Morning Joe - Jimmy Kimmel's show is returning to ABC on Tuesday, but not all stations will air it

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Jimmy Kimmel's show is returning to ABC on Tuesday, but not all stations will air it Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is wonderful news for my dear friend Jimmy and his amazing staff. You know, I'm so happy for them. Plus, now that Jimmy's not being canceled, I get to enjoy this again. Yeah. I was just, I was just, once more, I am the only martyr in late nights. Wait, unless. CBS, you want to announce anything? Huh?

Ah? Huh? Huh? Still no? Right, because the money thing, I forgot. Yeah, the money thing, right? Yeah. That campaign that you all launched,

pretending that you were going to cancel Hulu while secretly racing through four seasons of only murders in the building. That really worked. Congratulations. Wasn't it interesting to try and figure out all the tentacles Disney has in your daily life? It's one thing to swear off cruises, but The Avengers? How is it possible that by getting rid of one company, I can't watch Winnie the Pooh or Monday Night Football?

Stephen Colbert and John Stewart reacting to ABC reinstating Jimmy Kimmel's show. We're going to go through that decision. He's back on the air tonight in just a moment. Also ahead, we'll preview President Trump's speech later this morning at the United Nations General Assembly. Plus, we'll dig into the president's unfounded claims about Tylenol, tying the drug with certainty to autism. Dr. Vin Gupta will join us to set the record straight. And we'll show you my wide-ranging interview with Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, covering everything from crime. in Chicago to a possible presidential run in 2028.

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, September 23rd. Along with Joe Willie and me, we have the co-founder and CEO of Axis, Jim Van de High, writer at large for the New York Times, Elizabeth Beaumiller, and writer at large for the New York Times and New York Times Magazine. Jim Rutenberg is here. We are all ready to talk about Jimmy Kimmel's return tonight. Joe. I think all eyes will be on that.

Yeah, it is something everybody wants to talk about. Let's talk right about it. But first, Willie, let's also talk about something else that you can't get if you don't have Disney, and that is ESPN, which means you wouldn't have seen a really good football game last night. Yeah, the Detroit Lions went

into Baltimore. Baltimore, now one and two after losing Lions, ran the ball down their throat, played great defense, sacked Lamar Jackson seven times. This is Derek Henry running for an early touchdown for the Ravens, but kind of a shootout. Lions come back when 38 to 30 was the final score. I think, Joe, when we went around the table hastily that day, you and I both had the Lions in the Super Bowl as part of our predictions. So we needed this win. You and I more than anyone, let's just be honest. They're two and one now, back on track,

it looks like, and they look good. We really really did need this win, especially after Jim Vanda High's Packers, humiliated the Lions earlier. And Jim Banda High, I don't even know what to say about the Packers. I mean, we put them, our computer, the mainframe, the AI that is taken over Morning Joe in its picks of the top five teams in the NFL last week, picked your Green Bay Packers number one. And the whole thing, it was just like R2D2 when it all fizzed out it, you know, at certain points in Star Wars, the pack, not back.

What happened, man? That was gross. They want to know when you're there. That's good news. Exactly. That was terrible. Whatever. We're still fine.

We're better than the Lions. We crushed them. Week one will be fine. But, yeah, losing to the Browns who have, like, no offense. They have, like, a 72-year-old quarterback. It's kind of gross. Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of interesting.

By the way, Willie, I get to say, you know, you've always heard, I've never gone to Lambo until a couple weeks ago, a very kind invitation from Jim, Van de Haid and Mike Allen. I've got to say everything you've ever heard about Lambeau Field is right. It is extraordinary. You know, Jack and I, as we were walking towards the stadium, paid at the ultimate compliment, said, this is football's Finway. It just, it had that feel. It was, it was in the middle of a neighborhood. And the fans, I mean, you should have seen Vandaughey through the whole game. I mean, he was, he was like a kid. And they are, you know, it is, you know, we look at

SEC football as ultimate fandom. But Willie, you should have seen Jim Vandehi and the whole Packers fan base just going crazy that night. They are really into their football. It's exciting to watch. Yeah, Jim Vandahy, very buttoned down right now. He's very measured. But like, when that game happens at Lambo on a Sunday night, watch out. I actually somehow this is a huge hole in my fandom. I've never been to Lambeau Field. All the stadiums I've been. We'll get you there.

I'm going to come, Jim. I'm waiting for the invitation. I'd love to go. And I'd like in this discussion to thank you both for not bringing up the New York Giants. I'd much appreciate it. Boy, I'll tell you what. We have a ranking every Monday. Usually the five best NFL teams,

but right now we have to do the three worst New York teams and the Giants fortunately third behind the lowly Jets. And my God, the New York Mets. My God. And with that, Mika, you weren't on yesterday. You are on it. There they are the three worst New York teams, the Giants number three, the Jets number two. The New York Mets, number one. And it's not put a star around that one, not even close. They have been such a disappointing team this year. We've had to talk Phil Griffin back off the ledge several times. What a horrible team. With that, Mika, Let's get to the news.

And I've got to say, it's very important when people hear this story that they don't minimize it to one comedian. They don't minimize it to one show. They don't minimize it to Jimmy Kimmel. Whether you've ever seen Jimmy Kimmel or not, Americans understand how important it is that Republicans, actually, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, teamed up with Maria Cantwell and other Democrats on, on the relevant committees, teamed up with Hollywood stars, teamed up with a lot of people in middle America and on the coast to say, wait, wait, wait a second, it doesn't matter whether we like what he said or not. We don't have the FCC chairman talking like a mob boss, as Ted

Cruz said, and then ABC freaking out and yanking him off the air. So yesterday, some heartening news for a lot of people. Yep, Jimmy Kimmel Live. We'll be back on the ABC Airwaves tonight. This comes nearly one week after the network suspended the late-night show amid threats of regulatory action from the FCC chair over Kimmel's comments about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Disney, which owns ABC, announced the return in a statement yesterday, writing quote, last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment. for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed

and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday. Some households, however, may still not see the show. Sinclair, which operates more than 30 ABC affiliates across the U.S. says it will carry news programming instead of Kimball's return. But discussions with ABC are ongoing. Next star, the other major ABC affiliate owner that preempted the talk show last week has not yet said what it plans to do. This reversal from ABC comes after days of pushback from protesters, politicians, and performers. Yesterday, just before the announcement, more than 400 celebrities signed a letter saying this is a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation.

That list includes actor Pedro Pascal on the same day the trailer was released for next year's Mandalorian movie, a spinoff of the major hit Disney Plus show that stars Pascal. Several Republican lawmakers also spoke out against the FCC's pressure on ABC, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, called it absolutely inappropriate. And Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said it was dangerous as hell. Joe, I think it was an important moment to be hearing from top Republicans like Ted Cruz and from all other sectors, shock and also concern about freedom of speech being tamped down. And what Republicans did, what some Republicans did seem to understand. Ted Cruz certainly understood it that, yes, right now, this is being used against speech

that Republicans don't like. But Willie, Republicans aren't going to be in the White House forever. So they understood Ted Cruz warned about it. Others warned about it. What we're doing to them right now, they will do to us when a Democrat, this is short-sighted. It makes no sense. And then one of the reasons we saw the abrupt changes, but the one thing, again, that must be underlined every company that we're talking about that is still thinking about pulling back, fine. Rand Paul was right on Sunday. If you're doing that because your audience doesn't want it or you find the content offensive and you think it'll chase off advertisers, that's your business decision. But the one thing that, the one bell that can never be unwrung,

as my constitutional lawyer at the University of Florida always would like to say, the one bell that can never be unwrung was that Brendan Carr stepped into the fray before the suspension and therefore has colored everything negatively for these companies that want the Trump administration to approve their merger. Yeah, it was explicit. If you don't have to speculate about whether there was government pressure at work here, we saw it happening. And you're right. I think A lot of people were pleasantly surprised to see Senator Ted Cruz in particular step up and say, hang on a second. This isn't about whether you like Jimmy Kimmel, whether you even know who Jimmy Kimmel is,

whether you found the comment he made last week distasteful, as many people did. This is about the government not having control over free speech. This is about standing up against the things we fought against for so long as conservatives, he would say, which is cancel culture, defending free speech, all of those. of those things, the weaponization of government. Ted Cruz was a really important voice in all this. And you mentioned Brendan Carr. He's the FCC chairman. Now going back and attempting at least to clarify his comments about Jimmy Kimmel denying he threatened to revoke the broadcast license of ABC affiliates unless the network fired Jimmy Kimmel. Here's what Carr said last week,

followed by his explanation yesterday. You know, when you look at the conduct that has taken place Jimmy Kimmel. It appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible. Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead. A very reasonable, minimal step that can be taken. Obviously, look, there's calls for Kim will be fired. I think, you know, you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. And again, you know, the FCC is going to have remedies that we could look at.

A lot of Democrats out there that are engaged in a campaign of projection and distortion. In distortion is they're completely misrepresenting the work of the FCC and what we've been doing. I saw there was a letter from some Senate Democrats that said the FCC threatened to revoked the license of Disney and ABC if they didn't fire Jimmy Kimmel, and that did not happen in any way, shape, or form. What I spoke about last week was that when concerns are raised about news distortion, there's a way, there's an easy way, for parties to address that and work that out. And in the main, that takes place between local television stations that are licensed by the FCC and what we call national programmers like Disney. They work that out, and there doesn't need

to be any involvement of the FCC. Now, if they don't, there's a way that's not as easy, which is someone can file a complaint at the FCC, and then the FCC, by law, as set up by Congress, has to adjudicate that complaint. And what I've been very clear in the context of the Kimmel episode is the FCC, and myself in particular, have expressed no view on the ultimate merits had something like that been filed. You know, Jim Rutenberg, we all say stupid things. Not you, of course, you're perfect. I say stupid things all the time. You know, if Brendan Carr just said that on a podcast, yeah, I don't think it's still funded by Russia, directly or indirectly, but wasn't Benny Johnson one of the guys that was ensnourled in that funding of Russian money? I would have to go back and look at my story on it, but yes, I believe so. That was one of the names that we and others had mentioned.

Yeah, I think it was. So anyway, if that had just happened on his show, that would have been one thing. And we could have all said, okay, well, you know what, he got excited in the moment, he misspoke. The problem with Brendan Carr's explanation yesterday is, Jim, hasn't he made at least muted or direct threats towards people in the center left before who might have said things that were offensive to President Trump? And hasn't he threatened before to take action against broadcasters in a way that I don't remember any current, any recent FCC chair doing? I've got to tell you, Joe, I've been following, sorry to admit this, FCC policy and speech for a couple decades. What a misspent youth, Jim. What a misspent youth. But what have you found?

But you just do not see FCC chairman throwing around, talk about licenses. I mean, look at last week, the idea of a station license, which most Americans don't even remember the stations are licensed, it came up an awful lot. I mean, he went on to Hannity and was talking about that we have public interest obligations for broadcasters. They have licenses. If they don't like it, they can hand in their licenses. I mean, there's a lot of talk about licenses, not to mention President Trump coming in and say more directly, maybe people should lose licenses.

So if you're in the television business and the chairman is talking about certain legal public interest obligations for broadcasters, not for cable, for I think your audience knows this, that's you're in television you know what that means and everyone knows what that means so whether it's implicit um if it's if it was a misunderstanding of what he said then now he's clarified it there were a lot of calls made to him by lots of reporters last week um would like to still like to love to interview him but uh so now he's walking that back okay but um the word license me has a meaning and a meaning that can be very scary for people in the television in business. And Jim, his suggestion that this discussion about broadcast license was invented by

Democrats or by the media somehow just isn't true. President Trump himself talks about it all the time. He writes about it in social media posts that these people are unfair to me. They're mean to me. I don't like them. So maybe they should have their licenses revoked. And obviously he and the FCC chair have talked about these things. So when he talked last week, Brendan Carr, he said this will be decided by market forces. Meaning, if the audience, doesn't like what Jimmy Kimball says and done. They will turn off the TV. They will stop watching and that'll be up to Disney to decide. Disney has decided to put Kimmel back on the air tonight, but that's not the tact that the FCC and the Trump administration were taking just a few days

ago. It was all downward pressure to try to get them off the air. Definitely. And that's in the mix. And so it's interesting because we haven't seen ABC really come forward and address this. I do want to note, we've sort of been here before. Bill Maher talked about it on his show last week when, and Bob Eiger, who's the top of Disney now, was high up at Disney then. But when Bill Maher said some controversial things in 2001, the White House at the time weighed in. This is inappropriate. There wasn't an FCC discussion of licenses. And ABC with Bob Eiger up there at Disney did ultimately canceled Bill Maher's show. So we have been here before, but it's rare. And this really goes, you really have to go back to Nixon to get into this talk about station licenses.

Elizabeth B. Miller, your thoughts on this. What questions comes to mind? Of course, the president has mentioned news networks and even reporters in his sites. Well, you know, the whole, when Mr. Carr was sort of dissembling yesterday and taking back his comments from last week, does not forget that Donald Trump, on the heels of his threat, was saying, you know, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers are next, you know, and he was celebrating. So if he feels he wasn't being, I mean, if we don't think he was direct enough, the president made quite clear where he stood, which is anybody who criticizes him deserves to get off the air.

And it's very scary. I think what's interesting is how much pressure ABC got from its own community from Hollywood. There were 400 signatures of those very well-known actors along. supporting the ACLU. There was a huge outcry from the unions, huge outcry from the mainstream media like us. So I think that they could succumb to pressure, too, of big forces from the other side. Yeah, Jim Vanda High, talk about what we saw over the past week, which I think was It was absolutely fascinating. We had Maria Cantwell yesterday, a Democrat, someone's a progressive Democrat from Washington State,

teaming up, at least in words with, she's a ranking member, teaming up with Ted Cruz, and their joint condemnation of what happened with Brendan Carr at the FCC. We also heard the same from Rand Paul, who said, listen, companies can do whatever companies want to do. It's a free market at the same time. They acted after a threat from the FCC. This is one of those interesting moments when it seems that at least some Republicans finally found their voice at a time when the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk is being used by some people in the White House to tamp down free speech, to seek out, you know, what they're now calling consequence culture. but what they attacked for years is cancel culture. It could go down the list where it seems like free speech under attack.

But here you have Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, other Republicans actually speaking out this very fraught moment. I'm curious what was behind that? I wouldn't overstate it. This isn't like some massive profile in courage. It was one or two members speaking out in a kind of calibrated way, right? Which is ironic for conservatives. Ted Cruz, though, is a significant member in this story because the position he holds in the Commerce Committee.

So he's a chairman of and has a lot of sway here. So, no, I understand. I don't worry, I'm not going to be flying my Ted Cruz flag on my boat this weekend. I am saying, though, however, it was for a Republican party that has remained silent and scared in California. by Donald Trump. I thought this was an interesting issue for them to step forward on. Why do you think that was? Certainly for him. Because, listen, most conservatives that you've known throughout your lifetime believe in free speech. One of the reasons Donald Trump won was a massive backlash against the curtailing of speech by Democrats in their estimation and in reality

in many cases. And so the idea that you're then going to do exactly to them what they did to you is patently nonsensical. And so it's not that surprising that Cruz would do it. I do think you're right that so few Republicans has spoken up against Trump. I don't want to be the skunk at the party, but step back. Like if you're watching this, you're like, oh, this is great.

Now maybe things will get reset. Look at what's happening around this in terms of conservatives making a lot of progress in being able to not just silence media, but kind of start to take it over. You already have Elon Musk controlling X. you look at what's happening with this TikTok deal, it's largely going to end up in the hands of Oracle. It looks like the Murdox, people that are sympathetic to Trumps. You're going to have

the two biggest platforms that shape the reality for the largest number of people under the control of people who are quite friendly to the existing federal government. Then you look at even the Kimball thing. When you're talking about these affiliates like Nextar or any company that can decide what to air ABC, they are the, they control that. They're trying to merge. When those two merge, and if they get the approval of the merger, because they've done the things that the administration wants to see them to do, this consolidates power over a lot of local broadcasting, which is what the vast majority of people over the age of, say, 60 or 65, who might vote in an off-year election, are paying attention to. So Republicans are making a

tremendous amount of progress in terms of starting to even the playing field in terms of, like, who is putting the message out there. I'm with you. It's great. I need victory for free speech. I think everybody on this show loves free speech. I think people should be able to say the stupidest things they want to say and it should be protected as long as you're not like overtly dangering people. I think most sensible people have felt that way for a long time. That's why this was insane because Kimball said something that was offensive and comedians say dumb, offensive things all the time. And by the way, that's why we often laugh. Right. And that's what got Bill Maher in trouble. So it gets

comedians in trouble, but that goes back to the beginning of time. Yeah, and I'll tell you what, Meeke, there are parallels. If you listen to what Jim was just talking about, not being the skunk at the party at all, but just, again, going back and looking at this from a bit of a distance, and Applebaum would say, when you start seeing all of this consolidation on not just the right, but on, on, on, in line with who's running the government. And Applebaum's written about this before. it certainly started sounding a lot like what was happening in Poland with the Law and Justice

Party and the corporate conglomerations that would buy up, I think, like 90 percent of the newspapers there. So they did nothing but parrot what Law and Justice Party wanted to be parroted. You also look at what obviously is happening in Hungary. And perhaps a bit of a harsher hand was used there more directly than indirectly. But here, there is no. doubt that the regulators in the Trump administration look like they are working together to intimidate media companies to try to have, you know, the overwhelming majority of local news broadcasts run by right-wing outlets. Yeah. So that's where I think we ought to close here with Jim Rutenberg. You know, Memorial Service on Sunday was a lot about liberty, freedom,

and free speech. I think there's a lot of support for it at the same time. What are the chances Is Sinclair and Next Star? How many affiliates could keep Jimmy Kimmel off the air in their areas, in their markets? That's number one. And number two, is this just a small win in a sea of problems for free speech? Well, so Sinclair has said that a major station group has often been affiliated with its ownership with the conservative movement. They have said they won't be bringing Kimmel back, at least not right now.

So how many markets is that? I mean, I don't have a spreadsheet, but a lot. A lot. Okay. So that's a lot. St. Clair and NextStar control a lot of local television between them. Next Star has remained silent so far. We'll see. Maybe today we'll get some answers what they're going to do. But I don't know what this means. I mean, it's interesting to me that Chairman Carr did walk back the comments because last week was so bald in discussion of stations, licenses. So when Senator Cruz stepped forward, did that? That indicate that there's a feeling in the movement that this went too far. So we'll see.

But the comments, again, have been so unlike anything we've seen that I would expect more action to come out of this FCC. Writer at large for the New York Times and the New York Times magazine, Jim Rutenberg. Thank you very much for coming on this morning. And still ahead on morning, Joe, as President Trump urges, his attorney general, to file charges against his political. enemies. Some legal experts are warning that move could backfire. We'll dig into that. Plus, my interview with Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois. I talked with him about President Trump's claims that he's soft on crime, the state of the Democratic Party, and much more. And tomorrow, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be our guest as we mark

20 years of the critical work by the Clinton Global Initiative. You're watching morning, Joe. We'll be right back. Beautiful live picture, the sun coming up over New York City, 631 on this first week of fall. President Trump will deliver a speech to the 80th United Nations General Assembly just a short time from now. He arrived in New York for the event last night. According to the White House, the president will talk about the renewal of American strength around the world. touting his leadership during his first eight months in office. Also expected to take part in several high-stakes meetings,

holding discussions with the leaders of Ukraine, Argentina, and the European Union, as well as a separate summit with the heads of several Arab countries. Officials telling Axios the president will tell them, present them with a proposal to end the war in Gaza. Joining us now, the co-host of our fourth hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, and NBC News, Senior Executive Editor for National Security, David Rode, his book,

Where Tyranny Begins, The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy, is out today in paperback. Gentlemen, good morning to you both. John, I'll start with you on the speech. The president is in New York City. Just a couple of hours from now, we'll hear from him in these speeches, which are always events. He's going to meet with Zelensky, among many other leaders. What do you expect to hear this morning? Yeah, it's a quick trip to New York City.

President Trump arrived last night. He leaves this evening. The speech set to begin just before 10 a.m. Eastern time. This is, for Trump, a bit of a triumph. This is his return to the world stage. This is a body. He obviously has had pretty tumultuous relationships with the United Nations. He doesn't much care for them or find them particularly useful. But this is still, the eyes of the world will be watching him today as he made his unlikely return to office. So I think in his speech itself, I don't think we'll get into much in the way of policy minutia. He'll talk about his peacekeeping efforts in a number of places. And he likes to talk about whether it's six, seven, eight, depending on the day, the number

seems to change, ceasefires that he has brokered in global hotspots around the world. And to be clear, he does deserve credit for sunk, perhaps not as many as he thinks. But hovering over all this, of course, is the two wars that continue and have only escalated. And Trump has been powerless to stop, the one in Gaza and, of course, the one in Ukraine. And I think that meeting with Zelensky today will be telling, you know, this is his first meeting since he met with Zelensky about a month back in the wake of the Anchorage Summit with Putin. A number of European leaders were there rushed to his aid. But now five, six weeks later, there's still not any real clarity as to what role the U.S.

will play in either A, bring an end of the war, and B, once the war does end, what sort of security guarantees may be there. And David Rode, he's also going to talk to some Gulf leaders there to try to talk about what, again, a post-war could look like in Gaza, but there are many steps that have to take place between now and then. And it seems like at this point, President Trump not able to bring a fighting to close at either place. He's not, and that's the, Gaza is the biggest problem for, I mean, the issue, again, is that there's over two million Palestinians living there. The administration has talked about moving some of them to other countries, some to Libya,

and many Palestinians in Gaza say they don't want to leave. And so it's just unclear what happens to this population. And again, they're criticized, but you had this dramatic move yesterday by the U.K. and Australian Canada recognize a Palestinian state. So he has not succeeded in his foreign policy. He has not solved any of these major conflicts. So, you know, he'll speak today. But I think it's fair to say the world isn't significantly safer than it was when he took office. Elizabeth, obviously Ukraine has been front and Center for years now in discussions at the General Assembly. This year, though, it seems that it may be this Palestinian statehood that several of our allies are recognizing.

You know, Israel has long been isolated in the United Nations. I suspect that will be even worse this year, along with the United States. What is the impact of some of our closest allies recognizing that Palestinian state? And how will that play out this week in New York? Well, it's a further divide between the United States and our Western allies in Europe. But the fact is they're all, the prospect of a Palestinian state is more remote than ever right now. Given what's going on in Gaza, Netanyahu has said absolutely not to a Palestinian state. There may be in reaction to these calls for a Palestinian state in Europe, there may be, you mean, more settlements in the West Bank.

The United States is not in favor of a Palestinian state, at least not right now in this administration. And it looks ever more difficult. And if you talk to people in Israel, their view, people who want the war to end, the people who, their view is that Donald Trump is the one who could end this war by putting more pressure on his friend,

Bebe Netanyahu, and so far he has not done that. And has sat back as this campaign, campaign into Gaza, and to Gaza City has continued. So it's good to hear from the Europeans that they feel this strongly about a Palestinian state, but it has very little effect on the ground. David, Red, let me bring you in here. I have to ask you the same question I asked of Ann Applebaum a few weeks ago. Who's your publisher?

W.W. Norton. And thank you for saying that, Bill, thank you. Well, no, I just want to say, we had, we had, we had, And when her paperbook, paperback version of Autocracy Inc. came out. We thought it was quite astute planning by her publisher to have she and all the assorted Dr. Evils from around the world showing up in Beijing on that very day. Your book, of course, where tyranny begins, talks about an FBI, a Justice Department, and a White House out of control. You seem to have timed this perfectly. The paperback version.

at least. Your publishers timed it perfectly with perhaps the worst crisis in this area since Watergate, a tongue-in-cheek. But that's my way of telling readers they need to get this book and read it because the timing could not be more prescient. Talk about it. Thank you. I'm just looking back when I finished the book and now it has an updated epilogue, you know, there was a chance. This was before the election that President Trump would win. What he's achieved in terms of the DOJ and FBI is startling. I didn't think he would be this effective at just cleaning it out and installing the people he wants. And this tweet that many people have talked about over the weekend where he orders the attorney general by name to prosecute his political enemy,

forces out a respected acting U.S. attorney in Eastern Virginia who says we don't have the evidence to do this. Mike Costner at NBC reported yesterday that there isn't enough evidence to bring a case against Letitia James. That was the thinking of attorneys, the person who was forced out, and there also isn't enough evidence to bring a case against James Comey. Nevertheless, the president is publicly calling for their prosecution. Lindsay Halligan, who is the acting prosecutor, and she's a good lawyer, a young lawyer, but she graduated from law school in 2014. She's been practicing law for 11 years. She's never worked in a prosecutor's office, and she actually interned in a public defender's office. And it seems she is willing to bring these cases.

So I'll just say that Richard Nixon didn't do this. He had a private enemies list, but to publicly fire people, to publicly call for these types of prosecutions, it's just extraordinary, and I think unprecedented in American history. Well, Willie, it is extraordinary. It is unprecedented. and we still are. And we just celebrated Constitution Day last week. We still are a nation with a Constitution, 238 years strong.

And what Donald Trump is going to find is, and what he has been finding is, these preemptory claims that his political opponents are guilty, pushing the attorney general to bring the case. That will have federal judges doing what federal judges have been doing in the first term and for a good bit of the second. term, throwing a lot of these cases out. I mean, U.S. attorneys bringing cases where the president has forced them publicly to bring these cases for political reasons. That's as good as a quick early dismissal for most of these cases. And we're seeing it even with Lisa Cook. You know, you have a federal judge doing the first part of it saying, no, no, no, no. You can't bring this case. And then you have the news media, as much under the attack as it is, doing the second part of with Reuters, digging up the information to say, you don't have the goods on her.

Like, this is a scam charge. And so it's going to be fascinating to see how all of these forces together play out. Yeah, I mean, you have the headline that he likes, that he's going after Comey and Adam Schiff. And Hillary Clinton, for an election, he won almost a decade ago. But then comes the actual legal side of it, where you have to present evidence and make a case to a jury. and oftentimes it gets thrown out, as you said, even before that, when a judge weighs in. David, it's been interesting, though, to watch the, since the very beginning of this second term, when you think about the January 6 convicts who were all released from prison, there is an impact, even though the courts have pushed back,

there is an impact of putting your personal attorneys of people whose first loyalty is to you and perhaps not to the Constitution in places of power. you can inflict pain on people or make it easier for people who you view as loyal to you. Yes, I mean, that's it. Loyalty is the sort of coin of the realm hill. He'll pardon people who do that. He'll people who will bring the cases he wants get these positions. But Joe, and you're right, this is going to come back to the courts.

This is going to come back to the Supreme Court. If a district judge, a federal judge in Virginia throws out charges against James Comey or Letitia James, the administration will appeal. to the Supreme Court. The administration has won 18 cases in the Supreme Court. They've won 15 in a row. And it's back to this key question of what are the president's powers? And the concern is that the conservative supermajority thinks Trump should have vast presidential powers. A lot of the changes that were pointed after Nixon are being taken away and powers being restored to Trump that was taken away from Nixon, a way to act as a check on the president.

And so it's all going to come down on the courts in terms of these prosecutions and I think many other issues in the months and years to come. And with the Supreme Court, of course, it's going to be interesting to divide these questions that have to do with expansive presidential power, which a lot of the conservatives on the courts have always supported versus sham criminal charges brought against political opponents where the president telegraphs exactly what he wants, what he wants to do, and how it's about retribution. NBC's David Road. Thank you so much. Your book, extraordinarily important to read right now, where tyranny begins, is out in paperback today.

You need to get it. Jim Vanda High, you're behind the curtain piece for Axi, co-written with Mike Allen just published online this morning, is called The Most Unprecedented Presidency Presidency in 250 years. And in it, you write in part this. Yes. Most presidents stretch the power of the White House and on rare occasions blatantly target U.S. critics on U.S. oil. But Trump has veered so often, so suddenly, so proudly and loudly into unprecedented territory in at least 15 different areas. No president in peacetime has done this much in one term, one year of one term.

Trump has done this in eight short months, often with a loyal backing of a compliant Republican-led Congress and validated by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. Trump has 40 more months, four-fifths of his term, left to stretch it further. White House officials tell us they're just getting going. They see chaos as their brand and consequence culture taking root. Jim, tell us about it. Yeah, I mean, we try really hard because there's just so much hyperventilating, there's so much concern to be very clinical in thinking about these things.

And we walk through in the piece 15 different areas where he truly has operated in unprecedented territory. And we tie it to sort of historical analogies. And the idea there is to wake people up. Like you love them or hate them, we are in wholly uncharted territory in the use of president. power. You just walk through one small one on using the Justice Department as a tool for vengeance and a tool for your political agenda. And you might say, oh, whatever, maybe the Supreme Court will reverse that. The minute you're targeted, your life is essentially ruined. You don't want the state, the federal government being able to sort of unilaterally and haphazardly go after you

as an individual. And that's what you're talking about doing. You have to lawyer up. Your name is drag through the mud, you have to sit in court, and you have to run the risk that a Supreme Court might actually validate the actions of the White House. That's just one small piece. Then you look at the number of executive orders. Out in a peacetime era, nothing. Nobody has come close to what Trump is doing. People complained about President Obama, who did do a lot in stretching the use of executive power and executive orders. I think he did 230 in two terms. Trump has done 200 this year, and then he declares emergencies for what would most people Wednesday is an emergency situation to further the power of the presidency.

And the reason that Republicans should care about it, just like Ted Cruz cared about the free speech topic, is that all of these precedents, make no mistake, every one of these will be used against you and potentially stretched further because you have a 25-year history now of both parties creating an imperial presidency with almost no checks. I, for the life of me, can't imagine running for Congress, running for the House, running for Senate, finally getting power, getting to represent your community or represent your state, and saying, how the hell with it? I'm just going to give all my power to the executive branch, even though the Constitution was

never set up that way. Like, who would do that? It's unthinkable. Jim, you and I were there at the same. same time. I got into Congress. I think you were at Roll Call, writing glowing profiles of McIntosh. And you remember every member of Congress, whether they were like Republicans or Democrats, they would go around with buttons. Article 1. We're the first branch. Show is split with Jim, because Jim, Jim, I want Jim to feel guilty about all the horrible stories he wrote about me

talking to other members on the background. But Jim, you remember that. What did we say? We constantly said we constantly said we have the checkbook. Hey, John McCain and the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the Senate, you may say we don't matter, but we got the checkbook. And Bill Clinton, you may think you can roll over us with executive orders. We got the checkbook. And we stopped things dead in their tracks until we were able to negotiate in good faith with the Senate and also. with the White House. And we ended up, I'm sorry, it's just a truth, we ended up balancing the budget

four years in a row because we understood our power that was given to us by Madison and by Hamilton and by the people who wrote the Constitution. But Jim, why would you come to Washington, D.C., just to be a rubber stamp for a president of any kind? That's one thing. And I just want to say on the second thing, Jim, please underline this fact, because you and I have been, in Washington a very long time. Every single thing Donald Trump is doing right now, every precedent he is setting right now to go after his Democratic enemies, they will be used in the future by a Democratic or an independent president to go against their Republican enemies, political enemies.

This is so short-sighted. I don't understand why the Republican Senate is sitting back. They're acting like lemmings when this will be used against them and the very things they care the most about three years from now. So I tell anybody who is who likes what Trump is doing, you might like it, but just take two minutes this morning, read the piece and then insert President AOC in a liberal Congress today, did X, and insert your side. And are you going to say, love it? That's exactly what you should be doing with the power of the federal government at a moment of great change. Nobody's going to say that. And what Republicans would say is that, listen, they did it to us or here's a precedent where it's been done before.

Yes, that is true, like little itty-bitty pieces. But nobody's done it at this scale across so many areas so quick. And also had kind of this anomaly in history where you have a Republican Party that's willing to do. to self-neuter itself and have a conservative court that is validating, as David Rhodes just point out. It's not like Trump's getting curtail to everyone's. All the courts are going to curtail them. What are you watching? They're not going to curtail it. They're very much supportive of executive power and believe that the presidency should be more powerful. But go back, and again, I hate putting words in the words of the founders, but go back and read. They never envisioned a

government this big. They never envisioned a federal government this powerful, spending this type of money. They thought most of the power would rest with the states. And they thought that all of these beautiful checks and balances would actually hold. None of them are holding. And again, this isn't a political topic because you have to think about what made this country special and what is in that magical potion that we call democracy and call America. Checks and balances is in there. Kind of a Congress that represents a people is in there. It's not an autocracy. Right? You can look to China, you can look to other countries of what happens when that happens. Then the free markets don't function the way they should. Then democracy doesn't function the way it should. That's why

everyone should be a little more clinical. Think about this and really think about the long-term consequences. Well, and Elizabeth, what we talked about yesterday was the ebb and flow of American politics. I won't go through it all again, but, you know, 1964, you have LBJ with one of the massive landslides ever. Every smart person in Washington and New York said, that's the end of the Republican Party. That's the end of the conservative movement. The Reagan Revolution started two years later. 1962, Richard Nixon wins 49 states. 1974, one of the biggest Democratic wins ever. 2004, George W. Bush wins his permanent Republican majority, as his administration was saying. Two years later, Nancy Pelosi, is Speaker of House. This goes back and forth

and back and forth and back and forth, and how these Republican senators can sit back and allow the president to continue to grab power and say absolutely nothing. Understanding what is coming, understanding that whether it's AOC or whether it's, again, some tech billionaire that's going to be the next president of the United States,

they're giving so much power to the executive branch that it is a threat to checks and balances in our Madisonian democracy. Correct. And also, it may happen sooner than we think. I mean, we don't know what's going to happen with the midterms, but the Trump administration, this White House, is moving so fast because their view is that it's quite possible that they only have

until next summer, you know, next fall, next November to get a lot of this through where if there's a Republican, if there's a Democratic majority in the House, which they're very worried about, obviously, that will change, that will, that presumably will curtail. tail a lot of his power for the last of the second two years. Writer at large for the New York Times, Elizabeth B. Miller, thank you, as always, for coming on the show this morning and co-founder and CEO of Axis, Jim Vanda High. Thank you as well. His new column is available to read online right now. And coming up, Dr. Vin Gupta will join

us to fact-checked President Trump's claims about Tylenol causing autism. Morning Joe will be right back. Hey, welcome this morning Joe Extra. Jim Fanda hi, you talked today on the show about how the right wing seems to be consolidating power over not only TV stations, local TV stations, but also over X possibility of doing the same thing with TikTok. Talk about this consolidation and this pro-government consolidation and the challenges it has for free speech. Well, I think it's one of the biggest stories in media, Joe, because you went into this administration where you would have said most of the mainstream media is left of center hostile to Trump. He methodically went after some of the biggest players, especially the networks, by threatening lawsuits. People are lying to you if they're telling you that that's not having a chilling effect on the reporting that they're doing.

I've heard from multiple people at different networks that they have to be really, really, really, really cautious in controversial stories that they're airing because they worry that they're going to get some. sued. So you have that chilling effect on one end. On the other, you do have Republicans methodically trying to take over these properties, right? So you have somebody who's much friendlier to Trump taking over CBS News. It looks like in all likelihood they'll buy the free press, which is run by Barry Weiss, who's not really a MAGA Republican, but certainly, you know, left the New York Times, has very staunch like pro-Israel views, anti-D-EI views. It looks like she'll take that over. Oracle is front and center. in taking over TikTok, and there's still a lot to be learned about how that's going to be controlled,

but it looks like it's going to be people who are very friendly to Trump that are running that algorithm, that are running that company. That's just a lot. That's a much different portrait of consumption and reality shaping today versus six months ago. And really quickly, can you tell me how important it is these platforms, Axis talks about it all the time for younger voters, TikTok, X, these platforms that pro-Trump, pro-government forces may be taking over? It's all that matters. They're getting almost 100% of their news from there. They're not listening or reading or watching the things that any of us are. They're sitting there staring at their phone, getting a feed built to an algorithm. That algorithm can be manipulated. It make no mistake.

It can be manipulated. They might say it's not, but it can be. I think Musk has shown that with X. If they did it with TikTok, that was the concern. The reason you wanted to shut the damn thing down in the first place is that it's controlled by the Chinese government, sucking up all of our data and then able to influence how people in our country are thinking and feeling. It's not hard to manipulate people. We are lemmings. It is so easy if you want to. So you're playing with fire when you're playing with these algorithms. No doubt about it. Jim Vanda High with Axi is. Thank you so much. Yep. Thank you. My picture of the White House just before the top of the hour, President Trump and top

The federal health officials now are endorsing unsubstantiated claims that the use of Tylenol during pregnancy could be linked to an increased risk of autism. The president made that announcement yesterday saying pregnant women and children should not take acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol. First, effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians that the use of, said, well, let's see how we say that. Acetaminifin Acetaminopin Is that okay Which is basically commonly known as Tylenol

During pregnancy Can be associated With a very Increased Risk of autism So taking Tylenol Is Not good

I'll say it It's not good But with Tylenol, don't take it. Don't take it. Comfortable, it won't be as easy, maybe. But don't take it. If you're pregnant, don't take Tylenol. And don't give it to the baby after the baby is born.

It's bringing to NBC News medical contributor, Dr. Vin Gupta. Dr. Gupta, obviously, Tylenol has been around since the early 1960s. President Trump, obviously, with no medical expertise whatsoever, reading off the page there, kind of haranguing pregnant women not to take it and saying, only if you have a very, very high fever and you can't, quote, tough it out, then maybe you should take it. Just as a physician, your response to everything you saw yesterday at the White House. And, Willie, it was, you know, it was hard to hear. I mean, I would say the proof that this didn't really make any sense was in what Trump's own FDA put out a few hours after that

press conference will they, where they contradicted themselves within the press release. Your viewers, you know, it's easy to find on the internet that they basically said in their own press release while they were trying to justify the president's comments that at the very end, there was out enough data to really justify these limitations on Tylenol because they didn't have the data. And so when you look at the actual research that the FDA is citing, None of it is proving a causative effect of Tylenol causing these issues in children born to moms that are using Tylenol, as indicated, for pregnancy-related pain or fevers, which, by the way, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and other leading societies say, hey, there's still no issue here. All the leading best quality research says no issue. And that's the reason why his own FDA put out that there isn't enough evidence. really to back this up because the best quality data really shows over 25 years, 2.5 million children in Sweden that when you account for things like family genetics, environmental risk

factors, age of mom and dad at birth of child, older age, higher risk of autism, when you account for those variables and you look at one sibling who got exposed to Tylenol in utero, another sibling who did not, what did we find in that large really high quality study, no association between Tylenol use in pregnancy and autism. So they're conveniently cherry-picking data to justify their narrative that their own FDA contradicted. And that's what Bobby Kennedy's been doing for years on the question of vaccines with a link to autism, despite those theories being debunked as well.

So what do you worry is the practical impact of this? Obviously, President Trump's voice is loud and influential with millions and millions of Americans who will be listening to this. And obviously, parents who rightly, we all. all sympathize with looking for an answer of why their child has autism. What could happen now because the president, with the full power of the federal government, is saying explicitly to pregnant women don't take Tylenol? Well, you know, I've heard from across the spectrum last 24 hours, women that are pregnant have reached out directly asking these questions. Colleagues at the American

College of Opticians and gynecologists are concerned that those very women are not going to take Tylenol, when they need and appropriately need, I should utilize it, lowest affected dose in conversation with their medical provider, of course. Always trust your medical provider. That's always the go-to source. But I worry that people will not take this when they need to. And especially those that don't have durable access to medical care, Willie. And we know that that's a risk factor for pregnancy-related complications, pain, high fevers. This is an okay medication to take if you need to take it when coal compresses, acupuncture, massages do not work. There aren't a lot of options that are willy in terms of medications of bringing down

fevers or treat pain because so many things are contraindicated. Tylenol, there's no evidence to suggest that it should be. And I worried that people will not utilize this and expose themselves to unnecessary pain. And by the way, high fevers, fevers in general, and pain, those aren't good for baby. If mom is uncomfortable, that's not good for baby either. They didn't mention any of the risks of not treating in their press conference, which I think, again, does a disservice to people.