Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/20/24

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Controversy surrounds key Trump cabinet, administration picks

Meanwhile, Trump also just nominated Fox News contributor Sean Duffy to serve as secretary of transportation. If you're Irish Catholic like me, you know at least 20 guys named Sean Duffy. Sean Duffy sounds like every character in a Ben Affleck movie. He hired the guy from Road Rules to be secretary of transportation.

Because, of course, he did. The road is right in there. And that's one of his least embarrassing picks. Maybe he'll pick one of the teen moms to be Secretary of Labor. This afternoon, he announced his latest choice for the administrator of

Medicare and Medicaid. It's Dr. Mehmet Oz. Okay. So he's still just picking people he sees on TV. Next up, the head of Amtrak goes to Thomas the Tank Engine. That was late night comedians poking fun at Donald Trump's recent administration picks. In a moment, we're going to break down who he just tapped for key administration roles in Medicare, education, and commerce.

And we'll discuss what top Senate Republicans are now saying about Matt Gaetz's attorney general nomination as the House Ethics Committee is set to meet just hours from now. And why Republican Senator Chuck Grassley says more transparency is needed to move things much faster. Plus, Senate Democrats are making a last-minute push to confirm dozens of President Biden's judicial nominees before Republicans take control. We'll tell you what Trump is now demanding senators and his own party do, and they did the same thing.

And we have breaking news here that we want to report to everybody around the globe that's watching. How many people watch us on Armed Forces Radio? Tens of millions. I think it's like 87 million. It's hard to measure with DVR and. Exactly, and all it's a YouTube and. Yeah, YouTube and Snapchat.

Okay. Or whatever it's called. Good morning. So here's the breaking news. Here's the breaking news. Says here, here really that John Heilman for the first time yeah since chubby checker was at number one with a twist out here got to morning Joe on time

and. I want to say this is consistent with my past record which is that usually about your time is I. One of your favorite, you know establishments on the other side of the river, you know to her when you walk in late. Yeah, my late yes, but you just called me for being late. I'm taking an opportunity during a positive most of the school

will reinforce how important it is that you do what you did today. Unlike stumbling in 20 minutes late, you know what my stomach 20 minutes early. I can really start. Well, you know we call that Mike barnacle who Mike where are you. I can I got them over here. I want Mike at the table with my can we Mike Mike up and get sharing. This is like this is not a show without barnacle. What's your just he just wandered and my question

about Barclay always has been how can someone he's the master of the Irish goodbye right just just you know disappears early from everything always your life was likely some of that. He's also shows up like 2 hours early. It is we're calm. Did you just want to run here. No I've been here for coming and we're going to get your chair because

you really disturbed Jack and me yesterday with your soda prediction if it doesn't come through like a chair, I got a lot of explaining to do so does going to the Mets. I was going to see we knew that. Yeah, he's got a really want to the math. Now can we get a chair here comes a chair from my so much show not yet yet. Now we don't know. Yeah so first of all John. So I called

John last night. Yeah, I got something very important sprampton comes alive. Some of the songs on there have aged extraordinarily well extraordinarily well we decidedordinarily well. We decided last night, right? Yeah, like the three that were big hits in the summer of 76. Yeah. Those are all still great songs.

Those are great songs. But the rest of the album is really... Oh, no. All I Want to Be is By Your Side is a great one. There's some really good solid stuff. But you said something about, and you said when you listen to the album, you can still smell the summer of 76. Yeah.

You can't. It's just like it brings, he's a rocker. 10 years old doing bicentennial celebrations, you remember? You're a little young for that. That was one. You remember the bicentennial, the 76th year of bicentennial celebrations.

You can still smell the celebration. What do you mean, it brings back the... Do you remember when you were in sneakers? No, man. Maybe. He started smoking, and he was bleeding. But he was two years old. That's when I first encountered the Cincinnati Millions.

Do we have more guests? We do have more guests also joining us this morning along with Mike and John Hellman, who I just can't even believe he's here on time. You're on time. U.S. national editor at the Financial Times, the great Ed Luce. And by the way, speaking in the summer of 76, Ed Luce agreed with Queen Elizabeth that it was crude that Captain and Tanil sang muskrat love when she was slow dancing with Gerald Ford. Isn't that right, Ed?

Apparently. I'll research it. Like I said yesterday, I know useless, useless trivia. That's actually true. What happened now? So Captain and Tenille sang at the big Bicentennial Gala, and they sang Musker at Love, which was one of their hits. And afterwards the Queen let it know that she thought it was crude, that they actually were singing about animals, you know? Sure.

Loving each other. Okay. All right. Isn't it a weird booking for the bicentennial? I'm, this is all- It was- You don't want like the Beatles or something? No, it was 76, Love Will Keep Us Together,

the biggest song of the year. Captain's Neal were pretty- They were, okay. It's hard to remember how, for years now it was impossible to remember how big Captain Insaniel were. Alright, so listen, we are going to get to news. This is all news, but I do want to say one thing that is really interesting, and Mike, I'll throw this to you.

What we're starting to see with these selections, right? You got Gates, no experience whatsoever, ill-equipped managerially to run a massive, massive bureaucracy. You had Dr. Raj yesterday, a guy who really actually supported Medicare for All before Kamala supported Medicare for all, but also ill equipped to run a massive bureaucracy. And you have all of these people that we spoke yesterday, our show on background to some people in the Biden administration at Justice who said, Todd Blanch, who will be the number two there, he said, he'll be running the agency. Gates should not get through.

We're not saying that at all. But if you look at justice, and I had some top Democratic lawyers over the last week saying, Todd Blanch, you know, he's the real deal. And so I'm just wondering if we're starting to see something here where get a TV guy out front, Trump's a TV guy, it's worked for him politically. And I'm wondering if you're like, okay, we're going to get all of these people out front who bloviate, who fight hard, who do all of this stuff.

And then at least at justice, you know, they're very concerned about a lot of things coming down, the pike, but they say Todd Blanchard would run this and whoever he picks to be the front person will probably be a mouthpiece. I'm not saying that's the case. I'm just saying at justice right now, they're very concerned about a lot of things,

but they like that the number two person there who will be running things Actually, and these are Biden people. Yeah, actually is a pro. So I think you're correct. I mean Todd Blanchard is a legitimate Legal giant in his own right and running the Justice Department will probably be his chore Given whoever is going to be attorney general, right? The most important thing to a lot of people isn't justice, though, and it happened yesterday. It's the Department of Education. Your children's high school and grammar school education being run by someone who's more familiar with wrestling, with professional wrestling, than it is with actually what goes

on in the classroom. People are concerned about what's being taught in the classrooms now. That has occurred over the last couple of two or three years. What are third, fourth, and fifth graders being taught in their elementary schools? What's the curriculum? What's the high school curriculums? And look who is the Secretary of Education. By the way, what about Dr. Phil?

Is he going to get a spot? Well, and Willie and Lemire are reporting on this again. Even though the Washington Post today, it's like Casey's countdown of the four most horrifying selections thus far, and they actually rank them in order. And I think depending on where you are, you know, you could move that list around. But I will tell you for a lot of Republicans that are in the Senate and the House and who care about American national security, if you ask them, they will say it's DOD. If you talk to people, again, really conservative Republicans in the House, really conservative Republicans in the Senate, they will say it's Tulsi Gabbard. They're horrified by Tulsi Gabbard. If you talk

to a lot of other people, they will say it's Matt Gaetz and John has some great reporting on that in a second about talking to Republicans on the Hill yesterday. So it really is. There are four picks right now and of course RFK. The New York Post keeps pounding RFK every day saying how nutty that selection is. So it kind of depends on where you are that will, you know, have you decide which one of those three or four are most deeply disturbing. And we're going to talk to Ed in a second who says the

whole thing is disturbing. Yeah, Tulsi Gabbard and Gates both slammed again today, interestingly, by the New York Post, which seems to be a Murdoch-led newspaper on a campaign against certain of these choices. But the question underlying all of this is, do at the end of the day these Republicans in Congress, in the Senate, do they have the guts to cross donald trump they can say they don't like the guy they go out and press conference that matt gates is no good and he's unqualified he's a low character in the ethics report will show that

uh... it does come out publicly but will they at the end of the day cross donald trump and we talk about the t d aspect dot iraq's so he is put up this is also a senate cut confirmed position centers for medicare and medicaid services administrator So he has put up, this is also a Senate confirmed position, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator. In his statement, Donald Trump led by saying, Dr. Oz has won nine daytime Emmys, that he's a good face for public health. So that seems to be the primary qualification.

The problem is this is a bureaucratic job. This is an administrative job. It doesn't even have that much to do with being a doctor in this case. It has to do with running these massive bureaucracies. So it is, John, central casting and getting back to your reporting about Matt Gaetz. The question remains, these senators have openly said they don't like him and don't think he should be attorney general. At the end of the day, will they vote against Donald Trump?

Right. First on the theme of TV, there's no doubt that's Pete Hegseth, too. He's a friendly, he's a Fox News face, and that's what Trump likes. And there is a growing belief in the Biden administration and elsewhere in Washington that it's going to be those second and third in command to actually run things while they have the figurehead on television being the face of those departments. Yes, and certainly the Lyndon McMahon pick, you know, flying under the radar

because of the the assortment of controversial selections here and power rankings of bad cabinet choices. But like remember the Trump campaign promise, which he reiterated in his statement yesterday, is to eliminate the Department of Education entirely, which is obviously a significant thing. But yes, to Matt Gaetz, I was talking to a number of Republicans

on the Hill yesterday, senators and aides, and there is real, real doubt that Gates can get through it. There's growing momentum here that this is the one pick that Republicans are going to say no to. In fact, I am told by sources that some of the senators are even telling Trump, look, don't make us vote on this one because we're going to have to vote against you. Don't make us stand up against you because this one is simply not palatable. We can't do it.

And these are the people that actually he has spoken to. These are the people. There's no way for it. Like in any other world, none of these four would get through. None of them. None of them would get close to getting through and I'm talking about RFK, Tulsi Gabbard, Hegseth, I really need to learn to pronounce Hegseth, Hegseth. Hegseth. Hegseth.

And then Matt Gaetz. In any other world, they would never get through. I will say we're talking a lot about Matt Gaetz because that's what the Republican senator is talking about mainly. But man, I would find it, all of it's deeply disturbing, these picks. But I cannot imagine four Republican senators turning over DNI to somebody who has apologized for Assad as regularly as she has and who's just continually parroted Kremlin talking points. I just, again, I just don't see four Republican senators doing that any more than I see them

getting Matt Gaetz. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely concerns there. They're a little flying out of the radar because Gaetz is taking up so much of the conversation right now. Exactly. And it does seem like Senate Republicans are willing to draw the line on Gaetz, but they have concerns about others too. And the Trump transition team is on the Hegseth pick re-examining things

because of the sexual assault investigation of a few years ago. They do worry about that one as well. Can you help me on that for one second and Mike we'll get to it just one second. I will say in on background in our conversation on background there are a couple of things that surprised us. One of them was when his name came up, there was not a flinch, but a noticeable. Whose name? We've got problems here.

Hagseth. Hagseth. Hagseth. And those weren't the words, but I will just tell you that was the takeaway because obviously everyone knows Gates is a problem, but I think there must be more there. Or I think they were just shocked maybe they were blindsided because there's been no vetting process for these four. There's been vetting processes for Rubio.

I think that's good. He didn't know about that. Yeah, Suzy Wilds was obviously everybody was a bit relieved to see Suzy Wilds in there, even Ratcliff. But then, yeah, so we haven't really talked about Hegseth much. I think there are real concerns. I'll be able to report about this on the inside about that. So talk about that as well because there's a lot of things going.

Again, Gates is occupying center stage, quite frankly, because the charges and the testimony from the 17-year-old junior, she's older now, but then is so damning that I think that's really taking all the heat right now. Yeah, and the HECS, I think, briefly, is if some years ago, an allegation of a sexual assault, no charges brought, but eventually he, the reporting, he did pay this woman afterwards as sort of a nondisclosure agreement.

But there is, the Trump transition officials were surprised by that pick, in part because to Joe's point, there hasn't been vetting because, and this is another storyline that's not getting enough attention, they're not going through the typical FBI background check process. They're doing it on their own and they're missing things. What do you hear in talking to your sources in Washington at the edge of the intelligence community? Do you hear the same thing that a lot of other people

are hearing, that the British, the French, the Israelis are coming in with hints that we're not going to share intelligence, our intelligence, with Tulsi Gabbard? Yes, current and former intelligence officers have expressed that fear and have heard that from their colleagues overseas, saying there's going to be real reluctance to share

some of those nations' top secrets in Intel with the United States. First of all, there are already some concerns about Trump, who we know has revealed Intel in inappropriate settings, including to Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office. But Tulsi Gabbard in particular, someone who has voiced talking points that emanated from Moscow has cozied up with Syrians that there's real concern here that the nation will be less safe because allies aren't going to trust us with their intel.

All right. Let's get to Ed Luce's latest piece in the Financial Times. It's entitled Trump's Demolition of the U.S. State. And you write in part, quote, "'It's time to study Caligula.'" That most notorious of Roman emperors killed what was left of the Republic and centralized authority in himself.

Donald Trump does not need to make his horse a senator. It will be enough to keep appointing charlatans to America's great offices of state. Rome was not destroyed by outsiders. It was demolition work. It was the work of barbarians from within. Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee to run America's sprawling military bureaucracy was considered too much of a security risk in 2021 to protect Capitol Hill from protesters.

Matt Gaetz, Trump's pick for U.S. Attorney General, reportedly won the Mar-a-Lago beauty contest by declaring, yeah, I'll go over there and start cutting effing heads. Given Tulsi Gabbard's close affinity to Vladimir Putin's Russia, she would be unlikely to get a low-level security clearance in normal times. Now she will be custodian to America's most classified secrets. Rome was not built in a day, as the saying goes, but it squandered its spirit with remarkable speed. And I think what you're talking about also is democracy itself is imperfect and also fragile.

Yes, extremely fragile. And the Republic is only as good as the people upholding it. And these, I think, are charlatans. Whether some of them, as you've just been discussing, like Matt Gaetz, would be just the shop window and others like Todd Blanche would be actually running the department, I'm not sure. But you have got very deliberate choices, people like RFK Jr., who will not get jobs anywhere else. Peter Hegseth, I guess, could continue as a Fox News anchor. Matt Gaetz is not going to get a job anywhere else.

RFK Jr. is not going to get a job anywhere else. He's not going to get a job running a medical center on some university campus. These are people, therefore, who are chosen for their loyalty. They have nowhere else to go other than to demonstrate their loyalty to Trump. And so I think there is a larger pattern here. It's not just that you're getting charlatans being picked for these really important roles. It's that you have a dismantling of the federal government. You have a disabling of the federal government, which is a very explicit part of Elon Musk's mandate. Elon Musk, I think, being the de facto sort of vice president or co-

president in terms of a lot of these selections, has always had an explicit desire not just to cut spending or to get rid of regulatory agencies, which of course poses enormous conflicts of interest with his business, but to disable a vast institution, the federal government, that he believes gets in the way of the heroic wealth makers such as him. So we do have larger method in the madness than just Trump choosing people who look good on TV. I think we have we have a very clear ideological agenda here to demolish the effectiveness of government.

Well, of course. And again, all I was saying was what the Justice Department officials said on the background in that one case. But there's a bigger thing going on here. And it lines up with what Donald Trump has said in the campaign, which is he was talking about bringing the FCC into the White House, talking about bringing in all of these other places. Even going back to the first term, their attitude on Secretary of State was, you know what,

they can go around, smile, shake people's hands, but we're going to be running it out of the Oval Office. So again, you can read, you know, Ann Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy three or four years ago, and what she said was, what you do is, if you want to disable the state, the quote deep state, however you want to put it, what you do is you undermine agencies by replacing competency with loyalty. That's part one. But part two, there is a real belief that, you know, in Trump world that, you know, it's like Louis XIV who said, I am the state.

That is the attitude. Trump is the state. And so he wants to know why, you know, if you look at these picks, why, why, why, why do I need competence? We're going to be running it all out of the Oval Office, which, of course, for many, many Americans, you know, 49.1 or 2% of Americans. That's deeply troubling. Yeah, I mean, I'm most most concerned if we're talking in terms of

Anne's, you know, brilliant focus on how liberal democracy becomes illiberal democracy, the sort of the Hungarian Viktor Orban model that is so beloved of many around Trump. I'm most concerned by Peter Hegseth. Trump's real complaint about the Pentagon in 2020 was that it resisted Mark Esper, Mark Milley. They resisted the Insurrection Act. They resisted the politicization of the military. And Trump came out of that saying, I was betrayed by the military.

They did not swear an oath of loyalty to me. They kept saying their oath of loyalty was to the Constitution. Well, Pete Hegseth fully agrees with Trump. He thinks it's a woke, DEI, politically correct organization, the Pentagon, that needs to be cleaned out and that needs people, three, four-star generals, need to be vetted to check their loyalty to the commander in chief, not in the abstract, to this one.

And as you know, there are certain people like the FBI director, who I think Chris Wray, who I think Trump probably does want to remove and God forbid, replace with somebody like Kash Patel. But there are protections for a lot of these jobs. That there are certain fixed contracts. For generals there aren't. You can get rid of them as commander in chief. You can get rid of them for whatever reason you like.

And you can promote a corporal if you find that corporal more congenial. You can just have them leapfrog several levels and become generals based on their loyalty to you. And that's Pete Hegseth's role, I think. And that's the most worrying, therefore, to the future of the rule of law in this republic. It's interesting. The Wall Street Journal editorial page today says, basically talking to Donald Trump, says

sometimes it's okay to withdraw an impulsive nomination, a choice. And they're talking about Pete Hegseth asking, what else is out there? If he didn't tell you about this, what more is to come down the road? We'll see. Let's turn to NBC News correspondent, Dasha Burns. Dasha, good morning. So we know that in addition to the phone calls

that President-elect Trump has been making to senators, that the incoming vice president, J.D. Vance, will be on the Hill today talking to his colleagues about these cabinet picks, trying to whip together some votes. What more do we know about that? Yes, so publicly, Willie, President-elect Trump doesn't show any sign of wavering with any of these controversial picks. If he has been putting pressure on senators, J.D. Vance will be on the Hill kind of trying

to shepherd these folks along, a bit of a charm offensive, a bit of a pressure offensive. And with some of these picks, Willie, look at Lyndon McMahon, for example, the Department of Education. So, so critical. And it's a department that Trump has said he wants to dismantle. He can very quickly dismantle certain aspects of Biden's push here.

For example, student loan debt cancellation, that can go away pretty instantly. Title IX protections for LGBTQ students, that can be nixed pretty quickly. And he's looking to implement universal school choice. And NBC News has been doing an analysis of how much the picks that Trump has been looking at have been donating.

Lyndon McMahon donated upwards of $20 million to his campaigns this election cycle. We also have Chris Wright, who was at the Department of Energy, who's a big donor. Howard Lutnick, who just got commerce, he's a huge donor. The folks that are being looked at for Treasury, Scott Besant and Mark Rowan, also major donors. And that pick we're still waiting on.

There was a bit of an internal knife fight between Lutnick and Besant that kind of scrambled that decision, so we're still waiting to see what President-elect trump does there and then of course you want to ask donated millions and millions of dollars and now has the president's here we've been reporting that there's some internal friction over that one that source telling me that must be acting as if he's quote co-president and making sure everyone knows it another source telling me that Musk is acting as if he's quote co president and making sure everyone knows it.

Another source telling me that he has an opinion on anything and everything and that he's starting to feel to the inner circle of Trump world that he's overstepping, that he's overstaying his welcome a little bit. And there's some speculation that that bromance might start to fade, given how much Trump is used to sharing, is not used to sharing the spotlight. One source telling me that in Trump world, if you want sustainability, you got to know when to make yourself scarce. And Musk hasn't quite figured that out yet, but it's certainly trying to have a lot of

impact on these picks. Oh my God. Yeah, no, he has not made himself scarce. No, that event the other night at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump said, jokingly, half jokingly, I can't get rid of this guy. He's anywhere. I'm talking about Elon Musk.

NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns. Dasha, great reporting as always. Thanks so much. Yeah, and you know, John Heilman, it is interesting following up on this Elon Musk point, you know, as far as, don't make yourself too big, right? Right? If you want to stick around, it's very interesting that Elon Musk publicly on ex...I think it was yesterday...publicly was pressuring Donald Trump to pick

Lutnick as Treasury Secretary, along with the esteemed cat turd. Yeah. And as goes cat turd on X, so goes middle America. But the pressuring, for those of you who don't know, that's an account. I think that's an account on X, right? And this account, cat turd, was actually weighing in on it. I'm a little concerned that you know that, but OK. Yes. So anyway, so anyway, he, Elon Musk pressured Donald Trump publicly, and you're just looking at that going,

yeah, that's not going well. And then what happened? Well, they ended up in commerce. Look, Elon Musk has a different, obviously a different status than anybody else who's ever been in this position with Trump before, because unlike people like Steve Bannon or whoever, where Trump could legitimately look at them and say, without my coattails, without me, you

wouldn't be where you are today. Elon Musk, you know, was the richest man in the world before Donald Trump came along, so Trump obviously respects that well. So it's interesting to see how that will go. Shocking to see J.D. Vance suddenly out of witness protection. Haven't heard anything about J.D. Vance since election night. Elon Musk has been the effective, the de facto vice president.

I just want to say this one thing, though, but, well, maybe two. One, the Justice Department is always basically run by the DAG, by the deputy attorney general, and the attorney general is not there to run the department. The attorney general is, though, there to make final decisions on who are we investigating, who are we prosecuting, who we're declining to prosecute. The big, giant decisions about is this department about justice or is it about retribution? That's why we care about that, because he's the person who would be Trump's loyalist there on policy.

But speaking as what Ed Lew said, he's going to be looking past whoever he puts there, Donald Trump, because he's going to be thinking, I'm that person. Whoever I put as a figurehead, it's just sort of followed through. The number two, like you said, the DAG runs it. And as you know, though, the top person's not going to be making the decision. Donald Trump thinks I'm going to be making the decision. And this is kind of gets to the point, which is that the Justice Department typically has been a quasi-independent agency.

It's not really supposed to... The attorney general and the president are really supposed to be talking all the time. The number of meetings between Merrick Garland and Joe Biden in the last four years would be zero. Okay. And in this case, but here's the question, the thing I want to say, though. I really think that the one thing we're all talking about the Senate, will the Senate, will one of these

people not get confirmed? Will more than one of those bad, of the biggest four, of the four most controversial picks? I just got to say, does anybody on this table, can maybe cite examples in the past during Trump's first term or any other time when Republican senators have defied Donald Trump? Is there an example anyone can cite where Republican senators on any basis have ever stood up to Donald Trump on anything he's really wanted? I don't think Trump is going to back down on any of these nominations. I think what Dasha reported is the tone, which is Trump thinks that to back down, to withdraw,

to listen to the Wall Street Journal would just be weakness. This is about trying to break the Senate. He is trying to make the Senate explicitly his rubber stamp going forward and demean and diminish the legislative branch. He wants to strip them of advice and consent. He wants them to be his Duma. And that is... I think he's going to push it his heart. Well, I will see whether any senators stand up to him, but there's no history of it. It's a great question. There's not a precedent for it. I was going to ask you to shut up, but actually that was a very good point.

Thank you. Wow. She's so rude. And to button this up, the deputy attorney general pick is Donald Trump's personal attorney. So it's just, it's not so clear cut. It seems a little concerning on a number of levels, but we shall see. I'm not trying to say it's not concerning. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Senate Democrats,, don't think you did, Senate Democrats are looking to confirm more judicial nominees

before Joe Biden leaves office, but Trump is telling his party to hold the line. We'll dig into that battle in the upper chamber. Plus, we'll have the latest on the war in Ukraine as Kiev launches American-made missiles deep inside Russian territory. You're watching Morning Joe, A lot more to cover. We're back in 90 seconds.

All right. Time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. Comcast, which owns our parent company, NBC Universal, plans to spin off its cable TV networks. That's according to the Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the situation. The company will separate off entertainment and news channels including MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen, eSciFi and the Golf Channel. So it's spinning off.

The new cable venture will reportedly have an ownership structure that mirrors Comcast's Comcast's spokesperson Decline to come so so Willie as you look at the screen right there The big concern that stockholders right now on Wall Street are wondering about before they decide what to do with Comcast shares Is whether Mika is going to have to give up her penthouse now now perch atop the Comcast building. When are we gonna get invited to the penthouse? Never! They never let us up. I will say really quickly on this you know I drudge at the

top said oh like news meltdown all this other stuff I mean I could be completely wrong we could all be fired a year from now. We're putting in this app, and you never know what's gonna happen. Or tomorrow. Yeah, but in this case though, Willie, what they're doing is what other media firms are doing. You spin off the cable channels, which seven years ago were making a ton of money. Now they've got to figure out how to make them profitable.

Disney, which by the way, huge media news, Disney has figured out now how to make them profitable. Disney, which by the way huge media news, Disney has figured out now how to make streaming profitable. Peacock had an extraordinary success in the Olympics. So they're talking about spinning this off, Comcast still owns, I think Brian Roberts still owns a third of that, and because Comcast didn't jump into the bidding war like everybody else throwing stupid money at streaming services and then watch it flop. Comcast has a ton of cash.

So now they spin this off and they're in a position to...what do you all say? To get a lot of... To consolidate. Consolidate, but also to just ramp up. And so you get a lot of people, a lot of different channels together. And so whatever that entity is gonna be, there'll probably be a lot of cable channels

and they'll be in a much better position to scale, to scale it. I didn't, I took one business class at university. You didn't go up there on the table. Thanks for that. I didn't get up took one business class at University of Alabama. Thanks for that. We're all staring at you. I didn't get up. I'm glad you gave us your analysis.

The only thing that makes sense here is you spin it off and then you scale it up and then you figure out how to make it more profitable. Yeah, this is to keep these networks like this network healthy and to keep Comcast thriving the way it is. And this is just the way it's going. People are cutting the cord, right? The cable subscribers are down across the board.

This is something Bob Iger talked about last year doing with ABC and Disney and spinning off some of those networks. We'll see if he does that as well. But I think internally it's viewed as a good thing. It gets everyone in a healthy position to continue to thrive moving forward. All right. Let's move on. Newly released data is offering insight on the deadly cost of America's civil war

based on recently revealed census records from the 1880s. Researchers have landed on a firmer estimate of the number of lives lost in the conflict, 698,000. The analysis suggests Confederate states suffered a death rate more than twice as high as the Union. Historians have long grappled with the true number of casualties and Alec Baldwin's Western movie, Rust,

will be revealed to the public today at an international film festival in Poland. It comes three years after the onset death of cinematographer Helena Hutchins. High demand for tickets to the premiere caused the website to crash. Hutchins was killed when a prop gun handled by Baldwin was discharged during production. Jonathan, will you make a comment? No. No.

Okay. No. No comment. That was a terrible tragedy. Let's move on. I might have walked away from it. Horrible. It's going on with it.

Only the movie went forward. I am truly surprised because it was, yeah, just such a horrible tragedy. I think her family is Ukrainian. It's interesting. We'll see. All right. Let's turn now to Ukraine. Several developments out of that country this morning. Right now, the U.S. embassy

in the capital of Kiev is shut down as it warns of a potentially significant aerial attack. In a post on social media, the State Department is warning American citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced. This comes a day after Ukraine fired long-range Atakums missiles into Russia for the first time. That's according to two U.S. officials who spoke to NBC News. Russia's Defense Ministry confirms five of six missiles were shot down over a region that borders northern Ukraine. The six was struck in midair and its fragments landed on a military facility causing a fire. Meanwhile, President Biden reportedly has authorized the provision of anti-personnel landmines to Ukraine,

that for the first time, changing his own policy. Joining us now, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four-star Navy Admiral James DeVritis, he's Chief International Analyst for NBC News. He authored a new piece for Bloomberg titled Ukraine and Russia Can Find Peace with a DMZ. Admiral, great to have you with us at the table as always. We'll get to your piece in just a minute, but let's talk about those attackums that President Biden has now said.

Ukraine, go ahead and use them. How does that change the dynamic in the war? Yeah, let's do it tactically, operationally, strategically. So tactically, this is going to have real impact immediately. I don't believe the Russian Ministry of Defense. I think those missiles probably had immediate tactical impact. They were used against ammunition sites and the staging areas, Willie, for the North Korean troops. Operationally, this is going to force Putin to kind of spread his forces a little more thinly to worry more about his logistics hubs and to prepare to conduct air defense,

something he hasn't had to do in significant ways. That's a cost on his military. And then strategically, what I think the Biden team is about, and it's a smart play, is to give Volodymyr Zelensky as many chips for the bargaining table as he can possibly have. He's holding a chunk of Russia around curves. Here's another bargaining chip, a Takum's missile. So I think there are implications in all domains. This war just crossed the thousand-day mark, and there are a lot of people who say it would

have been nice for Ukraine to have had these Atacams a year ago, a year and a half ago. What do you think? I'd substitute for the word Atacams, F-16s would have been great to have those a year ago. A1 tanks substitute would have been great to have those two years ago. We've been always slightly behind. I understand the theory that you don't want to provoke a nuclear-armed power, Willie. Got it?

On the other hand, we've seen again and again Putin has failed to respond to his own so-called red lines. So, let's take a bigger picture here. This is this White House trying to rush as much help as it can to Ukraine because the clock is ticking. They know when Donald Trump takes office on January 20th, U.S. policy towards Kiev likely going to change dramatically. So we talked about the Atacams, the landmines, a controversial choice to be sure.

What else can be done, realistically can be done between now and January 20th? I think at this point, the short answer is so often Plan B is to work harder on Plan A. And what I mean by that is in the remaining 60 days or so, put all your force behind the logistics, get as much of this kit to the battlefield, get as much support to the commander of US European Command, my successor, also Supreme Allied Commander, General Chris Cavoli, load him up, he'll get it moving, get as much of it in train as you can, and see where the Trump administration actually lands.

You know, Admiral, we are clearly in a transition period here between administrations. Everything you've been talking about and responding to the questions here this morning has to do with the Defense Department. The reach, the power, the immense impact of the Defense Department both on the United States reputation around the globe and on a daily basis around the globe. What's your view of the furor that has erupted over the potential successor? Secretary of Defense, let me make an initial point Mike which is all around the world forward deployed Soldiers sailors airmen Marines Coast Guardsmen. This is all white noise to them to be honest

They are focused on their operational tasks. So we were joking before the call, you asked me, what would it be like to be out on an aircraft carrier right now in command? It would be wonderful. Because no one out there, believe me, is following all this. Having said that, the Department of Defense needs experience at its helm. And so anytime you are putting a candidate forward who doesn't have the requisite experience, you are going to end up in a place where the department will move less with less alacrity, it will move with less spirit.

Therefore, in the end, even though those operational forces are not following this, they are going to be impacted by it, whoever ends up leading that department. Ed Luce has a question for you. And Ed, really quickly, I'm curious, what is NATO's response? What is Britain's response to Joe Biden and the administration giving Ukraine more weapons that strike deeper into Russia? Well, Britain, countries like Britain and Poland have been pushing quite hard for the Americans to do that. Britain has its own storm shadow. It's an Anglo-French

artillery that also has a longer range. And those have been lifted, but it required American permission to do so. So this also affects those. I mean, I'm fascinated, Admiral, by the leverage this gives an incoming Donald Trump to persuade Putin to come to the negotiating table, because right now he's showing no signs of interest in bargaining with Zelensky, because he thinks he's gaining more on the

ground and why give up? Why freeze? Does this make Putin think again? Does this give, is this in effect a gift from Biden to Trump to get these talks started after January the 20th? You could look at it that way, Ed. I like to think it's a gift from Biden to Zelensky, who is going to have to go to that negotiating table. You know, Mika read that interesting piece about the massive casualties in the American Civil War. That's the other piece of the puzzle for Vladimir Putin.

He's lost 200,000 killed in action, 400,000 who are grievously wounded, 600,000 who have left the country to avoid the draft. He is now approaching civil war-like levels of casualties. It's a terrifying thing, in my view, if you are a member of the Russian population. So I think between the bargaining chips, you're absolutely right. The chunk of territory that the Ukrainians hold of Russia, the new A-TACMs, the F-16s, which are starting to have real impact, those are operational military bargaining chips. On the other side of it is going to be casualties inflicted on Russia.

Those two things I think might help get Putin to the bargaining table. I want to ask you really quickly about the cost of this war on Russia. We know on Ukraine, obviously, because we see it every day. But, you know, the Biden administration has been criticized by both sides, whether it's the isolationist on the right and the left, or whether it's the people who basically want him to march, have Ukraine march into Moscow. He's always been hammered, second guest. He's always had to worry. And as James Baker always said, president's first goal, avoiding nuclear war. And after that, then you figure everything else out.

But I just want us to look at, how will history, 20, 30 years from now, look at this war thus far and how much it has decimated the number two, and they are Russia, the number two military in the world. What is the generational impact of the casualties and the equipment they have lost over the past several years? It is massive, and we are only seeing the edges of it right now. And think about the 600,000 young Russian males who have left the country.

Who are they? They're the ones with internet savvy, rubles in their pocket, contacts in the West. They've now seen the bright lights of Warsaw. They're not coming back. And that is a generational loss for the Russians. Point two... By the way, you just made Mika's brother smile talking about the bright lights of war. So it all worse as beautiful. My God. It's gorgeous and even to the Bristol.

I will have from from. Yeah tour of. And back. And we opened up Pandora's box and beautifully rebuilt after the tragedy of the second world war. There's a message there. Yeah. But here's the point I would make to Donald Trump about the money we could spend on Ukraine. We're talking 40 billion dollars a year, which is about five percent of the U.S. defense budget. Our defense budget, our defense budget 800 billion, 40

billion, about 5%. For that amount of money, we are breaking the phalanx of Russia's military. Those are the best dollars we have ever spent in defense. And point two, all that money, that 40 billion a year, that's not a check we're handing to Zelensky. All that money is paid to US defense contractors, making our defense industrial base stronger. Russia gets weaker. To Joe's point, final thought, the Russians today are spending 35% of their GDP on defense. That is not a prescription for long-term growth. Yeah, Willie, this is a generational impact on Russia.

And yes, it's actually, it's helped U.S. businesses. It is, in one word, for President Trump, it's leverage. This is terrific leverage. You put a small amount of money in, and you get massive effect. This is a good deal for the United States. So speaking of the president-elect, Admiral, he said on the campaign trail, I'll have a peace deal done between Russia and Ukraine. It'll take me one day when I become president. You're writing today in Bloomberg about the possibility of that kind of deal, what it

might look like. And you say there ought to be some kind of a DMZ like there is between North and South Korea. What would that deal look like from both sides? It would look a lot like the end of the Korean War, Willie, which is to say a demilitarized zone DMZ, probably five to 10 miles wide. It would probably be right along the border that you see now between Russian forces, Ukrainian forces.

And that's a tragedy, right? It's a tragedy that Ukraine would give up 20% of its country. But the other 80% sails on, democratic, free, eventually a path to NATO, say three to five years, eventually a path to the EU. Not a terrible outcome. A good portion of making that work would be creation of this demilitarized zone, populated with, on one side, Ukrainian troops, on the other, Russian, like the Korean DMC. Or you could bring in a neutral force, a UN force.

You could have NATO on one side, Russia on the other. I could think of a lot of things. All that to be determined at a negotiating table. But it's a key element that people aren't talking about enough. Tragic for Ukraine, but let's also say a long way from what Putin wanted when he set out on this war. That's exactly the point. When Putin wakes up at two o'clock in the morning when he's honest with himself, he

realizes to Joe's point, he has hurt his country deeply, the Rodina, the motherland. He has destroyed its prospects. In a smart world, Putin would have integrated with Europe. Instead, he's created this confrontation by invading a neighbor. It's a tragedy for Ukraine. It's also a tragedy for Russia. All right. Retired four-star Navy Admiral James Stavridis.

Thank you very much. His latest opinion piece is online now. It is worth a read. And Ed Luce, thank you as well, as always. By the way, Ed Luce, at the bottom of all of his columns, doesn't say, I am the state. He says, I am the FT. His op-ed for the FT, Financial Times Times is also available online right now. Thank you, Ed.

And coming up, Pablo Torre is here with a look at some of the greatest trends taking over the NFL. He'll explain next on Morning Joe. You know, it's been a bad season. Actually, a bad season doesn't quite explain what it's been for the Dallas Cowboys. Oh my gosh. Am I? Yeah, by the way.

We shot JR. Yeah. That it was a dream? That was such a cop-out. If only it was a dream in Dallas. Oh, that's why we have him here. That's why I'm here on a Wednesday. dream that was such a cop out if only it was a dream in Dallas that's why I'm here on a Wednesday look at that segue back to me Steve Jobs black sweater that's right with a car like a reality distortion shield is what I

bring much like it's reduced like jobs okay oh my god okay so the Cowboys are three and seven they're not happy about it they're horrid their latest Oh, my God. Okay, so, anyway, the Cowboys are 3-7. They're not happy about it. They're horrid. Their latest embarrassment came a 34-10 home loss to the Houston Texans on Monday when a metal piece of their stadium roof fell onto the field. Luckily, no one was hurt.

Oh, my God. That's not good. Structural damage. Various egos. Also before that game, Dallas plays in franchise quarterback Dak Prescott on injury reserve, confirming that he's going to miss the rest of the season with a hamstring injury. This is the longest introduction ever. That likely means American's team will see their Super Bowl drought extend to 29 years. Jerry Jones was asked about the exact number of people who were killed in the Civil War.

I am now going to read you a report that places that. Okay, wait, it didn't go that long. Let's bring it out. Pablo Torre. He's those that Pablo Torre finds out on Metal Arch Media, MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre. Willie, can you pick this up for me? Cause I'm not a Brad. I like it when Joe reads a story to me. It's too much reading.

It's right. Let's be honest. Why can't we just say he's got a great pop cat podcast. And you're talking about the cat. Why are you talking about? Why are you trying to show part of the podcast? No, no.

Well, you got him here. Meek, I like where your head's at. Yeah. You can go and subscribe. Let's show a sound bite. And then we'll go to you. What was this? But what I want to bring you is an individualized, just

a bespoke podcast, in a sense. So I've heard on a certain program this week that we live in a 50-50 nation. And the thing that crosses the gap, of course, is football. And the team that crosses the gap more than any other that overlays both sides of the cultural divide happens to be the Dallas Cowboys. And so on my show, Publatory Finds Out, where I use journalism to go and solve my own personal curiosities and mysteries, what I realized was that the most extreme example of sports

fandom can be found on an online database that the state of Texas operates, where you can see the last words of every inmate on death row. And so many of these inmates, it turns out, they use their opportunity to say something at the end of their life on earth to say, how about them cowboys?

To shout out their sports teams. And it's remarkable. And so the question, of course, is like, why and how do they even keep on disturbing? Pablo Torre, thank you so much for being with us. No, no, no, no, no, no. There's, there's, there's, there's some, there's some, uh, what do you get from there? I say, um, relatability, some light in this as well as some macabre, you know, I bring some darkness in my all black box theater outfit. I don't know what this is about. So listen, what we did was we sent a correspondent

to the Polinsky unit in Livingston, Texas. It is death row, a super max facility. And we found an inmate there named Charles Flores who I will not belabor his case specifically, just know the man for my reporting should not be there. He was convicted in large part through a practice called forensic hypnosis, I will not belabor his case specifically, just know the man per my reporting should not be there. He was convicted in large part due to a practice called forensic hypnosis,

a real thing, which is discredited now junk science by law in Texas. Also, he was an accomplice in a burglary where the killer in the burglary has already been set free. I say all of this to say that this man has been in solitary confinement 23 hours a day for 25 years, and this is the biggest Cowboys fan I've ever encountered. And the question we had for him is,

how do you watch football, America's pastime, on death row? And there is a world that involves fantasy football in which they are running via fishing line, draft picks. John, they have a two quarterback league on death row. There's a commissioner, they're gambling, they have a two quarterback league. On death row, there's a commissioner. They're gambling their rations. This is a place where despite all of this seeming, like the last place you would see a version of yourself,

you get a sense that these people are trying to recreate the national pastime under the most dire conditions. And in some cases, it is shocking, shocking how football is the one thing they find that connects them to the rest of the country. Now that's fascinating. It's a crazy story, Mika, genuinely a crazy story. This is what we get in your podcast.

Wait, I love it. Yeah, Mika loves it. That is fascinating. It's life then, serving the community. Yes, he's awaiting, he's awaiting. He's on death row. Yes. Waiting for the axe to fall.

He gives him great commonality with nearly nine out of 10 general managers in the national football league. So it's funny you say that, because Charles Flores, right? You'd imagine that his perspective on all of this has been, of course, maybe brought back to the reality, the harsh reality of he is waiting for the day when this all happens to him, his execution date.

And the guy, Joe, he has, we even emailing with him still, he has so many complaints about Jerry Jones. He has so many complaints about CD Lam. He is a fan for whom this membership, so the question of like, why would you shout out the Cowboys, the Cowboys so the question of like, why would you shout out the Cowboys? The Cowboys at the end of your life. It's because this is an expression of a membership,

a membership with the rest of the country that otherwise this particular Superman's prison has taken from him. And I'm not saying that everybody needs to be sympathetic to every inmate on death row, just know that there are people inside of there who should not be there for whom football is their only connection. And they express that at the most high stakes moment. So your question about him, how does he follow it

if he's locked up 23 hours a day? How does he follow close enough to have a fantasy team and know the yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no lamp. That's right. So there is a television now that all of the inmates can stare through the great. And so actually the biggest game of the year, because it's Texas, remember Livingston, Texas is Texans Cowboys. And so Charles Flores was watching the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night and being miserable, miserable in ways that transcend the misery you would expect. Yeah. And misery in ways that again, it's just the most American sensation of what do you care about? You care about football to the very end. Okay.

Absolutely fascinating. I'm chastened for even laughing at the beginning. No, no, no. That was great. There's a lot there. All right. Wait. One more thing for you.

It's so interesting. There's a growing trend among some athletes who are now celebrating with dance moves that are used by Donald Trump at his campaign rallies. The trend has taken hold, especially in the NFL, but in other sports as well. What did you find? Yes, so this is a bit of a viral trend. Basically, all these athletes use the parlance of the platform Joe was talking about before. Everyone's just basically retweeting the same meme at this point. Yeah. And I just want to remind people that there are better celebrations than this, and this

is not a political observation. I believe that when we are celebrating dances that take so little, we are basically indulging I think it was the great athlete Barack Obama who said, the soft bigotry of low expectations. There is an athlete in the NFL, Cameron Bynum, a Vikings defensive back who has put, well, you know the story. He has been pulling off the greatest celebrations that I have ever seen.

And so this is him doing, I think, Joe, your favorite athlete, Ray Gunn. Of course. The Olympian from Australia. Is he doing that? No, he does not. Look at that. That's the cup on him. Wait, you've he doing? No, he does. Look at that.

That's what the camera's on. Look at him. Oh, wait, you gotta show the side by side. Oh, yes. It's incredible. No way. You are kidding me. So imagine what it takes for a defensive,

Joe, as you know, a defensive back is not guaranteed to touch a football every week. Cameron Bynum, every single game, is prepared with an elaborate routine, a ridiculously elaborate routine that I interviewed him about. I went to Minnesota, I talked to him, sat down, had his life story told to me.

It's incredible, involves immigration, lots of real world pictures. But this is the one, the image that you should know is that this man did ray gun better than ray gun. And we need to talk more about this. The coach says, I'm like, okay, cool, whatever. than Rago. And we need to talk more about this. So, hold on a second. So, we have a lot of people watching, who unlike my kids, and everybody else's kids around here,

don't know who Ragon is. Willie, can you give them a quick background? And Ragon, sadly, has been driven from the sport of breakdance. Yes, self-exile. So that's Reagan, Australian breaker, breakdancing within the Olympics. He was here for the first time in Paris.

Went out and did that. Speaks for itself. Scored a flat zero. The judges. But in the process, became the biggest viral star of the Olympics. Since has bowed out of breakdancing because of the mockery, but she did say she loved this. Shout out to Cam Bynum.

He said he's a big fan of this. He also, he's getting a reputation. He did the parent trap dance. The handshake. The love dance. And the night. He said that's one of his favorite movies. No one's doing it like him.

He did the usher glitch dance, which I'm not gonna pretend to even. That's how you do it right now That was it can't bind him. Yeah, okay You can hear these stories and more on Pablo's podcast or Pablo Torrey finds out on metal arc media I'm gonna download it. Thank you Mika and You have to come back more often anytime. What's today? more often. Anytime. What's today? Wednesday? Today is allegedly Wednesday. I'll say Friday. Come back Friday. Come back Friday. All right. Stay up, stay off of Death Row.

Come back Friday. No, I loved that. That was so moving. More cowbell and more regal. More me dancing, I think. Yeah. More cowbell, more regal. I hear they're saying more dancing. I'm fascinated by the Death Row story. Oh, no, thank you. There's a lot there. I hope people listen to it. Yeah, for sure.