Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/18/24
Episode Date: November 18, 2024The Morning Joe panel discusses the latest in U.S. and world news, politics, sports and culture ...
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Absolutely. And I believe the Senate should have access to that. Now, should it be released
to the public or not? I guess that will be part of the negotiations, but that should
be definitely part of our decision making. Once again, I go back to it in Article 2,
Section 2, in the Constitution, the Senate has to advise and consent these individuals.
In that process, we're going to give Matt Gaetz
the same chance as we'll give all President Trump's nominees.
Of course it should be released.
And that's not just Democrats saying that.
You have repeatedly seen Senate Republicans make clear
who are on the Senate Judiciary Committee
or throughout that chamber say that they want access to all available
information so they can make a decision about whether the nominee for attorney general is
qualified to serve in that office.
A bipartisan call yesterday for the release of an ethics report on Donald Trump's pick
for attorney general will show you the response from House Speaker Mike Johnson and take a look at where support for Matt Gaetz's nomination stands with senators
right now.
Plus, the latest on a sexual assault allegation against former Fox News host Pete Hegseth,
who Trump has selected as secretary of defense.
Meanwhile, in the final stretch of his term, President Biden is making a major policy change,
allowing Ukraine to use American-made long-range missiles
for strikes inside of Russia.
We'll explain how it could impact the war.
And President Biden held what is likely to be
his final meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping
over the weekend. We'll have more about that sit down and what the Chinese leader had to say about
the incoming administration. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday,
November 18th. With us we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau
Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, columnist and associate editor for the
Washington Post.
David Ignatius is with us.
And Roger's chair in the American presidency at Vanderbilt University, historian John Meacham.
A great group this morning, a lot of news to get to.
We have some news to break as well.
So a big day today.
A big day today, Mika.
I know with all the things going on though, not only in Washington,
D.C., but across the world, the thing you'd like us to talk about first is Josh Allen.
Jonathan Lemire, let me tell you something. Steve Young made some extraordinary runs back in the
1980s, especially in 88 against the Vikings in a playoff game. But Josh Allen last night and probably the game
of the year in the NFL.
What a finish.
The nation needed this job there is there's Josh Allen
this is the signature play of the year right now that puts
him I'd argue as the front runner for NFL MVP this year.
The stakes are so big it was a 4th into the bills on the
outside outskirts of field goal range. But there is time left
on the clock that had they only gotten 3 or if Josh Allen had
been stopped here. You knew that the Kansas City Chiefs
and Patrick Mahomes would do what they do so often and go
down the field and score and break the hearts of the
Buffalo Bills. The bills went for 4th and 2 you saw that run
extraordinary athleticism bills when Chiefs take their first loss of the season.
It's just unbelievable how fast, how strong, how powerful the guy is. What an
athlete. Also, Mika really wanted us to talk about the Steelers and the Ravens.
Another barn burner, another extraordinary game. But I'll tell you
what, Mika, we will wait. We have Pablo coming up in about 30 minutes or so, and he'll take us through all the
games.
Good.
OK, so here's where we are.
Over the past week, Joe and I have heard from so many people, from political leaders to
regular citizens, deeply dismayed by several of President-elect Trump's cabinet selections,
and they are scared.
Last Thursday, we expressed our own concerns on this broadcast and even said we would appreciate
the opportunity to speak with the president-elect himself.
On Friday, we were given the opportunity to do just that.
Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump.
It was the first time we have seen him in seven years.
Now, we talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political
retribution against political opponents, and media outlets.
We talked about that a good bit.
And it's going to come as no surprise to anybody who watches
this show, has watched it over the past year or over the past decade, that we
didn't see eye to eye on a lot of issues and we told him so. What we did agree on
was to restart communications. My father often spoke with world leaders with whom
he and the United States profoundly disagreed.
That's a task shared by reporters and commentators alike.
We had not spoken to President Trump since March of 2020, other than a personal call
Joe made to Trump on the morning after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In this meeting, President Trump was tearful.
He was upbeat.
He seemed interested in finding common ground
with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues.
And for those asking why we would go speak
to the president-elect during such fraught times,
especially between us, I guess I would ask back,
why wouldn't we? Five years of
political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country. We have been
as clear as we know how in expressing our deep concerns about President Trump's
actions and words in the coarsening of public debate. But for nearly 80
million Americans, election denialism, public trials, January
6th were not as important as the issues that moved them to send Donald Trump back to the
White House with their vote.
Joe and I realize it's time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking
about Donald Trump, but also talking with him.
As somebody close to Donald Trump told me this past weekend, this is a president who's not seeking
reelection. So maybe, just maybe, now could be the time for both parties to get to work. I know,
given the jarring headlines that we read every day,
that may seem like a stretch, but think about this. Of the 150 million votes cast,
Donald Trump got 50 percent, Kamala Harris got about 49 percent. So I don't know. Seems to make sense for leaders of both parties
to seek common ground, if it's possible at all.
And I will tell you, a lot of Democratic leaders
we've talked to this past week since the election
have told Mika and me it's time for a new approach.
And when I say top Democrats, I mean top Democrats.
They said we're open, and this was before we talked to Donald Trump.
They said, listen, we're open to working with the incoming president if the incoming president
is open to working with us.
Yeah.
The question is, though, how do we get there?
Hyperbole and personal attacks will not work.
My hair on fire doesn't work.
We've all seen that.
What also does not work is threatening political opponents with arrest, harassment, and even
jail.
That is a failed path.
Recent history has proven that impeachments and trials turn those on trial into political martyrs
and only make them more popular with the American people.
Just ask Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.
We know this will be a consequential presidency.
The question is whether it will be constructive.
It will take a new approach from all sides,
from both parties and a leader who can bring them together,
and only time will tell if Donald Trump is that leader.
As for us, we also let him know that we will continue to speak truth to power
and push back hard when called for, as we have with all presidents.
Don't be mistaken.
We're not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump.
We're here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better
equip all of us in understanding these deeply unsettling times. And I am reminded of what Marty Barron, legendary editor,
told his Washington Post reporters back in the first term.
We're not going to war.
We're going to work.
So let's go to work now with David Ignatius.
David, first of all, I loved, and I told Marty,
I loved what he said.
We're not going to war.
We're going to work.
I tell you what, with Meek and me, it has been very personal over the past eight years.
It has been war on both sides, political war on both sides.
And I'm reminded of a conversation we had with you this summer after I called President Trump after the assassination attempt.
I just talked to him and said, you know, politics is politics. We disagree on so many things.
But just, you know, I made a call like so many other people made a call and saying I was hoping that he was doing all right. We had a discussion a couple of days later, you, Mika, and myself, and you had a recommendation
to Mika that kind of went along the line of what Marty Barron told the Washington Post
seven, eight years ago.
You want to talk about that?
So Joe and Mika, we're in the news business, which means that we talk to people.
That's part of how we do our jobs.
We're also in the truth business, which means we have to hold people accountable.
When we see things that we think are wrong are going to hurt the country, we have to
be very forthright in saying that.
Last week when President-elect Trump named his nominees for key positions, I wrote a
column saying that some of them seemed qualified and reasonable choices.
Others seemed to be coming at their jobs with a wrecking ball.
They were going after the military and intelligence agencies, it seemed, from their past statements
in a way that would only harm those institutions.
I've been a journalist now for so many years, but I can remember when I covered the Middle
East, I would talk to Yasser Arafat,
the head of the PLO in Beirut,
and a few weeks later, I'd be talking
to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Jerusalem.
That's just part of what doing the job means.
As Mika said, her own dad, although he wasn't a journalist,
was always talking to people.
So I think we need to keep that in mind, those two things.
We're in the news business and we're in the truth business.
You know, David, also, I remember during the first term at one point, you may not even
remember this phone call as walking through the airport, and you politely said, every
day, Joe, every day it's the same thing on your show.
When you can find common ground, find common ground, talk about it.
And I've noticed you do that.
I mean, I will tell you when so many people were in shock, and Meek and I were surprised
too after the election result, your first column was talking about how Donald Trump
had the possibility to move
us closer to peace in the Middle East.
I think that was a very important column to write at the time.
Again, I thought I was a little surprised when I read it right after the election.
But then you followed that up with some really tough columns about the real dangers with
his DOD pick and also with Tulsi Gabbard.
Is that the type of balancing you're talking about?
It is, Joe. I think we in the news business and commentary need to call him as we see him.
During Donald Trump's first term, when he did something that I thought made sense,
the Abraham Accords between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are a perfect example.
I said without hesitation that I thought this was good for the country, good for the region.
I felt the same way about negotiating with North Korea to try to reduce the risk of nuclear
war.
When he did things I thought hurt the country, I tried to be as emphatic again as I could
be.
But we're in the business of covering the world, trying to see it whole.
And if people think that we are partisans
on one side or another, I think in the end,
their confidence in our ability to tell the truth,
to do our job declines.
You see that some of that in some of the poll numbers
about how people feel about journalism.
I don't wanna add to that.
Well, and of course, you look at the results
of the election too. A new new approach, I think, is needed where, again, we
speak truth to power.
We push back hard like we push back hard,
whether it was with Barack Obama,
whether it was with George W. Bush,
whether it was obviously with Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
I want to ask you, John Meacham, bring you in here. And you, we discussed
this last night, and I was asking you your thoughts. And you had said, you said, you
know, this is going to be a consequential presidency. It just is, one way or the other.
The question is whether it's going to be constructive.
And I'm just curious, your thoughts.
We saw picks last week that I think were horrifying
to a good number of Americans,
for many Republicans as well.
So these are extraordinarily fraught times.
I'm curious about where we stand right now in history, what you've seen, what is the
best way forward, not only for reporters, but for all Americans.
And what does history teach us about moments like these?
It's the most significant test of citizenship and of our,
really, I would argue, our patriotic commitments as opposed to our nationalistic appetites.
So bear with me for a second.
Patriotism, properly understood, is an allegiance not just to one's own kind,
folks who look like you, but to an idea. And for us, that idea is the Declaration of Independence
as embodied in that that's the North Star and then the Constitution as amended is the user's guide.
And we, I think America has always can judge itself on how fully or how incompletely we're in
accord with the principles of the declaration.
That's patriotism.
And you assent, you agree to that idea.
Nationalism is a loyalty to people who are already in your tribe, who are already in
your clan with a C.
And so, to me, those are competing impulses.
They've been competing impulses from the beginning of the American project, and they'll continue
to be.
And so, to me, the great test is how do those of us who fundamentally believe that the incoming
administration is so likely to be out of sync with the constitutional norms, the ethos that
so many of us grew up with. And the fact that so many of us and everybody that we're talking
to this morning has been has been part of this. I don't want to drag Ignatius
totally into this. Give him some cover. But we've argued again and again and
again that a second Trump presidency was simply not worth the risk of the chaos
and the unconstitutionalism.
But guess what?
Those of us who believe in democracy have to obey the verdicts of that democracy.
And as you pointed out, a dispositive number of American voters decided to try this one more
time.
And so we have a patriotic question.
What do we do?
We can't leave the arena because that would be preemptive surrender and defeat.
So we have to stay in the arena and patriotically stand for what we believe in.
And so I think that's where a lot of the country
is. I'm very worried that, and I suspect you all are hearing this the same thing,
that so many people seem so worn out by this struggle. And again, it's not
mindless opposition, let's be clear, but it's also, it does require, as Jefferson said, eternal vigilance.
And I would argue that the most important thing we can do at this point is enable the
folks who stand on the guardrails.
And in this immediate case, it's the Senate, right?
We need to...if you believe that some of these picks
are extreme, and they are, you have to,
because we all act as Lincoln said,
all people act on incentive.
We need to signal to those who have a stake in this,
who have the vote on this, that there are people
who believe that they're
extreme.
And so removing ourselves from the arena, tuning out, I think would be the worst possible
result.
Well, Republicans will tell you that some of these picks are extreme.
I think it's important to look at the first week when Suzy Wilds was selected.
There are a lot of people that applauded that
selection when Marco Rubio was elected.
A lot of people, they didn't agree with Marco Rubio at all, said, okay, well, that's a
secretary of state pick that seemed he will be able to work with both sides because he
was a senator and certainly worked with both sides, with Mark Warner on the Intel committee.
You can look at other picks.
John Ratcliffe, somebody who a lot of Democrats in the meeting were opposed to several years
ago said, okay, well, that's also seems to be within the guardrails.
Some of these selections have not been in the guardrails.
David Ignatius.
And so you've talked about it and I think
it's a good balance. You know, it reminds me after Ronald Reagan got elected, you
and I are actually, well you probably aren't, but I'm old enough to remember
when Ronald Reagan got elected he had a massive landslide and he was on Good
Morning America the next day and they asked, they asked him, well what do you do now? And he said, we're the
loyal opposition. We're going to fight him where it is necessary to fight him,
not making it personal, but fight him on political issues and where we
can agree, we will agree. And I think that's very important. And I think it's
also obviously very important. There are a lot of people that are very scared by this election of his attorney general selection.
A lot of Republicans scared by it.
There are a lot of Republicans who are scared, as well as Democrats, by this election of Tulsi Gabbard,
only because of her connections with Syria, because she is at times in the Ukrainian War,
she has just echoed the words of Vladimir Putin
and Russia.
So there are a lot of people that are concerned that Donald Trump and his administration will
not get the intel they need because you can speak to this very well.
They're just going to be other countries that are not going to share information and
sensitive intel with Tulsi Gabbard.
And so as I said last week repeatedly, a pick like Tulsi Gabbard or a pick like Matt Gaetz
for AG, that's not just bad for the Republican Party.
That's not just bad for the Republican Party. That's not just bad for America.
It's bad for Donald Trump because it makes him less effective.
I understand he wants to find loyalists that will go in and overturn the rocks and see
what's underneath in all of these different bureaucracies.
I think most Americans would say, okay, that's good, but not political retribution
and not these selections that will end up hurting him and make him less effective and
make the United States less effective.
So Joe, as you know well, the military, the intelligence agencies are full of thousands of people who want to
serve their country.
That's why they're doing it.
And they want to be professional in how they do their jobs.
They want to be respected.
And I get nervous when I see a nominee who's been making headlines for years, as Pete Hegseth has,
by attacking military leadership.
I just worry that that's going to produce chaos
and the opposite of what the country wants.
There are going to be so many issues coming up
where Donald Trump's going to make decisions
that really matter for America and the world.
What he does on Ukraine,
whether he rewards the latter Putin's aggression,
whether he leaves the Ukrain Putin's aggression, whether
he leaves the Ukrainians in terrible danger, is a crucial issue.
We need to cover that.
We need to know a lot about the decisions he's making.
Same thing with finding peace finally in these Middle East wars.
Same thing with Iran and where our policy toward Iran is going.
On all these areas, it's important that we do our work as journalists.
When we see mistakes being made, poor choices being made, when we hear from allies around
the world, these policies are hurting us.
We need to get that information to the American public and to the White House for that matter
as readers, because that's part of how the system works.
People try to implement policies, journalists and commentators comment, criticize, and hopefully
the result comes out better.
Alright, Jonathan Lemire, I want you to jump in.
I'm sure you have lots of thoughts and questions.
Yeah, I mean certainly I think anyone at this show is rooting for America.
That's what people do.
Anytime a new president comes in, you root for that president to be a success, meaning
good for the country, whether it's not necessarily about their particular policy or agenda.
But there are.
There are a lot of people out there who are very afraid right now.
And we should give, we will continue to give voice to those people who are very afraid
of the prospect of another Donald Trump administration.
But to Joe's point earlier, there are also Democrats who recognize they need to do some
soul searching.
They need to figure out how to work with this president, at least in some way, to make this
successful four years for the country.
Now look, it passes prologue every time Donald Trump is given a chance to be a uniter or
a divider, he's chosen to be divisive.
He is engaged in hateful rhetoric and at times racist rhetoric.
He has pitted people against each other.
And certainly we have well chronicled over four years how he has strained our alliances
abroad and at times hurt people here at home.
But he now comes into the office with a bit of a mandate.
We will cover him like we should, clear-eyed and honestly.
We have, as David just detailed very well, been critical when needed of some of his cabinet selections,
raised concerns because Republicans have raised concerns.
Republicans have said that these picks might be
not just to enact a personal agenda,
but even perhaps destroy the very agencies
or damage the very agencies they're meant to lead.
But we are in a new part right now.
We're in a new moment for this country.
And with any president coming in, we will speak truth to power. to lead, but we are in a new part right now. We're in a new moment for this country,
and with any president coming in,
we will speak truth to power.
And we will, when that president or his,
her staff does something well and effective,
we'll note that, we'll talk to people,
we'll get expert analysis, they'll say what they believe,
the same if that president is just,
is a moment where that president does something
that others criticize, we will bring that to.
That's our job on this show.
Yeah, no doubt about it.
It's our show.
It's reporters job.
And, you know, I, Mika, I remember and you know, when we went out talking through the
years, I remember after Rush Limbaugh had said that he was rooting against Barack Obama
after he got elected. Well,
you know, I obviously, as you know, had a lot of problems with Barack Obama's policies and talked
about him every day. I also said, though, you can't root against the president of the United States
without rooting against America. So I think most Americans, again, we're a 50-50 nation. We were a 50-50 nation in 16.
We were a 50-50 nation in 20.
We're a 50-50 nation now.
But at the same time, again, if past is prologue,
this is going to be a tough, bumpy ride.
At the same time, we start this administration, and again,
keeping in mind what Marty Barron said,
which is we're not going to war, we're going to work.
And that's a bit of a change here, not gonna lie.
That's a bit of a change.
And so you speak truth to power, you push back hard.
And again, the final thing I will say about this meeting,
which again was on background, of course, we requested an interview
as soon as possible for the show.
But we spoke at length.
Just about what Jonathan said.
A lot of people are scared right now.
They're scared about the threats of political retribution.
They're scared about the threats
of retribution against media people.
They're scared that some potential picks have actually said they are going to arrest members
of the media or go after them civilly.
All that does is make people martyrs.
And that's something that we said.
You go after your political opponents, you turn them into martyrs, you make them the
next president of the United States.
So, again, a lot of people are scared.
A lot of people are nervous.
Hopefully there will be a lot of lines of communication opened up, not just with us,
but other members of the media, Democrats, and hopefully Democrats and others can impress on the incoming president the
need for both sides to work together.
But make no mistake, this is a Republican town right now.
Washington is a Republican town with a House and a Senate and a White House that is Republican.
That's why what the Republicans and the Senator
are doing right now, asking tough questions about his selections, is so important. Again,
not just for the country, but for the White House as well. Advise and consent and make sure the
President has the best people working for him that he can
have in the best interest of the United States.
So I'm going to get to the news, but just a little hat tip.
Joe, don't look at your phone.
Mine's exploding.
We're going to get to the latest reporting surrounding Donald Trump's cabinet picks in
just a moment.
But first a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning.
A new wave of offensive text messages hit phones nationwide.
These ones targeted Hispanic people and the LGBTQ community.
It comes days after black people in over a dozen states reported receiving texts with hateful racist language.
The FBI is investigating.
And Iowa pollster, J.N. Seltzer,
is retiring from election polling
after 25 years of predicting results.
She had conducted the Iowa polling since 1997.
While widely regarded for her analysis,
Seltzer's latest presidential poll missed badly.
Trump won Iowa by 13 points, despite her numbers
showing Kamala Harris ahead just days before the vote.
And still ahead on Morning Joe, billionaire Elon Musk
appears to publicly pressure the president-elect
on economic policy and a key cabinet pick.
Erking some of Trump's advisers will bring in one of the reporters
on that piece, plus Trump's advisors will bring in one of the reporters on that piece.
Plus, Trump's transition team is compiling a list of military officials involved in the
withdrawal from Afghanistan, exploring whether they could be court-martialed.
We'll dig into that and whether or not treason charges could realistically be on the table.
You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds.
31 past the hour.
Welcome back.
A majority of Senate Republicans have told NBC News that Matt Gaetz does not have enough
support to be confirmed as attorney general.
More than half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, privately
say they don't see a path for the former Republican congressman.
NBC News spoke to more than 15 additional Republican sources who agreed that there are
not enough votes to confirm Gates.
And some estimated that closer to 30 Republicans consider him unqualified.
Gates had been under investigation by a bipartisan committee for allegations that he may have
engaged in sexual misconduct, illegal drug use, and accepted improper gifts.
He abruptly resigned last week, just before the panel was set to vote on whether to release
its findings. Gates, who was also investigated by the Department of Justice, has always denied
the allegations and has never been criminally charged. Speaker Mike Johnson
doesn't want the report released, arguing it would be a breach of protocol.
The comments about this being there's a precedent for releasing reports is not exactly accurate.
Yeah, there are two breaches of the tradition in the past under very extraordinary circumstances.
I don't think this meets that criteria.
There's a very important reason for the tradition and the rule that we always have almost always
followed and that is that we don't issue investigations and ethics reports on people who are not members of Congress. I'm afraid that that
would open a Pandora's box because the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee is
limited to those who are serving in the institution. That's its very purpose and
I think this would be a breach of protocol that could be dangerous for us
going forward in the future. My understanding is that the report is not
finished. It's in a rough draft form, was not yet ready to be released.
And since Matt Gaetz left the Congress, I don't think it's appropriate to do so.
All right, Joe, I'm not sure that's all.
I think other investigations have been released in the past in scenarios in which he's been
released.
Right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, they certainly have.
And a couple things here.
The reporting has been that they were going to release it on Friday.
Right.
He resigned a couple of days beforehand.
So I don't know how rough a draft it was.
Right.
It's not like monkeys with typewriters had been typing this up and like humans had to
come in and like fix it.
It was almost ready to be released and he abruptly resigned.
So well, it appears and Republicans in the Senate believe he abruptly resigned.
So it wouldn't be released.
But Jonathan Amir, let me come to you.
This is something you might Johnson and every other member of the House
can say whatever they want to say, but you look at Republican senators and what they've been saying,
they're not going to vote on him, it appears, until they read that report. And what is in that report,
report and what is in that report according to the 17 year old, the woman who was 17 years old and a high school junior when she testified under oath that she had sex with the nominee,
that's going to come out.
And again, there's no way, there is no way
that is going to survive in the United States Senate.
So I'm curious, you know, you're hearing over the weekend
people in background saying,
oh, he's going to fight to the very end on this.
I will tell you, this is the one thing we can
report directly from it.
He expressed surprise about the ethics report, expressed surprise about the testimony.
So I just don't know how this nomination goes forward in a way that doesn't hurt the administration
and also that doesn't make matters even worse for the AG nominee.
Yeah, so first the lawyer of the 17 year old girl says that they had sex and also there are witnesses
to this and that that's all going to be detailed in this report and let's be clear,
it was in its final stages. Maybe there was one last spell check that needed to be done,
but it was on the brink of coming out. And Republicans, not just Democrats,
Republicans in the Senate have made clear they will see it.
Even some who have been pretty staunch Trump allies,
Senator Mullen of Oklahoma for one,
who is up and down, supports what the president-elect wants
to do, but he's made clear, he's like, no, no, on this,
we need to see this report before we really consider
this nomination.
And as NBC and others have reported over the weekend,
there's real doubts that Gates has anywhere near enough votes
to get confirmed.
Now, this raises the possibility,
do Donald Trump try to force recess appointments,
really take on the Senate, even try to break the Senate early
on?
We'll see.
There's an institutionalist there,
and John Thune is the new majority leader.
He is being noncommittal to this, even as Mike Johnson has suggested he'd support it.
But of course the House, that's not their call.
But it's an early test and there is a sense, Mika, that a lot of these picks right now
are enveloped in controversy.
We're going to get to the Department of Defense in just a moment.
That they all likely won't get through.
The Republicans might need to make, assuming there's any sort of backbone there, we'll
need to have a draw line and fight at least on one or two of them.
And if Gates is the one, if he were to be defeated, the odds are that Donald Trump could
put in someone just as conservative, just as loyal, but not as controversial.
And that may be where we end up going.
Yeah, Joe.
Well, again, that's what advice and consent is all about.
I mean, the fact is, Donald Trump won the presidency.
Donald Trump can put the people in that he thinks will help him out the most.
And again, Suzy Wiles, as chief of staff, had a lot of people on the Hill going, OK,
not perfect, that he's's gonna be the president, but
this is somebody that ran an order, brought order to the campaign structure,
at least, even if the campaign itself at times was far from orderly.
And again, the same thing with Marco Rubio.
A lot of people in Washington DC again,
had a lot of different policy issues and debates with Marco Rubio, but at the same
time that was the selection.
The people said, all right, well, he's going to be the president.
That's his prerogative.
Let's just face it, there are just three picks right now that I think Senate Republicans
are going to have real trouble with.
And of course, you know, we've talked about one, but also Tulsi Gabbard, and also the
selection for DOD, which of course, again, people on the inside in the Trump transition
team know that the DOD selection is going to be a rocky ride.
Yeah.
Let's get to that.
Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth's attorney confirmed to NBC News that Hegseth,
president-elect Trump's nominee for defense secretary, paid a woman an undeclosed amount
after she accused him of sexual assault.
The lawyer also denied the encounter between Hegseth and an unnamed woman, which she alleges
happened in 2017 was sexual assault.
That statement comes after The Washington Post reported a friend of Hegseth's accuser
sent a four-page memo to the Trump transition team detailing the allegations.
NBC News has not independently reviewed that memo, but Hegseth's attorney confirmed it is related to an encounter Hegseth and the unnamed woman
had in Monterey, California, during a conference in 2017.
The Post reported the memo said the woman was at the conference and she was there with
her husband and her children and didn't remember anything until she was in
Hegseth's hotel room and then stumbling to find her own hotel room on the night in question.
Hegseth's attorney denied the allegation saying this is a situation where a consensual encounter occurred
and unfortunately the woman had to come up with a lie to explain why the woman
had not come back to her husband's room that night, adding that it was fully investigated
by police and video surveillance as well as multiple eyewitness statements show that she
was the aggressor.
Authorities in Monterey investigated the allegation in 2017 and did not file charges
against Hegseth. Joining us now, Congressional Investigations reporter for The Washington Post,
Jackie Alamani. She's part of the reporting team out with a new piece entitled Trump Won.
The celebration started and then the trouble began. Jackie, tell us more about what is happening in reaction to these nominations.
Yeah, Mika, I would say that the reaction so far by some of the more professionalized
staff around Donald Trump has not necessarily been positive, though those close to him don't
really see him, at least in this moment right now, pulling back or withdrawing some of these
more controversial nominees,
although it seems like you gleaned some new information from your conversation with Trump
over the weekend.
But I think what we're seeing here in terms of the broader trend is lessons that Trump
learned in 2016 and things he's now trying to avoid repeating, such as picking appointments,
people who are Trump loyalists and willing to execute
some of these more expansive and unorthodox and controversial plans that he has for institutions
that he's essentially trying to blow up, people like Gates, Hegseth and Gabbard, people
who have not been well received by some of the people who are close to Trump, who have
advised him otherwise, but say that the decision-making process has been pretty chaotic and dysfunctional, as one Trump adviser
put to us, that there really is no decision-making process, and that at the end of the day, Trump
is sort of throwing out names and whichever one sort of sticks the most, he lands on.
Although another Trump adviser told us that if you had been paying any attention to him
throughout the primary and throughout the campaign, these are names that he has consistently
gravitated towards, that Gates and Hegseth and Gabbard, they've always been in the
mix.
They've been people who have been really close to him, giving him advice, people that
he trusts to actually execute his agenda, and that, yes, they seem like shocking picks, but to
those who have actually been listening to Trump, people outside, again, of this professionalized
staff of the transition team who have put together all of these lists and tried to vet
people themselves might not be familiar with themselves.
So, Jackie, good morning.
The president-elect is, like, rolling through with remarkable speed these nominations, but there are a few big posts still vacant and none bigger than the secretary of the treasury,
which is something that Trump cares deeply about.
You've got reporting about some of the disputes behind the scenes, the role Elon Musk is trying
to play.
Give us the latest on this important post.
Yeah, John, has has turned into a
remarkable internal knife fight
between some of the nominees and
people under consideration right
now by Trump with the two main
contenders Howard Lutnick the
head of Trump's transition and
the Kenner Fitzgerald executive
and his allies sort of scraping
with Scott Besson and some of
his allies.
Another hedge fund executive who has been under consideration and visited Mar-a-Lago
on Friday for an interview with the president.
Lutnick's allies have been claiming that Besant is not pro-tariff enough and doesn't take
Trump's plans that he's laid out throughout the campaign seriously and is going to execute
them and is more concerned sort of with the stability of the markets.
While Lutnick has been presenting himself as a changemaker, Lutnick and Trump obviously
have been spending lots of time together.
Lutnick has barely left his side throughout the transition process, but that approach
has started to grate on some of his allies who think that he's been acting in sort
of self-serving ways, a distraction from his job at hand, which is to help with the transition process and some of these major appointments.
Another wild-card factor that we have to think about here is Elon Musk, the other person
who has been by Trump's side nonstop, who took a pretty remarkable turn over the weekend
and weighed in on the Treasury appointment before Trump has really made his decision, which is sort of a little bit of a switch in the lack of deference, I think,
that we've seen Musk play to Trump.
We had a number of people—my colleague Jeff Stein and I call us over the weekend—to
sort of opine on the role that essentially this co-president, as someone said to us,
has taken when it comes
to decision-making processes, especially when it comes to something like the Treasury, which
is going to be an extremely important component of Trump's administration and determine the
economic path forward here.
All right.
The Washington Post.
Jackie Elamani, thank you so much for reporting.
Fascinating, especially on the Treasury Secretary pick
and what's happening right there.
Jonathan Lemire, you've covered Donald Trump.
We've covered him through the years.
You know, people keep talking about
Elon Musk as a co-president.
I don't know that that's helping Elon Musk standing.
And also, I was very surprised that he tweeted out basically weighing in publicly on X, who
he supported for Treasury Secretary, and also on the issue of tariffs, which was sort of the
centerpiece of Donald Trump's economic agenda on his economic campaign, basically agreeing
that he thought tariffs were not good for economies worldwide. I don't know if that ends
well for Elon Musk or anybody that's doing that publicly.
There's only room for one star in Donald Trump's sky, and it has to be Donald Trump.
We know this is a man who would fire advisors if they got on a magazine cover.
He does not like sharing the spotlight with anyone.
And he has in recent days, he's couched them as jokes, but he's flashed some irritation
that Elon Musk is always around. He said
that a couple of times now down at Mar-a-Lago won't leave and
I'm talking to some people in the Trump war with the last
couple days say yeah, that's real that that the Trump is
certainly flattered that the world's richest man seems to
like him so much we know the Trump is impressed by wealth he
likes to hang out with people even richer than he and must
certainly qualifies for that.
But at a certain point, Musk, one Trump adviser was telling me, Musk didn't win a single vote.
Donald Trump did.
And Musk is going to have to restrain himself, this person said to me, if he wants to stay
in Trump's orbit.
Otherwise, odds are there will be, if passed his prologue, a rapid falling out in the weeks or months ahead.
What do they say about
visitors like after 3 days like fish they start to smell.
I mean he won't leave come on. I'm not saying that about the
eye just don't say that people say about visitors that come to
your house. I never say, because I love visitors.
Well, no, I don't.
Anyway, John Meacham, though, you
don't have to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
to remember that, again, people stepping on the president
and telling him who to select on Twitter
may not be the best path forward.
So you can speak to that.
Or just speak generally about what you're looking at this week and what you're concerned
about and what we should be looking at.
I think the big question both this week what extent the Senate is going to stand
as a guardrail and a defender of their constitutional prerogatives because
when people talk about oh the institutions will stop the worst
impulses of the once-in-fut president. I think we should be more precise about that.
It's not the institutions,
it's the people who embodied the institutions, right?
It's not the courts, it's judges.
It's not the Senate, it's senators.
And so I think that the more,
we are in a moment, arguably as important as any in
the history of the Republic, where the individual character of everyone in this
whole arena matters enormously. The president's character and his impulses
matter, the people around him and their impulses matter, the people around him and their impulses matter, the
broad citizenry and our impulses of character matter, and the people who
have electoral incentives, and that's United States senators, you know if you
want to know where somebody's going to stand at this point, show us their
primary electorate and I'll I can probably give you a pretty
good guess, right?
What are we going to do to preserve a constitutional order that has served us very, very well and
that the incumbent, the incoming president has shown a great deal of contempt for. And nothing that that's just where we
are. And so no one's being Panglossian, no one's being Pollyannish, no one's saying
oh Trump grew in the past couple of days. If anything these appointments show
that the worst impulses are very much at the surface and breaking through.
And so our character is on trial.
Yeah. And of course, Mika, that's what we said coming into this.
We cannot be Panglossian.
I know. I was thinking the same thing.
John Meacham giving me another reason to go to the dictionary afterwards to figure out exactly
what he's saying. And John, let me say thank you in advance for not bringing up the French-Indian war
on this.
I was just about to put on my pant gloss.
But anyhow.
All right, John Leacham, thank you very much.
Coming up, Pablo Torre is here to recap the big moments from around the NFL yesterday,
including the first loss of the season from the defending champs morning Joe is coming right back.
Really like this kid Brownlee a rookie,
young man they took with the fifth round pick out of Louisville.
What a moment here.
Boy they nearly get the doodle as he hits his man wide open.
It's Edison.
Edison touchdown.
Second down and four.
Blocked there by Zylstra.
It's caught by Jamison Williams.
There he goes.
Footways with Miller.
Footways with Savage.
That is six.
Put some speed on that one and there goes Cochran.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one. There he goes! Footways with Miller, footways with Savage, that is six!
Put some speed on that one and there goes Cooper, come to the house!
Talking about Lowell, looking to the far side, he throws off his back leg, middle of the field, John who's been wide open!
He's trying to sprint his way toward the goal line, he's in!
We're at our best when Taysom is involved in everything. And that is what we have seen today.
He picks up another first down.
Still going.
Taysom Hill with his third touchdown today.
And it's blocked!
Oh my goodness, the Packers block it and they're gonna win. I didn't even see it.
Bakes left, now taking off.
Gonna run for it, he got it.
And there he goes, inside the 10 to 5.
Oh, the play of the year in the NFL.
Those were some of the biggest plays from across the NFL yesterday,
including the game-sealing touchdown run by Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen in the Kansas City Chiefs
Unbeaten streak the Miami Dolphins
1972 record still holds Bills win 30 to 21 of victory marks and Chiefs first loss since last Christmas
Let's bring it right now the host of Pablo Torre finds out on metal art media
MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre
You know Pablo we always talk about the good the bad the ugly
Let's we can talk very quickly about the bad. How bad are the Browns the question answers itself, but I want to talk about
Three of the best games I've seen this year. Yeah, of course the Bills and the Chiefs
the Steelers and the Ravens and
in a game that doesn't matter as much, but the Packers and
the Bears, Monsters of the Midway, what a battle that was.
Yeah, I wanna start with the Chiefs Bills, Joe,
because I do wanna go a little Gerald Ford on you this morning.
Please do.
Our long national nightmare, you can know what I'm talking about. Our long national nightmare me because I'm talking about our long national is over OK, I want to
text chain with my buddy John the mirror over here of course
Patriots fan he only wants his team to feel like a dynasty and
so when the chiefs get away with this week after week after
week missed block field goals miraculous touchdown, you know
throws all that stuff looks like they're going to go and ruin.
Yeah, the the annual celebration that is Larry Zonka's champagne being popped.
And the Bills come in. OK.
And Josh Allen looks like the MVP.
He has the play of the year.
He casually with the game on the line breaks about five or six tackles.
He's 65 to 40.
Just look at a man of the size moving at this
level of speed it's absurd and the only thing that I have to warn everybody
about is while this is the best rivalry in the NFL bills chiefs every postseason
the chiefs tend to have their way but for now 9 in one in Kansas City with all
the respect to Claire mcaskill 9 in one in Kansas City with all due respect to Claire McCaskill. 9-1 in Kansas City is an occasion to celebrate in Buffalo as we're watching right now.
And that is news that I believe John could use.
Yeah, my texts to you yesterday were gleeful.
I would certainly, I don't dispute that, that they lost.
But you're right, beating the Chiefs in January
is a very different story.
I give them credit for that.
They find a way to win these games.
But it does feel like with that loss yesterday,
Bill's only now one game behind them for home field advantage,
as are the Pittsburgh Steelers.
And it does feel like the AFC opened up a little bit
yesterday that it might not be the Kansas City coronation
that it looked like.
A yoga stretch level opening for the AFC.
So Mike Tomlin, just for people who are scoring at home,
Mike Tomlin has not had a voice just cracked praising Mike Tomlin, just for people who are scoring at home, Mike Tomlin has not had a-
My voice just cracked praising Mike Tomlin.
He's-
I went through puberty talking about Mike Tomlin.
Mike Tomlin, by the way, has been undefe-
Basically has been-
He has not had a losing season for about as long as a teenage boy's life, actually,
just to complete the metaphor here.
It's been 17 seasons that Mike Tomlin has not had a losing season in the NFL and this game against the
Ravens they won without scoring a touchdown this was six field goals plus
of defense some gum some spit some tape some Russell Wilson remember Joe Russell
Wilson Justin Fields here you're gonna start didn't seem to have an answer you
have two quarterbacks you don't have one but you got Mike Tomlin and you beat the Ravens and this Steeler team
they can just win however you want them to and so when you look at the AFC right now the AFC North
is a mess beneath them but the Steelers every year because of that coach a future Hall of Favor
they can do stuff like this and it is so underrated the consistency in
a league that prizes itself on truly randomness and mediocrity. The Steelers are neither of those
things. Yeah, yeah it really is. It is the Steelers team is coming together as just an excellent top
to bottom team. You're right there are a lot of questions about two quarterbacks, but man,
they are looking brilliant right now.
We're using Justin Fields when needed, and of course, Russell Wilson when needed.
We even saw that near the end of the game yesterday.
So Mika will tell you, if you ask, and now you're always asking Mika,
what's Joe really like?
What's Joe really like?
She will tell you, I am the master of worthless trivia it's not the only thing of the master
of this but I will say I during the the the Bears Packers game there was a number that
flashed up yesterday that really surprised me and that was I always thought George Hallis's
Bears had the most wins in NFL history no it's it's the Packers. And then number two, George Hallis' Bears.
And so here are the two winningest teams of all time
in the NFL just playing an extraordinary game yesterday.
And what an ending.
Yeah, so George Hallis feels like a very long time ago,
if you're a Bears fan right now, because the last time,
here's my useless stat for you. The last time the Chicago Bears beat the Green Bay Packers was in 2018 Mitch Strabisky was
their quarterback a lot was different right now it's the Caleb Williams show as we saw and in this
game specifically I want to just nod to this Caleb Williams was not the problem the driving out at the end to get them within range, you know every
week Joe on national sports shows.
The ritual has been to wonder why the Bears are this bad and
the reality is they shouldn't be but coaching tends to be the
difference. And so we talk about Matt Eber fluce which is
a name that's a bit hard to say but is a name that everybody
now should be saying aloud.
It's just decisions like this, right?
You try to go for a field goal, you play conservative,
you had a timeout, you didn't have to do this, they miss.
And again, 2018 is the last time Bears fans
felt like they could be, you know,
just better than the Packers.
And so I expect a coaching change at the end of the season.
I expect this entire experiment to have to restart a bit because
Caleb Williams deserves better, even as he's learning on the job.
Yeah, and there's a second week in a row
that a game ended with a blocked field goal.
Yes. Unbelievably dramatic.
So, again, speaking of worthless trivia, after I saw the Josh Allen run,
I immediately text our producers and I said, I want you to find
me the best quarterback run in NFL history.
And I requested, I didn't know if they could get the tape.
Roll the tape.
Go to video.
Let's look at the best quarterback run in history.
Steve Young against the Vikings in 88.
Oh, yeah. the best quarterback run in history. Steve Young against the Vikings in 88.
Oh yeah. Steve Young, underrated of course. Like kids today should remember that this man was a dual threat quarterback at an age when that wasn't common. So Steve Young buried behind Joe Monta. I
mean do you want to explain Steve Young to people? I think Joe, you might be offended if I were to even try to do this because he's so obvious,
so large in our memories. But this is, look, before Michael Vick, who is my nominee for this
category that you did not request, I do have a vote, I thought, when it came to showing great
NFL highlights. But no, you went Steve Young unilaterally. Michael Vick would have been my nominee,
but Steve Young was the guy that Michael Vick looked up to.
You know?
He just was ahead of his time, and this is, my God.
Yeah, if you're a Niner fan right now,
wondering is it really just gonna be mediocrity right now?
We're leading to the Seahawks this weekend.
Just cue up some Steve Young maybe.
Feel a little bit younger.
Yeah, cue up some Steve Young.
Go to YouTube and just put in Steve Young, run.
All right.
That's right, Mika's on that.
I'm on that.
Which Mika does that all the time.
So, all right, Pablo, thank you so much.
Thank you, Pablo.
Hope to see you in a couple of days.
Yes, sir.