Morning Joe - Lawmakers see video of second strike on survivors

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

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I don't want to get specific here, but there was no radio. There were two individuals clinging to flotsam. That's what there was. There wasn't weaponry of any kind. There wasn't a radio. There was no means for them to communicate other than the fact that the fire and the smoke was fairly well visible for a long distance around, but there was no radio. The top Democrat on the House Intel Committee, Congressman Jim Hymn, speaking last night on

MS now, providing more insight on what he saw yesterday during a briefing with the Admiral who ordered that second deadly strike on survivors of the boat attack back in September. It is very different than what the Trump administration and top Republicans are saying about that strike will bring you much more from that briefing in just a moment. Also ahead, we're going to go through the failed attempt by the Justice Department to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James a second time. Plus, President Trump made a lot of claims about the state of the economy earlier this week during his cabinet meeting. Morning Joe economist Steve Ratner will be here with his fact-checking charts to take a look on affordability where it's at.

Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. It's Friday, everybody. December 5th, are we happy as Friday? We are happy as Friday. LeMere, you're going to get some sleep this weekend? Always try. You need some. With us, we have the co-host of our 9 a.m. hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas is with us, senior national security reporter for MS now, David Road, columnist and associate editor at the Washington Post, David Ignatius, and managing editor at the bulwark. Sam Stein is with us this morning. So let's get right to our top story, where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been raising questions about the Trump administration's deadly boat strike campaign, and yesterday they finally got

some answers. During a briefing with top military officials, a group of congressional leaders viewed unedited footage of that highly scrutinized September 2nd attack for the first time. It's the so-called double-tap strike that killed shipwrecked survivors who were still seen clinging to broken wreckage, alleged drugboat wreckage after the initial impact. Multiple members described watching the survivors holding onto the capsized vessel as they were attacked again. The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Adam Smith of Washington, tells MS now the justification given for that follow-up strike was that drugs could still be

under the piece of boat the survivors were clinging to in the water. Leaving officials concerned the men could continue the mission. Lawmakers overall emerged from the meeting split along party lines. Republicans largely said they were content with the explanation provided by Admiral Frank M. Bradley, the commander, who oversaw the attack, while Democrats said they had only grown more concerned. Members from both parties did say that Admiral Bradley told them he had not received in order to kill everybody, but then their accounts differed starkly from there. I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs, down for the United States, back over so they could stay in the fight, and potentially, given all the context we heard,

of other narco-terrorist boats in the area coming to their aid to recover their car, and recover those narco-terrorists. And just like you would blow up a boat off of the Somali coast or the Yemeni coast, and you'd come back and strike it again if it still had terrorists and it still had explosives or missiles, Admiral Bradley, and Secretary had to say that exactly what we would expect them to do. What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service.

You have two individuals in clear distress without any more means of locomotion with a destroyed vessel who are killed by the United States. Under the DOD manual for abiding by the laws of armed conflict, the specific example given of an impermissible action is attacking a shipwreck. Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors. People will someday they see this video and they will see that that video shows, if you don't have the broader context, an attack on shipwrecked sailors. All right.

I want to turn to David Road here. I mean, if we look at the initial strike, we do have the video of that, right? And we've all seen it. Right. Here it is. So we're talking about potential war crimes here. And I'm not trying to be silly, but I have to ask you. Where exactly was this?

How far away from land was this? what was the possibility that these two survivors could paddle away and continue their drug operation? I mean, are we kidding me? Is this guy serious talking about the potential that these two survivors could continue the operation? I mean, we're not stupid, but I have to ask. Could they have paddled to shore with the rest of the drugs? No, and essentially this is what we heard from the Democrats who viewed this. The Republicans can't see this? This is our partisan divide. The boat had been blown in half, at least.

The front half is still floating, so there is no motor. They are very far from. This was carried out far from land just for the way they do these kind of overt operations. What are the chances they were Olympians, and they could swim to shore with the drugs on their backs? I'm serious. No, I know. And then the second thing was that before this briefing, there was repeated statements that they had radios and that they were radioing maybe nearby boats and that they were going to come help them. And again, some focus on the amount of drugs somehow possibly trapped underneath that floating, flipped over, you know, hole.

And so in the briefing, there weren't, they didn't have radios. They had no communications, and there were no other boats in the area. So they were, you know, every sign points to they were trying to save their own lives, not rejoin. And it's not the fight. Rejoined their criminal effort to make money and smuggle drugs the United States. That's terrible. That's criminal. This is the broader issue of they're not fighting.

They're not combatants. Right, right, right. They're not shooting in American soldiers. Richard, I saw you shaking your head. I mean, are we to, is this really an argument, a partisan divide, or some, are, is there a potential here that some are being less than truthful about the possibilities here? Well, there's two things. The idea that this entire operation is being conducted by the military is from the outset

flawed. That's why you have this thing called the Coast Guard. You approach ships, they resist. Coast Guard has the ability to deal with fire, to return force. And then you rescue survivors. This ought to be a law enforcement. So the entire packaging, structure, policy in which this is embedded, is inherently flawed. Where the politics are coming out is the idea that people won't even entertain that.

So you have essentially Republicans on the hill stretching themselves and looking for, you You know, the arguments you just heard, shall we say, are they don't pass serious scrutiny. The idea that these guys posed an imminent threat to U.S. forces, they were going to reconstitute a military threat. That's an unsurious argument. Again, it's the reason this ought to be a Coast Guard operation up close rather than a U.S. military operation. By the way, we're shooting and killing before we've confirmed that they are, in fact, in the business we say they are in. And, again, let's repeat. This boat is flipped over.

it's on fire. There's no radio. You're miles from shore. There's no means for them to rejoin the fight. And as David points out, there was no fight to begin with. We should all, even as this attack comes there to such scrutiny, the Secretary of Defense announced last night, they did another one, which we will get to. Meanwhile, let's read a couple of important pieces here on this. The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes in a new one entitled Hegset's Order and the Admiral, quote, it's notable that Mr. Hegseth has spent the past few days saying he wasn't in the room when the second strike happened, even as he declares his full and total support for Admiral Bradley. It smacks of an attempt to shift scrutiny to a military officer who can't defend his

decisions in public. The message to other officers is that they'll be alone in a foxhole if some mission runs into trouble. The buck for the strike and its consequences rests with Secretary Hagseth and President Trump, and standing by Admiral Bradley means producing a factual record for Congress and the public to inspect. One reason this episode has mushroomed is that the administration isn't explaining the aims of its war in the Caribbean. The administration will have to start explaining

why it is asking men and women like Admiral Bradley to open fire. And contributing editor for the National Review, conservative writer Andrew McCarthy, has a new piece questioning the administration's so-called self-defense argument. McCarthy writes in part this, the Trump Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel reasoned that because the strikes are executed by drones, which are guided from places

remote from the area attacked, no U.S. military personnel are at risk of harm. So here's my question. If we're supposedly not in hostilities, despite all the missiles and all the dead people, on the rationale that our forces are not vulnerable to attack or counter, counterattack, even when the boats and crews are still intact, how could it be self-defense to attack a boat that we've already substantially destroyed by missile fire in the course of killing most of its crew? And David Ignatius, I mean, that's an excellent question, a question that has surrounded this operation from the beginning, even before we knew

about the fact that the September 2nd attack required this so-called double strike, and then we learned two more rockets were launched to sink the ship after. after everyone on board was dead. What are you hearing from your sources on the hill, people in Washington you've talked to, the reaction of seeing this video because Congressman Himes there couldn't have been more blunt in describing it one of the most disturbing things

he's ever seen in his years of public service? So what I find concerning is that the reactions to the video yesterday seem to have broken down on party lines. One benefit of this investigation of a tragic event on September 2nd with this horrifying image of survivors trying to cling to a capsized hole is that it brought a moment of accountability where there was a bipartisan investigation that Republican and Democratic chairman of both key committees, House and Senate, were united and wanting to get the facts.

And now, a couple days later, we have Congressman Jim Himes, the ranking member in the House Intelligence Committee, saying it's one of the most troubling things he's ever said. And his counterpart, the Republican, Lankford, saying it was highly professional. Senator Tom Cotton, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying it was righteous. So we're back to the same kind of partisan divide. I want to say partisan mess. And that's really unfortunate, because this, this, this, issue raises what really is a classic in the literature about use of force. During World War II,

you'd have German submarines sinking, shipping, and the question was, what do you do about the survivors? Do you go rescue them? Do you go rescue them if you're at risk? And there's extensive discussion by lawyers, thoughtful people at the time, about what morality requires you to do in wartime. That kind of debate is what we need to be having now. Instead, it's beginning to be the usual sharp disagreement between Republicans and Democrats, almost reflexive. And if this moment is wasted for a real discussion, we'll all be the worst for it. Well, and it continues. As Jonathan mentioned, the U.S. military says it launched another strike yesterday on a suspected

drug smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Southern Command released this short video of the attack, announcing that four so-called narco-terrorists on board were killed. Once again, no evidence supporting allegations about the boat or its passengers. Yesterday's strike marks the 22nd attack by the Trump administration on alleged drugboats in a months-long operation that has killed nearly 90 people. Ahead of this announcement, a spokesman for Turning Point USA, posted, quote, Every new attack aimed at peak Hegeseth makes me want another narco drug boat blown up and sent to the bottom of the ocean.

To which the defense secretary responded, quote, your wishes are command, Andrew, just sunk another narco boat. Sam Stein, I don't want to give any energy or exposure or oxygen to the names of the people who are saying things like this. But other people in this world, far-right world, are talking about wanting to see these people suffer, wanting to watch them be destroyed, perhaps slowly. Swear to God, that happened in a public forum that many people watch. Where are we going with this, as opposed to the briefing yesterday, which should lead to hearings, perhaps, and some answers and evidence being handed over? or are we slowly watching this administration see how far they can go to the cheers of some very sick people who are amplifying it?

I did see the video you are referencing. You accurately describe it. We don't need to go much further than that, but people can just Google it if they want. It was actually quite disturbing to listen to because of the bloodthirstiness of it. Putting that aside, there is something larger here that's more political, I guess, than what we've been talking about, but I think equally troubling, which is this is not just about the legality of a double-tap strike and whether or not it was a war crime, which is obviously a very serious question. But we have now conducted 22 attacks, by my calculations, about 84 people have been killed in these attacks. we have a president who has said not unequivocally, or sorry, not equivocally, that he is going to start doing attacks on land. We are clearly in some sort of war with Venezuela, and yet we have not had

any rationalization, legal justification, or thorough explanation from the administration about what we are doing here. And on top of that, save what happened yesterday on the hill where they brought up Admiral Bradley and they got to see some of this video. And it's only a handful of them that got to see some of this video. For the life of me, I can't recall actual congressional oversight or interest in what is going on here. There's not really been public hearings or discussion about this, unless I'm missing something. And beyond that, of course, Congress does have a constitutional role in authorizing war. It is an abdication of the responsibility to not do more. And that is troubling, right? I mean, what David's talking about is troubling. The fact that it is breaking down

on partisan lines is troubling. There is obvious need for oversight and more public accountability, and we're just losing any semblance of that as we march more and more into an open conflict. It's very scary. Yeah. For the folks at Turning Point and for the folks who enjoy watching or want to actually watch these murders, war crimes? What are they close up to see the suffering? There's this story. The family of a Colombian fisherman killed in a separate September boat strike filed this complaint this week with the D.C.-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The complaint filed by the man's wife and four children seeks compensation and an end to the killings. In the complaint, the man's family alleges his death was an extra-relevant. judicial killing. It names Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth as being responsible and adds that his actions were ratified by President Trump. Family's lawyer says they have faced threats since speaking out publicly. Last month, the president of Columbia posted on social media that the man may have actually been transporting illicit goods due to poverty, but did not deserve the death penalty. He also noted that the boat would never have reached the United States.

Jonathan LeMayer, David wrote, I'm curious where, for example, the briefing yesterday, where does it go next? Does it lead to hearings? Will evidence be handed over? What is the process for some sort of oversight? Yeah, it's unclear right next step. We have heard Republicans, including some on our air, suggest like Congressman Turner yesterday from the House Armed Service Committee, suggests like, look, Congress has not

signed off on these attacks. We would have real reluctance. if the president were to escalate them on land. But yet, there hasn't actually been much of a mechanism, David Rode, for the Congress to step in and to try to, to try to, like, just beyond what we saw yesterday, to really get to the bottom of this. And we have, you know, the tiny of this shouldn't be lost. This, the examination, the close scrutiny that this strike, the September 2nd strike is received, also comes in the same day that the Signalgate, Inspector General's report was made public. Pete Hague Seth looks bad there as well in terms of, you know, as it was put. that he was putting American military personnel at risk

by sharing these war plans on Signal, and inadvertently with a journalist. And yet we have him on social media yesterday doing a performative victory lap and respond, like sort of strutting about, like, look, I'm under this pressure, but we're just going to push the button and hit another boat. And I'll be honest, in Afghanistan,

the Taliban saw drone strikes as cowardly, that American forces weren't willing, to come fight them face-to-face on the ground. And not that, you know, it's going to make the drug traffickers angry, but it's just this idea that our technology and just wiping out people are all going to roll over and give up, A, and then B, and I want to be optimistic about the possibility maybe of some oversight here, I look to the Senate Armed Services Committee. There are members of that committee that deeply regret voting for Pete Hegg-Seth.

He's defied them. Eldridge Colby, the head of policy, has not given them the basic information they want, He's trying to, like, dramatically reduce U.S. efforts to help Ukraine. And then they recently spoke out this week about this pardon of the Honduran president and it infuriates them and makes them baffled at what policy this is, that it's okay, again, to smuggle cocaine through Honduras, 500 tons of it, but you're going to take out these boats. Tom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, Todd Young, and Susan Collins,

all have said this whole policy is incoherent and ineffective in terms of actually stopping the fentanyl, which isn't on these boats. And we've talked about that. So that's, and you need one vote, if I'm right about this, on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to back aggressive subpoenas that asked for the entire video. And he's the chair. I would think he would have an opinion about this as well. Let's something Sam said. Senator of Armed Services Committee has its responsibility. There's this other committee called the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Why are they not holding hearings? or what are U.S. interests in Venezuela, about what are, about regime change? Is that what

we're about? If so, why? What are we trying to accomplish if we have regime? Is it economic interests? Oil? Is it stopping immigration, which is largely slowed? Venezuela is not central to the drug trade. If you really want to invade countries that are involved in the drug trade, Mexico and China are much more central to fentanyl than anything going on in Venezuela. That's obviously preposterous. What happens if we succeed at regime change? How do we make sure Venezuela doesn't descend into something that looks like Gaza with gang warfare and so forth? This is a big foreign policy issue. How much force are we prepared to use? What if that doesn't work? Why is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on vacation here? Why are they not holding

hearings to ask the administration and educate the public about what could be the biggest farm policy military commitment of this administration. Yeah, and they voted him in. MS now senior national security reporter David Rode, thank you very much. Everyone stay with us. Still ahead on Morning Joe, President Trump likes to claim that he inherited the worst inflation

in history. It's all about Biden. Our next guest says, not even close. Steve Ratner joins us with charts to break it all down. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers Forecast this morning from Acqueweathers, Bernie Raynow.

Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, it's a cold friday. Across the northeast, slippery travel, Washington, D.C., Richmond with a little bit of snow. The ACUweather exclusive forecast, though, just calling for cold in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia, rain around Atlanta will be ending this morning. Same story in Charlotte. How about 85 degrees in Miami today? Travel forecast delays at Dulles, Reagan National Airport, minor delays in Atlanta. everybody else is just cold.

To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, make sure to download the Accuether app today. Welcome back. The Justice Department was dealt a new setback yesterday after a federal grand jury declined to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James. That's according to two law enforcement officials briefed on the case speaking to MS now. Federal prosecutors had attempted to secure a new indictment against James on charges of mortgage. fraud. This after initial charges were dismissed by a judge last month. It's worth noting that it is exceedingly rare for a grand jury to refuse to indict a case. The standard that prosecutors have to meet in order to indict is low, only requiring the majority of jury members to find

a probable cause of a crime. The two sources tell MS now, the DOJ is planning to try again and could present the case as early as later today. One person familiar with the plan tells MS now, quote, there should be no premature celebrations by Letitia James or her team. A Justice Department official declined to comment. So, Darnan, the White House, just that retribution campaign, it's, every day goes to a different length when they try again and again with a case like Letitia James, which is one signature on a mortgage application. Yeah, another stumble here. From years ago.

Yeah, another stumble here. This is about originally dismissed because of Lindsay Halligan, the acting U.S. attorney. Courts found that she was not appointed it properly. So therefore, with both James James and former FBI director, James Comey, those indictments were tossed aside. But Sam Stein, the retribution campaign has been faltering, shall we say, to this point. But the president and his team want to persist.

It's their stay they're going to go back yet at Letitia James. We don't know if they'll go back yet on Director Comey. There's talk of expanding it to other, you know, other members of Congress, a former Obama officials. So it has been to this point pretty keystone cops, but yet at the same time, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that these things keep falling apart, at least for now, that this remains an extraordinarily dangerous abuse of, I would argue, of presidential power and blurring the lines entirely between the West, and the Department of Justice to try to enact some sort of legal punishment against the president's perceived foes. Yeah, I mean, this is embarrassing, obviously. Let's just call it what it is.

This failed, the failure to get an indictment from the grand jury, remember, they had already failed to get several other indictments in several different cases. This isn't like Major League Baseball where if you go, you know, one for three, it's a success, right? Like, this is bad stuff. On top of that, it's a huge waste of resources, but obviously the problem here is that they completely gutted the Eastern District of Virginia's department because they were pressing so hard to bring charges against Letitia James and James Comey.

All the actual real lawyers in the office said, no, and then they quit or were fired. And I think we need to step back a little bit because obviously this is an abuse of power and it's just using the Justice Department to go after your foes. But what's really happening here is a massive evisceration of our justice system, not just because it's about Letitia James and James Comey, but you can add the pardon stuff that we alluded to in the last block, but that's been really rampant this week. The president's use of pardoned power on the other side of his use of political prosecutions is making the Justice Department sort of a play to it, right? This past week, he pardons someone whose own Justice Department had indicted in July. why? What is the point? What are our lawyers doing bringing these indictments and cases forward if on a whim the president's going to say, you know what? I don't like the fact that this guy

got a judgment against him. I'm going to undo it. So we are going to have massive disrepair to our justice department, our justice system that is going to take generations maybe to put back together. All right. Still ahead, investigative reporter for the New York Times. Michael Schmidt joins us with his latest piece on President Trump. funding fight with Harvard. Morning Joe is back in just a moment. Trump doubled down on his pacifist credentials, celebrating a treaty he negotiated in Africa with a banner,

delivering peace. But he had an unusual choice of pre-show music. Yes, it's the most inappropriate music choice since that famous footage of the Hindenberg. This girl is on fire. I think they liked each other a lot. I spent time with them. I think they liked it.

Some people may be surprised. I really do. I think they've spent a lot of time killing each other and now they're going to spend a lot of time hugging, holding hands, and taking advantage of the United States of America economically like every other country does.

Look at them. Look at the way they love each other. Thank you. Well, that doesn't look like love to me. President Trump plans to visit. at Pennsylvania on Tuesday to spotlight his efforts with the economy. This comes as Trump has repeatedly claimed affordability concerns are a democratic hoax. A White House official says Trump will argue he inherited an inflation crisis from former President Joe Biden. Trump narrowly won Pennsylvania last year. And the White House is looking to shore up economic support

ahead of the 2026 midterms. During another marathon cabinet meeting at the White House earlier this week, President Trump made a series of questionable claims on the economy and health care. Joining us now with charts to fact-check, some of Trump's statements, his former Treasury official and morning Joe economic analyst, Steve Ratner. Steve, it's great to have you. So these charts take a look at his claims on the first one, inflation. Here's what he said during Tuesday's cabinet meeting. I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. afford anything. Since last January, we've stopped inflation in its tracks. Okay, Steve Rotner, what are the facts show? Yeah, well, that's like so much of what he said in the

press conference, not just even on the economy, but on all sorts of subjects. He just plucked things out of the air that had no basis in reality. So let's start with inflation. It did hit 9% during COVID, and it was pretty destabilizing for a lot of people appropriately. But it's nothing like what we went through back in the 70s after the first oil embargo, which pushed inflation up to close to 12 percent, and then the second one which pushed it up to 14 percent. These are obviously much, much larger numbers. We even had higher inflation coming out of World War II. And so the idea that inflation is the worst in history is absurd. So, Steve, your next set of charts highlight what's wrong with the president's assertions on tariffs and affordability. So let's

take a look at what Trump said. Well, And we're going to be giving back refunds out of the tariffs because we've taken in literally trillions of dollars. And we're going to be given a nice dividend to the people in addition to reducing debt. You won't even have income tax to pay because the money would take it in is so great. The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats. Let's just put a, before we get to tariffs, let's just put a quick pit in inflation because Trump also said something pretty amazing. said, we stopped inflation in its tracks. Well, that's not really true. He inherited inflation at 3%, as I said.

It had come way, way down. It didn't go down a bit more in the early Trump years, but then it went right back up to 3%. So inflation, in fact, has not decreased at all under Trump, and it's certainly not stopped in its tracks. All right. And what do we have now, Steve? Now we have tariffs. So let's talk about that. Trump said this. He said, we're going to give back these refunds. We're going to give people a nice dividend. won't even have income tax to pay because the money we're taking in is so great. What are the facts? The facts are that they collected $80 billion of tariff revenue in the previous fiscal year.

This would be before Trump, very early into Trump. And then in the current year, which started in January, $259 billion of tariff revenue. But look at what the size of income tax revenues are, $2.5 trillion of income tax revenue. There's no way you can replace that with that. So that's ridiculous. Then he said we're going to reduce the debt. Well, we're running a deficit of 1.8 trillion with a T dollars every year. You're not going to reduce the debt if you're adding to the debt a couple trillion dollars a year. Let's take a look at the next chart. Affordability. So you heard him say that it's a con job by the Democrats. That is certainly contrary to what everybody thinks, including most Republicans. But again, let's look at what happened and what is happening now. So yes,

we had COVID. Inflation peaked at 9% as I said. These are the three income groups, top income group second and third. All of them lost a lot of ground. Their wages did not keep up with inflation. So their standard of living went down. Then inflation drops to 3%. And still you see two out of the three income groups losing ground, the middle and the upper income groups, maybe not the upper one that we care the most about, but they were losing ground too. And lower incomes, you know, basically staying flat. They never recovered. all of what they lost back here. Then Trump comes in, and here's the amazing thing,

and it's only the first year of his term, but in fact, higher incomes are now doing better, opposite of what we saw earlier, lower incomes are still losing ground. So the idea that when you see people lose this much purchasing power over this long a period of time that we don't have an affordability crisis is completely fictitious.

And, Steve, you're right. I mean, a lot of Republicans, frankly, even some White House aides, acknowledge affordability is a crisis. It's just the president himself. That's the disconnect. He simply won't say it, at least not yet. Let's continue your fact check with your final set of charts, which point out the flaws in Trump's claims about Obamacare and drug pricing. Here's what the president had to say. Obama care was made to make the insurance companies rich. Their stocks have gone up a thousand percent in a short period of time. We have reduced drug prices by five

500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 900 percent, depending on the drug. All right, so we heard the president. Steve, what are the numbers actually show? Well, this is going to come as news to the drug companies because they don't think their stocks have gone up 1,000 percent, nor does anybody else, for that matter. And he said a short period of time, I don't know what he means by a short period of time. But if you look at the last five years, for example,

United Health Care and Elevents are the two largest participants in the Obamacare insurance markets. And they do a lot of other things. It's not completely a pure analysis, but it's definitely directionally right. So their stock prices and the graphed against the S&P, which is in black here, you can see what happened. They did do well for a while, but now their stocks have gone all the way down here. Their stocks are about 25% above where they were five years ago.

The S&P is up 100%, a little bit over 100% from where it was five years ago. So the stocks have barely done anything compared to the broader market. So that's just not true. But now let's look at his math skills. Most of us took sixth grade and seventh grade math. He says we're going to reduce drug prices by these huge numbers of percent. Let's just do basic math here. If you have a $60 drug and you get a 50 percent price cut in that drug, it costs,

and I won't ask Lemire, but I'm sure he knows, $30. If you have a $60 drug and they cut the price by 100 percent, it's free, right? A hundred percent reduction price goes to free. If you have a $60 drug again, and it goes down by 200 percent, what happens? They give you the drug for free. They pay you $60 to take the drug. So obviously, the idea that drug prices can go down by these amounts is ridiculous.

The price of something simply cannot go down by more than 100%. Steve, we were told there would be no math, but at least thank you. I think I'm learning it. This is sixth grade math. Yeah. This is sixth grade math. I think Steve needs a pointer. Yeah, maybe that could be an upgrade.

This would complete the charts and the math lessons that we're getting here. That I, yeah, I didn't know that. Well, I hope the president is getting a math lesson here. Okay. Morning Joe Economic analyst, Steve Ratner. Thank you very much. Have a great weekend. Thank you for the charts.

Still ahead on Morning Joe. A Florida woman gets pulled over from her car by ice agents as she shouts, I am a U.S. citizen. The reporter who recorded the video of the incident will be our guest. Morning Joe is back at a moment. Welcome back, a live shot of the White House there at 6.50 in the morning, including the construction site where the east wing. used to be those bright lights to the left of your screen there in Washington we also find

david ignatius david let's talk about the week that was in the ukraine russia war a lot of things happened there was the meeting in florida uh with some ukrainian officials there was a meeting in russia with steve woodcoff and jared kushner heading that way but it didn't seem despite all of the activity that much was actually accomplished give us your read as to where things stand right now and what we should be looking for next so jonathan unfortunately the negotiations over the past few weeks have been a road to nowhere this is a terrible war the human suffering uh is just astonishing russia's said by british intelligence to a lot had 1.2 million casualties in this war so what happened in the last couple of weeks the administration jared kushner and

steve whitkoff the principal negotiators began with what was widely described as a pro-Russia plan. Ukraine protested, Europe protested. The plan became more balanced. They took it to Moscow. Whitcroft and Kushner met with Vladimir Putin. Putin said, no, I'm not interested in that balanced plan. And so it seems that we're back to square one.

While this war continues, while the intense fighting daily deaths of thousands of people continue, So what President Trump, who's committed himself to trying to bring peace to Ukraine, is going to do confronting this impasse? None of us know. But this was a week when you walk up the hill, you walk back down the hill, you end up where you started. You know, it's kind of interesting because right before Thanksgiving, there's this rush of activity, right? Where it seemed like they were trying to duplicate, in the abstract, the plan that had worked in Gaza, which is force a deadline, push a plan on all parties, and then, give them ultimatums. And it just didn't work here. Why? I mean, what were, in your reporting, what was the key moment where this intense, frantic rush to get something signed and done before Thanksgiving suddenly was pulled back? Was it Rubio saying, no, actually, this is too much?

Or was there some other, I don't know, actor who came in and stepped in a moment that really mattered? So I think there are two essentials. Sam, first, the parties are not as pliable as they were in Gaza. And Gaza, Hamas was exhausted, basically beaten Israel as our close ally ends up doing what the United States asks. In this case, the Ukrainians felt that some of the terms that Trump was proposing were simply unacceptable. But there's no way that Zelensky could defend them to the Ukrainian public. And then the more fundamental mistake, I think, was they didn't understand that Vladimir Putin simply doesn't want a ceasefire or a peace agreement that doesn't give him his fundamental. goals that he's been fighting for. He's lost over a million casualties

to try to get. The administration and its enthusiasm for doing a deal with Moscow just doesn't seem to understand how determined Putin is here to say no.