elections there, and what lessons the administration might be taking from Venezuela into other domains, including halfway across the world in Iran. So, David, Secretary of we were playing a little bit of a semantic game with Senator Paul there about what this operation was and what it was not and why they didn't have to inform Congress about what they were doing there.

Was it a convincing argument? Do you feel like he made the case in the room? I didn't feel he did. And one thing, just there was two, there's two steps there. One is informing Congress that they're doing this kind of operation. And there was claims by the administration that they couldn't, you know, would be leaked by Congress. We're only talking about the gang of eight, the eight top officials in Congress.

The gang of eight was brief before the bin Laden raid, which was an incredibly dangerous thing going into Pakistan. And it was a miracle that that went well. So that's just not credible. It's all about, again, a president who wants to do everything on their own and not even let Congress know about anything. And then in terms of the operation, there was 150 aircraft involved in the Maduro operation. They could have been shot down. It was a miracle that there was only one soldier with serious injuries shot twice.

But the Cubans that were on the ground fought back. I had a member of Congress telling me that the helicopter, one helicopter particular, looked like Swiss cheese after the raid because so many bullet holes were in it. So the issue is when American service members are going to be put at risk, Congress should know about it because these are their lives. And so I didn't think his argument held up. And there's still so many questions. This is the future of Venezuela, what it looks like in terms of where the U.S. will need to authorize more military action if the leadership there isn't holding up to their end of the deal with oil and the like. Mike, Furman, we want to switch topics to Iran. There's some steady drumbeats here that pressure increasing and potentially even Reuters reporting President Trump considering military action perhaps to reignite the protests there.

There were, of course, lots of protests a few weeks ago, cracked down upon brutally. They have largely subsided in Iran. The president, though, we were not able to strike a few weeks ago because our assets were too focused at Venezuela. But now, as in his words, an armada is offshore, not too far from Iran. What do you make of this decision the president will be making? Would it be possible to spur? What would be the outcome of strikes? Would this regime actually be in danger?

Well, I think it's very complicated and much more complicated, perhaps, than a Venezuela action. I think taking the armada to offshore Iran is to put pressure on Iran, first and foremost, to come to the table to negotiate around nuclear weapons, nuclear materials, enrichment of nuclear materials, the ballistic missile program, and the support for the proxies. And so far, Iran has resisted those negotiations. And my sense is the administration wants to put at maximum pressure on them to come to the table and deal with those issues. So far, the president has not made much comments about the protests themselves or regime change in Iran. Very unclear

if there were a strike or if there were actions there, would this Ayatollah be replaced by another Ayatollah, by the Revolutionary Guard, or some other force? And so it's a much more complicated situation than in the case of Venezuela. President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Mike Frommon, thank you very much. And MS now is David Rode. Thank you as well. We appreciate your analysis. And still ahead on Morning Joe, we just heard Senator Rand Paul, Grill, Secretary Rubio, about Venezuela, and now he wants the leaders of immigration enforcement to come to Capitol Hill. We'll bring you the Senator's latest comments on that. Also ahead, we'll go through new polling

for President Trump on the ICE operations and his handling of the economy. Morning Joe is coming right back. Beautiful look at Washington, D.C. as the sun comes up over the nation's capital this morning, the Federal Reserve yesterday voted to leave interest rates unchanged for the first time since July. The two Fed governors appointed by President Trump disagreed with the move mirroring Trump's call to lower rates in their dissent. Let's bring in former Treasury official and morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner, who has charts on yesterday's Fed decision. First up, explain the pause, Steve. Yeah, as you said, Mika, the Fed. has been reducing rates pretty steadily since July when they peaked at about almost five and a half

percent. And they've gone down, down, down, down to here. And the Fed has decided to take a pause. And also a couple of things about this. First, the Fed's outlook is that while it will resume cutting rates, only probably one more cut, a quarter of a percentage point this year, another quarter of a percentage point next year. And then mortgage rates, which is very much the focus of the president and everybody else, because they have been so high, do come down. bit with the Fed, but the Fed doesn't directly control them. They're a little over 6% at the moment, and so you shouldn't expect a major decline. This is not obviously going to make it easier for would-be homebuyers, but this is what it is. Why did the Fed do that? In part, because

inflation has not yet quite come down to the Fed's target of 2%. You can see it has drifted down, down to here, but it's sitting at about 2.5% now, and both the Fed and Goldman Sachs don't expect it to get to 2% until after 2007. And so that is kept the Fed from being more aggressive, one of the reasons anyway, from being more aggressive in cutting rates. So despite threats of investigation and everything else, Jerome Powell, leaving rates where they are, disappointing the president for sure. In your second chart, Steve, GDP growth is solid.

That's good news. And that's a number that may factor into your first chart as well. Exactly. So that's another reason why the Fed is not cutting. rates more aggressively. The economy has been surprisingly strong, at least in terms of overall economic growth. You can see here in the second and third quarters, it grew at over 4%. That's a pretty extraordinary rate. It is expected to come down a bit to 2.5% is still a good number in the fourth quarter of last year, and then 3% this year, also a good number. Part of it has been

AI. We don't have that for these projected numbers, but AI has been a significant portion of the growth to date. Another significant portion of the growth to date has been productivity. Productivity means how much an individual worker produces. The more he produces, the more efficient he is, the better it is for the economy, and ultimately for wages. Productivity bounces around. Economists are not great at forecasting it, but you can see here that for the last two quarters, it has been exceptionally strong, well above its average rates. People are not sure exactly why, but I think AI is certainly playing a role in this, and also business tightening its belts in the wake of Trump's tariffs and the general unpredictability of his economic policies has led business to be

more cautious, restrain hiring, which is good for productivity. So that's another positive tailwind for the economy. So Steve, as we go to your third chart, let's talk about employment, Amazon, making big news yesterday with layoff of 16,000 corporate employees. What do the numbers look like across the country? Yeah, so the flip side of strong productivity, growth is companies need fewer workers, and that's what's been happening. You've had quite slow employment growth. This goes back to Liberation Day, which was in April, so starting with the May numbers. You can see that employment growth, which is these blue bars, has been well below the historic average since COVID, all the way up here at almost 200,000 jobs. It's been only about

48,000 jobs, I'm sorry, about 12,000 jobs over this period on average. But also, Powell has said that the statistical collection methods have been a little bit squirrelly, and he thinks job creation has actually been negative over this period, negative by 48,000 jobs. So either way, it's not great news for Americans on the job front, in large part because of these productivity improvements that I talked about. Now, this is translated through, and I know you're going to talk a little bit more later about the economy. This is translated through into consumer confidence. We just got a consumer confidence number the other day from the confidence, from the conference board and can see that it is the lowest reading we've had, including COVID, all the way

back to 2014. So consumers are still very unhappy. They're unhappy about inflation, which still remains above well above 2%. They're unhappy about the job market. They're unhappy about mortgage rates and the whole affordability question. And so even though overall top line economic growth has been pretty good, it is not translated into much benefit for the average worker. All right, morning, Joe, economic analyst, Steve Ratner. Thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. We appreciate it.