Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/22/24

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

Trump nominates Pam Bondi for attorney general

Former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew today as president-elect Trump's nomine for attorney general. This puts a lot of pressure on Trump because now there's not much time to find somebody worse. He dropped out on social media, posting, "'While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction

to the critical work of the Trump-Vance transition.'" That is true. All of this attention on this sex crime was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump-Vance transition. That is true. All of this attention on this sex criminal was unfairly distracting from the critical work of all the other sex criminals who have been nominated. This was a shocking announcement from the Trump team, and as you can say, no one was more surprised than Matt Gaetz. Late night show reactions, Willie.

And we're going to go through the headlines, but I think you know, as a football fan, what I really want to be talking about right now. But here's the New York Times. Gaetz withdraws. Wall Street Journal, Gaetz is out. Bondi is picked at DOJ, and the New York Post, still the official newspaper of record for Morning Joe, shut the gates. I don't know if you'll laugh, we've been saying that for a year, but Willie.

I think they like the picture. Oh, okay, shut the gates. Growing up for five years in upstate New York, our dream was going out, running out just like you in New Jersey, and when it started snowing, you know, we'd get the Nerf football, which by the way, had the consistency of a rock after about three minutes outside in the freezing weather. And we would dream of being like the Browns and the Steelers, literally the Browns and the Steelers or the Vikings and whatever the Binggels and in the snow man and last night.

What a dream for the black and yeah, that was unbelievable. Whenever you have to plow the yard lines Joe, you know you're in for a good game so the players can see him. This is a game last night Thursday nighter in Cleveland in the snow Browns Steelers Cleveland Pittsburgh all that was missing was John Fasenda's voice on NFL films. Jameis Winston diving into the end zone here. It was a mismatch on paper the Steelers came in 8 and 2,

the Browns 2 and 8 but it was in Cleveland. It was in the snow. What a catch there. And the Browns get the job done. Nick Chubb scored a late touchdown. The Steelers couldn't score on their final drive. Browns get the win at home in the snow. That is just a thing of beauty.

I mean, you'll remember the old black and blue division and the NFC, division in the NFC. Was that the NFC Central? No, yeah, yeah, I think NFC Central and then the AFC Central. Now they have like 87 divisions, so I guess this is the AFC North. But yeah, these are like the classic, classic games. And really the story here also, Steelers are gonna end up in the playoffs. They're such an incredibly balanced team.

But Jamis Winston, man, he came in and did what Deshaun Watson with all his money and all the baggage could not do. And there's Nick Chubb. So good to see him running again. Yeah, Jamis Winston's been bouncing around the league, just hugely talented player, had some good early years in Tampa, but sort

of become an NFL journeyman. And now maybe, maybe finding a new home in Cleveland. He looked, he looked good last night as the Browns and of course the dog pound, the fans, the stadium stays filled despite the weather. It's exactly the kind

of game those fans like. And Mika, do you know how they celebrated the victory? How did they celebrate? That looks cool. I promise they went out and they made snow angels. No they didn't. Yes they did. And they even got some of the announcers to come out and they all made snow angels. You know what? We need a reason to smile.

Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton. Managing editor at The Bulwark, Sam Stein, doing way too early for us this morning. President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas. He's the author of the weekly newsletter, Home and Away, available on Substack. And former congressional candidate in New York's first district, our friend John Avlon joins us this morning. Good to have you. Hey, Sam, wasn't there a Patriots game where a snowplow was strategically used, employed

at the end, before they kicked a field goal to win? Yes, I think so. Was it a real snowplow? Or were they like baby snowplows and they had to get the little marker? And then of course there was the famous Vinatieri field goal after the... Yeah. Why am I blanking on the tuck rule game? The tuck rule game.

Exactly. Thank you so much. Our sports correspondent, Sam Stein. That is news, Nika. This is news. That's not news. Here's news for you. Donald Trump has announced a new attorney general pick. The name is Pam Bondi. Bondi served as the state attorney general in Florida from 2011 to 2019. Before that, she spent more than 18 years as a prosecutor, currently a partner at a lobbying firm.

Bondi has long ties with the president-elect. Back in 2016, on the eve of the Republican primary in Florida, Bondi endorsed Trump, picking him over the candidate from her own state, Senator Marco Rubio. 59-year-old later joined Trump's legal team, defending the then president in his first impeachment trial. When Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was ousted in 2018,

Bondi's name was floated then as a possible replacement. In a statement announcing his new AG pick, President-elect Trump called Bondi an America First fighter, saying she will, quote, refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting crime and making America safe again. And really very interesting. Dave Ehrenberg, of course, right now Palm Beach County's state attorney ran against

Pam Bonby in 2010 for state attorney general in Florida. And we're going to have him later on in the show to talk about the new AG Peck. Yeah, and we'll have more on who she is and what she might bring to the job if she's confirmed in just a minute, but Pam Bondi's name came about very quickly yesterday because Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration for Attorney General.

Gaetz explained his decision writing on social media, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump-Vance transition. Gates, of course, embroiled in his own scandals, facing allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. The former congressman denies those claims. Sources tell NBC News at least five Senate Republicans were planning to vote against Gates and had communicated to other senators and those close to Trump they are unlikely to be swayed on Gates.

At least 20 senators were uncomfortable with having to vote for Gates for Attorney General. The former congressman could only afford, of course, to lose the support of three Republicans to be confirmed, assuming no Democrats would have voted for him. So what happened here? Joining us now, congressional reporter for The Hill, Michael Schnell, NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent, Ken Delaney as well. Good morning to you both. Michael, let me start with you and how this fell apart so quickly.

We had heard privately and then publicly from some senators in the last 24 hours or so that they just couldn't get to yes on Matt Gaetz, that this was the one perhaps nominee that they were willing to take down. So how did this happen in the end and why did he walk away? Yeah, well, Willie, we know that former congressman Matt Gaetz was on Capitol Hill two days ago, the day before he dropped out, he withdrew his name from consideration. And he had these meetings with senators. And senators seemed to be keeping an open mind, saying that the president-elect deserved

to pick who he wants in these positions and let them have their say and defend their nomination. But we were also hearing from those same senators that they wanted to see the ethics report into Matt Gaetz. They wanted to see the allegations and the information that had been gathered over roughly three and a half years by the House Ethics Committee. Now the panel had been debating and weighing whether or not to release that report. This week they declined to release the report. The vote to release the report had failed. But I spoke to a source

familiar with the situation who told me that members left that meeting with the understanding that the report would be quote ready by the time of their next meeting on December 5th, indicating that another vote could potentially happen then and a vote could be successful on releasing this report. So I think that with the skepticism among senators, having this real possibility of an ethics report coming out, whether it be through a formal vote of a committee, whether it be through a leak from the committee, or right now, there are even House Democrats who are pushing to have a floor vote

on forcing this ethics committee to release its report into Matt Gaetz. There seemed to be this concern that at the end of the day, he wasn't going to be able to wrangle enough votes that his confirmation hearing would potentially be a spectacle on the Senate side. There were some senators saying that it would be Kavanaugh on steroids, of course, referring to that confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh that grabbed a lot of headlines. So at the end of the day, it's clear that the Trump campaign, well, rather the Trump transition team and former Congresswoman Matt Gaetz decided that it wouldn't be worth putting him through the next few weeks of this confirmation process, having these incessant headlines, instead

have him step aside and put somebody else up for the job. And now questions about what happens to Matt Gaetz. Does he go back to his congressional seat? Was he promised something by President Trump to step aside, like perhaps filling the Senate seat in Florida that will be vacated by Marco Rubio? We'll see in time. So Ken, let's look at the new choice from Donald Trump. Pam Bondi, attorney general in the state of Florida, the first female attorney general

in that state, a defender of Donald Trump during impeachment, both as an attorney and on television. What else do we know about her and how justice is feeling about this choice? Well, one reaction I got from inside the Justice Department last night was this is Matt Gates with a better legal resume. But the legal resume is significant, Willie and guys, because Pam Bondi was a career prosecutor

down there in Hillsborough County for many, many years before she was elected Florida's first female attorney general. So she's prosecuted major cases, murders, death penalty cases. She understands how that works. Matt Gaetz had never really been much of a lawyer before he was elected to the Florida legislature. So that's a big difference.

And, you know, she at the same time, though, she is, you know, an extreme MAGA activist and has tainted her legal career with very strong stands in favor of some questionable things. There was a famous incident back around 10 years ago when, if you remember, Trump University, that for-profit university that Donald Trump ran, was getting a lot of consumer complaints about being a scam. And her office was asked to join a multi-state lawsuit. And Donald Trump's foundation contributed $25,000 to her campaign, and she opted not to join that lawsuit.

And his foundation was later fined for making an illegal contribution. So look, she served her tenure eight years as Florida Attorney General. She later went on to be one of Donald Trump's impeachment defense lawyers in the Ukraine impeachment in 2020, made a speech on the House floor during the trial, arguing that there was a Biden corruption scandal in Ukraine and that that's why that phone call was okay. And she's also raised questions about fraud in the 2020 election, which people think were baseless. So it's a bit of a mixed bag, but people are breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief at the Justice Department that at least she's a real lawyer and that her deputy, Todd

Blanch, Donald Trump's defense attorney, does have a lot of experience with the Justice Department and is also well regarded over there. So net people are thinking this is a much better situation than Matt Gaetz, but she is certainly a Donald Trump loyalist who has also raised questions about weaponization at the Justice Department and may really cause some trouble over there from the perspective of some of the career folks. All right, NBC's Ken Delaney, and thanks so much. Rev, let's look at the headline obviously yesterday. You know we had been saying on this show that it's like the old Midas commercials about when the ethics report and all the bad information came out on Matt Gaetz. You need to pay us now or you can pay us later and the later it is the closer it, you know, the more that it's actually in the middle

of the new presidency. And I think that's the last thing they obviously, they didn't want to see this scandal in the Senate, probably in January and February. Absolutely. I think it was the wise thing for the Trump people and for President-elect Trump to withdraw him now because a long-term spectacle of days and weeks would only damage them even more. Take your losses short, let him walk away because he was never qualified. And he could not give any reasonable argument as to why he'd be attorney general. I talked to people that I know in Florida last night that are on the civil rights side. We have a chapter in the National Action Network there.

Bondi is certainly on the right, but she is one who's qualified to become attorney general in terms of she's handled cases, she's managed offices. And yes, we can raise questions about what she did with Trump University but there's no glaring things in terms of her values and morals. You're talking about Gates with underage sex, you're talking about money that has been documented that was sent around and to put him in charge of the Justice Department made a mockery of the system so I think it it was better for Trump, not that I'm a Trump person at all, but it was better for him and certainly better for the American public to get

Gates off the scene as soon as possible. Right, and one of the things that Dave Ehrenberg said was he ran against or ran a tough campaign in 2010. He's coming on later and said right after she defeated him, she hired him and actually spoke out to Republicans who said, who didn't like it, saying, he's good at what he does, we need him in our department. Which shows maturity, which Gates certainly lacked. Didn't show, yeah. All right, and then there's DOD, Republican senators on Capitol Hill offering mixed reactions to Pete Hegseth's police report that revealed new and graphic details about a sexual assault allegation against the former Fox News host back in 2017.

Some defended Donald Trump's pick for defense secretary, while others voiced concern. Pete is going to be a shining star, inspiring young men and women not only to stay in the military. Pete shared with me text and messages that he's received from his friends who are thinking of retiring, who are now happy that he's there and are inspired to stay. Young men and women who are thinking about serving will be inspired to join. It's a disgrace that those allegations are nothing but what you said, allegations that are he said, she said.

This is a case that has been dismissed. This is just dredging up something or trying to smear and discredit a candidate. It reminds me of what happened to Brett Kavanaugh, it's a disgrace. It's a pretty big problem given that we have a sexual assault problem in our military. This is why you have background checks, this is why you have hearings, this is why you have to go through the scrutiny.

I'm not gonna prejudge them, but yeah, it's a pretty concerning accusation. Okay, so we're gonna note here that the police did not give a reason, but they did not charge Hegsath, and he denies any wrongdoing. Michael, back to your reporting on this one, I think the issue at hand would be perhaps that Pete Hegseth did not raise this,

so that transition team members and others were caught off guard. That's, I think, that's a hard issue, because perhaps raising that this police report exists and this situation happened might have given them a heads up. I think what happens now, and you let me know what you're hearing in terms of reaction, is, okay, what else is there? What else haven't you warned us about?

Yeah, Mika, it's that question of what else is here because typically when you have these nominees and decisions to make, you have a conversation with the individual and say, OK, what skeletons in the closet do I have to know about? What do we have to be prepared to potentially respond to? But going ahead now, you mentioned there are questions of are there any other details that can drop out from this story? But also with Matt Gaetz now out of the question and him withdrawing his name from consideration, a lot of folks, reporters and also lawmakers up on Capitol Hill, are expecting that that

scrutiny and that attention is now going to shift to Hegseth. In a lot of ways, Matt Gaetz was taking up the oxygen in the room with his allegations and with his nomination. Also just the fact that he is a very polarizing figure, somebody who it's no secret in Washington is not beloved by his colleagues. So now with Matt Gaetz out of the conversation, a lot of folks are expecting the scrutiny to increase on Pete Hegseth. And I'll say one more thing.

There was this big question in the Capitol of how many of these senators up on Capitol Hill who aren't the biggest fans of Donald Trump, people like Lisa Murkowski, Tom Tillis, Susan Collins, and others, how many of the nominees would they actually be willing to tank? How many times would they be willing to vote no? Because remember, assuming all Democrats vote against these controversial figures, it only takes four to kill one of these nominations. Now with Matt Gaetz out of the question, who was very likely on his way to a failed confirmation

vote because of all the controversy surrounding him, that scrutiny could shift to Hegseth. And that key group of senators who are not the president's biggest fans, they can now decide, this is where I'm putting my political capital, this is where I'm gonna decide to be a maverick of the Senate, and this is the nominee

who I'm going to take. So, you know, Matt Gaetz coming out of the spotlight, but somebody has to fill that void. It could be Pete Hegseth, it could be RFK Jr., it could be Tulsi Gabbard, but right now it seems like Hegseth is starting to get that oxygen. The Hill's Michael Schnell. Thank you so much for your reporting. Greatly appreciated. A couple things going on here actually, and Mika alluded to it. I mean, what you're hearing according to the the New York Times, is the Trump transition team is saying, OK, the police report says they're not going to press charges, but he

didn't tell us about this. And then they were blindsided a second time when they found out about the police report and that he'd had the police report since 2021 and the New York Times is reporting and I think the Washington Post as well is that that's what's really right now got them going again what else is out there. I think Richard Watts how interesting is first of all I read the Washington Post this morning. One of the lessons from the Gates withdrawal was that the Senate was actually doing its job asking the tough questions. This is what's fascinating to me as we look at this. You have people who've, and I've said this, they've spent their entire adult life focusing

on strengthening the military. And what happens at the DOD and who runs the DOD means the world to them, just like you. There are also people who've committed their entire adult lives to strengthening the intelligence community, the intel community. So I'm just gonna say I think you can count Murkowski and I'm guessing Murkowski and Collins out on voting for either of these two candidates for for many of those reasons. That means they're two Republicans. The question is somebody in the Intel committee break because as we know the Intel committee is like that last

committee they stand shoulder to shoulder. Marco Rubio, Mark Warner, you know, Intel committee famously works together in most cases. Are there going to be two Republicans from that committee that say, I know I can't put somebody who's an apologist for Assad gassing citizens, you know, in charge of intelligence? Or is it going to be two people saying, we can't have somebody that has no managerial experience running the most complicated bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. That's really the question for Republican senators right now. Hundred percent.

The issue is not only whether there's skeletons in the closet, it's what's in the closet. These are big, important jobs at a critical time. You've got nearly three million people to oversee, civilian and military, when you run the Pentagon, when you're on the Department of Defense. We're involved or could be involved in multiple conflicts and multiple geographies. We don't have an adequate defense industrial base and we can go on and on. That ought to be the focus of the hearings in addition to any skeleton. What in this person's background remotely prepares him for one of the critical jobs

in the United States at a turning point in history? Same thing you could ask about Tulsi Gabbard. Again, does she have the judgment, does she have the managerial experience to coordinate, what is it, 17 plus agencies and to present the president of the United States with a realistic... And again, all these, even without Matt Gaetz's scandals, all of these questions also apply to an inexperienced AG. Pam Bondi has been an attorney general for the third largest state in America for eight

years. Okay. Matt Gaetz barely ever practiced law. So again, you've got the Justice Department. It's just you have to have somebody that has experience. Same with the DOD, same with the intel agencies, but when it comes to the DOD and bureaucracies, I know somebody that you know, somebody who worked for Dr. Brzezinski, somebody that Dr. Brzezinski considered just the best, the best in Washington, Bob Gates.

I remember reading one of Bob Gates' books, and Bob Gates knew, as you know, he knew how to work Washington better than anybody else. He said about 75% of his time was spent trying to stay one step ahead of the bureaucracy. Here's a genius. And he said it was constant. He goes, these people with good intentions, they have their agenda. And there are hundreds of thousands of them. And even if you go into the morning at 8 a.m. and say, I'm going to change this policy,

I'm going to change that policy, I'm gonna change that policy. He's like, it's four o'clock in the afternoon and you're still trying to keep up with all the work. By the way, you have to do, our soldiers don't get food and you know, all that stuff. And so here you have the best at this saying, I may be the most experienced person in the world, this was my greatest

challenge. That's why you put somebody inexperienced there. They will be running in circles for four years. I worked in the Pentagon. I was one of my first jobs in 1979 under the Carter administration. At one point I was pressing for something to get civilian oversight over our contingency planning. The military wasn't comfortable with it.

So a colonel sat me down. He said, Mr. Haas, you're a pretty smart guy. But from where I sit, you're Christmas help. You're here for a while. You're going to be gone after the next election. I'm, however, going to be here. This is my career. No way am I going to let you and other civilians get involved in the intricacies of our defense

plan? That's a great story. Has the virtue of being true, but that's what the Pentagon is like. Well, and, John, I'm blind. By the way, I want to tell everybody, we're going to be talking about the fact that the Republicans added another seat. Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania. Oh, my gosh.

Let me tell you, a Herculean task to be a Casey, a guy that used to win by 17 points. We're going to be talking to you about in the next segment about that win, how tough it was for Democrats. You knocked on doors. You were out there. You ran a great campaign. It was still an uphill battle. But I remember, I'm much older than you, when Ronald Reagan's people got in and they were

saying a lot of things that were very similar to what the Trump people are saying now, which is, we're gonna completely remake the bureaucracy. We're gonna wipe these places out. And about six months into it, they're like, why did we even come here? Again, it's a Herculean task. And if you wanna change a bureaucracy, you better have somebody in place who knows

how to fight the bureaucracy. You know, to state the obvious experience matters, you know, having the ability to understand this. But I'll say this. When you have a chief executive who wants to set up panels to fire generals, that's where having a loyalist becomes incredibly dangerous. If number one criteria is just loyalty to an executive who wants to do things that smack of authoritarian instincts, that becomes more dangerous.

And John, you know what else? And we've talked about this, how short-sighted it is. You know what happens when you fire a general? You create a legend. And when you create a legend, you start lawsuits. You start about a three-year war against this general or that general. It all sounds great. Everybody's got a plan until, what does Tyson say? Everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face the first time. And all of these things that people are flexing about,

I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna fire this. You know, you do that people are flexing about, I'm going to go in and I'm going to fire this. You know, you do that, you create a legend, you create a political opponent that has the entire country behind them, and it makes things tougher. Yeah, for sure. Stay with us. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania has conceded to Republican Dave McCormick. We'll go through those results and what this means for the Democratic Party moving forward. And as we go to break, here's a look at the snowplow game Joe was talking about at the top of the show. I didn't believe you.

Okay. 1982, the Patriots had a most unusual solution to a snowy problem. In the closing minutes of a scoreless tie, rookie head coach Ron Meyer called for a masked man. A snow plow driver, Mark Henderson, responded. A convicted burglar employed at Foxborough Stadium on a weekend work release program, Henderson cleared the path for the decisive field goal that propelled the Patriots into the playoffs. Beautiful live picture of the library in Philadelphia as we come up at 630 in the morning on a Friday. Incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania now officially has conceded his race to Republican Dave McCormick. In a video posted to social media, Senator Casey said, quote, as the first count of ballot is completed,

Pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted or the last. In response to Casey's concession, McCormick released a statement that reads in part, Senator Bob Casey dedicated his career to bettering our Commonwealth. Dina, McCormick's wife and I,

want to extend our sincere gratitude to Senator Casey to race and their family for their decades of service, hard work and personal sacrifice. With 99.8 percent of the vote in, McCormick won the race by just over 16,000 votes. The small margin of victory triggered an automatic recount with the results expected out next Wednesday. Barring any unexpected changes, Republicans will hold the majority in the United States Senate, 53 to 47 seats.

So, Joe, we can talk about that balance of power and what it means for the incoming Trump administration. But in these times, we have to say this is what it looks like to wait out a close race. He lost by only 16,000 votes, automatic recount. He concedes graciously. Dave McCormick gives a gracious statement thanking him for his service in a big win for Republicans in the state of Pennsylvania.

But this is how it's supposed to work. Okay. This sounds shockingly normal. This is how it used to be. And I will say, and Willie really we talked about it back in, what year are we in now? Was it 2022? You know, you put Dave McCormick in,

if Dave McCormick had won the primary, he could have won against Federman, who's very strong statewide candidate, but make no mistake about it, Dave McCormick winning here. First of all, he is the type of Republican candidate that can win a state like Pennsylvania, a West Point guy, and ran a tough campaign. So give Dave McCormick his due, a great Republican candidate, but I want to talk about what this means for the Democrats, because we had Sherrod Brown on.

And I got to say, I knew that a lot of Democrats were going to have trouble this year. I don't think Sherrod would in Ohio because he was so connected with working class voters throughout his entire career and got beat. Here is the second shot across the bow for Democrats and working class voters. As you know, the Casey family legend in Pennsylvania. Casey would win, he won his last race by 17 points. White working class voters in Pennsylvania loved him, loved his father, stayed with the case, he's through thick and thin, and there weren't ever any close races. He has lost now. And let's look at Ohio, let's look at Pennsylvania, and ask what does this mean for

the Democratic Party? And I, we wanted you on to talk about this because everybody I talked to that followed your race said, you ran just about pitch perfect race, and yet the headwinds for you, for Casey, for Brown, just too hard to get past. The headwinds were tough, the cycle. I think particularly, you know, you can run ahead of the ticket, but there's only so much you can do that. And in the case of Ohio, Brown, and Casey, that's a, you know, that's an Allegheny region problem.

That's a white working class problem that a lot of folks are having in the Democratic Party. For me, I think the headwinds fundamentally, I kept thinking about one of my favorite quotes from Bill Clinton. He said, people vote for strong and wrong every time. And I think the Democratic Party has a strength problem on the issues that matter most, personal safety and economic security. I think those are the fundamentals. And Democrats got to get off defense and playing offense. They can't be the default party of the status quo.

I think that's the most dangerous place to be. And I think right now they are seen that way. And so people will take a chance if they seem like there are bold solutions on the other side, even if it flies in the face of facts. And so here's where I think just Democrats, particularly in blue states, need to actually, you know, you need to have a stronger center left standing up against the far right and the far left. I think you need to make sure you're dealing with things like the middle class squeeze,

which is one of the biggest drivers of dissatisfaction going on for decades, that the affordability crisis because of inflation kicked even higher gear. And then make sure you're actually dealing with issues of civic disorder, the border, crime. If you have a well-intentioned bill that has unintended consequences, fix it. But if people feel that the civic decline is going on, Democrats have to be taking that on and being the leaders of that reform, they're gonna get caught up in a wave. But at the same time John I think that you're correct we've got to see the Democrats deal with those issues and and go after the working-class white but also

the working-class black community. I think that a lot of them played a lot of Democratic candidates, their consultants, played to the edges and the younger vote and ignored black churches, ignored black fraternities, didn't invest in that. Who are your solid voters who may be more conservative and concerned about immigration, crime, and other things in a different way? And I think they over-engaged some of the things that became trendy but their base was not energized because you could have won enough votes in in Philly

to make this different for me and that's a profound point that actually you know what happened in Philly what happened in Milwaukee what happened in Cleveland I you know I made a point of going to black churches because I think that's really important it's also nursing right but But I do think you make the right point, which is, look, people got to get past the identity politics of this, right? And so actually, you shouldn't just talk about the white working class. My mother's from Youngstown, Ohio, so I think about that region. But it really is just making sure folks feel like the American dream is accessible again, making sure that the middle class feels like if they work hard and play by the rules they can get ahead. And right now they don't and

that's where being the default party that seems to represent the status quo is unsustainable. Hey John, Sam Stein here. Good to see you bud. You too buddy. John and I work together in the past lifetime. I was talking with Chris Murphy yesterday about this exact situation and one of the things that we were talking about, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on how Democrats should maneuver around this, is that you talked about they're perceived

as the defenders of the status quo. He agreed that that can be an issue. But I think part of the issue here is that Trump kind of forces that to happen. By that I mean, yes, you defend democracy when you feel like it's completely under attack and under yes, you defend democracy when you feel like it's completely under attack and under assault. You defend immigrants when you feel like they're being scapegoated. You defend the pharmaceutical industry when you feel like an anti-vax person

is set to host HHS. It's his actions that cause that type of reaction where you end up being the defenders of the status quo. How do you maneuver around that? Because those things are worth defending, even if you have a reformist mindset. It's a great point. First of all, I don't think you can let your opponent determine the tune that you dance to, right? I think you need to play offense and get off defense.

And I do think that the contrast is with the chaos and extremism that Donald Trump represents. The contrast is, look, we're going to be bold and put forward common sense solutions to the problems of everyday people. We're gonna focus on rebuilding the middle, the middle of our politics, the middle of our economy. We're gonna actually take a note.

Look at what that ballot prop that passed in California did, right? People pushed back on a two-to-one margin on the idea that we were decriminalizing low-level crime because that created a sense of civic disorder. So I think it's actually pushing back against civic decline is also defending democratic norms. It's actually building a big tent,

but you gotta be strong on the stuff that people care most about. And I think a lot about something that Hakeem Jeffries said, but could have said even more, and I'd take it as a mantra. It's a four F's. Democrats need to be back on reclaiming the values

of freedom, which Kamala Harris did on reproductive freedom. Fairness, which cuts both ways in some ways that Democrats don't want to deal with on the border. The flag and faith, right? Reclaiming patriotism, reclaiming the social gospel, those traditions that I think can reanimate a new Democratic party and not have it just responding to Donald Trump. That's no way to live. That's no way to win.

All right. Let's get specific here. just responding to Donald Trump. That's no way to live. That's no way to win. All right. Let's get specific here. I want to get specific. So we, I'll just talk about myself. I talked a lot over two years about fascist rhetoric, threats of retribution. Mika talked a lot about women's reproductive rights, women's reproductive health care, freedom for women to decide what they do with their bodies. And we talked about that a lot.

And after the election, 75 million voters or so said, well, okay, we're focused on the price of gas, price of groceries, whatever. So how do you run a campaign where when you hear rhetoric that you don't want to call it fascist, let's just say authoritarian, right? Whatever you want to call it. No, I'm saying whatever, however you wanted to find that, the definitions don't matter. There were threats of retribution. There was the issue of women's reproductive choices and health rubbing up against, pounding up against the price of groceries, the price of gasoline.

How do you balance that when obviously what voters said was, we care more about the price of gas and we care more about the price of gas and we care more about the price of groceries. How do you do that? At that moment, look, I think life is a struggle between the urgent and the important, right? And I think for a lot of people, the urgent issues they face are about affordability, right?

And here's where Democrats end about feelings of personal safety. Here's where Democrats gotta get the big things right. If people don't feel safe, if they don't feel economically secure everything else is secondary right so that's why Democrats got to get stronger on this issues that count most.

I standing is that when people say oh no you know things are safe and that that that and all the southern border does and something Willie and I've been talking about for 4 years now don't don't let people steal $999 worth of clothes from a store and and say oh that shouldn't be a felony. Quality of life policing works. Let's stop like you know it's got nothing to do with plain clothes divisions or stopping frisk frankly it's just about saying that look if you let if you let a broken window not get fixed it it encourages more broken windows.

When you decriminalize low-level crime, you get more of it. Then people push back and they elect extremes. So there's a responsibility for the center-left in particular, in particular in blue states, to stand up, get strong, push back against the liberalism on the left or the right, and make sure we're not falling into that trap. Because if people don't feel safe and they don't feel economically secure, yeah, everything else is secondary. John Avlon, thank you very much. Come back, will you?

Thanks, guys. Anytime. Pleasure. OK, coming up, traffic on the platform Blue Sky is on the rise following the election, as many people look for an alternative to X. We'll take a look at that substantial shift on social media. And also, earlier this week, Joe and I told you that we went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Donald Trump to reopen lines of communication we heard from many

of you wanting to let us know that it was the right thing to do, our jobs. We've also faced a lot of criticism about the meeting, largely from folks online. I want to explain our thought process a bit more. So this week, I went on the Daily Beast podcast with Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee to talk more about that meeting. Here's part of the interview, which is also this week's Morning Mica.

The way I look at it is people are really scared. It's one of the reasons we went in there, is people are really scared. It's one of the reasons we went in there, is people are really scared about Donald Trump's comments about political adversaries. A lot of people are scared because of what has happened with abortion. These are all issues that are important to me

and in some ways personal to me, but definitely personal to the people I really care about. And I don't regret anything I've said during the campaign and I stand by it. But I'm also looking at how to do things differently. And I would never turn down an opportunity to gain insider information, never. So you can listen to the whole interview on the Daily Beast podcast.

It's also available on Morning Mika via YouTube and Peacock. It's a long, in-depth conversation, really exploring all the contours of this, because a lot of people have really strong opinions, and that's fair, too. Do they? Morning Joe will be right back. I didn't know that.

Hey, welcome back to Morning Joe. David Bowie, young Americans. waking you up on Friday morning. So Rev, John Avalon talked about something that you and I have been talking about and Willie have been talking about since 2020. And that is the idea that Americans have to feel safe. If you don't get past that issue, you don't win elections. I remember a conversation we had in 2020, the summer of George Floyd.

We went back this far and we were talking about the stupidity and let me say the stupidity as you and Willie and I said of defund the police, that movement. And you and I were talking about a New York Times article in 2020 where city council people in New York City representing the most diverse and in some cases some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in New York go going defund the police. Now we need more police on the streets. We need more police in our children's schools. And you always talk about the woke and

you've been doing it for four years. You know, people still call me going, oh, Reverend, now it was going against the woke. Is this something new after the election? I'm like, dude, where have you been? He's been talking about this forever because he hears it from his parishioners. That's right. I hear it from parishioners. I hear it at rallies. Don't forget, we did the George Floyd movement. I preached his funerals.

And here comes some people outside that comes with this far radical, mostly quote white and progress, super progressives, because they're not progressive, talking about defund the police. That was not what the George Floyd movement was about. It was about reforming the police and making it work. We fought to get a black attorney general to be the prosecutor in that case. So when I go to a rally and a black woman raising kids, middle age, says to me, Rev, why are you running with people that want to defund the police?

And I'm seeing my apartment building broken into. I'm having to explain this to her. And that's what I think John was talking about, is the candidates need to have enough backbone to not only stand up to the far right, but to the far left and say, wait a minute, you're not speaking for us. You're speaking for people that you don't speak to. We do not want crime. We do not want crime. We do not want to see the gas that high.

And I think that a lot of people become wimpish when it comes to the people on the far left that are speaking on issues that are not speaking to us. We have black police chiefs now. I remember when we had the disturbances in Ferguson after Michael Brown was killed. I preached this funeral. We did marches. And I went in and I said to some of the young people, you can't ride and burn down the city. It's not going to solve our problems. I understand your rage. I'm as angry as you are. And one of them said to me, but remember now, we can't talk to the man. We can't turn nothing over to the man. I said, have you seen the attorney general?

His name is Eric Holder. We are the man. We fought to become the man. Now we're going to undo what the man can do? You can't have the man go after the police and not also police where we want to be safe in our community. That's not selling out. That's building up.

Right. Well, and this conversation to be continued. Yes, for sure. Thank you so much for that. And let's talk about safety. Let's talk about Ukrainians, how they're feeling right now. This war keeps ramping up threats against the United States, threats against Poland. It seems I'm not so sure if this isn't just again,

the prelude to either a much wider war or to negotiations where Vladimir Putin is flexing his muscles going, oh, you're going to fire deeper in. You know, you think this is going to be a move that's going to help you at the negotiating tables. Here's my counter move. I would put my money on this is posturing. I shot one medium range ballistic missile. So what? And wasn't a big deal. This is posturing. He shot one medium-range ballistic missile. So what?

And it wasn't a big deal. This is posturing. I seriously put my money that this is a prelude to negotiations. We've upped our support for Ukraine and what we're providing. We've removed some of the constraints on what we're providing. Putin didn't like it, so he reacted. So put this in perspective. We allow Ukraine to fire missiles deeper into Russia. Russia

fires a missile that can go deeper in and they start talking about going after bases in Poland, which again, unless I'm totally misreading it, he is not going to do that at this point with as many laws as his army's already had. That's complete posturing. The one serious escalation Putin has done, because these exchanges haven't transformed anything, Joe, is bring the North Koreans in. That, by the way, was a serious escalation. But again, nothing's transforming the battlefield. It kind of was what it was.

And I think we're looking, you know, after this winter, I think we're quite possibly going to have, yes, we'll continue to have a battlefield, but I think we're finally going to have a negotiating table. I think we're moving that way. It's not going to be easy. We're not going going to have, yes, we'll continue to have a battlefield, but I think we're finally going to have a negotiating table. I think we're moving that way. It's not going to be easy. We're not going to get to peace. We're not going to get to treaties. But could we get to a ceasefire, to frozen conflicts that would save lives and allow

Ukraine to begin to rebuild? Yes, I think that is finally going to be on the agenda. All right, Richard Haass, thank you very much. We also have Radik Sikorski coming up to talk about this. Foreign Minister Poland. And if you can come back on Monday, I mean, we're going to be talking about Ukraine. It's just... We're going to be talking about the Middle East every day.

Lot of hot spots. Yeah, it's really... This is a danger. Thank you, Richard. I'm in the neighborhood. Yeah. We hear that. We'll dive into Susan Glasser's piece for The New York Times about the lessons of Matt Gates' withdrawal and what we and the Trump

world can learn from it. Plus, we'll speak with someone who has worked with Pam Bondi, Florida state attorney David Ehrenberg and why he says her nomination should give Democrats some relief. Also ahead, the Lieutenant Governor of New York, Antonio Delgado, will be our guest as he urges Democrats to let a new generation lead. Morning Joe will be right back. A few minutes before the top of the hour, the social media platform Blue Sky, a competitor to X, has gained millions of followers in the weeks following the presidential election.

According to Blue Sky, its traffic is up over 500% since November 5th, a trend due in part to dissatisfied liberals leaving the Elon Musk-owned X platform. Let's bring in MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre, who is discussing blue sky and X on the latest episode of his podcast, Pablo Tori Finds Out, on the MediLarq Media. Good morning. So, Pablo, explain something to me. Yes. So, why is it that...

Somebody made a fake account. So, threads... Oh, yeah. Yeah, there are a lot of fake accounts going on out there. Many. Many such accounts. So, threads were supposed to be the replacement for X. Sure.

And I don't really understand, even though I went on Threads, tried it, and for some reason I wasn't getting the news feed, this was a year ago, that I was still getting on X a year, I've since given up on X. Oh. on X a year, I've since given up on X, but why didn't threads work and why is blue sky now necessary because threads didn't work? So Joe, first off I am available for tech support. Just let me know if for some reason the settings are often here to help. But seriously what happens periodically is that you know you're familiar with spring football, the XFL, the USFL.

Periodically, there are attempts to form the equivalent of a spring football league of social media. And so this was Mastodon, this is Blue Sky, this is Threads, and so it's an attempt to siphon off the intensity. But I'm asking you specifically though, why was Threads the USFL of online media? So Twitter's origin story is fascinating to me because it involves a saturation of media

and celebrity that created this impression that if you get into your phone and log on to this platform, you can talk to Shaquille O'Neal. You can talk to the president. And Threads never replicated that idea of the world's grandest cocktail party where you had access directly to people that you were otherwise always very far away from. But the media component of it to me

is also incredibly crucial here. And it leads me to why I've been experimenting with Blue Sky, frankly, despite knowing that it has some XFL vibes. It's because Twitter became the place where you got your news. Right. So the RSS feed has a concept.

You know, I used to subscribe to something called Google Reader, and God bless anybody who remembers Google Reader. Right. But it was a place where you could get the New York Times and CNN, the Washington Post, and the New Republic and go on and on and on across the political spectrum. And that's what Twitter's promise was. It was the place where you could get information. Can we just say, really, I mean, as far as

information goes, Twitter always has been a very, very rough place, right? That said, you get your news feed right, and Willie and I have talked about this, Megan, I've talked about that. I need mine fixed. If you got it right, let's say five, six years ago, I could go in there and in 10 minutes I knew what was going on and then I'd go to the Times and read all the other stuff. It was pretty remarkable even though it's always been. People are like, oh it's an ugly thing. It's always been rough. It's always been variously miserable and I loved it of course because I watched sports with the world.

It was live. It was a place to talk course, because I watched Sports with the World. It was live. It was a place to talk about the games I cover. But the thing that Elon did, this is an Elon story to me. This is not a story as much as it is framed as liberals don't want to talk to conservatives anymore. There were certainly some of that blue sky, certainly, and the exodus. But to me, it's because Elon Musk has put his thumb

on the scale of curating what we're all seeing. And so to the point of clicking on links, what something Elon did was he suppressed any post that had a URL, a hyperlink that left X. So any article got deleted. So the very thing that made Twitter so valuable. Yeah, whoa. Now, let's talk about Blue Sky. Does Blue Sky have a chance to be what Threads wanted to be?

And that is the alternative, the Pepsi to Coke. So it is free of the incentive structure that Elon has instituted. And so it's not merely the suppression of links. It's also the fact that Elon did something crucial. He installed the ability to monetize individual tweets based on engagement. And so what this was, was a siren, a lamp for every scammer moth to come into Twitter and say, hey, my way of making actual literal money is to troll, is to spread misinformation in a literal sense to create anonymous accounts that would actually psychologically provoke response.

This is very important now. By the way, though. And that's a money story. Let's talk about it. By the way, it's horrible. And this guy doesn't have that. It's horrible there. I know he needs the money.

It's horrible there, but I will say also Instagram, the algorithms also are to provoke. It's all to provoke. People wanna know why social media depresses, why social, because the algorithms are meant to make you angry, to provoke, to get you clicking, and that's how they make their money. Yes. Right? Yes, oh, there is a bit of a tilting

at a windmill phenomenon where we're trying to find the best, we're trying to make a safer cigarette in a sense. So does Blue Sky have a shot of succeeding? It has a shot because without Elon's thumb on the scale, I'm getting the sense that I can actually maybe talk to people, talk to my conservative friends, read the thoughts of people as opposed to reading. And get realistic feedback. They're clickbait farming, they their engagement farming over on Twitter.

You know what I love so much about about Twitter, even though again, it's always been a rough place. Oh, sure. So let's not pretend if you go into a cage like that. We're not underneath the olive tree in Athens. That said though, I could watch a Red Sox game and I can tweet out, oh my God, what a great double play. And I could look at responses and people that love the Red Sox would be there. If I talked about, hey, I listened to Frampton Comes Alive front to back for the first time in 30 years,

here's my take 30 years later, could get a response. I mean, we need a place like that where people can talk and just have great dialogue. A town square. Look, to me, Twitter would be perfect. Given the alternatives, I would still use as much as I used to if Elon just wasn't there. It's like he moved into my phone, and now I have to leave.

Joe, I wish we could have discourse. It's just not a place for feedback and discussion anymore. It's a place to be fooled into thinking that, oh, I clicked on an account that's actually a parody, and I've been scammed. It's a place for scammers now. So, before we let you go, we have to talk about, like, the NFL game of, like, NFL games this year. I mean, shocking the Browns beat the Steelers, but man, the setup, it was so incredible. Reminded me of the old AFC Central games from the 70s and 80s. Yeah. There's nothing more American than a shanked punked in the snow.

Truly. Just like, oh, I saw. Thomas Jefferson said that. That's right. That's right. Somewhere on a piece of parchment, it said that Americans must, at some point in November, get a game that's a total mess. And this was a mess.

And Joe, I always talk to you about how the NFL is a case study in mediocrity. These are teams that we like to think are so much better than the other and of course I have praised the Steelers to you. When the Browns come in and Nick Chubb is back from injury and he runs into the end zone and Jameis Winston can pilot a team through the snow, you're reminded that truly this is a game of randomness. An oblong ball in weather conditions that no other sport would subject itself to, and the flip of the coin is the glory of the sport.

Anything can happen. And the week I say to you, the Steelers look like the most complete team in the NFL. I am completely disproven by the Cleveland Browns. So, yes, this is also true. They lose to one of the worst teams. Truly. We need more of this stuff. This is beautiful.

All right. You can hear, by the way, the Blue Sky story and more on today's episode of Publatory Finds Out on MetalArc Media. Do you explain why threads didn't work on the podcast? There are so many people on there, but it's Instagram. It's a different purpose that Instagram people are... Why is Blue Sky better? What's one line? It is Elon free and actually about conversation.

Okay. There you go. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.