Morning Joe - Morning Joe 1/18/24

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Judge threatens to throw Trump out of court on second day of E. Jean Carroll damages trial

I'm telling you, she can't negotiate. She's a lousy negotiator. Other than that, she's wonderful. She's a wonderful person. But if she wins, Biden wins. And I'm telling you that. And that's why they're sending all of these Democrats in to run. And it's crazy. It's not personal for me. I have no you know, people either want me to hate Trump or love Trump. That's not what it is. I just tell it on policy. I'm not going to talk about him personally. I don't care about that. I think politics is too personal. And I think that's why people are so frustrated right now. All right. Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, with very different approaches to talking about the

other, both are making their pitch to voters in New Hampshire, while Ron DeSantis has his side squarely on Haley's home state. We'll have much more from the campaign trail straight ahead. Plus, the latest on the foreign aid package that Republicans have tied to border security. We'll go through yesterday's meeting at the White House between President Biden and Speaker Mike Johnson. Also ahead, another concerning escalation in the Middle East as Pakistan launches a retaliatory strike inside Iran. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, January 18th.

Willie, we have a lot going on in politics and in foreign policy. But why don't we start in court where things got spicy yesterday? Yeah, Donald Trump, a busy man on the campaign trail in New Hampshire and in a New York City courtroom during the second day of the defamation damages trial he faces involving writer E. Jean Carroll. The judge threatened to throw former President Donald Trump out of court for talking and being disruptive while Carroll was testifying on the stand. Judge Lewis Kaplan also scolded Trump attorney Alina Haba when before the start of the trial, she requested, now for the third time, the trial be adjourned today so Trump could attend his mother-in-law's funeral in Florida. The judge denied that request again, telling her to sit down,

to which Haba responded, she does not like being spoken to in that way by the judge. On the stand yesterday, E. Jean Carroll testified about the sexual abuse she says she suffered at the hands of Donald Trump and how speaking about it in 2019 ruined her reputation and damaged her career. Carroll said after then President Trump denied the allegations and called her a liar, she began to receive hundreds of messages a day echoing Trump's words, many including death threats. Carol's attorney even showed social media posts Trump made just yesterday morning before court, continuing to attack Carol and the court. Carol and her attorneys are seeking at least $10 million in damages. Let's bring in former litigator,

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin and Justice Department reporter for The New York Times, Katie Benner. Good morning to you both. Lisa, good to have you back with us as you seem to be every morning talking about another bizarre day in court where Donald Trump seems to be trying to instigate some kind of a fight with the judge so he can later claim that he was biased against him or whatever he's going to say for his own politics. Take us inside the courtroom. What was it like yesterday? Willie, yesterday was, as Mika said, spicy.

And just as somebody who experienced it, I have a lot of heartburn. When I think about yesterday and what went on in the course of a day, Trump's defense team moved for a mistrial, asked for the judge to be recused, and tried to bring out in their cross-examination of E. Jean Carroll not one, but two examples of potentially unlawful things that she had done. One, they accused her of spoiling evidence in the case, which was cut off by Judge Kaplan. And then they even tried to insinuate that she has an unlicensed gun and that it is illegal to possess an unlicensed gun in the state of New York. Why did that even come up? Because E. Jean Carroll has testified that she sleeps with that

gun beside her bed for self-protection because in the wake of all these online threats coming from people who have names like sports justice, she doesn't know where the threat is going to come from and therefore fears for her physical safety. So what about this back and forth between the judge, Judge Kaplan and Donald Trump and his team, which is to say Judge Kaplan said you can't do that in a courtroom. I know you think the rules don't apply to you, former President Trump. You can't be disruptive. You can't interrupt. You can't do all the things that you're doing. Where does that lead if the former president continues to behave that way, which he's doing intentionally, we know, so that he can say this judge is biased against me? He's absolutely doing it intentionally. And at one point, you know, one of the things that wasn't picked up in some of the reporting

was when Kaplan said to him before the recess, you just can't help yourself under the circumstances, can you? Trump walked out and there was a lot of crosstalk, was difficult to hear, but apparently, according to the Associated Press and others, he shot back, nor can you, or you can't either. Trump seems to think he's in a battle of wills with an equal. Alina Haba does too, right? Telling the judge, I really don't like to be spoken to like that. But I think what is most threatening to Donald Trump is he doesn't know what Kaplan is going to do next because Kaplan hasn't made a specific threat. He said, I can eject you from the courtroom, but Trump doesn't know whether Kaplan will find him or hold him in contempt,

bar him from testifying. There are any number of measures that Kaplan can take. And the fact that he hasn't been clear about which one he will choose is what is keeping Trump as much in line as he has been, even though his conduct is unbecoming of any person in a courtroom. And Mika, the court reporter's transcript shows that this is exactly what Donald Trump wants, is this fight when Judge Kaplan says, quote, Mr. Trump, I hope I don't have to consider excluding you from the trial or at least from the presence. I understand you're probably very eager for me to do that. Trump replied, quote, I would love it. Just saying out loud what he's trying to do here.

You know, Katie Benner, it's to me, I ask, does he really care about what's going on in the trial or does he want to just get in there to make trouble, to continue to defame E. Jean Carroll? He's in there again because he continued to defame her after losing a case against this woman. So are the tactics to show up, to drum up the base? Because again, we've seen data that shows these legal actions against Donald Trump, whether they be indictments or civil cases, seem to tighten support for him. You know, I think it's hard to be in Trump's head, but you're right. There's data that shows two things. First, to your point that a lot of support comes out of the woodwork when he goes

into the courtroom. He can spin these things. He can kind of create outcomes. And when that doesn't work, he can just say whatever it is that he wants about the procedures, whether or not there's truth there. So you're right. It helps his supporters. And two, this is a very personal battle for him. And it is intimidating to E. Jean Carroll for him to be there. And she talked a lot about the kinds of threats that she received from the moment she first talked about the alleged assault, which has been ruled by another court to have happened. So those threats, I think we cannot underestimate and we can't look away from. Because not only did E.G. and Carol testify about them very clearly, these are the kinds

of threats that members of the Republican Party, House members, members of the Senate also get when they defy Donald Trump. They don't have the same sort of overtones of gender bias and gender discrimination and a horrible sexism. But the threats are real and they're really, really violent. So when she talks about the way that she feels, this is how anybody who defies Donald Trump feels. And it really helps to understand why he's able to garner the kind of public support he has from people who even who privately talk about how much they think he should not be president again. Well, I mean, Mitt Romney yesterday asked by a CNN reporter what he thought about the Iowa results. And he said,

well, I don't understand the Republican Party. I don't understand my party. They're supporting a guy who raped a woman. And of course, that's what the judge said. And this is just estimate Romney about the Iowa caucus entrance poll showing that a majority of GOP caucus. So I didn't believe Biden was elected legitimately. This is what Mitt said. I think a lot of people in this country out of touch with the reality and will accept anything Donald Trump tells them. You had a jury that said Donald Trump raped a woman, and that doesn't seem to be moving the needle. There's a lot of things about today's electorate that I have a hard time understanding. You know, my cousin Matthew went to a Trump event in New Hampshire and just wrote me this

long email about how gobsmacking it was that no matter what Trump said, it seemed the audience would just take it completely at face value, no matter how ridiculous, no matter how obvious a lie it was, it was like a religious event. It was like a cult event. They were loving everything he was saying, most of it completely untrue. Out of whack, crazy talk. And Willie, again, you have a judge that has said what Donald Trump did to E. Jean Carroll, by any definition, is rape. You have him guilty in another Manhattan case of doing what people have always sort of whispered about him doing over the past 40 years. And that is committing fraud against banks, lying about how much money he has, being fraudulent and getting loans. And again, the majority of of caucus goers,

they don't care. And so so, again, that's the Republican Party. I will say we have polls out that show this morning that that only 20 percent of Americans say they would still support Donald Trump, all Americans, if if he was, in fact, convicted. So, again, we're looking at the Republican Party, which has gone off the cliff for Donald Trump. And in Iowa's case, we're talking about 14 percent of the party. And I got to say one other thing, one other question. There are a lot of questions that abound right now. Would you vote for Donald Trump if he's convicted of a felony? Yes, 20 percent. No, 58 percent. That's nearly six out of 10 voters, including almost a third of Republican voters.

And of course, 55% of independent voters. So again, all of these polls that are out right now, I'm sorry, just doesn't matter. There's actually a head to head that shows Biden ahead of Donald Trump. It's just so early, though. One other thing, Willie, I'm just curious about. Do we have any answer on what's on Donald Trump's like Donald Trump has has his hands are bleeding. Looks like he has a sore. Is it magic marker? Because it looks like he has a sore on his index finger there. I don't know. Maybe it's magic marker. I don't know. It looks like a cut. And that's blood, isn't it? I don't want to speculate. I don't know.

But was there anything that happened inside the courtroom yesterday, Lisa? There was. You know, there was a point in time during the day where Trump, very frustrated with Judge Kaplan, banged his hands down on the table. I doubt that like it like a child that we're seeing there come from that. But could they be exacerbated by that? Perhaps. Yeah. Like a toddler having a tantrum, perhaps and causing bleeding to his hand. Yeah. And let's let's remind our viewers again, Donald Trump already has been found liable of sexual assault. We're in the penalty phase now. A jury decided that. So that's a matter that the court has settled. Now we're just talking about money here. So that's probably why you see some so many people, as Joe just rightly points out, saying I'm not voting for a guy who's convicted of all this stuff.

Yes, he won fifty six thousand votes, Joe, in a country of 330 million people. He won 56,000 votes in Iowa, just barely cleared 50 percent of Republicans. 14 percent of Republicans stepped out to vote the other night. So it is right. Yes, he won big. But a little perspective is important here. Well, again, it's 14 percent. I mean, when I used to run, I realized that in my district, Republicans at the time made up maybe 40 percent of the electorate. But in the primary, only a third of that 40 percent were going to vote in a primary. So while everybody else was waving at state fairs, I was knocking on the doors of the 33 percent of the 40. Here we have 14 percent of maybe the 35 percent of Iowa Republicans there. So, again, relatively small numbers. That's not to say that that the polls we see nationwide aren't deeply disturbing about Republicans being fine with a man who a judge has declared raped a woman and is guilty

already of fraud, has been found liable of fraud. We could go down the list, of course, trials on him stealing nuclear secrets, which the judge in South Florida who humiliated herself last year, once again, trying to slow roll that case. I'm not so sure he'll be so lucky, though, in Washington. Katie, I wanted to go back to you because while we're talking about court cases, I think one of the most fascinating cases regarding presidential elections, the most, I think the most fascinating since the Gore-Bush case in 2000 has to do with states like Colorado and Maine trying to keep Donald Trump off the ballot. In Maine, the court spoke.

What did they say? rule on this today, because in just under a month, really, the Supreme Court is going to begin hearing arguments on essentially the same topic for the state of Colorado, which has already decided, much like Maine has, that Donald Trump should not be on the ballot. And so it really applies. I don't think it applies more pressure on this, puts more pressure on the Supreme Court, but it really underscores how important this hearing is going to be. There are other states, of course, still deciding whether or not Trump should be on the ballot. And I think it's February 8th that the court will hear arguments. I suspect they will want to rule quickly so there isn't chaos on ballots across the country as nobody really knows whether or not Donald Trump should be on them.

And that will have a big impact, not just on whether or not Trump's on the ballot, but depending on how they rule, it will help, not just on whether or not Trump's on the ballot, but depending on how they rule, it will help shape the narrative around whether or not Donald Trump deserves to be on the ballot. If, for example, they say that he should remain on the ballot, but they refuse to weigh in on the question of whether or not he violated the 14th Amendment, whether he participated in insurrection, that is a very different thing from from weighing in on whether or not he did do that. Yeah, and I think most legal observers hope that it is not a 5-4 decision, that it's a 9-0 decision one way or the other. But we'll see a lot of questions still there.

Katty, I wanted to go back to you and let's look at that poll again, showing that the overwhelming majority of Americans say they will not vote for Donald Trump if he is convicted. It actually it suggests that that everybody for not being, you know, being John Madden, basically, and being being predictors of what's going on, don't know what they're talking about right now. And this Ipsos Reuters poll. Again, 58 percent of Americans say they won't vote for Donald Trump if he's convicted of a felony. And I think the most important number there, at least for me, what I'm looking at is 55 percent of independents say they will not vote for Donald Trump if he's a convicted felon. Only 14 independents saying yes. Yeah. And actually, even if you look at the entrance polls in Iowa, it's kind of reflective of this, too, right?

Because 30 percent of people who've caucused on Monday night in Iowa also said they wouldn't vote for Trump if he's convicted, which I mean, we just have to look at the legal timetable. Will Jack Smith manage to get his trial date in March? Will it be pushed back a little bit? Will the whole thing be wrapped up and potentially have a conviction by November? And then come November, what impact will that actually make? Donald Trump is opting for a very different strategy than he was a year ago. A year ago in May for Eugene Carroll's trial, he didn't even turn up. He's seen those polls that you've been showing all week, Joe, which track, I mean, that graph that Steve Konacki has showing that here you go, you look at the dates where he's arrested for a crime or where he goes into a courthouse or where the trial starts and his approval ratings tick up. And he

now thinks, look, the more I'm in court, the more I misbehave in court, the more I get attention in court, that's going to help me. It might be helping. It might be a split thing, right? It might be that it helps him with the primary. But actually, when it comes to people who are going to vote in the general election in November, all of what he did yesterday in court, drawing attention to the fact that he's in a court proceeding and has been found liable, maybe that actually will end up to hurt him. And these people will stick to those numbers. Well, as the old song goes, Willie, second verse, same as first. There's a reason Republicans that actually have a have have a brain have been worried about Donald Trump's impact on the general electorate since 2017, because they're like, OK, the things that he's doing right now

and in this case, going into courtrooms, making an ass of himself, trying to get a judge to throw him out of the courtroom. That helps him with 14 percent of voters in Iowa. Right. It hurts him with independence. It hurts him with suburban voters. It hurts him with swing voters. There's a reason Donald Trump has done the unthinkable, held on to a party while losing in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023. That's because he plays to the cheap seats in his own party. They're absolutely thrilled when he's in court for raping a woman, according to the judge. And the judge is going to have to throw him out because he's in court for raping a woman, according to the judge. And the judge is going to have to throw him out because he's being so disruptive. And like a toddler, we get reports from Lisa that he's banging his hands on the table. Maybe we don't know. Maybe it's magic

marker. But if it's blood, maybe causing some more problems to his hands, dysregulated. And so so here's a guy again. This plays really well for the 14 percent. And who knows, maybe 44, 45 percent in the general election. But once again, they're setting themselves up for a loss. I'm trying to help them here. I'm trying to help Republicans, as I have for seven years. They're setting themselves up for another loss because, as Cady said, what works for the 14 percent hurts him, as we see in this poll, The reminders that Donald Trump has been found liable, as Mitt Romney said, for sexual assault is what the Biden campaign is counting on and urging patients. Let this year play out. Watch how the American public responds to a man sitting in court beating his hands like a toddler trying to get thrown out of a courtroom during the penalty phase of his defamation suit. This is just the tip of the iceberg, Jonathan Lemire. We haven't

got to the federal cases. We haven't gotten to Georgia. We haven't gotten all the things he's going to be occupied doing. And as Joe said, coming out of those courtrooms, posting on social media, ranting about judges, having nothing to do with voters or people's lives or the future, only about him. And again, playing to his narrow electorate of fans. Yeah. And that's been the Biden camp's theory of the case throughout. It may not be one silver bullet. It might not. They're not banking on just like a conviction, let's say, in one of these trials. But they think it'll be a piece after piece after piece. Just this this mosaic of chaos that Trump is creating again will be a reminder to the American public, we don't want to do that.

That for, you know, the Trump has become sort of background noise, you know, for us who live in this world each and every day, we're thinking about him, talking about him, showing his clip. But for most Americans, they're not paying attention yet. Polls suggest that. And that the Biden campaign has always believed that come, it might not be till the spring, summer, even early fall, but when people start locking in on the campaign and also when they start realizing that it is indeed Trump versus Biden again, because polls suggest there's

still a lot of Americans who don't think that's going to be the end of the eventual matchup, that they will be, even if they're not enthusiastically backing Joe Biden, they're not going to want to do this with Donald Trump. And that's why the Biden campaign has felt pretty confident all along about where they stand with these sort of independent swing voters, the same sort of voters who are going to be swayed by their arguments about democracy, about abortion rights, that they feel like those are the same people who are going to be turned off by what they're seeing from Trump. And once they start hearing Trump each and every day again, and for some of them, maybe it won't be to the Republican convention next, this coming summer. But once

they do, they'll realize he's gotten that much more erratic. His rhetoric has become that much more incendiary. We don't want to do that. And that's why the Democrats now, their focus is making sure their own base turns out. They think that's the bigger concern. But they feel like this. What Trump's doing right now is helping him in the GOP primaries. It's only going to hurt him come November.

And this is just the beginning, as I said, the tip of the iceberg. So, Lisa, what happens from here in this defamation case? So yesterday was a day where Donald Trump picked a fight with a judge, banging his hands on the table, talking loudly while E.G. Carroll was testifying. The judge had to pull Donald Trump's attorney, Alina Habe, into sidebar a couple of times to explain to her the rules of the court. Here's how this works, kind of guiding her along. So where does this go next? Alina Habe says she has about 20 to 30 minutes left of cross-examination of E. Jean Carroll. She'll then go through, I think, a brief redirect examination through her own attorneys, and then they'll call their next witness. Ashley Humphries is a professor at Northwestern

University. She specializes in social media and the cost of reputation damage, she will project for the jury how much money Donald Trump has cost E. Jean Carroll in terms of the damage to her reputation. And as she testified yesterday, people weren't dying to write to an advice columnist who had been called a disgrace by the former president. So expect some testimony today about the havoc he's wreaked in her life. Former litigator and MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin and Justice Department reporter for The New York Times, Katie Benner. Thank you both very much. We'll see you both again soon. And coming up on Morning Show, when it comes to immigration, do House Republicans want a border deal or a 2024 campaign issues? We'll get the latest from Capitol Hill as Senate Republicans

issue a warning to their colleagues. And as we go to break on yesterday's show, we talked about that bizarre video shared by Donald Trump claiming God chose him to be America's caretaker. The Lincoln Project hit back with a version of that spot, changing the premise to God made a dictator. Well, Jimmy Kimmel offered his own take last night, ending with an apology from the almighty. And on June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, I need a caretaker. So God gave us Trump. God said, I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state. So God made Trump. I need somebody with arms, strong enough to wrestle the deep state, and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to ruffle the feathers, tame cantankerous world economic forum, come home hungry, have to wait until the first lady is done with lunch, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon. So God gave us Trump.

God said, I need somebody really strong and courageous. I need the most diligent worker to follow the path and remain strong in faith. And then his oldest son turns and says, Dad, let's make America great again. So God made Trump. Well, at least we know and at least he apologized. Welcome back to Morning Joe. Beautiful shot of Washington, D.C. as the sun has yet to come up over the Capitol. It's 29 past the hour. The Senate reached an agreement last night to speed up the votes on a government spending bill to avoid a partial shutdown that is set to trigger tomorrow evening. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced yesterday

the upper chamber will vote on the measure today in addition to three Republican-led amendments that are likely to fail. The legislation will fund the government through early March as appropriators work to finalize a long-term funding solution. The House has until tomorrow at 11.59 p.m. to get the legislation to President Biden's desk. If they fail, the government will partially shut down at midnight. Meanwhile, President Biden met with congressional leadership yesterday at the White House to discuss ongoing concerns over the border, Ukraine and Israel. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed optimism. A bipartisan Senate deal on the border is imminent. But Speaker Mike Johnson

continues to push House Republican demands for hardline changes at the border that stand no chance of passing in the Democratic Senate. That comes as Senate Republicans are warning their House colleagues not to miss the moment. To those who think that if President Trump wins, which I hope he does, that we can get a better deal. You want to get this kind of border security without granting a pathway to citizenship is really unheard of. So if you think you're going to get a better deal next time in 25 if Trump, President Trump's president. Democrats will be expecting a pathway to citizenship for that, in my view.

But I will say this, any idea that somehow if we get majorities next year and we get the White House, that this gets done with the Republican majority of the Senate, I think, doesn't understand the Democrats. The Democrats will not give us anything close to this if we have to get 60 votes in the United States Senate in a Republican majority. We have a unique opportunity here, and the timing is right to do this. You have John Thune, also Mitch McConnell, leaders of the Senate, Republicans in the Senate saying to the House, this is the best deal we're ever going to get on border security. In fact, it's the best, strongest deal ever done on border security. And Senate Republicans are working with Senate Democrats to make that deal. So you've got the Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, the White House,

all agreeing on a tough border deal, all agreeing to aid Israel, all agreeing to aid Ukraine. And you've got Mike Johnson and some radicals that are in the House. By the way, House Republicans have passed fewer bills than any Congress. Talk about a do nothing Congress, any Congress in a generation. And with Mike Johnson, you've got a guy who's constantly on the issue of funding Ukraine, been pro Vladimir Putin. So you've got a pro Putin speaker who has voted no on all Ukrainian aid, a pro Putin speaker who now is killing a bill. That's the toughest border security bill ever. And I'm just asking why. Is it because he's pro-Putin?

Is it because he's afraid Ukraine is going to get aid? Aid that he's voted against time and time again. If he had his way, Vladimir Putin would already be to Kiev because he's voted against all funding to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression. And so now he's also killing a bill that would stop what's happening on the southern border, the chaos on the southern border? You again, you've got to ask why. If you've got Republicans saying this is the toughest bill ever and we will never get a tougher bill on border security. Mike Johnson is still killing it. Come on, Mikey. Come on.

Come on. Are you planning to go to like St. Petersburg this summer and see the White Palisade? What are you? This doesn't make any sense at all. He doesn't want Biden to look good in any way. Well, I don't know. I mean, that's what that's what we're saying. But if you've got a guy that's voted against Ukrainian aid time and time and time again. Pretty smart on Biden's part. Right. And Ukraine now is at a crisis point where they desperately need this aid or Vladimir Putin, in fact, will make great progress on the battlefield because that's what we're hearing from Ukraine. That's what we're hearing from military experts everywhere.

You got to ask yourself, wait a second. So this guy's saying no to the toughest border security bill ever, ever. And he's got his own Republican colleagues in the Senate saying, it will get no better than this. You tell me, is that logical? Doesn't seem like it's about the border. Maybe it's about letting Vladimir Putin take all of Ukraine. That's going to be a hell of a campaign ad coming come this fall. House Republicans help Vladimir Putin conquer Ukraine. Lots of luck with that one. Let's bring

in right now congressional. And well, Willie, I mean, you know, I'm sorry, but this makes no sense. And when something doesn't make sense, there's a reason it doesn't make sense. When you have Lindsey Graham saying this is the best deal publicly you're ever going to get going to a podium and saying that. When you have John Thune saying that a rock solid conservative saying that when when you have James Langford, a guy who has been critical of the Biden administration every day on the border, and it's James Langford that's helping put together this tough conservative border security bill. And then you got the speaker of the House and these, I don't know, are they pro Putin Republicans? I'm sure they a lot of these people voted against Ukraine aid time and time again. But they're saying, no, no, no, we're not going to give you Ukraine aid because we're not

going to vote for this border security bill. And yet it's the Republicans and the senators saying this is the best bill we will ever get. Makes no sense. The answer might be something that Speaker Johnson actually said out loud yesterday, which is that Donald Trump is running the House of Representatives. He's been talking constantly, says to Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn't want to give what he thinks is a win to Joe Biden. And so Speaker Johnson is following orders from the boss and Republicans. So you're saying, Willie, Donald Donald Trump is helping Vladimir Putin here. Why, that's just shocking. Well, Vladimir Putin certainly appreciates it.

We know that from past history and we know that he's going to keep this war going at least until he sees what happens in the 2024 election. But you're right, Joe. I'm watching this play out and thinking back to not that long ago, certainly when you were in Congress, to a time when the point was to get things done. The point was to sit down with people from the other side and you don't get purely what you want. You don't get 100 percent of what you want. It's called a negotiation. You get some of what you want, just enough of what you want. You give a little there where you come to the table as the adults in the Senate are doing, Joe, and you get a deal. And it appears they're real close to getting something that, as you said, would be significant to the crisis at the border. But the House is rejecting that because pretty plainly now they don't want to give a win

could be construed to Joe Biden. A deal that's a lot closer to conservative James Langford's position and conservative John Thune's position than it is the majority of the Democratic caucus in the Senate or the House. Let's bring in right now congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Elimany. You know, Jackie, we've got two things going. We've got Mike Johnson and I don't know, are they maybe we won't call them the pro Putin forces in the House. We'll call them the pro-Putin forces in the House. We'll just call them the anti-freedom forces in the House. You've got Mike Johnson and a lot of people that are against Ukrainian aid saying this is never going to happen. We're not going to pass a border security bill. Meanwhile, you've got the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, Mitch McConnell going,

we think we're going to have a deal next week. What's going on there? Yeah, I think that everything you guys just outlined really speaks to all of the different competing factions at play here. And perhaps most prescient and most pressing is the fact that Mike Johnson needs the support of these unruly hardliners who are now already threatening to issue a motion to vacate, to oust him, as they did with former Speaker McCarthy, ahead of a potential government shutdown where he needs the support of the majority of his conference in order to get this short-term spending deal done that the Senate is going to vote on today and potentially even make it to the House to vote on today or tomorrow in order to avert a government shutdown by Saturday.

I think that sort of helps explain some of the commentary that you heard from Mike Johnson yesterday, kind of pandering to these hardliners, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who have said that if Johnson basically cedes to the Biden administration and this group of bipartisan senators who have hashed out this border deal that would expand detention powers and limit the ability for people who have crossed the border to seek asylum, that they will follow through with their threats to issue a motion to vacate and get rid of him. And it, you know, overall speaks to the broader predicament that Mike Johnson has faced the second that he took this job, which is that this is an impossible conference to work with and get things done, because at the end of the day, there is a significant group of people who do not want to get anything done and and who have said in different forms over the past

year and a half that they're OK with that and that a government shutdown is worth the fight at the end of the day. If they're not getting the spending cuts that they claim Johnson agreed to. And right now, according to a framework that he hashed out with Schumer last month, it was is really only 16 billion dollars overall in spending cuts. Now, you know, it's fascinating. So we have Comrade Green telling Comrade Johnson he's going to get booted from the Politburo if he supports a bill that Republicans in the Senate are doing. Right. Which is really weird. And again, I didn't know Comrade Greene was so powerful, but I guess we'll have to look exactly where their placement is on May Day on the speaker's balcony to see who's in power, who's out of power. Because right now it just seems as the Republicans are saying, conservative Republicans are saying in the Senate, this is the best border deal we have. We're never going to get a better border deal. And yet you've got people who voted against Ukrainian aid is in there, too.

Yeah. And Donald Trump wants to help Vladimir Putin, always has. He said the invasion was brilliant, said that Putin was brilliant. Let's talk about ending this war in a day. Well, now the comrades in the House, the fellow travelers in the House of Representatives, are helping comrade Putin by, again, killing Ukrainian aid and claiming it's about border security when the Senate Republicans are calling them liars. Yeah, there are two things here. It is scary that Donald Trump is still so frail to that Vladimir Putin, that there's some sort of connection there that he feels he owes him something. Very weak. Don't know what's going on there. But secondly, what's going on in the House?

There was a time when this would seem shocking, but this isn't it because of the fire hose of falsehoods and other things that Donald Trump has brought to these weak members of Congress. And during a House Oversight Committee hearing yesterday on border security, Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz of Florida crystallized how House Republicans are just playing cynical politics with the issue. If you listen to my colleagues, you would think the world didn't begin until President Biden was elected. You would think it was dinosaurs, the wheel, Jesus, the world was flat, the world was round, Biden was elected, every problem. Like nothing happened before. In fact, President Obama deported more people in

each term than President Trump. Well, hold on a second. If the border wasn't a problem until President Biden was elected, then how are we deporting all of these people in administrations before Trump was elected? It's because this situation has been going on for decades. So stop lying to the American people that none of this happened until President Biden was elected. Just listen to the speaker who was caught on a call the other day saying that we can't solve the border crisis until after the election. By the way, here's Congressman Troy Neals giving it all away, giving it all away. Let's read this. Let me tell you, he's talking about immigration. Let me tell you, I'm not willing to do a darn thing right now to help a Democrat, to help Joe Biden's approval rating.

I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man's dismal approved ratings. I'm not going to do it. He's saying he's not going to do anything on the border. He's from Texas, which needs help. I'm willing to do stuff on the border. And he's from Texas, which needs help. I'm willing to do stuff on the border. I'm willing to do it. But they're not willing to do it because they're doing what people hate about this place. They want to use it to raise money.

They want to use it to politicize it. But they don't want to solve the issue. There's a deal on the table. They can solve the issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Saying the quiet part out loud in some ways. I mean, Jackie, when it comes to border security, there actually is quite a lot of agreement, as we've seen, between Republicans and Democrats. Yes, Republicans want some measures that are more stringent, but you have Democrats in the House and in the Senate saying,

absolutely, we have to do something on border security. Where does this leave, though, the issue of Ukraine? Because I keep hearing from senators that they're confident that America will not abandon the Ukrainians. They know what that would do to allies around the world and they know the cost of doing that. But I'm listening to the House and I just don't. Maybe you hear it, but I'm not hearing that this is something that they're prepared to do because they don't want to give the president any kind of win. You're absolutely right. That's something that we can't underestimate here. The political imperative of House Republicans, people like Troy Nils and Bob Good, who have outright said we don't want to give Biden this political win and that's going to dictate our vote. There are also people who have continued to say that we're not going to continue to fund Ukraine, pointing to some of what they believe to be misspending on part of Zelensky and the Ukrainian forces. But when Mike Johnson walked out of that meeting at the White House yesterday with Chuck Schumer, House Intelligence members, Jake Sullivan, Avril Haines and Joe Biden,

he did acknowledge that he came out thinking that we need to continue to assist Kiev in some capacity that. And I think at the end of the day, if the House has to ultimately vote on something on this package that McConnell has said is going to make it through potentially next week, that it's going to put Republicans in a jam. You know, it's hard, I think, to look at people like Mark Green and members on the Homeland Security issue who are bringing in the parents of people who have been killed by migrants and trying to argue that they need to impeach Mayorkas while also trying to kill a border bill that Lindsey Graham is saying is the best thing that lawmakers have seen in years and that having a discussion about border security without a pathway to citizenship

is almost unheard of and something that would never get done in a potential future Trump administration. So I think what you saw yesterday is a prelude to this potential jam that Mike Johnson is going to face next week with his members. Willie, think about this. Jackie brings up such a great point. They want to impeach Mayorkas because they say there's not order at the border. And then they say, we're not going to do anything to fix the border because it may also help Joe Biden politically. So they're impeaching a guy for chaos at the border. They got the most conservative border security bill ever, according to Lindsey Graham, according to John Thune, according, my God, to James Langford, one of the most conservative members in all of the Senate from Oklahoma running this show. Again, it's been anti Biden since day one.

And they said, we're not going to do anything. The House, the comrades in the House say we're not going to do anything to fix the border. Talk about hypocrisy. Just lay it out for everybody to see. I hope those impeachment hearings are televised because they're going to be fun as hell to watch. So there is chaos. There is a crisis at the border. Republicans, Democrats get together on the Senate side

and say, yes, there is. We've identified the problem. Here's what we propose to do about it. The House rejects it because it's so important to them that Donald Trump returned to the White House,

that Joe Biden doesn't get a win, that they won't take the solution they've been begging for for how long. The other side of this, of course, John, we're talking about the politics of this is this would it would be a shame to let this moment pass. There is a crisis at the border. It's an untenable situation. Here's a moment, a rare moment comes around like once a decade where you might get something done that both parties could agree on about immigration. And it looks like the House is willing to let that opportunity slide in defense of Donald Trump. Yeah.

And White House officials recognize something has to get done at the border. They have changed their tune in recent months. They're willing to go pretty far to the point where there are some in the Biden orbit that are anxious of how progressives will react. but they're willing to make the deal. I think the progressives will eventually stay home. John Thune is right. I think he said it very well. Just to be very clear-eyed about the politics of this. If the Republicans wait for Trump to come back to office and that they have majorities in both houses, the Democrats are going to make their lives very difficult and exact far more concessions than they're willing to right now.

This is the best deal they're going to get. And the Republicans in the Senate, you can see that, you can see even the frustration on their faces. And again, most Republicans in the Senate also do want to help Ukraine and Mitch McConnell among them. And this is a deal, White House officials I spoke to last night after the meeting, they weren't quite as enthusiastic as Schumer who came out there really trying to spin it. This is the closest we've been to a deal. But they do think that Johnson will eventually have to cave, that he'll make some sort of agreement. He's willing to make some sort of compromise because the blowback would be so hard the other way if he doesn't, Joe and Mika. But this isn't done just yet. And we have a government funding shutdown

deadline looming tomorrow night that's complicating things further. There's also a snowstorm coming to Washington that's going to make it accelerate the timetable here because it may not be able to have votes tomorrow. But they're not at the, to use the football analogy, they're not at the five-yard line, but they are moving down the field and time is of the essence. Wow. The Washington Post's Jackie Alimany, thank you as always. And coming up, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell joins us with her latest reporting on the growing tension between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

We'll be right back. Five minutes before the top of the hour, the United States has launched a new round of strikes against Houthi military sites in Yemen. According to Central Command, yesterday's attack destroyed 14 missiles that the Pentagon called an imminent threat. It happened hours after a drone launched from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen struck a U.S.-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden. Officials say there were no injuries from that attack and the ship suffered minor damages. Pakistan has carried out strikes inside southeastern Iran targeting what it says were terrorist hideouts. The attacks came two days after Iran launched missiles into Pakistan.

In its statement, Pakistan said it respects Iran's territorial integrity, but the strikes were carried out in pursuit of Pakistan's own security and national interest. On Tuesday, Iranian state media reported missiles and drones had targeted two bases belonging to a militant group in Pakistan that had struck Iranian security forces. Pakistan called the attack unprovoked and said two children were killed. And Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos following his latest diplomatic blitz through the Middle East. While there, Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman and other Arab leaders told Blinken they would help rebuild Gaza after the war with Israel, with Saudi Arabia even agreeing to normalize relations with the Jewish state

in exchange for a pathway to statehood for Palestinians. Netanyahu rejected the offer. And now three senior U.S. officials tell NBC News the Biden administration is looking past the prime minister to try to achieve its goals in the region. Several senior U.S. officials told NBC News that Netanyahu, quote, will not be there forever. Let's bring in right now with that reporting on the mounting frustrations between Biden and Netanyahu. NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of Andrea Mitchell reports. Andrea Mitchell, also MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle, joins the conversation as well. You know, Andrea, the White House has been hopeful that Saudi Arabia would stay in the game. We're saying last week that they believed that they still would come

out and do what they did yesterday. That's a pretty big deal considering the chaos that's been going on since October 7th because of the Hamas attacks. But tell us, if you will, how close is Joe Biden to saying publicly what he's saying privately, that he's had enough of Benjamin Netanyahu? Well, his language is getting a lot more a lot tougher, but it still is not as tough, certainly as the secretary of state, who was much more explicit about this on the trip. And his other advisers and aides certainly have been. Interestingly, Joe and Mika, the two men have not talked since December 23rd. After October 7th, they were talking almost every other day. And in that December 23rd conversation by multiple reports, President Biden basically hung up the phone. We don't know if it was how abrupt it was, but it was fairly abrupt over a disagreement. They were arguing over Netanyahu's continuing refusal

to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank that they have cut off since October 7th. These are revenues that passed through Israel. So they don't have money to pay the Palestinian security forces. So the American argument that this is self-defeating and it is increasing tensions and unemployment, of course, rampant in the West Bank, as well as lack of security there. But the frustration is really mounting between President Biden and Netanyahu, which frustration that, frankly,

the State Department has long felt because they're disagreeing over humanitarian aid. Secretary Blinken, I was on that trip. He went to nine countries in eight days. And what he did deliberately this time was to line up the Arab countries first. Instead of going to Israel, he went to all the Arab countries, including speaking to, he went to Saudi Arabia for this visit with Mohammed bin Salman, the leader there, who agreed that he would normalize relations. People didn't think that after October 7th and after the devastation in Gaza and the strength of the Israeli offensive, which, despite the justification the U.S. feels,

was alienating Palestinians around the world and making their leaders, the monarchs and others, feel very threatened. In any case, he said that he was still willing to do this. He would lead the Arab world in rebuilding Gaza, in bringing together a Palestinian governance, a reformed, not as corrupt, younger leadership, which is, of course, upsetting the West Bank leadership right now, but bringing together the West Bank and Gaza to help secure and govern Gaza, but would only do it if there is a pathway, not immediately, but a pathway to a Palestinian state. A Palestinian state is something that you guys know has been in play since Camp David, since, you know, Mika's father helped broker that landmark deal. And then it was, you know, ratified, solidified in the Oslo Accords in 1991 by President Clinton,

Rabin and Arafat, you know, improbably in 1993. So every Israeli leader prior to Benjamin Netanyahu has gone along with a two-state solution, giving the Palestinians some hope, some aspiration. That was not the demand of the Saudis and the other Arabs for normalization before October 7th. Now it is. Multiple officials, Arab as well as U.S. officials, say that since October 7th, since everything that's happened with the Israeli offensive, they feel that now the demand has to be for a lot more for the Palestinians. It has to be statehood.

And that is something that Netanyahu flatly rejected in the meetings. That's why the administration is now thinking of a post-Netanyahu world. And you heard today in Davos from President Herzog the beginnings of a hint that others in the government, not in the coalition, but others might also be willing to do that. He alluded to it, to Saudi normalization in a post Gaza vote. Andrea, in the midst of all this tragedy, in the midst of all this internal domestic turmoil, both in Israel and in this country, as a result of what happened on October 7th. Is there a calendar, a clock?

I mean, we still have Americans being held hostage. The hostages, as far as we know, the International Red Cross has not been allowed to see them. We don't have really proof of life for a lot of the hostages. The clock that's ticking on that, Is there a time limit on this? How long will the president's patience be tested before finally something has to happen? Well, the message from Blinken on the trip in Israel was this needs to be weeks, not months. The hostages, many of them, the American families, some of the American families, I met with them yesterday. I was on the hill. They met with leaders there. They're going to the White House today. They're going to see

Jake Sullivan today. They are desperate. And the families whom I spoke to, and we're going to be profiling them later today on my program on the Today Show, they're saying it's been 104 days, 104 days today. We don't have proof of life. We don't have information. The State Department, the FBI have been calling them regularly, keeping in touch with them. But they are desperate. And there is the possibility of new negotiations. I was told that there is a new offer that we heard in Qatar last week when we were there from the prime minister. They are talking. There is a post, you know, the assassinations that happened a couple of weeks ago of the Hamas leader in Beirut that they thought would end all of the talks. That's what Hamas said. But they are again talking.

It's being done through the CIA director, through the Mossad leader. Scott is the intermediary. And those talks are going on. There's potential of a new proposal on the table. We don't have the details. And we're going to be beginning to see more of that. But the hostage families are getting desperate. They certainly are. Andrea Mitchell, thank you so much. And of course,

we'll be watching Andrea Mitchell reports weekdays at noon right here on MSNBC. So, Kenny K., obviously, Anthony Blinken, the secretary of state, president of the United States, Jake Sullivan, the entire administration had enough of Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israelis have had enough of Benjamin Netanyahu. Here is after I mean, after all, a guy whose government had the attack plans, the terrorist attack plans for over a year and did nothing about it. They knew in 2018 about secret funding sources of Hamas, along with Donald Trump's government, did nothing about it. A month before the attacks, Qatar asked Netanyahu's government, should we continue funding Hamas? And Netanyahu's government said yes. They were asleep at the wheel, my God, asleep,

when the worst attack against Jews since the Holocaust happened on October 7th. And then it took them hours and hours and hours to respond, while women were being raped, while grandmothers were being burned alive, while babies were being shot in their crib. So the Israelis have had enough of Netanyahu. Biden has had enough of Netanyahu. Any thought on when this ends? I mean, that would be the timetable we'd like to ask, right?

I mean, we knew before October the 7th that Netanyahu was very unpopular. We saw all of those demonstrations. We saw that delay in response on October the 7th that you've asked so often about that still has not been answered. Why did it take the troops so long to rescue the people down in the kibbutzes? By the way, that is something that has fueled conspiracy theories all through the Middle East, that this was somehow something the Israelis orchestrated, which is absurd, but which fuels that kind of conspiracy, because when you have questions that aren't answered, it allows people to try and answer them themselves. And Netanyahu, all of that is being investigated. Netanyahu at the crux of all of that. It's just not clear, as Israelis are in

this moment, and senators I've spoken to who've returned from the region have said, there is really no appetite at the moment in Israel for a change, and there is no appetite for doing anything other than prosecuting this war against Hamas in Gaza. the liberal, more peacenik center of America, of Israeli politics has just evaporated effectively. And for the moment, Israelis seem to be sticking with Netanyahu. They have to look beyond Netanyahu because the Saudis condition for helping a Palestinian authority is that there has to be this two-state solution. Otherwise, they're not going to do it. And that is something that Netanyahu time and again has said he hasn't got.

He's holding up the process. If there is to be any chance of peace for the Israelis living alongside Palestinians, it's very hard to see how that can happen with Netanyahu where he is.