Morning Joe - Five-alarm fire: Joe urges voters to focus on Trump's call for 'nationalized' election in 15 states

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Five-alarm fire: Joe urges voters to focus on Trump's call for 'nationalized' election in 15 states To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Unfortunately, you know, we've been warning the administration about the enforcement that's been going on. We thought that there should have been a course correction a long time ago, and now I guess it's going to be forced on us by the Democrats. Unfortunately, we could have done it ourselves. We should have done it ourselves. When you say course correction, what specifically do you want to see happen? What should have happened? We should have been focusing on criminals and gang members and people with active deportation orders. I don't think we should have been focusing on people that have been here for a long time,

grandmothers, et cetera, that happen to be in a neighborhood when you're doing an enforcement action. I think that that was a mistake, and I think it's coming back to haunt us right now. Republican Congressman Carlos Jimenez of Florida, among the growing number of GOP lawmakers, speaking out against ICE operations and its impact on the party. We'll dig more into that just ahead. Plus, we'll go through the president. And Mika, wasn't it interesting, though? I mean, that is a rank-and-file Republican.

You just don't usually hear from rank-and-file Republicans. And, Willie, it's interesting. You saw where he was coming from. He's come from Miami. That's a place that elected their first Democratic mayor since 1993. You have Florida. You've been having Republicans in Florida warning what was going on. I mean, this is, again, this is crazy just a year, year and a half ago.

Republicans were enjoying the kind of success in Hispanic communities that they had not enjoyed since 2004 when George W. Bush got about 45% of the Hispanic vote. Since then, they've been down in the 20s. They jump back up and boom. You look at every poll, the numbers have just dropped precipitously for Republicans and Hispanic communities. Yeah, it's in the numbers. And as you know as well as anyone, Joe, you would not have a Republican Congress and going on television with that message if you were not hearing that loudly from his constituents, from his district, from the people that he serves. And this is the argument that many supporters even of Donald Trump, conservatives, podcast hosts that supported Donald Trump have been saying,

go get the bad guys. That's what you told us you were going to do. Don't go after the families and children and mothers and people at Home Depot parking lots. It's what we've been saying on the show, literally for the past year. And I don't know if people thought we were just like trying to get into Republicans' heads. No, we're trying to help because we love America. said, secure the border and get the bad guys

and send them out of the country. And that's what Americans have wanted all along. They don't want this, Mika, and yet it still continues. You know, it's like they talk a good game, but you're still seeing videos,

you're still hearing all of these things. And again, you know, they're terrorizing people across America. They're terrorizing grandmothers. They're terrorizing little kids. They're terrorizing. even teenagers and facilities. They're doing all these horrible things. And at the end of the day, I mean, who do they think they're helping? Because they're certainly not even helping

themselves. They're getting crushed in campaigns because they're not worried about securing the border, which it's secure. And number two, they're not taking care of the worst of the worst. You know, right now, Cato, a libertarian think tank that's always been seen as a line with the right, with conservatives, Cato says only 7% of the people who are apprehended are the worst of the worst. Are people who've committed violent crimes, only 7%. And that means the rest of those people

that you're seeing like dragged out of grocery stores, dragged out of kindergarten, dragged out of church parking lots, those people are not the worst of the worst, but they're just trying to get their numbers up. That's all it's about. Well, they try to get their numbers up and they fail. Yeah, they terrorize communities

and their own political numbers going down. We're also going to go through President Trump's alarming new comments on nationalizing elections in several states. It comes days after the FBI seized hundreds of boxes of people, ballots and voting records from Fulton County, Georgia. Big news there. We'll also bring you a live report from Arizona. For the latest on the search for Savannah Guthrie's mother, as investigators say she was likely abducted from her home. Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary-State Hillary Clinton now say they will give depositions for a House committee's

investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, but Chairman James Comer of Kentucky is rejecting their offer. We'll try to sort through all of that. So, Joe, big developments on a number of fronts this morning. Yeah. And of course, the one that hits you and Willie and me the most, obviously, has to do with Savannah and her mom, Savannah's family. She's a dear friend of all of ours. And I know Willie has worked with her even more, but, you know, she's been friends of ours for, well, since the show began, she was on the show regularly. And it's Willie, it's just, it's just crushing news. And we pray and have been praying without ceasing for her safe return. And I can tell you that's all Savannah's asking for right now is prayer.

She's, as you both know, she's very proud of her faith. Her mother was too. Her fellow churchgoers called Savannah's siblings when Nancy didn't show up for church on Sunday. This is beyond unthinkable. Shocking doesn't do it justice. Nancy Guthrie, I've had the privilege of getting to know over the last 15 years. Just a kind, sweet, whip smart, faithful woman. And none of us can believe this.

So we're just trying to support Savannah, her husband, her children. Nancy is a great mother and grandmother. And we just prayers, I think, if you believe in prayer, whatever kind of positive energy or love, you can send up this morning. I know Savannah would appreciate it. Yeah, there's no words for what's happening here, but there are many prayers.

With us, with Joe, Willie, and me. We have the co-host of our 9 a.m. hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, MS now Senior National Security Reporter David Road, and opinion calmness for the New York Times, David French. To our top story now, President Trump is escalating his rhetoric ahead of the midterm elections. The president yesterday called for Republicans to take over elections while ranting about his 2020 loss to Joe Biden. He made the comments during an interview with right-wing podcaster and former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino. These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally.

And the, you know, amazing that the Republicans aren't tougher on it. The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked, and they're counting votes. We have states that I won that show I didn't win. Now, you're going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with the court order, the ballots. You're going to see some interesting things come out.

But, you know, like the 2020 election. I won that election by so much. Everybody does it. We will note the president has no constitutional power on the issue of elections. Under the Constitution, the times, places, and manner of holding elections are determined by each state, not the federal government. Congress has only the power to set election rules. So, Joe, the president clearly making it clear that the midterms are of great interest to him. Well, I mean, you know, in the president, of course, lying repeatedly, lying repeatedly, as he's been lying repeatedly since 2020 about losing an election, that he claims he won.

And yet he told people close to him, can't believe that guy beat me. He knew he lost the election. He knows he still lost the election. He knows that he lost George by over 11,000 votes. That's why I asked Brad Raffsonsberger to steal 11,000 plus votes for him. He knows this. He knows this. You know, in 2020, he tried to use it as an excuse to start a riot and seize power and throw out a presidential election. Now in 26, he wants to start using this and start scheming so he can seize the elections in 26 because he knows it right now because of his policies, because of the policies of the Republican Party, the Democrats are in a position to absolutely route Republicans. And when they do,

he'll actually have to be held accountable for his policies and he may have to actually even compromise with Democrats and do what other presidents do and try to get legislation passed. tried to do what Joe Biden was able to do and actually pass a lot of bipartisan legislation. But instead, he started lying and now talking about seizing records. No, no. Jonathan Lemire, it's really, it really is hard to keep count of all the crazy things that are coming out of the White House right now. Just the bizarre things that have been coming out of the White House over the past three, four, five, six months, whether you're talking about tearing down the West Wing or taking over the Kennedy Center,

and then having Rick Grinnell and him run into the ground so much that they have to shut it down for two years because they've so destroyed the financial base of that institution in just a few short months. We could talk about everything. Greenland, we could talk about seizing oil in Venezuela. We could talk about trying to destroy NATO alliances. We could talk about all the billions and billions of dollars as families raking in right now. We can talk about all of that. But it seems to me, well, all of that is critical. This right here is what I think people who actually love democracy and love America like I love America.

And I don't love America if Republicans are in power or if Democrats are in power. I just love America. I love it unconditionally. And can be critical of it and want it to be better and become a more perfect union. But this is one of those moments where the president's trying to do something clearly, clearly unconstitutional. we can't count on the Supreme Court to do anything, but I think maybe they play pickleball. Maybe they built an indoor pickleball court. And maybe that's why John Roberts wants everybody signed NDAs in the Supreme Court, which is really bizarre. But I don't know what they're doing in the Supreme Court. But while the president's talking this way about doing unconstitutional things, seems to me this is a really great place for everybody who loves America and loves American democracy and loves free elections to focus.

because this actually is one of those five alarm fires. Yeah, it's been a dizzying amount of stories and, frankly, nonsense and some of it very dangerous coming out of the Trump administration in recent months. The pace certainly accelerated in the fall, and that you didn't even mention like the ice surges in American cities across this country. But you're right. This is the big lie. This is what fueled the January 6th insurrection.

The President of the United States tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election in 2020. He still will not acknowledge publicly that he lost, and there sure seems to be sense that he's laying the groundwork to interfere with 2026 and 2028. We just heard him in that interview. I'm going to worry. It's worth reading the quote again. He says, quote, the Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places. the Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.

Fifteen places, likely, swing states, important districts that could determine the House or the Senate or in the 2028, the presidential. As we're going to hear more about in a moment, the president even fielded a phone call from Tulsi Gabbard, who is part of that operation, the FBI operation at Fulton County, Georgia. Willie, this is extremely dangerous. And I'll say this show has been focused on it. And a lot of Democrats have, too, that this is, the storyline is what's going to happen with this. midterms because Donald Trump knows if Democrats win, even one house, they're going to have the power of the subpoena, they're going to be able to run investigations into him and his family and his administration. They could theoretically impeach him again for a third time, which is something

that really bothers him. You know, he could be held accountable. And right now, there's real fear, real fear that he and his administration are going to find a way, many ways, perhaps, to put their thumb on the scale. There'll be elections. The question is whether they'd be free and fair. And it may be underway in the state of Georgia already. You heard President Trump say in that soundbite that things are going to be interesting in his word coming out of Georgia. As officials in Fulton County confirm, they now will challenge in court the FBI seizure of those 2020 election documents. The Fulton County Commissioner said yesterday, the county will argue the search warrant used to justify last week's raid of their election facility went beyond the scope of what

federal law enforcement was legally allowed to do. The commissioner argues, that while the FBI is authorized to copy records under a separate court order, agents instead took the original copies, including in-person, absentee, and provisional ballots. Last Wednesday, a team of FBI investigators swarmed the Fulton County election facility near Atlanta, officials taking 700 boxes of ballots and voter information related to the 2020 presidential election. Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was on site during the search, has been leading the White House's ongoing investigation into the 2020 race. President Trump continues to call falsely fraudulent.

Meanwhile, we're learning more this morning about President Trump's actions directly after that FBI raid. The New York Times reports the day after the search of the Fulton County elections facility, Tulsi Gabbard facilitated a call between the president and the FBI team working on the investigation. That's according to three people with knowledge of that meeting. The Times writes this. president addressed the agents on speakerphone, asking them questions as well as praising and thanking them for their work on the inquiry. In a letter to lawmakers who were pressing for more details, Gabbert denied that Trump asked questions or issued directives during the call. The paper also pointed

to the unprecedented nature of the meeting. Rather than going to senior department or FBI officials, Trump spoke directly to the frontline agents doing the granular work of a politically sensitive investigation, which he has a large personal stake. The White House spokesperson defended President's Georgia investigation on the whole, saying he has pledged to secure America's elections. Those 2020 elections were secure, of course, but the Justice Department, the FBI, have declined to comment. So David Rode, go to you first on this, and just the unusual nature, to put it very mildly,

first of the raid, of course, but also of Tulsi Gabbard being there. facilitating this call, sort of a rah-rah way-to-go guys call that you might get from an extraction team or something like that in the military after a successful mission? Yeah, it's extraordinary. And I spoke to former national security officials. The director of national intelligence position was created after 9-11 in 2005. We've had it for roughly 20 years. No other director has ever done anything like this. To go down and participate in law enforcement operations, it's very unusual. And so there's real surprise. at that. And the claim is, and I spoke to her staff yesterday, that they are looking for foreign

interference in the Georgia election. There is no credible evidence of foreign interference in the Georgia election. The president, after these records were seized, was posting late at night, the theories that were talked about in 2020. One involves Italian satellites. Former Attorney General Bill Barr went and investigated that claim in Italy. It's false. There was one other thing he posted about China somehow changing these votes. And just to me, the issue here is just you have more power being concentrated in the president. If Donald Trump succeeds in Republicans nationalize the election and the way this, what we've seen this administration work, Donald Trump will be deciding the deciding

the outcome of elections in 15 states, an unprecedented concentration of power in an American president that's never before happened in our history. David French, appropriate time to mention your latest piece for the New York Times. It's entitled, This is not a drill. In it, you write in part, quote, a president who doesn't care about the law, who commands an obedient Congress and is supported by a radicalized base of tens of millions of people who believe his lies represents a threat to the next election. I fear that millions of citizens are still too complacent. They aren't aware. of the peril we face.

So consider this to be something like a fire drill. It's an alarm. One of thousands that should be ringing across the country. Maga's acts of aggression are already intimidating. Trump isn't just trying to stop the steel again. Another kind of theft might be already underway. Joe, an alarm that you've been sounding. and many of the guests that come on our show who study situations like this have been carefully and methodically pointing how we are headed in the wrong direction and have passed many boundaries.

Well, he passes boundaries every day, especially on this. And of course, you have, and I'm so glad David didn't just talk about Donald Trump, but talked about millions of people who blindly follow him. It's like a cult. You know, these are the people who after January the 6th were outraged and shocked. Because, you know, they used to not like police officers getting the hell beaten out of them. And then Donald Trump told them it was okay to beat the hell out of. cops. So then they forgave him for that. And of course, now you have Republicans celebrating the execution of a man in the streets of Minnesota, Chicago, our Illinois Republicans, you know, glorifying the execution of another American in the street. And you realize that suddenly, all of this election stuff is awfully esoteric. And they're not going to, they're not going to complain about it because they don't complain about anything. their minds are just completely owned by Donald Trump. And so I'm not talking about all people that voted for Donald Trump.

We see the polls. There are some people who actually understand the dangers. But here, David French, again, this is built upon the stupid lie. And it is, it's not even, it's not even, it's not even a smart, there's a stupid lie that the 2020 elections were stolen. 63 federal judges. threw out 63 of Donald Trump's stupid claims that the 2020 election was stolen, including the Supreme Court, including Thomas and Alito, all of them threw it out,

said it was stupid. You had Donald Trump's own administration and the person in charge of elections saying it was the safest, it was the fairest, cleanest election in the history of our constitutional republic. So these aren't even good lies. These aren't even like, like, doesn't even make us do any work. It's right in front of our faces. And now he's basically saying, you got Pam Bondi in Minnesota saying, yeah, we'll stop terrorizing your state if you turn over all your voting files. That's in Minnesota. And now in Georgia, Tulsi, Gabbard? Tulsi Gabbard is now in charge of seizing voters files in Georgia that is so unconstitutional. States run elections, not presidents who are scared their parties going to

lose. And it's not an overstatement at all to say that this looks like what autocratic regimes do. This looks like what Orban does. This looks like what Putin does. This looks like what Putin does. looks like what all the worst of the worst across the world do. And right now, it's happening again in Georgia. Yeah, Joe, one of the things about this that's so frustrating is even after January 6th, even after everything we went through at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, I think there are still people who say, no, this is all bluster. This is all talk. This is what he does. Yeah, he, what he does is he directly describes what he's going to do about elections. What he does is he directly says what's on his mind about elections. And I don't know why people aren't believing him.

I don't know why there isn't more of an outcry here because it's being forecast. It's being broadcast to us all of the intentions right in front of our faces. And so, you know, one of the things that we have to do in response is not just do what we're doing now. amplify and talk about what the real alarm is, but also start to think of concrete things, concrete policies that can be enacted or at least proposed to bring awareness to this and hopefully roll back some of these efforts. But make no mistake, the intentions are very clear and right in front of our faces. So, so, Brendan Island tweeted out last night a couple of headlines. I want to read them to you. Because of people that say, oh, this is just Trump being

Trump. From October 10th, 2020, Ross do that. There will be no Trump coup. He predicts in October 10th, 2020. The final pre-election case for understanding the president has a noisy weekly, not a budding autocrat. Ross, one of those who tries to use his intellectual powers at times to justify the absolute insanity of what's going on constitutioning this report. public. And then Mick Mulvaney, if he loses, Trump will concede gracefully. He'll fight hard to make sure the results are fair. And in the end, he'll accept whatever the results will be. So, David French, please, we've heard it before. We understand what we're up against. We have to make sure that our elections are free and fair. And all of these anti-antrappers, all of these sane

washers, they've already almost destroyed the Republic once on January 6th, 2021 by trying to apologize for the president leading up to it. Well, you know, look, before January 6th, there was a massive failure of imagination, I think, singling out a couple of pieces. I didn't see people predicting storming the Capitol. So there was a lot of failure of imagination that was widespread across the political class before January 6th. That is something that had done. not happened before. Now it's happened. It has happened. And so when that phrase Trump being Trump, which used to mean, oh, all bluster, no action, I think it means something else now. If someone says, oh, that's just being Trump being Trump, I say, yeah, absolutely it is Trump being Trump.

And Trump being Trump as he tries to steal elections. And he talks about it right in front of our faces. There's nothing hidden about it. And so, yeah, that phrase, Trump being Trump, doesn't mean what it used to mean. And David Rode, I mean, this isn't just breaking norms. This isn't just unusual. This is downright dangerous what's happening here in Tulsa Gabbard and her presence with those FBI agents in Fulton County. I know you've been following this and have some reporting as to how DNI is trying to justify what they did to Congress. Yeah. So I spoke yesterday with her her spokesman about this spokesperson, and they said they fight, they cited all these past efforts

by presidents. This includes President Obama and President Biden to guard against foreign interference in the U.S. elections. The problem is, again, there's no evidence of foreign interference in Fulton County, Georgia, but these are the laws that they cited about this, and they feel that they are acting properly. She has the power to do this, but again, no other Director of National Intelligence has done this. They sent me a statement where they tried to justify this. They felt that this was her right under the law to go ahead and do this, that she has the power to do that. It says as Director of National Intelligence, Dean I, Gabbard, has a vital role in identifying vulnerabilities in our critical infrastructure, protecting it against exploitation and coordinating with all

intelligence community elements under her leadership to integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security. The problem with that statement, and sorry, it continues. President's directive to secure our elections was clear, and D&I Gabrid has and will proudly continue to take actions within her authorities alongside our interagency partners, including the FBI, to support ensuring the integrity of our elections. The problem here is, again, it's President Trump directing all this. It is this reference to foreign interference that doesn't appear to exist. The tradition for the entire history of the United States, and as as Mika said earlier, under the Constitution, states control elections.

Republicans have fought fiercely for state control for decades. Mitch McConnell in particular, this all turns that on its head and places all this power and intelligence officials and in the president himself. Republicans have always said elections need to be local, and it's constitutionally. Republicans are controlled by the states, not by Washington, D.C. David, before we let you go, I've got to ask you about the whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard that is apparently concerns national security issues so grave that the DNI doesn't even know how to notify Congress on what this whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard is without severely posing a threat to national security. Now, first of all, nobody's surprised by this. A woman who was longtime

apologist for the Assad regime, a person who seemed to spew talking points from Russia repeatedly being selected for this position is absolutely outrageous, has been outrageous from the very beginning. But now we have a whistleblower complaint that she is trying to kill because she won't let it go to Congress. It talks about her doing something that was such a grave threat to national security. They don't even know how to pass that information along to Congress. What can you tell us about that? Again, Gabbard spokesperson said this is baseless and that former officials, including people that served in the Biden administration, looked into this claim and there is no evidence of it. But that said has been sitting in a safe for eight months. And I spoke to congressional sources.

They said this has not been passed to the oversight committees. Wait, wait, wait. It's been sitting in a safe for eight months, a threat, something that may be such a grave threat to America's national security that they don't even know how to notify Congress and Tulsi Gabbard has kept this information against her locked in a safe for eight months? The claim is that it contains highly classified information and therefore it has to remain in the safe. And what members of Congress are saying, and these are the oversight committees, the intelligence committees that were to stop abuses by intelligence agencies are not allowed to look at it because they haven't gotten instructions from Gabbard about how this document could be turned over. And so it's just sort of

stuck there. And that's the frustration here from members of Congress that spoke to me. We'll stay on this. So many questions. MS. Now, Senior National Security reporter, David Road. Thank you very much for reporting this morning. And still I had a morning, Joe. A live report from Tucson, Arizona. Following the disappearance and possible abduction of today, co-host Savannah Guthrie's mother. What investigators are saying as the search continues for the 84-year-old, plus amid increased scrutiny over ICE operations, DHS Secretary Kristy Noem orders immigration officers in Minneapolis to start wearing body cameras. And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Accuethers Bernie Rayno.

Bernie, how's it looking this morning? Mika, after nine straight days of high temperatures in New York City at or below freezing, that streak ended yesterday. And how about today? How about day two? Where accurate weather says you'll get above freezing with some sunshine in New York City, 33 degrees. Now, it's still cold, just not as extreme as we've seen. There will be a couple of flurries across New York State and Pennsylvania.

Cold starting the Carolinas and Florida, but we'll warm up a little bit this afternoon with some sunshine. And more importantly, we're not looking for any travel delays here from Atlanta, Boston, toward New York City and Philadelphia. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Acky Weather up today. This morning, authorities in Arizona continue the search for Today Show co-host and our dear friend Savannah Guthrie's mother, who was reported missing after not showing up to church on Sunday afternoon. Investigators believe 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie now was taken from her home against her will. Joining us now from Tucson, MS Now reporter Alex Tabit.

Alex, what her authority saying this morning? What we know so far is this. Nancy Guthr was last seen around 9.45 p.m. by a family member on Saturday evening. Then on Sunday morning, as you noted, she did not show up for church with prompted concern from her faith community. And when a family member showed up to her home to try to find her, her, she was nowhere to be seen, which kick-started this investigation by the Pima County Sheriff's office. They've declared her home as a crime scene. They found her car, her phone, her wallet,

but the 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie was not there. Now, the Pima County Sheriff, Chris Nanos, says that they believe that she may have been abducted from her bed overnight between Saturday evening and Sunday morning, and he says that time is of the essence of this in this case. I want you to hear from Nanos himself. This is a 84-year-old lady who suffers from some physical ailments, has some physical challenges, is in need of medication, medication that if she doesn't have in 24 hours, it could be fatal. Ms. Guthrie, Nancy Guthrie, is of great sound mind. This is not a dementia related.

She is as sharp as a tech. The family wants everybody to know this. It's somebody who just wandered off. And Nanos confirmed in an interview overnight that DNA samples have been gathered from Guthrie's home. Those samples have been sent over to Phoenix for testing. The results may come in a couple of days. And the Pima County Sheriff's Office is urging community members to call in

for tips as this investigation continues. Alex Tabit reporting for us from Tucson this morning. Alex, thanks so much. And Miko Savannah has posted overnight on Instagram online, just writing simply, please pray, we believe in prayer, we believe in voices raised in unison, in love and hope.

We believe in goodness. We believe in humanity. Above all, we believe in him. She goes on to say, we need you, concludes by writing, bring her home. as I mentioned. Nancy Guthrie is just a wonderful, wonderful woman.

She's smart and kind and beautiful. And Savannah, as many people know, lost her father when she was 16 years old. So Savannah and her siblings, Annie and Cam, so close to their mother, Nancy. And Savannah talked about her constantly all the time, was always out visiting her. And Nancy was here in New York to be with Savannah's two children, her grandchildren. We are praying with Savannah. We are hoping that authorities find leads and bring this to a conclusion and ultimately bring Nancy home. Yeah, Savannah talked often about being deeply connected with her faith and even going to church several times a week.

And it was at church where it was noticed that Savannah's mother was not present. And immediately folks thought something was wrong and went to check on her. unspeakable, the pain that the family must be in right now, and we are all praying. We will continue to follow this story as it develops. Coming up after a deep red county in Texas, flip to a Democrat, Republicans are now concerned over what this means for the midterms. We'll show you the new warning from a former Trump official. Plus, more follow-out to the Trump administration's move to send ICE agents to the Winter Olympics.

What Olympic officials are now saying ahead of the winter games, Morning Joe, we'll be right back. 44 past the hour. Welcome back to Morning Joe, beautiful shot of the White House as the sun has yet to come up over Washington. Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has a warning for Republicans after a stunning upset in a Texas state Senate race. In a special election on Saturday, Democrat Taylor Romett defeated his Republican. opponent in a district that President Trump won by 17 points in 2024 during yesterday's episode of the YouTube show that Spicer co-hosts, the former Trump official, had this to say. Look, I've always said that special elections are special. So I texted a bunch of Texas folks, elected officials, et cetera, and said, okay, tell me how much I should be concerned about this.

To a T, two a T, every one of them said, this is a problem. One person's direct quote was this is 8.5 on the rector scale. This is a big deal. If you look at what happened in terms of the turnout, this is a problem. 224 people voted for the Republican in 2022. 50,000 voted this time. You can either put your head in the sand as a Republican or as a maga loyalist and say, that's a one-off. And a lot of times I'm one of those people. This time, if you don't get the message, enjoy Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. So David French, that's a warning from the former press secretary of the first Trump administration, of course, Sean Spicer. We can take that as a warning for Republicans.

How concerned really are they, though, after Texas? They believe this is a one-off. Do they look at what happened in Virginia and New Jersey, in those gubernatorial races where the margins were much wider than they expected to be others down-ballot races as well as real reasons for concern? And then how do you see this connecting to what we were talking about earlier in the show, which is Donald Trump, trying to put his thumb potentially on the scale of elections in places like Georgia because he is worried that the tide is turning against him. Well, you know, ordinarily when you've got a political party that's out of power and they see these kinds of results, they start looking forward to November with, I mean, great anticipation because historically these kinds of results do forecast something coming in November. It's not foolproof, but they do forecast it. But here we're in the most bizarre situation and dangerous situation, where as Democrats prospects

improve, so does the underlying danger, I mean, the underlying danger to the election increases. And so you're beginning to see this real sense of fear and panic setting in amongst Republicans, the smart Republicans who are seeing these swings, and they know they might be losing the gavels very, very soon. And look, this is not what they expected. after the November election in in 2024. We got to make that very clear. There was all of this talk about a vibe shift of a real sort of permanent realignment

of American politics. And that just lasted a couple of months. And ever since then, the slide has been, there's just been a steady slide in Trump's support. And so they see the danger. They see the electorate turning against them. And perversely enough, that makes it more dangerous. on the election itself.

Opinion calmness for the New York Times, David French. Thank you very much. His new piece is available online right now. So let's turn to contributing writer to the Atlantic, Eugene Robinson. He's out with a new book entitled Freedom Lost, Freedom One, A Personal History of America. And in it, Gene tells the story of two centuries of our country's history, through the lens and experiences of his black American family, starting from the moment his great grandfather was sold into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina. And Gene, I note that your book is

dedicated to your sons. So through the lens of your family in the past and looking ahead to the future. So tell us what you discovered about your family as you were setting out to tell this story. So it actually starts with my great-great-grandfather, who was sold in 1829 in Charleston to a, he had been owned by a woman named Isabella Perman. And he was sold to a plantation owner named Richard Fordham. And he was, he's listed in the document, which I found the sales document, and it's reproduced in the book. as a boy named Harry. And so he was the property of Richard Fordham for 19 years, I guess. In 1848, he was sold again to a Charleston businessman.

By then, Harry had become Henry, Henry Fordham, taking the name of the plantation owner. and he had become a blacksmith. And he used that skill and that talent and that hard work to purchase his own freedom in 1851, which was, you know, a decade before the Civil War. So he was a free person of color in Charleston. And he had a son, my great-grandfather, who was Major John Hammond, Fordham. He was quite a formidable man who was a Reconstruction-era success story.

He became a lawyer, a big Republican Party. Puba. He corresponded with Theodore Roosevelt. He went to all the conventions and all the inaugurations of Republican presidents for years. That's him there on screen. That portrait of him is in the front room of the House. that he built the house where I grew up. And it's the first thing you see. And he's looking down at you, you know, in this very sort of stern way.

And he was a pack rat. He kept all his speeches. He kept his letters. He kept his financial documents. It's bank statements. They were just all over the house. And the stuff was always there. So I always knew I had this trove of material that was unusual for an African-American family

because it went back beyond the Civil War. And I knew I would write about it at some point. And this seemed to be the right moment because as I looked at the material, I kept seeing this cycle where African-Americans thought and died to win a greater measure of the freedom and opportunity that America promises, and then it was taken away again. And yeah, Eugene, that's where I was drawn to, even the title, Freedom Lost, Freedom One, but you argue in the book, not necessarily a settled matter.

No, and it never has been. It's been generously, one would say, three steps forward, two steps back. sometimes three steps forward, three steps back. The most notable example, of course, was reconstruction when my great-grandfather had tons of opportunity and absolutely took totally advantage of it. And then Jim Crow, the dissent of Jim Crow. And you can see, looking through his bank statements and his mortgage statements, you can see the rise, the plateau, and the decline because of Jim Carole, because he, you know, his,

his, his opportunity was proscribed. The other thing I really learned is that while it's, it's kind of an unusual story for an African American family, the African American experience is certainly a distinctive experience. But in many ways, it's an archetypal American story. It's an archetypal American family that from day one, from my great-great-grandfather, who, you know, buying his own freedom, from that moment,

the whole family has been about pursuing the American dream. And so I really came to see the book as I was doing it as not just personal history, not just African-American history, but it's American history. And so I talk about how the family saw and experienced the major events in American history over the last amazing. And while there are still many present challenges today, for sure, it is interesting as you track this story and track these incredible pieces that you found in your life that gave you real sense of the people before you.

Jean went on to go to the University of Michigan, was the first black co-editor of the Michigan Daily and Neiman Fellow at Harvard University. Just sort of back to your concept of the American dream, also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. So there are some incredible heights and yet much more to talk about in terms of what you set out to do with this book. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's again, this cycle of advance and pushed back was so pronounced.

And it's not just reconstruction in Jim Crow, but there were other, there's time and time again that I felt there was something to say about that in terms of now. Right. I mean, is it a coincidence that we, that America elects the first African-American president? And then immediately elects Donald Trump. Nobody will ever convince me that's a coincidence. We're going to talk more about this book throughout the show here, but also into the week, Gene.