Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/30/22
Episode Date: November 30, 2022The Morning Joe panel discusses the United States' 1-0 victory over Iran in Qatar on Tuesday, sending America through to World Cup knockout action. ...
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It is the goal that gave Team USA the win over Iran in the World Cup.
The hero of the game was injured in the process, but says he will make it to the knockout
round against the Netherlands on Saturday. We're going to have the full highlights, plus the
concern for the Iranian players if they return home and also for their families. We're also
following the latest from Washington this morning, where a jury convicted the founder of the Oath
Keepers and a top deputy of seditious conspiracy for trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Both now facing up to 20 years in prison and a lot happening on Capitol Hill today as well.
Another shutdown showdown, a vote set for today aimed at avoiding a devastating rail strike. And House Democrats begin the
passing of the torch by honoring Nancy Pelosi with a new title ahead of today's leadership
elections. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, November 30th. Along with
Joe, Willie and me, we have former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department,
Solis Jordan, and the host of Way Too Early, White House Peer Chief at Politico,
Jonathan Lemire. Good to have you all with us this morning.
And really, what a game.
Wow.
And I will tell you the end of it. Just talk about a nail biter.
Yeah, a nail biter, one nil, the United States. But man, the thing where they,
you don't really know when the game's about the end because of the injury time and the added time and the extra time, whatever they call it.
It just adds to the level of stress. But here is all Team USA needed. That's Christian Pulisic,
the pride of Hershey, Pennsylvania, scoring the only goal of the game and suffering a pelvic
contusion that sent him to the hospital. He didn't come back for the second half.
He does say, as you mentioned, Mika, he'll be back, though,
for the big game now into the knockout round.
16 teams left, and they will play the Netherlands.
It's in all the papers up here this morning, guys.
Joe, you look at the back of the New York Post, guts and glory.
And then, referring to that injury, suffered on the game winner.
The agony of victory with Pulisic literally laying in the goal after scoring the game winner.
Well, yeah, with the euphemism that I don't really want to get into much deeper, but a pelvic contusion.
He seems OK, though.
Yeah, seems OK.
It's going to be OK.
Yeah, but that's a heck of it.
We've all had pelvic contusions in our football careers.
But nothing that sent us to the hospital and had wires in us.
So he paid for the victory.
But Jonathan Lemire, this is just quite simply a play, a setup, a header, a goal.
Quite simply, past USA teams could not
have pulled off. They just
weren't at this skill level.
A spectacular goal and a painful one.
Some gave all in this
case for Christian Pulisic.
Let us hope, indeed, he's
ready for Saturday.
But we should note, the game could have been
2-0 right at the end of the first half,
Joe. You and I were texting about it.
The U.S. had another goal that was wiped away off to an offsides call that was very close.
Some questions as to whether it was legit or not.
And then, man, we barely hung on.
It's a win, but those last 20 minutes or so simply agonizing.
Iran controlled play.
The U.S. got tight.
They had chance after chance after chance. But the dam held, and this is a play. The U.S. got tight. They had chance after chance after chance.
But the dam held, and this is a spectacular win for U.S. soccer.
And you want to know whether they were excited afterwards or not.
Take a look at this video from the team hotel that men's soccer put out.
Nice.
Wow.
And there he is.
Yeah.
Post-op.
Or post-stitch or post-whatever.
Don't squeeze me too hard!
Leave him alone.
That's really
exciting. And there's, of course, Tyler Adams,
a team captain.
He just represented the team in the country
so well. You know, Alex Shepard wrote
a great piece in the New Republic titled In Praise of the Messy, Glorious U.S. Men's National Team.
And it reads in part, and so many American soccer fans, American football fans would agree with
every line of this. I am, I must confess, a dyed-in-the-wool USMNT hater. Despite a lifetime
of rooting for abject or near-abject teams, the New York Knicks, the Oakland A's, the Buffalo
Bills, there was always something cringy about rooting for the U.S. men's national team. Even
at their most goonish, players always seemed somewhat hapless. In the global showcase,
even when they succeeded, there was something pathetic about them.
But sometime during the first half of their game against Wales,
I realized this was an American team I could love.
Its players are a password quilt of old and new defensively.
The teams play with determination and energy
and at times abjectness of the U.S. teams of old.
It features several players
about whom one of soccer's great fatalistic cliches, he has a mistake and he applies.
It's midfield, the trio of destroyers, Tyler Adams, the do-it-all McKinney, and the zippy
Eunice, who is the making of an extraordinary attacker, is unlike any Americans who've played before.
And it's attacking front line, led by Pulisic, is all zipping energy.
And when Brendan Aronson comes on, they're downright combustible.
For the first time, this team feels like it's actually building something.
Instead of standing still for years, the team alternated between quirky success and flop sweat failure,
never seeming to make much progress between major tournaments.
There was always a sense that the U.S. was not deep down a real soccer country.
This team is untroubled by that anxiety.
It is untroubled by being too defensive or too European.
It just plays, and it plays well.
So far, so good.
And Willie, they're going to have to play very well on Saturday
when they play the Netherlands.
Yeah, and I'm going to read from one of my best buddies
who knows much more about soccer than I do,
texted me this.
Let me see if you agree, Joe.
Our team is young and dangerous.
They picked this team to be a great team in 2026 when we host. Getting out of the group stage this year
has met expectations. A win in the next round would exceed expectations, but young teams with
nothing to lose and no pressure on them are very dangerous. So this could be a very exciting
tournament, even if it is the youngest team in the World Cup. Ours is 24 years and change
on average with an eye toward the future. But boy, yesterday's kind of looked like the future is now,
Joe. Well, it really did. And Jonathan Lemire, you know, we watch an awful lot of Premier League
football. But I've got to say, you could tell early on in this tournament especially the first
half during Wells that this was a good team they were better than past U.S. teams they move the
ball well they find lanes they make space they they do the things they need to do to stay in
the game they come up short at times here and there again but they're very very young but yeah
this team was put together
to be ready for the World Cup. We're playing in America four years from now.
They're ahead of schedule. They really are. And this is a team that's largely drawn from
the European leagues. These guys are all playing professionally overseas. They're not MLS players,
MLS, just not quite at the same level as our European leagues, of course. And look,
they don't quite have the overwhelming skill
that some of the other contenders do.
They're a striker or two short, perhaps.
But Pulisic is a superstar.
And this is someone who's had expectations on him for years,
sort of almost the LeBron James of the U.S. soccer scene,
the national team.
And he is meeting those expectations.
And it's so fitting that he got that goal yesterday.
And as Willie noted, almost
everything from here on out is a bonus. And the experience they're getting coming through the
group stage, playing a Netherlands team that is good but beatable, everything, every minute they
play right now is building towards 2026. It's going to be fun to watch. Wow. Well, we're going
to have Roger Bennett coming up in the next hour to talk about all of this. He was so excited. Well, we're going to have Roger Bennett coming up in the next hour to talk about all this. He was so excited.
Yeah, he will be pumped.
But we're also going to talk about the geopolitical implications of this.
It was hard not to feel for the Iranian players.
Well, I felt bad for them on the field. I really did.
I mean, what they're possibly going back to, having the courage to stand with the people, with the women of Iran.
That's right.
Yeah.
And facing possible threats
to themselves or their families. We'll talk about what it'll mean for them and follow that part of
the story as well. Moving on now, a federal jury reached a verdict yesterday in the high profile
Oath Keepers trial. Oath Keepers founder Stuart Rhodes and the leader of the Florida chapter of the far right group, Kelly Meggs, were both found guilty of seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The seditious conspiracy charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Rhodes' attorney said they plan to appeal the conviction.
This is the most serious
case to grow out of the Justice Department's sprawling investigation into the U.S. Capitol
insurrection. The trial lasted eight weeks, with the jury deliberating for three days. Three other
members of the group were found not guilty on seditious conspiracy that charge. They include Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson
and Thomas Caldwell. All five were found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding and
aiding and abetting their for their actions on January 6th. A sentencing date has not been
set yet. Federal prosecutors allege the five defendants conspired to oppose the peaceful transfer of power
from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden. Attorney General Merrick Garland released
a statement praising the work of prosecutors and federal agents, affirming that the Justice
Department is, quote, committed to holding accountable those criminally responsible for the assault on our
democracy on January 6th, 2021. Police Jordan, obviously not easy to get this charge. A big win.
Seditious conspiracy. Seditious conspiracy. A big win for prosecutors and a big win for
Americans who were shocked and outraged by what happened on January the 6th.
Let me just say a huge loss for those right wing Trumpers, the Trumpiest of the right wing Trumpers in the chattering classes.
They kept saying, oh, wait a second.
It wasn't an insurrection.
If it were an insurrection, these people would be charged and found guilty of seditious conspiracy.
Well, they were. And here we are. And it was an insurrection, according to juries, unless they want to nullify juries now.
Well, and you what you hear from a lot of Trump supporters who defend what happened on January 6th is that so many of the insurrectionists are being held now as political prisoners.
Well, this goes to the very top of the operation, seditious conspiracy,
which is a pretty heavy charge when you think about the gravity of what happened that day and, you know, the attempt to overturn the government. And so
now going forward, what does this mean for all of the other men and women who were there that day
and who breached police boundaries, who went into areas of the Capitol that they weren't supposed
to go into? What does this mean now? Let's turn to some of our reporters on this story.
Former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, now on NBC News and MSNBC legal
analyst Glenn Kirshner and NBC News justice reporter Ryan Riley. Guys, good morning. Ryan,
let me start with you. You've been covering this case so closely. Both of you were in the courtroom
actually for most of this trial. So, Ryan, how did the
verdicts that you saw yesterday and heard line up with what you expected? You know, I definitely was
expecting Stuart Rhodes to catch the seditious conspiracy verdict. I think that, you know,
actually the split verdict here sort of goes to the credibility of the jury and of the verdict,
because we've seen a lot of attacks on D.C. jurors in a lot of court filings from
January 6th defendants saying that they're too biased or too left-leaning to handle these cases
and decide them fairly. But, you know, they didn't give DOJ everything they wanted here.
They looked at the evidence, applied the facts and the evidence, and came up with this mixed
verdict, finding two individuals were guilty of seditious conspiracy, but that three of them weren't.
I just think it's a well-reasoned and logical verdict that really does show that jurors took
their duty here seriously and looked at what the judge instructed them to do, looked at the
evidence that was available to them, and decided that there was enough evidence to find at least
two of these individuals guilty of seditious conspiracy. So a
big win for DOJ here overall. And, you know, seditious conspiracy is something that hasn't
been seen in D.C. for decades. And it's been more than a decade since the last time the Justice
Department tried this. And in that case, they they didn't succeed. So, you know, they took a
big shot here. And and I think that, you know, this is over at main justice at DOJ headquarters.
I think they're chalking this one up to a win. And it's not great news necessarily for individuals who
are still facing these seditious conspiracy charges, including other members of the Oath
Keepers whose trial is coming up, as well as members of the Proud Boys who also are facing
that charge and will be going to trial here in the coming weeks. Glenn, the Oath Keepers,
as you know, have compared themselves to the founding fathers fighting tyranny. They said this was their Bastille moment,
comparing themselves to French revolutionaries. We know that they had weapons, huge caches of
weapons at a comfort inn in Arlington, Virginia. In case it came to that, they'd have boats at the
ready to go in. They were role playing. They thought they were revolutionaries. What message
does this verdict send to them?
Yeah, you know, Willie, criminal trials are not supposed to be political endeavors. You know, the question for the jury exclusively is whether the evidence introduced at trial
proves the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. And I will say the prosecutors did a pretty
good job at keeping politics out of the trial. Rarely did you hear a prosecutor even
utter the name Donald Trump. But then the head of the Oath Keepers and the lead defendant, Elmer
Stewart Rhodes, took the stand and blew it all up. Now, it's rare for defendants to take the stand
in large federal prosecutions. I've had some of my defendants take the stand, which was always a
happy time for me because I got to cross examine them.
But when when Rhodes took the stand very early on in his lengthy testimony, he said, and I quote, the election was unconstitutional, you know, said the disbarred Yale lawyer.
And he also helpfully added that he is a constitutional expert.
I don't think he won any points with the
jury. But once he did that, Willie, he really put the big lie on trial. So ultimately, I view the
jury's verdict not only as an affirmation that the evidence proved the guilt of these five
defendants beyond a reasonable doubt, but it was a pretty direct rejection of the big lie itself. You know, in short,
I think the verdicts were a victory of law, the rule of law over lawlessness and a victory of
facts over, I guess, alternative facts. Hey, Glenn, it's Jonathan. This is certainly a watershed
moment in the January 6th investigations and a rarity to have the seditious conspiracy
charging conviction.
So let's talk sentencing. What could Stuart Rhodes face here?
So Rhodes and his top lieutenant, Kelly Meggs, who was also convicted of the lead charge,
seditious conspiracy, are looking at between 20 and 30 years. Now, that's the statutory maximum.
The guidelines may be lower, though, in a case like this, you know, the judge may actually feel compelled to go to the top of the guideline range.
Now, the other defendants who were also convicted of serious federal felonies, including trying to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden's win, are facing more like 10 to 15 years. But I really think it's the fact of
the conviction, Jonathan, that matters more than how many years or in Rhodes and Meg's case,
how many decades they may end up spending in prison. Ryan, Elise Jordan here. What big cases
are you watching now with January 6th defendants? You know, there's a lot of them that turn through every day,
but I would think that the biggest one right now, in addition to this additional Oath Keepers trial,
is going to be the Proud Boys. And frankly, I think the Proud Boys case, from what we've seen
so far, is even stronger in terms of pre-planning. So you might have a case where you have more
Proud Boys potentially convicted of a seditious conspiracy charge than you did Oath Keepers. Because DOJ did get, before the Oath Keepers trial, three Oath Keepers defendants to
plead guilty to that charge of seditious conspiracy. None of them actually testified during the trial,
which was interesting. We did have a couple other Oath Keepers who pleaded guilty to less serious
charges who did testify during the trial. But in the Proud Boys case, you have so much evidence
of pre-planning and intent in terms of they were dressed up sort of as Antifa, and they were
wearing bands basically to try to identify themselves. They didn't want to be identified
as Proud Boys on that day. And then you just have so much more physical violence from members of
the Proud Boys than you did members of the Oath Keepers.
In the case of the Oath Keepers, you really only had one of these individuals actually
physically engaged with officers, Jessica Watkins, who was tried in this first case.
And she was admitted that she was in that crowd inside the Capitol pushing up against
police officers.
And in fact, when she took the stand, said, you know, find me guilty of this count.
And the jury did in terms of civil disorder.
But, you know, in the case of the Proud Boys, there's just a ton of evidence of pre-planning.
And you also have them physically smashing those windows.
The famous video that we see over and over again of someone taking a police shield and actually physically smashing out that window to the Capitol. That's going to be on display during that trial, as well as additional violence against police, along with a lot more violent rhetoric than we even saw in the Oath
Keepers case. All right. NBC News Justice Reporter Ryan Riley and NBC News and MSNBC legal analyst
Glenn Kirshner, thank you both for being on this morning. A lot more still ahead on Morning Joe.
The politics of soccer go well beyond the pitch.
We'll look at the serious situation Iranian players and their families face following a protest at the World Cup.
Plus, Herschel Walker wants to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate.
But does he even live there?
That's what some are asking this morning after new reporting on his financial records.
And as we mentioned at the top of the show, there is a lot happening on Capitol Hill today,
from leadership elections to a controversial vote to block freight and rail workers from going on strike.
We'll get into all of that coming up on Morning Joe. I was alive when I waited for this. Right here, right now.
Paris, my world's a place I want to be.
To our the protesters who took to China's streets to challenge harsh coronavirus measures are now reportedly being tracked down using the country's extensive surveillance system in an
effort to prevent future demonstrations. The Wall Street Journal reports, quote, Chinese authorities
appear to be preventing fresh protests from taking root by deploying large numbers of police at the
sites of planned protests in major cities. On Tuesday, a planned protest in Shenzhen was
canceled after large
numbers of police turned up at several locations in the city, according to messages on social media
reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Similarly, protests on Monday were canceled in Beijing
and Shanghai. The Journal goes on, quote, besides hundreds of millions of cameras, some equipped with facial recognition software
that line city streets. The police also can access detailed mobile phone and social media data
that shows people's locations at a given time. The rare acts of defiance began over the weekend
in major cities across China as frustration over the country's zero COVID policy came to a head.
We'll be watching that. Willie. Meanwhile, as we mentioned, the Iranian team for the World Cup is
bracing for what could be an unwelcome homecoming by the Islamic Republic after failing to advance
in six World Cup appearances. Now, while the team did sing the country's national anthem ahead of
yesterday's match, the display followed reports the players were threatened with imprisonment and torture if they
did not, quote, behave after failing to sing the anthem during their opening match against England
last week in protest. A win against the U.S. could have helped ease the prior transgression,
perhaps. But a former CIA covert operations officer tells the New York Post Iranian players now are stuck in an untenable position facing fines or even arrest once they arrive home as retaliation for their disloyalty and their failure to beat the United States.
Joe, so this was a concern immediately. That's why we've said again and again, it was an incredible act of courage for those Iranian players in that first game not to sing the national anthem,
speaking out for the women of Iran, some of them being attacked in the streets as we speak.
They may now face the consequences when they head home.
It was really, it was terrible as I was watching the game.
Obviously, it was cheering on Team USA.
At the same time, you couldn't help but feel for these Iranian players who took.
You know, we go back to the 68 Olympics and the raised clinch fists in 68.
And that was so courageous.
You look at these players on the largest of the world stage, just like the 68 Olympics in Mexico City,
not singing the national anthem with the regime that they know could kill them,
jail them, torture them, kill their families, imprison their families.
And it showed extraordinary courage.
But, yeah, it was difficult watching the Iranian players afterwards,
just because what they may face when they go home.
Joining us now, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Kareem Sajapur. He focuses on Iran and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East and
very interested to hear your thoughts on, number one, what these Iranian players are facing,
what you're hearing about,
what could happen to them and to their families, and what the geopolitical implications are of all this? Thank you, Mika. That's a great question. I mean, first, this game took place against the
backdrop of the largest national uprisings in Iran since the country's 1979 revolution. Over
the last three months, nearly 19,000
Iranians have been imprisoned. Nearly 500 Iranians have been killed. And remember, this is a regime
whose identity is premised on anti-Americanism. Its official slogan is Death to America.
And it desperately wanted this propaganda victory against the United States, in many ways similar to how the Soviet
Union desperately wanted propaganda victories against the United States. As you alluded to,
it threatened the players that if they were to exhibit any acts of protest against the regime,
their families would be in trouble, their assets would be confiscated. And in the end,
it ended very badly for the regime because people in Iran
actually cheered the United States victory. And I think this is a reminder, Mika, that
despite the fact that this is the most anti-American regime in the world, it's arguably
one of the most pro-American societies in the world. You know, that's always been. I've talked to friends in the CIA who always said the great irony was that this was a decade ago, but said in the countries that when they were in Damascus or Tehran, actually, the people there loved Americans, couldn't ask enough questions about American society, where some of our allies actually have people who have an open hostility toward the United States or at least did in the past.
But can you talk about that?
Again, I always find myself in this strange position when I'm watching Iran play in past
World Cups, because the government's the epicenter of international terrorism and has been since 1979. And yet the people from
everything I've heard are wonderful. Most are pro-American. The culture, the civilization,
the history, the heritage is just not a more remarkable civilization on Earth than the Persian civilization. Talk about I've never been able to put those two realities together.
How how could it be that these thugs have have have captured such a vibrant, wonderful civilization for for almost 50 years now. Joe, you have two very powerful forces in Iran.
You have a young, modern society,
which is desperately seeking wholesale fundamental change.
And they have at their back a civilization
that, as you talked about, is 2,500 years old.
And they're very proud of that civilization.
And they want to be an upstanding member of the international community. And then you have a regime which has been in power for 43
years, and it's ruthless, and that it believes that it's either rule or die. They have no friends
in the world. And in contrast to the Shah's government in 1978, when many of the elite of
the Shah's government were able to
remake their lives in London or Los Angeles when the revolution happened. These guys are friendless.
Their only friend is in Syria. And so these powerful forces are going to continue to play
out in Iran. And there's no guarantee that people will prevail in the near term. But I think it's it's certainly guaranteed that this is a regime which is not sustainable.
So, Kareem, what changes things in Iran?
I mean, I'm thinking back to the Green Revolution of 2009 and 2010, which was previously the largest demonstration we've seen inside the country since the revolution in 79. If everything you've just said is true and Joe is right, that the country by and large is a young country and a modern country wants to be a modern country, I should say.
So what breaks the stranglehold that the small group of authoritarian leaders have on the rest of the population?
What we know from history, Willie, is that for popular uprisings to succeed, you not only need popular pressure, pressure from below, but importantly, you also need elite divisions, divisions at the top.
And we've seen in Iran, obviously, an enormous desire for popular change.
What we haven't yet seen are fissures at the top, those elite divisions.
I have a friend who's a longtime professor in Tehran who told me about
this regime. He said this regime are 20 percent idiots and 80 percent charlatans, meaning only 20
percent are true believers, truly believe in the ideology. But now, after four decades, 80 percent
are charlatans. They don't believe in the ideology. They're in it for political and financial expediency.
If these protests persist, I think you will start to see fissures, especially within that 80 percent.
Senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Kareem Sajapur, thank you very much for your insight this morning.
And coming up in a landmark vote, the Senate passes a bill to protect same-sex marriage.
We'll talk about what's next for that piece of legislation.
And a look at what else is happening on Capitol Hill today.
A lot.
Plus, the House Select Committee investigating January 6th gives an update on the timeline for a final report.
But the panel isn't done with interviews just yet. Morning Joe is
coming right back. Live pictures of Capitol Hill this morning at 38 past the hour.
A lot going on in that building.
The Senate has passed landmark legislation to codify federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages.
The Respect for Marriage Act was approved by a vote of 61 to 36 with support from all Democrats and 12 Republicans. The measure now
heads back to the House for a final vote, which could happen as early as next Tuesday. It would
then go to President Biden, who said he looks forward to signing it. The president issued a
statement yesterday, writing in part, quote, With today's bipartisan Senate passage of the Respect for Marriage Act,
the United States is on the brink of reaffirming a fundamental truth.
Love is love. And Americans should have the right to marry the person they love.
Elise Jordan, it is. I've got to say, when I saw the vote, I was just stunned.
61 to 36.
I mean, I knew it was coming.
I still couldn't believe it because our recent past would drive up vote and help them win the election.
Four years later, Barack Obama, as progressive of a president as we've had when he was running. Barack Obama said he was against same sex marriage because he was a Christian and he believes marriage is between a man and a woman.
Four years later, in the 2012 campaign, just a decade ago, Joe Biden got absolutely crushed by the Obama White House was, I remember in real time getting reports out of
the White House that nobody would talk to him. He would go into meetings. He was dead man walking
inside that White House because he dared to go on Meet the Press and say he supported same-sex marriage. Now think about that. That's just 10
years ago, right? And here we are 61 to 36 when that vice president who was attacked
inside a progressive administration for saying he supported same-sex marriage and Arne Duncan the next day,
I think came on morning, Joe said he supported it too.
Then he faced a firestorm and he went back to the White House.
I say all that just to say, my God, 10 years later,
it passes in a breeze, bipartisan legislation.
That's a pretty extraordinary decade. Joe, what an example this issue is of how the
American people are often farther ahead than politicians on human rights issues. And you look
at where Vice President Joe Biden, then vice president, where he was and how he was ahead of the politics within the Democratic establishment.
But he could tell what the pulse of the voters was.
And then you look at today and, you know, most Republicans are behind this.
And it's just such a human rights triumph in America that this isn't even a point of debate, a point of contention anymore, really.
But it's just you look at the other issues that there still are outstanding and we still have places to come. I wonder if women's health, though, is just another example of where politicians are
out of step with where the voters are. They got 12 Republicans to vote for this, John, to get over
60 votes, still a whole bunch of them who did not vote for the federal protection of gay marriage. But when you look
again at just over the last decade of where Barack Obama was, we had guests on our show 10 years ago.
I know Joe mentioned this yesterday. Arne Duncan was the education secretary. We asked him on the
air and it was seen as a big deal. He said, yeah, I support gay marriage. I think if people of the
same sex want to marry, we should honor that. And it was like big breaking news. And if you look at the
movement in the polls in the country, even among Republicans, it's now a vast majority position
to respect and honor gay marriage in this country. Quite a movement in a decade.
Yeah, it's been argued there's been nothing that has moved so quickly in the public acceptance as
the idea of gay marriage. This is OK. The same-sex marriage, of course, is fine. And the government should stay out of it. Twelve Republicans,
more than they anticipated they would get. People were real. There's sort of a triumphant mood in
the Senate yesterday after this happened. It goes to the House next week, where it's expected,
of course, to pass. And then President Biden has said he will happily sign it as soon as he
possibly can. Biden, of course, as Joe just mentioned, ahead of many Democrats on this
issue back when he was vice president. And this comes at a time of this was all taken up
because of the Dobbs decision, because of the abortion rights being overturned. And there was
a quick move to sort of to codify this, to protect this. It happened. It happened quickly. Proponents
are really pleased. And we'll see the president sign it likely in the next week or so.
Just one of many agenda items on Capitol Hill this morning, including the House Democratic leadership elections,
an expected vote to blocking a looming rail strike, and another attempt to avoid a government shutdown.
Let's bring in NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles.
Ryan, a busy day. Looking forward to a busy week here.
Maybe a busy month, Willie. There's a lot that Congress has to get done over the next couple of days.
But you're right. The headline today will be the historic election of a new crop of Democratic leaders led by New York City's Hakeem Jeffries,
who will become the first African-American to be the leader of any party on Capitol Hill House or Senate when he is expected to be unanimously elected by his
peers in a closed door vote this morning. He'll be joined by Catherine Clark of Massachusetts,
who will serve as his deputy. And then Pete Aguilar of California will become the conference
chair. Still hanging around, though, will be Jim Clyburn, who is going to serve in a role in
leadership. But what you see here, Willie, is truly a change,
a generational change in leadership. This new crop, these three new leaders are 30 years younger
than the group that they're going to replace. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer
and James Clyburn in those top three spots. So this shows the Democratic Party evolving
as they get to this next step. And of course, it will be a big job of Hakeem Jeffries to keep all these Democrats in line, given the fact that there will be such
tight margins in the House of Representatives in the coming year, even though Democrats will be
in the minority. And they have a lot to tackle right out of the gate. You mentioned this looming
government shutdown. They have to decide whether or not they're going to pass a continuing resolution
that essentially just kicks the can down the road, or if they will do some sort of fulsome omnibus spending plan that they can get both Democrats and Republicans to buy into.
And then, of course, there is the rail strike, which is a big problem right essentially, you know, approve the deal that they thought they already
had with the unions and with the Biden administration and the rail companies. But they
are also going to do a separate vote on offering paid sick leave to many of these rail workers.
That's a key sticking point. It's something that progressives are strongly in support of.
But they're going to do two separate votes in the House today so that they can get it over
the finish line and then see if it has the votes to get done here in the Senate.
So it is a very, very busy day here. Just an example of what we expect is going to take place
over the next couple of weeks. And Ryan, also the January 6th committee final report. Any word on
when that's going to come out and who else they still need to talk to in the short amount of time that they have?
Yeah, it's crazy how busy they still are, Mika. In fact, we reported for among the first
to report that Robin Voss, who is the assembly speaker in Wisconsin, is scheduled to meet with
the committee today. He, of course, was the leader in Wisconsin that got a phone call from Donald Trump 20 months after the election was certified,
where Trump was demanding that he retroactively attempt to overturn the election results.
And Voss turned him down, told him he couldn't do that.
You know, while Voss did have that profile and courage, he also spent somewhere in the range of $700,000 in taxpayer money to investigate the election in Wisconsin.
And it turned up no examples of fraud. But to answer your question about when they're going
to wrap this up, well, according to statute, they have to be done by December 31st. But
Benny Thompson told reporters last night that they're getting closer, that they're almost
ready to put their pens down on this final report, which he said will be eight chapters
in length. So it's going to have a ton of information. And keep in mind, Mika and Joe, they've been telling us from the very beginning
that, yes, they're going to issue a report that kind of outlines everything, points to all the
key things that they discovered. But they're also going to release all the information that they've
compiled, every deposition, every piece of information that they've collected. So this
is going to be just a trove of information,
much of which we still don't know about, that this committee will ultimately release.
NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles, thank you very much. Thank you, Ryan. Greatly appreciate it. So, Mika, I want to go back really quickly about Joe Biden
and something that you've always said about how he gets politics. This guy from Delaware that's been underestimated
his entire life. He gets politics. He was mocked, ridiculed and just bluntly loathed by a progressive
White House when he was too progressive for their tastes on marriage equality. You look back 2020, that presidential field for the Democratic nomination,
he was mocked and ridiculed. He was too old. He was too senile. He was too moderate.
There were all of these progressives that were, they just looked down on him.
They just flat out looked down on this guy.
He won.
He beat them all.
History has proven him to be right.
It was the Obama White House that was wrong.
I'm sure they're all embarrassed about how badly they treated Joe Biden 10 years ago for him being right on a civil rights issue.
And all of the all the things that were written about Joe Biden in the 2020 campaign that he couldn't win. He wasn't up to it. He's too old. He beat everybody.
Well, then he beat Donald Trump. And then you look at what happened in 2022. Everybody's talking
about red wave, red wave, red wave, except we weren't talking about a red wave. And he he out he man out outplays everybody's expectations for him. It seems just about every
time he knows his politics, he knows the long game and he knows how to walk through all the
naysayers and all the underestimating and sort of put the blinders on to that and move forward.
And whether you know, I mean, if you look at how he's handling Ukraine, which is just unbelievably huge issue, it's masterful. If Americans were tuned into that, they're less so
because of the division and issues that they face here at home and the economy.
But at the midterms, again, he focused on abortion. He focused on democracy. He focused
on abortion. He focused on he held a speech on the state of our democracy and the future of our democracy and restoring our democracy.
He knew exactly what the touch points were, no matter what everybody else was saying.
And he was and Willie, he was mocked and ridiculed.
Biden was mocked and ridiculed for talking about democracy, talking about abortion. I won't mention the podcast, but I listened to a podcast the week, the weekend before the election.
The entire about people that everybody here knows the entire podcast was mocking and ridiculing Joe Biden for focusing on abortion and on democracy.
He ended up being right.
They all ended up being wrong. Check the exit polls in Pennsylvania. Check the exit polls
in Michigan. And he, you know, he wasn't alone in believing that abortion was going to be a
persistent issue, but a narrative sort of form that, well, it was red hot in the summer and it
kind of died down. Most people who thought that was an important issue knew that wasn't the case. And it turned out to be decisive in a couple of
those states where governors were elected and state secretaries of states were elected,
especially in Michigan, because of the opponents they had on the issue of abortion.
So still ahead, we're going to talk to a former employee of the Oath Keepers about the conviction of the far right group's founder, plus a potentially game-changing drug for Alzheimer's
patients. We'll discuss the latest results with an expert straight ahead on Morning Joe.
The hour, a quick look at the morning papers. The Clarion Ledger leads with the latest on the ongoing water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi.
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a proposal in federal court that would appoint a third party to stabilize the city's water.
The third party manager has not yet been identified. The Wichita Eagle reports that women in Kansas
could soon seek abortion pills through telemedicine appointments after a judge blocked a state law
banning the practice. Abortion providers say the decision will help expand access to the procedure
across the state, especially in more rural areas. In Maryland, the Capitol reports that Republican Governor
Larry Hogan will host a pair of major fundraisers tonight as he considers a 2024 presidential bid.
While Hogan has repeatedly said he will not make a decision until after he leaves office next month,
his political fundraising entities have raised over $1 million. And Florida Today covers
NASA's historic Artemis 1 mission. The Orion spacecraft yesterday shattered records after
traveling 270,000 miles away from Earth. The furthest distance any spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever traveled. Now, this flight
has no crew. It's a test in anticipation of returning humans to the moon. And coming up,
top Republicans in Congress take different approaches to the latest controversy surrounding
Donald Trump. Plus, Roger Bennett will be here to break down Team USA's big win at the World Cup.
Morning Joe, we'll be right back.