Morning Joe - Morning Joe 1/10/23

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

Grand jury in Georgia Trump election probe completes final report, judge says

I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. There's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated. No, I mean, nothing, nothing wrong with it. If you want to commit a federal crime and a state crime, that should be totally fine. Donald Trump made that phone call just over two years ago, and he could soon face criminal charges because of it. A special grand jury in Georgia sent its final report on the former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election to a judge in Fulton County. We'll take you through what is next in that probe. Also ahead, the Department of Justice is reviewing

classified documents found in a personal office for President Joe Biden. This discovery appears to be very different from what happened at Mar-a-Lago. We'll explain. Plus, after hundreds. I'm going to ask Jonathan LeMire, actually, we're going to go down this. I'm going to ask Jonathan LeMire if it really is different or whether it's just the libs trying to hide things from the American people. But we'll go through the questions. OK, yeah. We're going to do it now or later. Why don't I ask you really quickly? Do you mind if I ask a couple quick questions? This is your beat, right?

I want to talk about the college football championship. On these docs, it's the same thing, right? Because Trump had docs. Biden has Trump. First question. So did Joe Biden's lawyers lie to the FBI and the DOJ about actually having all the documents returned to them? Did you do that? No, they did not. As soon as they discovered that there were these documents in this think tank associated with Joe Biden. They then notified the federal government.

But the DOJ, obviously, just like in the Trump case, so they had to go into long, drawn out negotiations, right, to try to get these Biden documents back like they did in the Trump case. Long, drawn out negotiations over a month. They had to do that, right? Actually, Joe, no, they didn't. The Biden team turned over the documents the very next day after they discovered them. OK, but the Biden team, though, before they turned it over, just like the Trump team, because I'm sure it's the same thing.

This is the same thing with both of them. I'm sure the Biden team in between that time when they turned it back, Biden had them go in to the warehouses and remove the rooms, remove documents. Right. Get them out of there after they were notified by the DOJ to hide them somewhere. No. President Biden has said that he first learned that these documents even existed and were in his materials when his lawyers discovered them in November. OK, there was no effort to hide them. They turned them over. Hold on, though. OK, OK.

So fine. But it's still the same thing, because we all know we've all read the stories. And Biden was vice president. He would often tear up government documents, flush things down the toilet. Eat them. Biden, eat them, flush them down the toilet. Biden did that, just like Trump. This is the same thing, really. And the toilet. Biden did that, just like Trump, right?

This is the same thing, really, and the libs just can't admit it's the same thing, right? Because he tore up a lot of government documents. He was known for saying malarkey a lot. No, he didn't. He's not known to tearing up documents or eating them. And his White House has pledged full cooperation with the investigation. Okay. I'm confused, Willie. I'm genuinely confused here. And his White House has pledged full cooperation with the investigation. OK. I'm confused, Willie.

I'm genuinely confused here. I mean, so I'm looking around the way I am. I'm confused. I mean, this doesn't sound anything like. Willie wants no part of the two cases. No, it doesn't sound anything like it. But yet I'm reading on the Twitter machine that it's just alike. But there doesn't sound to be any similarities. This has to be the libs trying to pull something over on us.

First of all, those were leading questions all your honor. And I'd like them stricken from the record if possible. So noted, duly noted. No, by the way, also, there was no FBI search warrant that had to be exercised, executed at the residence of the president. Or a raid. Former president, right. They did not have to take a year and a half, the National Archives, asking it first politely and then threatening the FBI to get those documents back.

They didn't go. The National Archives didn't receive those documents and then realized that they only had a fraction of them left so that the FBI then had to go execute a search warrant to get the rest of them. None of that happened in this case. Taking classified documents is a very serious matter. We're not saying it's not. Of course it is. But there's no comparison here. All right. So this is what the kids would call false equivalency or what Aristotle and many of his writings would call malarkey. And I agree with Aristotle. And now I'm going to finish talking about what we're going to talk about.

Oh, we're teasing this. Because this is an important story as well that we'll be covering here on Morning Joe today after hundreds of Brazilians stormed the government buildings in support of former President Bolsonaro, who left the country for Florida almost two weeks ago. There's now pressure on the Biden administration to send Jair Bolsonaro back to Brazil. So we'll get to all of that in just a moment. We got big news coming out of Georgia about the possible conviction, possible conviction, but possible grand jury news and how that impacts Donald Trump. But first, let's talk about Georgia for a second, Willie. I don't know. Yeah. Well, but here's the thing.

I mean, I don't know how to say this politely. We'll say it impolitely. Okay. When you let a team that loses to Kansas State play in the college football championship, right? And you have a team coached by Nick Saban that lost, yes, two games on the last play of each one of those games in two of the hardest places to play in college football. This is what you get. And all of these bots, they're not bots, but they were like bots, just, but they lost two games, but they lost two games, but they lost two games. This is what you get.

I mean, it was a destruction. And listen, I mean, 2006, Florida won the national championship. 2007, LSU. 2008, Florida. 2009, Alabama. 2010, Auburn. 2011, Alabama. 2012, Alabama.

2013, you get the idea. Teams from the deep south win the national championship. Now, if people don't like that they can do what ohio state did in 2014 they're the one team not from the deep south that won it but we knew this was going to happen like alabama crushed k-state right and i respect these guys but seriously you put tcu in a national championship game. And I wonder what the committee's thinking now that everybody turned the game off after the first quarter. Yeah, the final score last night for people just waking up, Georgia 65, TCU 7.

65-7 in a national championship game. It was 38-7 at halftime. Georgia was on cruise control mode for the second half. The guy you just saw there, Stetson Bennett, the senior quarterback, four passing touchdowns, two rushing touchdowns, six total touchdowns in the game. Georgia wins back-to-back national championships. They lost 15 players to the NFL last year, 15,

including five off of their defense. Oh, it's a young team. We don't know how they're going to NFL last year. 15, including five off of their defense. Oh, it's a young team. We don't know how they're going to be this year. 15-0. They're 29-1 over the last two seasons. Just an incredible program Kirby Smart has built there. Game was never close, obviously, from the outset. This, by the way, is the biggest margin of victory in any bowl game ever.

Not just national championship games. Since they started playing bowls in 1902, 65-7 is the biggest margin. Joe, Nick Saban was sitting up there as an analyst for ESPN. You know he had to be thinking we would have liked a shot at these guys. They did lose those two games. They lost them on the last play of the game, so they didn't get into the SEC championship game where they might have had a shot to beat Georgia. We will say Ohio State probably should have beaten Georgia in the Final Four. So Ohio State is up on that SEC level. But really, to your point, no one else is. Alabama is probably the second best team in the country. You could put Tennessee right up there as well.

Ohio State belongs there. But my gosh, the gap between the SEC and the rest of the country, particularly now Georgia and the rest of the country, was stark isn't even the word. 65-7, that's the gap. Well, you know, Alabama, who knows? They probably would have lost to this Georgia team. And again, this isn't even about me being from Alabama, me cheering for Alabama. We've won enough. I understand it.

We're like, you know, people look at Alabama the way I look at Duke basketball, right? Enough already. But if you're interested in having the best teams play in the final game, the committee really screwed up badly. They screwed up in real time. They picked a team that lost to Kansas State. No disrespect to Kansas State. No disrespect to Kansas State. No disrespect to the kids from TCU had an incredible run. It's just two different levels of play. And I can

understand why, you know, Kansas State and TCU thought they deserved to be there. I totally get it. But we have a bowl committee to avoid things like this. And listen, if they want to just have computers decide this, to say, hey, team lost two games. This team lost one game. Put them in so we can keep seeing this Jonathan O'Meara. That's fine. But even after this game, did TCU not end up being ranked number

two in the nation when nobody on the planet would take TCU over Alabama straight up? It's ridiculous. I mean, the score here speaks for itself, 65 to 7. I think it's clear that Georgia had an off day against Ohio State. That game coming down to the wire, as Willie said, Ohio State easily could have won that game. I mean, Georgia was the best team all along, so we probably got the right outcome in terms of the national title game, but man, no competition here,

no drama whatsoever last night. You feel bad for the TCU kids, who were just totally outclassed. They didn't belong on the same field. Their help is that Georgia's quarterback, Stetson Bennett, is 38 years old. So that goes a long way to helping you win. But Georgia, I think he's older than Brady now. Yeah, he is. The two of them are squaring off. He is 25, which is old for a college quarterback. He's old as Lamar Jackson. Yeah, that part's true. He actually is as old as Lamar Jackson. Yeah, that part's true. He actually is as old as Lamar Jackson.

And, Will, you mentioned that they lost all these players to the pros. They're going to lose more this year. They're going to be great again next year. Georgia is sort of the top program right now, SEC, clearly the top conference. And we got maybe the best college football semifinals Saturday since they instituted this new system, and then we got the worst championship game. And it even shows, Joe, the gap between, say, Michigan, who had a great undefeated regular

season, but lost to TCU. People said, oh, is Michigan the best team in the country this year? They lost to TCU. Georgia beat TCU 65-7. So there's your Big Ten gap as well. One thing to say, though, you touched on it a second ago. TCU was 5-7 last year, did not have to finish seventh in their league, and had an incredible run with their first-year coach, Sonny Dykes, this year.

So you do tip your cap to their run. But Georgia and the SEC, clearly the better team. And the good news, Joe, is that this thing is going to expand in a couple of years. So while TCU will be in, so will be Alabama. And then I think then you'll really get a sense of who the best team is. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, let me just say, Sonny Dyke should be coach of the year. No doubt about it. The TCU team, it's extraordinary what they've done in a year. Extraordinary what they've done. They just aren't on the level of SEC.

That's not knocking them. There is storied programs all across. You think USC is on the level of the SEC? USC, one of the most storied programs in America. They're just not. Michigan, it's not. The Big Tens, not. And so again, why in the world this bowl committee set us up with this game? You know, I did feel really bad for the TCU kids. And it's one of the reasons I turned the game off, because it was too painful to watch. But that's not TCU's fault. That's not Georgia's fault. That's the bowl committee's fault.

They screwed up. But listen, I'll give my real opinion next hour. Okay, please do. And before we get to our top story, one more, Willie, in the world of football, which, I mean, I follow it a little bit less than you all, but Damar Hamlin, Buffalo Bill of Safety, released and sent back to Buffalo. He is headed home to Buffalo, as he posted yesterday, today, with a lot of love in my heart. Watching the world come together around me on Sunday was truly an amazing feeling. The same love you all have shown me is the same love that I plan to put back into the world and more. Bigger than football and the heart sign. Really,

really great news. When he was literally dead on the field a week ago, Willie, this is, it feels like a miracle. It's stunning. Think about where we were seven days ago on this show on Tuesday morning. We weren't sure if he was alive. Think about where we were seven days ago on this show on Tuesday morning. We weren't sure if he was alive. I mean, we saw that scene. The players were crying. How could they go on? He's back in Buffalo.

He's left the hospital. One of the great details, John, that the doctors offered yesterday, those incredible doctors at the University of Cincinnati Hospital and the trainers on the field and everybody else who saved his life. The doctor said during the game on Sunday, that huge game against the Patriots, when the kickoff, the opening kickoff was run back for a touchdown by the Bills, all the ICU alarms from Hamlin's room started going off. And they were worried and they ran in there and he was jumping up and down

celebrating this touchdown by his team. So he's up walking around. He's talking and well enough to fly back home to Buffalo. It's amazing. Yeah, even as a Patriots fan, I was happy to see that opening kickoff. I didn't mind that at all. It is remarkable. I mean, he's been upgraded to stable condition.

A week ago, he was dead. He's in stable condition. He's still going to be in the hospital for a while. But he's up. He's walking. He's talking. He's eating. He's breathing on his own.

He's making a remarkable recovery. And it was, as he said, it was really emotional to see the whole league rally around, no matter what team you root for. And at this point, it is miraculous. It's miraculous that he's doing so well. And let's hope it continues. And we will follow all of this. But let's get to our top story this morning.

At quarter past the hour, a special grand jury has finished its criminal investigation into whether former President Trump and his allies tried to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Its final report has been filed with a judge in Fulton County. Jurors recommended that the report be made public, but a hearing in two weeks will determine if that happens, Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis called the special purpose grand jury last year because it had the power to issue subpoenas to force witnesses to testify. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were all questioned about Trump's efforts to change the election results. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger also testified. The main focus of the investigation was that phone call former President Trump made to Raffensperger asking the Secretary of State to find him 11,780 votes. I only need 11,000 votes.

Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. There's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated. It's really, again, every time you play it, it gets worse. He sounds like such a thug on there saying, come on, there's nothing wrong with saying 11,000 recalculated them. Yeah. He's saying just he's saying all you need to do is steal 11,000 votes.

Come on. Give me a break. Yeah. Let's bring in NBC News legal analyst Andrew Wiseman. He's the former general counsel of the FBI and served as lead prosecutor in the Mueller special counsel's office. So, Andrew, I have been weary through the years of watching people come on this network and other networks talking about how it's a fait accompli that Donald Trump is going to get charged by a grand jury. The charges are going to be against him, that the prosecution is going to begin. And I've told everybody he's above the law. It's never going to happen. This guy gets away with everything.

He can lie. He can cheat. He can break. He can break FEC laws. Nothing ever gets to him. I must say, I must say, I'm starting to get wobbly on that. At this point, it's hard to see listening to that call with the testimony that's gone in there, how he doesn't get charged. What are your thoughts? Couldn't agree more. You know, I have the same view. This is a man who for decades has escaped all sorts of civil and criminal liability. And so, you know, I can understand everyone, including you, being skeptical of these sort of predictions. But here, you know, you played the tape. There's other evidence. It's very hard to see that the special grand jury that has been in, you know, impaled for eight months isn't going to find probable cause that the former president committed

a crime. Remember, the standard is just probable cause. And that, by the way, is the same standard that a normal grand jury would need to apply to find criminal charges. So I think it's just incredibly unlikely that the special grand jury report won't say that the former president committed a crime. And that means that the DA, Ms. Willis, I think will be really hard pressed to overrule that and say, I'm not going to seek charges. So I think I don't know if this is the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end. But I think we're going to enter a new phase where we will see criminal charges out of Georgia with respect to the former president on this aspect of what he did to overthrow the will of the people in a national election. So, Andrew, as you know, the reason the district attorney, Fannie Willis,

asked for this special grand jury is because it had subpoena power and compelled people like Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani and Senator Lindsey Graham to testify. Eight months later, it will come out with its report. Just mechanically, if you can explain to our audience, what happens from here now? Where does it go? Well, this is a really unusual process because federally, you don't have sort of two types of grand juries. You just have one.

So the initial grand jury and the report that we're talking about is because it's a special grand jury where its function is to gather evidence, as you noted, Willie, to issue subpoenas, to bring witnesses in, and then it can issue a report. But it doesn't have the power to bring charges. But a regular grand jury does have that power. And there's nothing that stops the DA from impaneling that grand jury and presenting evidence now. In other words, the DA doesn't have to wait until the report is issued. So it's hard to know exactly what will happen. But I think that it's hard to see that the DA who has the report now isn't proceeding apace. If the report says that the former president committed a crime, then there's nothing that stops the DA from going ahead and

presenting that evidence to a grand jury. That process, just to be clear, can take a single day. Having done grand jury work, this is not a lengthy process. You can take the evidence that you've already presented to the special grand jury and you can give it to the regular grand jury. You don't have to recall all of those witnesses. So you could see charges happening simultaneously or shortly thereafter upon the release of this report on January 24th. So, Andrew, we should note the former president defended that call that we played at the beginning of this segment as perfect, which is the same word he used, of course, for the call to President Zelensky of Ukraine that got him impeached. So we may see this all public, right, in the next couple of weeks, the decisions we made

about that, but also underscore to us why so many in Trump's orbit have been the most nervous of all these investigations, most nervous about this one, because it's a state case. And therefore, his attempts to win back the White House in 24 or another Republican winning back the White House in 24 wouldn't matter. Yeah, I think there are two reasons why this is a particularly worrisome case if you are Donald Trump. One, he is on tape. So this is if you're a prosecutor, you're basically police press play and you let the jury hear the actual defendant. And then you have all of the other evidence to contextualize what he was doing. But so he's sort of front and center and he can't say, I didn't know what was going on or it wasn't me or the evidence was made up.

You have his own voice, which, as you alluded to, you know, and everyone has now heard is really damning. The second point is that it's a state charge. State charges are not subject to a presidential pardon. So, for instance, President Trump, at the end of his term, issued all sorts of pardons to various criminals, including many of his own cronies, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, and they dismissed the charges and then they issued pardons. That is not possible with a state charge. So if Trump or an ally were to become president, it is irrelevant to these charges. So these are ones that if you are Donald Trump and his defense lawyers, you are keenly aware of just how much these could really stick if a strong case is presented to a Georgia state jury. NBC News legal analyst Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for being on this morning. We'll

be following this. Yeah, thank you so much, Andrew. And he talked about really damning. Jonathan, we are I want us to end this block where we began talking about how Joe Biden, what Joe Biden did compared to what Donald Trump did. I left out a question. So forgive me. And it may be the most damning question. What was the role specifically based on all of your White House reporting? What was the role that Joe Biden had? and by extension, what responsibility does Joe Biden have for putting TCU in the championship series? Wow. Yeah. I'm checking the notes. I'm going to be on it for the rest of the show, Joe. But it's at this moment, it seems that President Biden had no role whatsoever in putting the Horned Frogs in the title game before they lost 65 to 7. He seems to be not involved there either.

OK, I'm going to file it. OK, I don't know. We'll check back. We have many hours of the show to get back to it. Yeah, many, many hours still ahead on Morning Joe. We're just starting out. Everybody's Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joins us on the heels of House Republicans

voting to rescind IRS funding. He says Democrats won't let it happen. Plus, Congressman George Santos, who appears to have made up most of his resume, is now the subject of a new FEC complaint. We're digging into that. Also ahead, we are gauging the fallout from Sunday's riots in Brazil and the growing calls for President Biden to extradite former far right President Bolsonaro from the U.S. And later this morning, bestselling author

James Patterson joins us with a look at his brand new thriller. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Something filled up my heart. Nothing. Someone. President Biden is facing mounting pressure to remove former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, from Florida. This comes a day after supporters of the former far right leader stormed Brazil's capital, a scene eerily familiar to the January 26, 2021 attack on the U.S. capital. NBC News correspondent Sam Brock has the latest. After chaotic clashes with police,

where protesters used metal barricades to bash in the windows of Brazil's Congress, around 1,500 Brazilians are behind bars supporting the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who, like Trump, pushed a narrative of electoral fraud for months without evidence, leading to scenes Sunday that looked an awful lot like January 6th. Police flashbangs and tear gas going well into the night to quell the crowds. The people who invaded the Brazilian institutions, they were thinking about what's happening in the United States. If it didn't happen in the United States, it wouldn't have happened in Brazil.

President Biden condemning the violence as an assault on democracy, throwing the country's support behind the newly elected Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, or just Lula, who served two prior terms. As Brazilians like Alan Lemos say watching the riots felt very much like the American insurrection. I think it's very similar in a way. It's just as sad because I don't think that's progress. Just like here, people have lost faith in the electoral process. Bolsonaro has been spotted in Florida in recent days. His wife saying he was admitted to the hospital for abdominal pain,

with new questions about whether he could stay on a diplomatic visa. If an individual has no basis on which to be in the United States, an individual is subject to removal by the Department of Homeland Security. All this says Brazil buckles, but tries not to break under its biggest attack on democracy in decades. You know, it can sometimes really be a tricky thing when when you're talking about extraditing a former leader back to a country, I know one of the most famous examples involved Mika's dad. The Iranians were demanding that the Shah of Iran be sent back to Iran. And Dr. Brzezinski told them in short order to go straight to hell

because he knew that once he got back there, he'd be executed. There was no rule of law there. It's just the opposite here. You have former leaders, people going on on riots to try to undermine the rule of law there. So not exactly sure why there would be a problem sending him back to Brazil. Yeah. And on the diplomatic question, I mean, he's not president anymore. So that visa runs out after 30 days and he's got to reapply for one. So we'll see where that stands. Let's turn to the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass.

Richard, good morning. I mean, there's the echoes of January 6th here from what we saw visually. But the rhetoric that led up to it, their messages going out, attention patriots, on January 8th, we will bring Brasilia to a halt. I mean, all that's missing is we'll be wild at the end of some of these tweets. What did you see in that protest? I think it shocked a lot of people in that protest, that attack on the capital in Brazil. And do you think it looks like what happened at the capital on January 6, two years ago? Look, the bad news is it does look like it because it was like it. You know, we used to export democracy. The whole idea is we were going to be the shining city on a hill. Well, guess what? We're now a very different kind of city and it ain't shining. And the idea that

you had this kind of emulation of what happened here now happens there is depressing. The good news is Brazil had a decent election. A Democratic candidate committed to democracy won. The strongest part of Brazilian democracy over the last couple of years, even while Bolsonaro was in power trying to undermine it, was the Brazilian legal system. And I think what we're seeing and what we're going to see is the Brazilian legal system. The courts have tremendous power in Brazil. My guess is they will save Brazilian democracy. And so if they ask for Bolsonaro to be extradited, I think we will comply.

But then he will get a fair hearing. The courts in Brazil tend to be quite impressive. Indeed, Lula was brought down by the courts. People forget. They investigated him over the corruption scandal. So I think we can depend on the legal system there. So if and when it comes to it, it shouldn't be us, if you will, driving the train here. Let the Brazilians drive this train. And I think their system can hold up.

And on the law enforcement side, 1500 people already have been arrested and round up a day later. So that tells you something as well. What do you think about the Biden administration's reaction here, Richard? They've been quick out of the gate. President publicly, privately talking to Lula, offering his support, saying we stand with him. How important is that? Well, it's good. I mean, in the Americas, more broadly, the whole idea when you have non-democratic efforts to bring down governments, coups or what have you, everyone is committed to pushing back against it. I think it's good that the United States was straight out of the gate. I wish we had heard from the new Speaker of the House and others to make it clear that it was a nonpartisan sort of thing. And also, again, this puts the pressure on us to make our democracy work. The best thing we can do for

democracy in the hemisphere and around the world to show that American democracy works and American democracy delivers. So that's the real issue. But yes, the fact that we were so quick to condemn it was the right thing to do. And what great, great, great to hear about the courts in Brazil and the rule of law in Brazil, a real hope for moving forward. Richard, we've been asking the past couple of days about the new Republican leadership in the House who struck a deal with some of its more extreme members, extreme members who are against us funding Ukraine, extreme members who want to conduct search and destroy investigations of our intel community, want to undermine the FBI. Some of the most powerful people now in the new House Republican

leadership have talked about publicly defunding the FBI. They want to attack the intel community. They want to defund our military. They want to slash $75 billion in funding from our military. And now there's a debate whether all of that was in the rules or not. I think most of it was. And I'm curious if these new House Republicans get their way and the military budget to slash $75 billion in the most dangerous time we've had since the Cuban missile crisis. And the intel communities who are trying their best to push back on China's espionage, spying. If if they're if they're allowed to be attacked and undermined by Kevin McCarthy's Republican House, how bad is that for America's national security? How less safe does

that make every American? Look, Joe, what you're pointing to is, shall we say, I'll put it generously, the contradictions in the Republican position. They say they're against mounting deficits. What's the first thing they do? They want to take all the money away from beefing up the IRS so it can implement existing tax law. I think one of the first things the new speaker is going to do is go out to Taiwan, which is a trip that will, shall we say, roil the waters literally and figuratively. You'll have almost a Pelosi plus situation there. One of the questions is, how can he be reassuring to Japan and South Korea and Taiwan if the backdrop are defense cuts? The biggest national security challenge, we talk about it every day on this show, is Ukraine. And how can the United States stand for order in the world

if the United States is not going to fund that? The Republicans are tough rhetorically on Iran, opposing the 2015 agreement. I agree with that position. But we now face a situation where militarily we could be challenged in three geographies in Europe and Asia and the Middle East because of Iran. Are we going to fund the U.S. defense capabilities adequately? So I think these contradictions in the Republican position ought to be ought to be talked about for what they are and attacked. It's not just defense. It's the IRS. Let's bring in congressional reporter for The Hill, Michael Schnell. And it is really good to have you on this morning. Give us a sense of everything that went down yesterday, especially as it pertains to repealing IRS funding.

Right. So if we start with that IRS bill, Mika, this was the bill that Kevin McCarthy had been teasing as the first piece of legislation that a House GOP majority would bring up should they win control of the chamber. And essentially what this bill does is it rescinds the bulk of that $80 billion that was appropriated to boost funding for the IRS in the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act passed over the summer. And now the majority of that spending was basically meant to zero in on enforcement of high income earners. But Republicans had sort of characterized this as a way that the IRS was going to hire 87,000 new agents, though the department has come back and said that that is just not true. This was meant for not just agents, but hiring other employees, ones in customer service, computer science, and accounting for the tens of thousands of employees they expect to resign or quit over the next 10 years.

But nonetheless, Republicans had took this up as the first piece of legislation to pass in the House GOP majority. It kind of gives you a sense of what the next two years may look like. Messaging bills coming from House Republicans that will appease the base that really have no chance of moving in the Democratic controlled Senate. It's fascinating. The CBO reports, the Congressional Budget Office reports that this will cost cost one hundred and eighty six billion dollars, translating to one hundred and fourteen billion dollar increase in deficits over the next decade. It's remarkable. So on their first day at work, they increased the deficit by over $100 billion. That's right. And this CBO report, it came yesterday afternoon as House Republicans were preparing to bring

this bill to the floor and conduct debate. And as you could expect, this was one point that Democrats had brought up a number of times on the House floor. But nonetheless, the bill passed all along party lines with all Republicans present voting for it, all Democrats present voting against it. But again, it likely has no chance in the Senate. And even President Biden came out against

it with the White House putting out a statement of administrative policy opposing the legislation. All right. Congressional reporter for The Hill, Michael Schnell. Thank you so much. Whether it passes or not, Richard Haass, you have Republicans who once again, one day in, pass legislation that would jack up the deficit by $100 billion. It seems one of the great ironies over the past 20 years that Republicans talk about deficits and smaller government, and yet deficits grew at record rates under Donald Trump. He inherited a deficit from Barack Obama, and he jacked the deficit up every single year of his presidency, the four years of his presidency, record debt, record deficits. You can say the same for George

W. Bush, who inherited a one hundred and fifty five billion dollar surplus and and left with with massive deficits, record deficits. This is this incredible. These Republicans just again, I keep saying this, Richard. I know you're a former Republican yourself. I think you were the Republican Party. They just don't learn. As was once said about the kings of France, they experience history. They don't learn from it.

Look, this this is irresponsible. It's also, Joe, connecting to something else you said. It doesn't just fail the economics test. And it also makes us more vulnerable to the question of foreign funding of American debt. Again, how are you anti-China if you make the United States more vulnerable to markets or what foreign governments might do? But it's also part of this kind of mindless, indiscriminate attack on government. You go after the FBI, you go after the IRS, you go after all the authorities of government. And there's no discrimination here between those things that are necessary and legitimate and those that might not

be. To me, it's just totally mindless. And it's just not in any way thought through in terms of its implications for American economic security or American national security. And we've talked about this, Jonathan, here before. It is mindless. This Reagan skepticism of the federal government has turned into nihilism where you attack the IRS. You have the most senior Republican senator accusing IRS agents of taking AR-15s to Iowa and knocking down doors and threatening to kill small business owners. It's a total lie. You have the lies about the FBI coming and knocking down doors to arrest Trump supporters, a complete and total lie. So you have senators, powerful Republican senators, attacking the United States military every chance they get, even saying they wish that the U.S. military, strongest in the world,

by the way, and relative to the rest of the world, strongest in the world, by the way, and relative to the rest of the world, strongest in the world, in the history of the world. But you have Republican senators actually saying they wish our soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen and Coast Guard officials were more like the Russian military. That's how sick this nihilism has gotten. And this hatred of all things American, this hatred for the United States military, this hatred for the chief law enforcement agency in America, it's it's it's gotten insane. And again, let me repeat, it's why they keep losing elections. Yeah. And these attacks on American institutions, conspiracy theories, obviously part of Donald Trump's legacy as well. He accelerated it going, whether it's the FBI,

Department of Justice, command, the intelligence agencies, he went after them day after day. And Richard, there's a connection here to how he opened the block, too. It's these assaults on institutions of government, including the democratic institutions, when you lose elections that fueled January 6th and fueled what we saw in Brazil. And in fact, it's some of the same characters we detailed yesterday at length on this show. It's the Steve Bannons and Jason Millers and other people who work for Trump are also pushing this same unrest in Brasilia. So my concern is, you came into this segment saying we used to export democracies, now we're exporting this. But is it not just to Brazil? What other countries do you feel like are vulnerable to this sort of conspiracy theories? Might we see it January 6th, not just in Brazil, but in other world capitals? Well, let me say two things. One

is it clearly helps our authoritarian foes. When they see the United States in political and economic social disarray, they use this as justification for their systems. You see it regularly, for example, on Chinese and Russian media. They point to us and they use that to justify what they do at home. I would think looking around the world, I'm probably most worried about other parts of the Americas. Western Hemisphere was the part of the world that was advancing most in democracy a couple of decades ago. No longer. We're now seeing all sorts of sets back. Mexico being one place, some other places as well. I would think also parts of Eastern Europe, obviously Hungary and all that. We've got to

worry about that. It just makes it very hard for us to promote democracy by example. One other thing, I would expect one of the other places the Republican House is going to look to cut funding is going to be on stuff for democracy promotion abroad. Anything to do with, quote unquote, foreign aid will be seen as a giveaway. You know that's going to be a popular target for these characters. But the part of the world I would worry most about is Latin America. And also, we have nothing else there. We don't have a trade policy. It's not a priority for American front. We tend to ignore it. The president went there the other day, but one visit does not a Latin America policy make. So it worries me that we're seeing a certain deterioration in the part

of the world that's closest to us. And it's also then linked to immigration pressures. If we don't have a stable, successful Western hemisphere, guess what? One of the way it's going to show up is a people moving towards the United States. All right. Coming up, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will be our guest. Also ahead, we'll be joined by a New York City nurse amid a major labor strike by nurses at two hospitals there. Morning Joe will be right back. The United States continues to pledge its unwavering commitment for Ukraine as Russia continues to launch punishing and deadly attacks on the country. As the war rages on, there are increasingly new calls inside the U.S. government to pull back on support. It's not the first time our nation has wrestled with that question when it comes to global

conflicts. A new book now takes a look at a time when America mostly rise to global superpower coming out of World War II when similar debates raged about the U.S.'s role in world conflict. Robert Kagan joins us now. Robert, thank you so much for being with us. You know, it's interesting. I did a lot of research on Harry Truman a couple of years ago, and I couldn't help but see as Truman was trying to pull us out of the isolationism after World War Two, how the ghosts of this time period you're talking about impacted Republicans whose instincts were to basically build Fortress USA, and even had somebody like Robert Taft, Mr. Republican, say, enough, enough. We can't hide from history anymore. Talk about those years that haunted so many Americans after World War II. Well, when we see the arguments that we're having now over Ukraine, you just have to magnify that times about a thousand to get a sense of the kind of arguments that were occurring in the United States, especially in the 1930s, when you had the rise of Hitler's Germany, the rise of imperial Japan. And the country was

deeply divided. Interestingly, it was divided very much along Republican and Democratic lines. Republicans who were in opposition at that time to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they were attacking every aspect of his policy. They accused him of being a socialist and a communist. And since Roosevelt's general approach to world affairs was internationalist, Republicans took the opposite view, which had been their view for quite some time. And so even at a time when the threats were mounting, you know, in a way that I think as we look back on it, it's almost inconceivable that people could actually oppose getting ready for these threats. The country really was in turmoil.

And the arguments they were having about whether democracy should be promoted, whether the United States should be involved in the world, These were all front and center in the 1930s. And honestly, the debate really was never settled except by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And then all the people who'd been opposed to involvement overseas were discredited. The Republicans were completely discredited as a party during World War II, and they had to resurrect themselves afterwards, which they did largely by becoming sort of fervent anti-communists. But it was a real political blow to Republicans at that time. So, Robert, let me ask you about this isolationist period that led to the horrors of

World War II. Growing up, reading about it, learning about it. There was always sort of this pat answer that it was Wilson's fault. After Versailles in 1919, an arrogant Wilson came back and tried to shove this internationalist agenda down a Republican Congress's throat. So they just didn't do it. Is that an oversimplification of what happened? If Wilson had had a lighter touch, would he still have been able to move these isolationist Republicans? I don't think so. You know, Wilson had his flaws as a leader. He was obviously very arrogant and he didn't really get along with people who he disagreed with very well.

But the fact of the matter is, when Wilson came back from Paris with the League of Nations Treaty and the Versailles Agreement, Americans were largely supportive. And it was, I would say, the brilliant, if unfortunate, legislative efforts by Henry Cabot Lodge, who was not a radical conservative Republican. In fact, he'd been an internationalist. But in order to defeat the Democrats, in order to defeat Woodrow Wilson, in order to win the presidency in 1920, the Republicans came out and opposed the treaty and had a huge impact on the subsequent American foreign policy. So you'll be shocked to learn that politics played a huge role in our foreign policy decision making. Hey, Bob, congratulations on this, your latest volume. Let me ask you a counterfactual.

What do you think the United States would have done in the 40s if Japan had not attacked us at Pearl Harbor? Would we have gotten involved in the war? What would have been the trigger? What's your sense of how history was playing out absent that attack? I think that the particular means of the United States getting into the war, which was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it didn't have to happen that way. Roosevelt was pushing steadily to get the United States more and more involved in the war. And that was particularly the case in the battle for the Atlantic, which was then going on. He deployed American ships. He ultimately was hunting German submarines.

He was providing escorts to trading the British ships, etc. And so, ultimately, I think that he was waiting for Hitler to make the first move in terms of declaring war. And I think he would have pushed as far as he could. And as far as the Japanese are concerned, it's worth remembering, as I know you do, Richard, that the Japanese didn't attack Pearl Harbor out of the blue for no reason. The United States had been taking actions, which I think were correct, but nevertheless taking actions to try to slow and stop Japanese aggression. The Japanese had invaded China. They had killed hundreds of thousands of people. And the United States, as it often does, was disapproving and

ultimately using economic sanctions to the point where the Japanese felt that if they didn't knock us out, the United States would ultimately strangle them. So these were decisions that actually Americans made. And I think that so the answer to your question, Richard, is I think that that was where the United States was heading in any case. Certainly Roosevelt felt that war was unavoidable. The new book is entitled The Ghost at the Feast, America and the Collapse of the World Order, 1900 to 1941. Robert Kagan, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. We appreciate it. And Richard Haas, thank you as well. And Richard, the Giants going into the playoffs, how deep are they going to go?

We're feeling pretty good about this Sunday. I think they got the team they wanted to play. They wanted Minnesota, not San Francisco. They should have beaten them a few this Sunday. I think they got the team they wanted to play. They wanted Minnesota, not San Francisco. They should have beaten them a few weeks ago. I think they're going to beat them this Sunday, Joe. Willie, how do you feel about that? You think the Giants can beat the Vikings? Maybe the worst 12-4 team in football? I sure do.

I think Daniel Jones is hot at the right time. If Saquon can run the ball, the defense is playing well. We are believers. Go Big Blue. Okay.