Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/16/22

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Trump, whose lies about the 2020 election inspired an insurrection, announces third White House bid

And now, the announcement the former president would have made if he could take a damn hint. We have a very important announcement to make tonight. I want you to know that I'm running away forever and I'm never going to come back. Maybe I'll have to leave the country. I will immediately be forgotten. Nobody will come to my funeral. I think I'll tell my son Eric that I have been abducted by Space Force. I've always been a no good, rotten, disgusting embarrassment to our great country.

So in conclusion, bye bye, bing bong, and God bless the United States. Well, that was not the message that we got from the former president last night. Turns out... Well, it's a message, though. A lot of Republicans would have loved him to give last night. It's a message that

the Wall Street Journal editorial page would have loved for him to give last night. It's a message that National Review would have loved to give him last. Anybody who wants to win a Republican election on the Republicans, they would like. And if you're a Republican and you'd like to end this losing streak, 18, 20, 22, you don't want him out there. You got to stop the damage. You got to contain it. And I just I do have to wonder, again, we never thought it was going to be a red wave. But I do wonder how much damage was done by Donald Trump putting himself back out there the last week. Everybody thought John Heilman was talking about the discipline that he showed.

Yeah. Said Trump had shown discipline over this last stretch by not going out. And then he came out at the very end. Not only that, two nights in a row or two speeches in a row, he made fun of political violence. He mocked Nancy Pelosi. He mocked Nancy Pelosi's husband, getting his head smashed in an act of political violence. And I just again, I go back to baseball crank saying that, you know, when when we're talking about Trump, Democrats win. When we're talking about Biden, Republicans win. And Trump always shifts it to him. And now he's done it yet again for Herschel Walker, a guy that he selected, a guy who he's scamming off of, making money off of,

and now a guy who he stepped in when Republicans begged him not to. And now it's probably going to, well, probably going to elect Warnock. Well, we'll see. So it turns out he's not yet done inflicting damage on the Republican Party. Some of his family members are done. We'll have his announcement about 2024 and reaction from both sides coming up in just a bit. Plus, Kevin McCarthy beats back a challenge to win the nomination for from House Republicans for speaker. But will he get the votes to actually win the gavel? He had an impressive tally inside the conference. But unfortunately for him, the difference is so narrow between Republicans and Democrats, whatever that number ends up being, that you listen to a lot of House members yesterday.

He's going to be it's going to be really hard for him to get the gavel to get the 218. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are set to hold their leadership vote today. And Rick Scott says he plans to challenge Mitch McConnell for the top spot. We'll have the latest from Capitol Hill. A lot of drama in the Republican Party. Ugly there. I mean, McConnell's aides, Rick Scott's aides going after each other. A lot of drama, a lot of tough talk there. Yeah. And out and out in the open to Senator McConnell is attacking Rick Scott in public points for brazenness for Rick Scott a couple of days after improbably losing the United States Senate against the trends of inflation,

against the trends of history, against everything they had going their way to lose the Senate somehow, perhaps getting to 51 for Democrats and then stepping forward and saying, I'm the guy who needs to run the United States Senate. Mitch McConnell was having none of it yesterday. None of it yesterday. And after, Mika, you had Republicans saying, oh, Rick Scott's plan doesn't cut Medicare, doesn't cut Social Security, doesn't raise taxes on half of America.

You now have Mitch McConnell and his team saying that's exactly what it does. And if that's the direction you want to go with slashing Medicare, slashing Social Security, then support Rick Scott. OK. And new reporting this morning on the Russian made missile that crossed over into Poland, killing two people in NATO territory. Nothing more serious than that. NATO members are holding an emergency meeting right now. We'll be following that. We have a lot of big guests pertaining to that story and the war in Ukraine overall as well. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have attorney and contributing columnist for The Washington Post, George Conway.

Washington bureau chief for USA Today. Susan Page is with us this morning. Also with us, Mr. Way too early for the week. White House editor. He's good at for political. Yes. Just he's almost as good as Lemire. You just know you just look at Sam almost. And you're like, has that guy been doing that? I like that Sam Stein. This is what I said. I like that Sam Stein. Dr. Fine has to be very proud of that. She's very proud of him. All right. We begin with the Republican Party in disarray on Capitol Hill. The Washington Post headline put it this way, quote, Republican infighting royals. Congress says midterm fallout continues in the Senate. Minority leader Mitch McConnell is facing a new challenge to his leadership post during a closed door meeting with GOP lawmakers yesterday. Senator Rick Scott

announced plans to run against McConnell. He later released a letter writing in part this voters are begging us to tell them what we will do when we are in charge. Yes, they have been for quite some time. The problem is you told them what you wanted them to do and they rejected it. Rick blames it on others. Unfortunately, we have continued to elect a leadership who refuses to do that and elicits attacks on anyone that does. That is clearly not working and it's time for bold change. I'll tell you what happened and the reason why this meltdown is happening in the

Republican Party is nothing like these midterms has ever happened before. When you really look at the numbers and look at what what went down versus what was expected and what historically happens during midterms like this. Wow. They got routed. And Rick Scott had a disastrous plan. Republicans were horrified by the fact that he also had one of the most disastrous midterms for a guy that that that was in charge. You know, the timing of this is ridiculous. And and, Mitch McConnell yesterday was asked about Scott's challenge, and he actually weighed in and talked about why Republicans did so poorly in the midterms this time. One of the criticisms from Senator Scott and others who agree with him is that your decision not to have an agenda to run on opened up Republican candidates to attacks that they didn't really stand for anything. What is your response to the criticism that you are partially responsible for?

Every one of our candidates knew what they were for, expressed it quite clearly. It's pretty obvious, and all of you have been writing about it, what happened. We underperformed among independents and moderates because their impression of many of the people in our party in leadership roles is that they're engulfed in chaos, negativity, excessive attacks, and it frightened independent and moderate Republican voters. And we saw that, which is why you all recall I never predicted a red wave. We never saw that in any of our polling in the states that we were counting on to win. There was no wave.

We had national issues set that was favorable but as a result of our own the perception many of them had that we were not dealing with issues in a responsible way and we were spending too much time on negativity and attacks and chaos, they were frightened. And so they pulled back. We, in two states, for example, excuse me, in two states, for example, got just crushed by independent voters, Arizona and New Hampshire. So we learned some lessons about this. and I think the lesson is pretty clear. Senate races are different. Candidate quality, you recall, I said in August, is important. And in most of our states, we've met that test. In a few of them, we did not.

Willie, I think it's very polite that Mitch McConnell said we learned a lot of lessons here because Mitch McConnell knew the lessons as they were unfolding and kept trying to warn Republicans. In fact, in August, he talked about candidate quality. Everybody freaked out. It melted down. He saw this coming. But I wrote down some of the words I thought I thought this was really as fascinating coming from the leader of a party that basically is echoing what everybody out there has been saying. He said it's obvious that we frightened independent and moderate voters. He talked about the Republican Party's chaos, which we talk about, negativity, which we talk about, and excessive personal attacks. The issues were favorable to Republicans, but our own irresponsibility, negativity, attacks and chaos led us to be

crushed by independent voters and moderates. Yeah. Republicans had to work hard not to win the Senate. And they did. Yeah. I mean, everything was going in their favor and they somehow did it. I mean, you hear it from McConnell's office. They went further yesterday. They said, if you like Republicans losing Senate campaigns while saddling the party with tax increases and Medicare cuts, then you're going to love Rick Scott's campaign for leader. That is from Mitch McConnell's office talking about his fellow Republican Rick Scott. So Sam Stein, it raises the question. They had this heated meeting yesterday. Senate Republicans were about 20 senators or so got up and spoke. The topic was what on earth happened in these elections.

So the question for you is, as somebody who covers this closely, is there a chance that Speaker McConnell is unseated? Does Rick Scott have a real chance at this? No, he does not. It's still remarkable that he's doing it. Brazen is the word you used. I think that's probably the right word in this case. If you run the Senate re-election campaign arm and lose and then decide you need a promotion, that's pretty brazen. But I think McConnell will have the votes. I've never really, it's been a while since we've seen so much open animus between two members, but these men genuinely do not like each other. And I think they're having at it. And I find honestly, I find the McConnell position really the most fascinating

one here. It's very clear that he wants to steer the party in a different direction than Trump, right? Like he was involved in some of the most important bipartisan achievements for Biden, infrastructure, guns. He's going to probably be involved in electoral reform with Biden. So he's trying to move the party in a different direction. At the same time, he had the most important shot to rid the party of Trump, which was right after January 6th, when he could have pushed that impeachment proceeding through before Congress left. And he did not take it. And I'm wondering now if he looks back at all with some regret, thinking that he had a chance to maybe rid the party of Trump, which obviously was the anchor on the party's neck in this midterm

elections. He didn't take it. Now he wants to do it again. But he's saying all this stuff and being challenged by Rick Scott right as Trump is reemerging on the political landscape with his third run for the presidency. So it's a fascinating kind of weird position that McConnell finds himself. Yeah, you know, Willie, McConnell counts votes. That's what he does. He gave a speech that was blistering towards Donald Trump, but he just knew he didn't have the conference with him. I think what's fascinating also about Rick Scott's run, which wasn't mentioned here, is here you have a guy who, again, just led a disastrous, disastrous midterm election for the Republican Senate,

probably the worst in recent history. But he was also an election denier. He voted to not certify election results on January the 6th after the riots. So you've got an election denier, a guy that McConnell's own office says is pushing for tax increases on half of the American people and for Medicare cuts. And he chooses this time as an election denier. When, again, all election deniers lost, to run for office. To run for this leadership office, it really doesn't make any sense.

And this is a guy, George Conway and Rick Scott, running the senatorial campaign, who stood behind all those candidates, literally, in many cases, standing behind Herschel Walker in Georgia, propping him up, other election deniers, and saying, yes, these are our candidates, This is the way. And as I said, they pulled a very difficult trick, which was to lose the Senate as the out party in a year with 8 percent inflation and a president with 40 percent approval ratings. What do you make of this sort of intra-party fight going on right now? No, I think there's a there's a vacuum in the Republican Party. It's been a party that has not functioned as a real political party for quite some time. It's much more of a personality cult. It's a party that didn't

have, for example, a platform in 2020. And so now the only thing that was holding it together was loyalty to Trump and fear of Trump and the fact that Trump could destroy any number of politicians who stood against him because of his popularity with the base. But now he doesn't have that power anymore. At least they don't think so. And now you're seeing the fissures, the cracks as the mainstream people in the party who saw how Trump was bad all along, kept their mouths shut, are now trying to gain some semblance of control. And Susan, it's not just in the Senate. It's over in the House. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, his path to speaker may be much more difficult than he would have thought, say, a week ago,

week and a half ago. At yesterday's Republican leadership elections, more than 30 conference members voted against McCarthy for the job. He only had to win a majority of support to become the nominee for speaker, though he got that done. But he'll need 218 votes in January to actually win that role. Republicans are projected to have an extremely slim majority in the lower chamber, meaning the January vote for McCarthy is far from certain. Freedom Caucus member Matt Gaetz suggested the same group of conservatives who blocked McCarthy from the speakership in 2015 would do that again. He said this, quote, Kevin McCarthy couldn't get 218 votes. He couldn't get 200 votes. He couldn't get 190 votes today. So to believe that Kevin McCarthy is going to become speaker, you have to believe he's going to get votes in the next six weeks

that he couldn't get in the last six years. So, I mean, if he's got 220 seats in the House, he's got to get everybody. He's got to appeal to the Freedom Caucus. He's got to appeal to the moderates. He's got to give everybody a little something. Can he get there? He'll be Nancy Pelosi-like skills because it's a situation not unsimilar to the one she faced in 2018 when there was some eagerness among some of the Democratic caucus to elect somebody else. She put a coalition together in the way she has been a pretty masterful legislator for decades. But this is harder because his party is very divided. He now has not only 30 or so members of this very combative Freedom Caucus, he's got some moderate members who won districts who are concerned about looking to extreme for their own reelection.

So, you know, I think he's still the most likely next speaker. But I don't do not think it's guaranteed until it's done. Joe, Congressman Andy Biggs of the Freedom Caucus announced he's going to make a run as well. Yeah. Speaker, you've been in these negotiations. You've been in these discussions. You've been in these fights. How does this play out?

Yeah. What are Kevin McCarthy's options? They're not a lot of really good options. Nobody had ever really it had always been assumed that if you won in the caucus, that you were going to be the speaker because everybody goes out and everybody blindly follows the line. In 1998, there were about six of us that said it wasn't going to happen. We actually, I did something that I had not done in a long time, and that was actually read the rules of the House of Representatives. And I saw that there was something called motion to vacate the chair.

And I went to the guys and I said, hey, listen, we're going to get rolled in conference every time. But if we really think we need to get Newt Gingrich out of here, we just don't vote for him when it goes to the full chamber. And we can even anytime do a motion to vacate the chair if he doesn't get 218 votes. And he wouldn't do that because he had a majority, I think, of four at the time. If six of us voted against Gingrich, he would never be speaker. And I remember his top aide yelling at me, going, well, you all don't have anybody that'll get 218 votes. And we're like, of course we don't. We don't care. We just know that Newt will never get 218 votes. And so at that point, that's when Gingrich left. I think he called us, well, he called us a lot of really bad names.

I forget what he called us. Let's move forward. We're going to move forward. It's water on the bridge. You don't remember us. Jihadists. I think he called us jihadists. No. I think he called her she oddest. No, but but so that sort of changed things where now you have to get 200.

You have to get 218 members of your party to support you. Kevin McCarthy does not have that. You look at what again, depending on if it's a five vote lead, you need five people that say I'm never, ever going to vote for Kevin McCarthy. And Kevin McCarthy will never be speaker unless you find Democrats who will vote for him. And that's just not going to happen. So actually, he did well in the conference. That's an impressive win in the conference. But because this margin is so small, if these Freedom Caucus people stick to their guns, so to speak, I don't see how he's

ever a speaker of the House. So we'll be following that, these fascinating dynamics within the Republican Party. But there's still a lot more going on. Also, you might have heard yesterday that Donald Trump announced another run for president ahead of. Yeah. Why would he do that? It was like late at night because he keeps keeps losing. Ahead of Trump's announcement, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was asked about the- This would be like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the first year when they went 0-14 asking the NFL if they could have a couple more games. Willie, I don't understand this. Okay.

Remember the Bucs when they had the pastry colors on? Yeah. Bring those back. And John McKay was their coach. I think it was a little like wah-wah. I love that. But they started wah-wah. I love that. But they started 0-14.

If you were 0-14, would you go to the league and say, hey, can we play three more games? Because that's what Trump's doing right now. No, I might humbly leave the stage, but I think that's where we're different. Well, the league might say no. I don't know about the league.

But DeSantis responded to some comments that President Trump made about him, DeSantis and all this stuff. Take a listen to Ron DeSantis responded to some comments that President Trump made about him, DeSantis and all this stuff. Take a listen to Ron DeSantis. We focused on results and leadership. And, you know, at the end of the day, I would just tell people to go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night. Oh, George Conway, you have a new opinion piece in The Washington Post entitled Trump is out for vengeance and to protect himself from prosecution. And you write in part, quote, A big reason Trump announced his run is he fears criminal prosecution.

He's a desperate man, a threatened and rabid animal who could face multiple indictments. The stolen classified documents, Georgia over the next year. He thinks running for president and the specter of violence from his fringiest supporters will protect him from the prosecutors. If he's indicted, he promises problems in this country, the likes of which perhaps we've never seen before. And he'll make good on that promise. As Senator Mitch McConnell said last year, Trump was determined to torch our institutions on the way out in January of 2021, merely because he lost an election. So just imagine what Trump would do to stay out of jail. And, you know, in the announcement that Trump made, it's important to note that his daughter, who was a big part of the campaign,

he always really enjoyed bringing her on stage and really engaging her in the political process. She said she loves her dad. Yeah, but she's she's not she's out of politics. She's not doing this. Yeah, she's getting out of politics. You also had other people. We'd quoted Matt Gaetz before Matt Gaetz. Here's what Ivanka said. This time around, I'm choosing to prioritize my young children, private life we're creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics. While I always will love and support my father going forward, I will do so outside the political arena.

Yeah, so she's supporting outside the political arena. And we've heard the same thing with Jared also. But but George Conway, it's very interesting. No politicians lining up to kiss the ring. Even Matt Gaetz, who we quoted before, was going to fly down for it. And then he announced yesterday he couldn't come because of weather. I checked my weather app. It looked pretty good, actually, in between DCA and PBI. But he didn't make the flight. This is a wounded, wounded politician, isn't it? He is.

He absolutely is. He does not carry the weight that he once carried. They're clearly not as afraid of him as they once were. They clearly don't want to kiss the ring in the way they once kissed the ring. But the problem is he's still there and he still has a chunk of the party, of the rank and file members of the party who are almost cultishly in support of him. And he's going to take, he'll burn the house down before he lets anybody else take the nomination for him. So somebody better, if somebody's going to challenge him, and I think it has to be a one-on-one challenge because of the way the delegate rules worked out. If it's a

multi-part, if a multi-candidate race occurs, I think he's going to win it with 30 or 40 percent of the vote. So I think, you know, the Republican Party has a problem. They have to they have to fight Trump or let him self-destruct. But they're going to be in the blast radius. It's just it's just it's just a terrible, terrible Hobson's choice that the Republican Party faces. And he's also, George, as you write about in the piece, under investigation. And part of this, he thinks, is to protect himself from prosecution. You've got a couple of federal probes. You've got the Fulton County, Georgia probe, all the stuff that's going on in New York

on a civil and criminal level. There's a lot swirling around him in which he could be directly implicated. But just for people to make clear from your legal perspective, does this protect him in any way from any of that? Absolutely not. It's basically, it's kind of blackmail. It's a threat. It's a threat of violence, trying to deter prosecutors by threatening, impliedly, civil disorder. He's done that a number of times. And it would be, you know, if something like that does happen, he'd say, oh, these are the things that happen when bad people do bad things to me.

And he's he wants that to happen. And he that's why, in part, he's running. And it's dangerous. It's just a dangerous thing. And the judiciary has made clear those investigations continue, regardless of whether he's a candidate or not. Susan, you had to watch a little bit of last night and see a guy who was damaged from where he was in June of 2015 when he came down the escalator and made that was a repugnant speech. But to some people, there was novelty to this guy. OK, let's try something new. Let's send him to Washington. Let's shake it up. He succeeded on TV. But now he's got a long track record. He's impeached a couple of times. He lost the popular vote twice. He's under investigation, led an attempted coup against the government. We could spend all morning talking about that. Do you think enough Republicans see in that guy

what they saw seven years ago for him to win the nomination? Well, we have too often predicted trouble ahead for Donald Trump with his supporters that didn't develop. But you do see things we have never seen before, not since he won the nomination the first time around, which is leading Republicans willing to take him on, on the record, in person. His former vice president, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence is doing that. Ron DeSantis, Larry Hogan, Asa Hutchinson, various figures in the Republican Party. There is no sense, I think, that the people, the other Republicans who want to run for the Republican nomination are going to be scared off by Donald Trump this time. He may still win the nomination. He continues to have a significant portion of the party in his thrall. But it's not the same situation he has faced before. It is a more challenging one. And he was not only less energetic than he was in 2015, he was less

energetic than he was a week earlier when he did that rally and teased the idea of running where he seemed very, very energized by it and excited about it. Then we had the midterm results and suddenly he was less. And Joe, fresh in Republican leadership's mind and Republican voters mind is a week ago, Donald Trump let us off a cliff. We just somehow lost the Senate, won a slim margin in the House, and now he wants the keys back to the car. Yeah. And again, the thing is, the data is right there in front of everybody. You look and see his candidates lost for the most part. People that embraced his theory, which he's been talking about for the past two years, looking back, the stolen election theory, they all lost.

You have the Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review. You have all of these conservative outlets and you have a lot of voters saying enough is enough. They've got a 46 year old governor of one of the largest, most important states in America. He ran the tables, a historic victory. And then you have Donald Trump, this 76, 70, I don't know, is he 78, 76, 78, but a guy that has a lot of mileage on him, two impeachments, a lot of losses, a lot of, you know, he lost for the party in 2017. He lost for the party in 2018. He lost for the party in 2019.

He lost for the party in 2020. He lost for the party in 2022. He's a losing-us one-term president since Herbert Hoover. Stole documents. He's under investigation. He's going to get indicted. You've got the January 6th riots. One person in jail after another that are his supporters say we came to Washington because that's what Donald Trump wanted us to do. So, yeah, the choice, the choice is very clear.

And Willie, by the way, one thing, just an important quote, going back to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, because Donald Trump really is the 1976 Buccaneers, the winless Buccaneers. I want to go back. I just I just one of my favorite quotes of the creamsicle Buccaneers was when they just finished losing, I think, their final game of the year. And they were fumbling. Their execution on the field was terrible. And one of the reporters in Tampa asked John McKay after the game, he said, Coach, what do you think about the execution of your team? And John McKay said, I'm all for it. I remember that. That's one of the great quotes in the history of sport. I'm all for it.

All right. George Conway, thank you so much for being on this morning. We will see you again soon. And here's a look now at some of the other stories we're following this morning. The man accused of breaking into Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home and beating her husband with a hammer has pleaded not guilty to federal charges. If convicted, 42-year-old David DePapp faces a maximum sentence of up to 50 years in prison. He previously pleaded not guilty to separate state charges, including attempted murder, burglary and elder abuse. DePapp is scheduled to return to federal court on Friday.

And former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg took the witness stand yesterday for the first time to testify against his employer. He told jurors Donald Trump had been aware of the unusual pay structure for high level employees, saying the company didn't pay taxes on perks for executives such as rent free apartments and luxury cars. So he flipped. Yes. Weisselberg is considered the prosecution's star witness in the criminal tax fraud case against the Trump Organization. Donald Trump has not been charged with any wrongdoing. Lawyers for the Trump Organization argue Weisselberg acted alone and say neither Trump nor the company should be blamed.

That's not what Weisselberg said. No. And after four scrubbed launches since August, NASA's Artemis 1 rocket is finally on its way toward the moon. The rocket successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, early this morning. The most powerful rocket ever built by NASA is carrying an empty crew capsule into a wide orbit around the moon. The capsule will return to Earth next month, projected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean. The space agency plans to send four astronauts around the moon on the next flight in 2024 with the goal of once again stepping foot on the moon in as early as 2025. Maybe Willie and I can do that.

You guys want to go? I think maybe we should. That would be kind of cool. So, Willie, some breaking news from the BBC, which is in line with what I was hearing last night from officials. And BBC says missile which hit Poland very likely to have come from Ukrainian air defense, Polish prime minister says, as investigations continue. But last night, obviously, there's an issue they worked well into the night over. And they started to believe later into the evening that, in fact, it had come from Ukrainian air defenses.

But we're trying to confirm that. It looks like the Polish prime minister just did. Yeah, it's something President Biden himself suggested before leaving the G20 last night. He said it seems unlikely that this came from Russia. That was the president's quote. And now, as you say, just moments ago, Poland's president now saying that the missile that landed in his own country very likely came from a Ukrainian air defense. So we're going to dig through that in just a minute. Yeah, we'll have much more on what we're learning about this missile strike that has NATO leaders holding emergency talks today. Richard Haass and Admiral James Stavridis will join us for that. We'll get a live report from Ukraine as well. We'll be right back. 36 past the hour, U.S. and European officials say a Ukrainian air defense system was likely involved in a deadly missile strike in Poland that is believed to be accidental. The Polish government says two people were killed yesterday in the explosion about 15 miles away from the country's border with Ukraine.

In a statement this morning, Poland's president says, quote, there is no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland. Most likely it was a Russian made rocket. There are many indications that it was an air defense missile, which unfortunately fell on Polish territory. Belgium's defense minister previously said today that it appeared that parts of Russian missiles, along with a Ukrainian interception missile, landed in the neighboring country. He added the investigation into what happened is ongoing and nothing has yet been confirmed. Russia denied responsibility for the strike. Let's get the latest from on the ground. NBC News correspondent Molly Hunter joins us live from western Ukraine near the country's border with Poland. Molly, what more can you tell

us about what happened? Mika and the Polish president is giving a press conference right now. The lines that you just read are ongoing, so we may get more information. Any confirmation of exactly what happened is going to come from Warsaw, is going to come from the polls. Last night, they said, look, no one jumped to conclusions. There are indications

that this was a Russian-made missile and that would track with what he just said, excuse me, what the president just said. It was a Russian-made S-300 rocket. We have no proof at the moment that it was a missile fired by the

Russian side. Now, these are the indications we have also been getting from U.S. and European officials. My colleagues Courtney Kuby and Raf Sanchez report this morning that NBC News is learning that preliminary indications suggest a Ukrainian air defense system was involved in this incident, according to a senior U.S. official and European government official. And I do just want to play a little bit of what President Biden said about this when he was asked about it in Bali. Take a listen. Mr. President, is it too early to say whether this missile was fired from Russia? There is preliminary information that contests that.

I don't want to say that until we completely investigate. But it is unlikely in the minds of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia. But we'll see. We'll see. Unlikely, sir. Mr. President, is Poland suggesting invoking Article 4 or 5 from NATO, sir? The suggestion is we're going to probably have a meeting of the ambassadors. So that looks like we're going to go to the next. Yeah, big picture.

The investigation is absolutely still ongoing. The Poles are being very cautious about what kind of information they release, obviously, given the indications. Now, here in Ukraine, President Zelensky spoke last night, and very firmly, he came out before any Polish official said anything similar. He said Russian missiles hit Poland very clearly in his evening address. And then his foreign minister, Dmitry Kaleva, this morning started tweeting that any suggestion that it was not a Russian missile is propaganda not to be believed. So I think there will be a lot of possibly walking back from Ukrainian officials today. But I really think, look, the polls are trying to say, wait till the investigation is done.

Wait till we have all of the ground facts correct and confirmed before anyone jumps to conclusions. Mika. NBC's Molly Hunter. Thank you very much for your reporting. Let's bring in the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, and retired four star Navy Admiral James Stavridis. He is NBC News and MSNBC chief international analyst and former Supreme Allied commander of NATO. Admiral, let me begin with you. We were on the phone last night trying to figure out exactly what was going on. And the good news that came, and you as NATO commander, a guy that understands the need to coordinate the countries and nobody getting in front of the other,

the good news is there was the initial fear after the news broke that perhaps some of our allies might get in front of each other. They stood shoulder to shoulder. They measured their words and let the United States know that we would be moving forward together in whatever response. This is, again, it sounds like this was an inadvertent mistake, but certainly a good test, was it not, in case there are the ratcheting up of tensions in the future? Absolutely a good point. You know, in the military, we say the first report is always wrong. It's actually not always wrong, but it's a pretty good way to bet. And yesterday, there was a lot of a lot of speculation. I think most of us were saying, hey, let's wait. Let's see what the facts are here. Could it have been a deliberate attack? Boy, that looks really unlikely. You're not going to start a war with NATO with a couple of missiles hitting a field in Poland. Could it have been a

Ukrainian air defense system? Yeah, that's a kind of a possibility for sure. And that's looking now like where this is trending. Could it have been a Russian missile that just went stupid, was programmed incorrectly? We've certainly seen a lot of Russian military failures. It looks like now we're circling in on it was Ukrainian using a Russian made missile, S-300, call sign Grumble. It's got a range of about 100 miles, can go up to 100,000 feet, pretty ubiquitous air defense system. So that makes sense to me as I look at the field here. Bottom line, the attention now shifts to Warsaw, where we're going to hear the results of the investigation, I think quite clearly in the next few hours, and to Brussels, where Article 4 of the NATO treaty, not Article 5. Article 5 is the famous one. An attack on one is an attack on all. Article 4 is let's get together and talk about it. Let's consult. That's what the president meant when he said last night that the. They'll meet together. I've briefed that body many times as Supreme Allied Commander.

They'll have this conversation. I think they'll talk about potentially increasing air defense for Ukraine. And I'll finish here, Joe. Really, what we ought to focus on, assuming this does turn out to be Ukrainian air defense, is the fact that Russia is launching hundreds of missile strikes against critical infrastructure, electricity, heating, all of that. Another word for that is war crimes. We need to be giving the Ukrainians more ability to defend themselves against this in the future. Such an important point. The reason if this was, in fact, a Ukrainian defense missile that engaged in an accident, the reason they're firing those up is because Russia is attacking Ukraine

deep in its own territory near the Polish border, going after infrastructure and civilian targets. Just a couple of minutes ago, Richard, the Polish president, President Duda, called this an unfortunate accident and not an intentional attack. This never made sense to you even yesterday that it was a Russian attack. No, as Admiral Stavridis said, if you're going to do an intentional attack if you're Russia and you're going to risk taking on NATO. And by the way, Russia can't defeat Ukraine. Why in the world would they take on NATO? It just makes zero, zero sense. So, yeah, it's just there was no way this, I thought, could have been an intentional Russian attack. I think the polls look studied, measured, which is what you want to look here. NATO looks

good. Ukraine looks a little bit too hot. The idea that the Ukrainians saying this has to be a Russian, it almost looks as if they wanted this to be something more. So I think that's unfortunate and that won't help their credibility. So look, I think the only other lesson I take from this is anytime you've got a hot war, stuff happens, to use Mr. Rumsfeld's comment. The danger of escalation is somehow implicit, the danger of accidents. And again, it's the reason you don't want to fly off the handle. When stuff happens, just get the facts and make sure you're responding to something that was actual and, if possible, intentional. You don't want to have inadvertent escalation here. So there's a little bit of a lesson when something hot is going on. But if it was so obvious to you and others, U.S. officials, even the president of the United States, said this was probably not a Russian attack on NATO. Why did Ukrainian officials get so far out there saying

it was? Look, it's always you're on thin ice whenever you ascribe motives. But obviously, Ukraine is looking for an ever stronger Western response. They're fighting this war alone. And the idea that they could bring in, if you will, partners more directly has been a Ukrainian goal from the get-go. So it doesn't surprise me. But again, I don't think it serves their purposes because it'll reinforce the sense that there's perhaps some gap between NATO or Western interests and Ukrainian interests. And I don't think that's something that the Ukrainians want to open up, because that gets you into the whole negotiation, war termination goals, and so forth. So I think it would be wise if they also learned the lesson

from this, is they don't want to be the cheerleaders of a greater Western effort. They ultimately, like everyone else, should want this war to come to an end. Admiral Stravitas, it's Sam Stein here. To Richard's point, it's a hot war. To borrow the profound quote, stuff happens. What was going through my head yesterday was what if, and I'm glad this wasn't the case, but what if it was an inadvertent accidental Russian missile that landed in a Polish field and killed two Poles? Under the NATO charter, what happens at that case? Is that considered an actual attack? How do you determine motive? And what could have been the outcome of something like that?

Luckily, that did not happen. If you read the NATO treaty, and by the way, I'd recommend you do it. It'll take you 10 minutes to read it. It's only 14 articles. It's a model of simplicity. The two articles you want to focus on, Sam, Article 5, which you just mentioned, an attack on one is an attack on all. What it does not say is if there is an attack, if there is a strike, we are bound to go to war. It doesn't kick off war. What it really kicks off is consultation, Article 4, happening this morning,

and it will include the potential to take further action. So again, what's happening today in Brussels is ambassadors of those 30 nations are meeting and they're looking at options. And I think it'll probably land on more air defense, both along that NATO border and potentially more air defense going to Ukraine. That's probably the right outcome. Well, retired four star Emerald James Tavridis and Richard Haas, thank you both very much. Important to have you both on today. We appreciate it. And coming up, another election denying candidate admits defeat. We'll tell you which Trump back nominee was the latest to concede their race. It's interesting that the election deniers are actually conceding their race. It's interesting that the election deniers are actually conceding

their races for the most part. It's important. Meanwhile, Carrie Lake continues to push election conspiracies following her loss in the Arizona governor's race. But the fact that she didn't win is giving the Wall Street Journal's editorial board some optimism. We'll have a look at that piece ahead on Morning Joe. 53 past the hour. Look at that beautiful, foggy shot of Washington, D.C. this morning. A lot of clouds this morning, but everyone's on their way to work, which is a good thing. Another election. They're saying we're done. Another election denier has conceded to their opponent. Adam Laxalt, Nevada's Republican nominee for United States Senate, announced yesterday he had called incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto to congratulate her on her win. Laxalt posted this statement as well on his Twitter page, paired with a line of

scripture from the New Testament reciting, quote, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Senator Cortez Masto will be our guest in our third hour. Important, though, that he conceded. You know, the thing is, so many people like to say, well, that's what you're supposed to do. Exactly. But in 2022, when the leader of the party, the person that got you into the race as an election denier, I celebrate every concession from a Republican or a Democrat, especially if they're positive. That one seemed to be positive. Susan Page, even Doug Mastriano, who many people thought was perhaps one of the most extreme candidates for governor, gave a very gracious concession speech, a concession statement. And again, I understand that's what we're all supposed to do, but people stopped doing it.

It's nice to see. Yes. It's odd that we have to congratulate losers for acknowledging that they lost. But the two most important things I think that have happened in the wake of these midterms, number one, that the losers are conceding. And number two, that the election deniers who sought the jobs that would put them in charge of election processes in about a half dozen battleground states all lost. And that sets a much better landscape for us to have these free, fair and robust elections next time around. Yeah. And Sam Stein, you have the Wall Street Journal editorial page actually saying that Carrie Lake's loss was the final nail in the coffin. Destroy election deniers and her loss. Destroy. Stop the steal. It's final nail in the coffin. Destroy. For election deniers. And her loss, destroy, stop, steal. It's the end of the road, they say. And the final line, a beautiful final line, perhaps at last, the 2020 election is over.

I mean, let's hope, right? This is a very dark chapter of our political history. At the same time, we begin a new chapter with Donald Trump emerging last night for his third presidential run. He didn't go too hard on election denialism, but he did have a huge swath of his speech that was devoted to the need for paper ballots, which was an implicit nod to the idea that his election was stolen. I can't imagine a future in which he's out on the trail and he doesn't relitigate the 2020 election and continue to argue that the 2022 elections were also stolen, which he is doing in real time on his social media site.

So while I am heartened that Adam Laxalt has conceded a race that he clearly lost, same with Blake Masters, and that the Wall Street Journal editorial page is saying, let's get on with this. I'm not, you know, I'm cautiously optimistic. Let's put it that way. I'm worried that it can still be with us. I agree. And, you know, Willie, the thing is, it's not a grand thing for democracy when somebody who wins an election says, yeah, I won an election. But actually, democracy depends on these people that put their names on the ballot, participated. I know how hard that is. Did it four times. And I've got nothing but respect for these people who have done this. They come up short. I know it's heartbreaking for their families, their loved ones and for them. But to then walk out there and and say that candidates had to do

it. And it's been heartbreaking for some time. But this morning, I think we all owe them a special thanks. Absolutely. And it started with Tim Ryan the morning after the election in Ohio, when he made a very gracious concession speech after a tough race a year and a half of his life and his time losing to J.D. Vance, a guy he thought he was better than to be the senator. But he made the point, not just do I concede the election to J.D. Vance, but it's important that I stand here and do this in a public way because it's how our democracy works. election denying candidates that if the races were close, if they were within a couple of points, even that the system was going to be thrown into chaos because they were going to contest everything and raise these conspiracy theories just hasn't happened, except for the case of Carrie Lake and some other smaller races down ballot. But if you look at Carrie Lake, there's

no energy around her protests right now. Blake Masters conceded. Mark Fincham lost. The state of Arizona was going to be ground zero for this problem, and it hasn't materialized. She's still calling into question the vote, but it seems most voters, even in the state of Arizona, and most Republicans have moved past Carrie Lake. Well, that's the important thing. Listen to Mitch McConnell. It wasn't just the Democrats that rejected the Republicans.

A message of fear and election denying, as Mitch McConnell said. He said we got crushed by independents and moderates in Arizona. We got crushed. Mitch McConnell's own words about the Republicans. And they did one final thing. We showed the Tim Ryan, J.D. Vance numbers by all accounts from Republicans and Democrats alike that I talked on the ground to. They said that Tim Ryan ran as good of a race as anybody could have run. And that J.D. Vance ran one of the least inspiring or late races, said he was a very lazy candidate. He was rude and abusive at times, even to his own contributors. But you look at that, though, and look how much J.D. Vance won by. This is a real message to Democrats.

Ohio's no longer a swing state. Florida's no longer a swing state. Don't waste your money there. Go to states where you can win in 2024. But keep your eye on Tim Ryan. Oh, but Tim Ryan, he's got a future. Absolutely. Sam Stein, Susan Page, thank you both very much.