Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/10/24

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

Suspect charged with murder in CEO killing

Morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday December 10th. We have a lot to get to this morning. Everybody have a seat. We're on. But you guys need to get in your seats Willie guys. Here we go. A lot to get to. I'm happy for you you'll sleep a little bit. Yeah, we're we're so thrilled for Ali takeover wait really it has been such a she's such a great team it's been so great to host it all still be here every morning, 6, AM of course so excited about my new my new role. Well, you know you go back and I mean the history of way too early is extraordinary.

It get you've been there, we've had so many other hosts there, of course, Willie Geist there. And if you walk down the halls, you will see the long history going all the way back to Jack Benny was the first host of way. People don't realize that. Yeah, people don't realize it. It was also a launching pad for Jack Parr.

Yeah, that was a. Did Johnny spend time there? He did. He there. He was still here from the tonight shows. You can't do that at 5.30 in the morning. Yeah, no congrats man thank great run great running congrats to Ali is going to be amazing. Fantastic to bring my reporting you're excited. Okay, well, yeah, I guess. All right we've got a lot to get to be fantastic. Continue to bring my reporting. You're excited about it. OK. Well, I guess I've got makeup on him. All right.

We've got a lot to get to this morning. Our top story will be, among many, an arrest in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO. It comes less than a week after he was gunned down in mid-down Manhattan. We'll go through how the suspect Luigi Mangione was caught and what comes next in the case? Plus, some of Donald Trump's most controversial cabinet picks were on Capitol Hill yesterday again meeting with Republican senators. We'll show you what lawmakers had to say about those meetings. And we'll bring you the very latest from Damascus, following the historic transfer of power from

Bashar al-Assad to Syrian rebels, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the host of Way Too Early, for now at least, Jonathan Lemire, and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, is with us or he will be here soon? He will be here soon. And you know, Willie, in New York at least, two cases yesterday really catching the attention of people in New York.

One, of course, the CEO killing and also Danny Penny getting found not guilty on the subway case. Yeah, the Daniel Penny case, which we'll talk more about in a minute, was an incident that happened several months back where a homeless man was behaving erratically on the train and Daniel Penny subdued him and held him in a chokehold so long that he killed the man. So this sparked debate about whether he should have held

the chokehold that long, whether he was a hero, whether he was a villain and all that, but a jury yesterday on a reduced charge found him not guilty in that case. And by the way, John, a very thoughtful piece in the New York Times talking about how the times, the post-COVID times, shaped how people, not only in the courtroom likely,

but also people in the subway who were scared by what was going on down there, really probably shaped not only the view of many New Yorkers here but also ultimately the jury to find him not guilty. Yeah, there's no question the feel around the subway changed after the pandemic it crime went up, I mean stats show it still relatively low, but it's higher than it used to be but

there was more of a sense of of menace or unease and I think a lot of strap hangers who are on the subway a lot, myself included, would feel like, OK, this doesn't feel quite as safe as it used to. And I do think that factored into this decision. And the video, of course, of this death starts, he's already been subdued. He's already in a chokehold. We as a public don't see everything that happened before then. Clearly, the jurors thought that Penny was justified in doing what he did.

Well, you also see the video of the riders that were there with him afterwards talking about how they were scared, frightened, and saw him as someone protecting them. So again, that's a debate that'll go on. But let's get to the top story, which just took shocking turns. So many. We begin this morning with police arresting a man in connection with the murder of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson. 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was taken into custody yesterday morning, ending a five-day

manhunt. He was found at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after an employee called police about a suspicious person who matched the suspect's description. Police say Mangione had a gun and a silencer similar to one used in last week's shooting, as well as a fake driver's license. Police believe that ID was used to book a room at a hostel in New York City. Two law enforcement officials tell NBC News police found a three-page handwritten document from Mangione that refers to the health care industry and, quote, speaks to both his motivation

and mindset. Mangione is currently being held in a state prison in Huntington, Pennsylvania, facing gun and forgery charges. He was denied bail during a preliminary arraignment yesterday. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for December 23rd. Online court documents show New York has also filed murder charges against Manjoni. It's not known when he will be extradited to the state. The 26-year-old suspect is from a prominent family in Maryland. He attended a top private high school in Baltimore, where he became class valedictorian.

In 2020, Manjoni graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, earning both a bachelor's and a master's degree in engineering. Let's bring in NBC News national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter. Tom, good morning. You and your colleague Jonathan Deans broke this news yesterday that came like a thunderbolt on all our phones that there was somebody in Altoona, Pennsylvania. We couldn't quite figure out why Altoona, Pennsylvania. So walk us through what you learned yesterday and now what we know about a man who's been

charged now with murder. Right. So basically this happens only because an employee at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania sees him and says, I recognize him from the news. Now you remember what's interesting is, at the hostel, the people that he roomed with said he would never take off his mask,

but he would just to put in a bite of food. Obviously he can't eat through the mask. And so here he is eating at a McDonald's. This individual spots him and then calls police. They show up and the details from the court documents filed in Pennsylvania, and that only pertains to the ghost gun. So he was going to get charged in Pennsylvania regardless, because he has the ghost gun and that's in violation

of state firearms laws. But they ask him, have you been to New York recently? And he starts shaking. And that's when the police officers, including the one who arrested him, he's been on the job now only six months. That's the moment when they knew that they had him. Prior to that, they did run that identification,

and it came back negative. So they just call that in over dispatch. They check it with a national database, and they say, we don't have a driver's license under it. But that driver's license, the fact that he presented it at the hostel and then had it on his person, another huge clue. And I think that's the reason why the NYPD and us as reporters is we started to learn more about the types of things that were found on him.

It wasn't just that, I've got a guy that kind of looks like the person we've been seeing in all these images over the last couple of weeks and that there's a gun when as soon as we found out that he had the ID at that point it appeared this was and it all does go back to that one image from the hostel where he took his mask down when he checked in and presented that fake news it's only a couple of seconds yeah it's a quick just a few seconds that he takes it from that being pushed out across the national media an employee at McDonald's says, wait, that face looks familiar.

I better call 911 and they catch the guy. So do we get it all yet to Motive? They found what's, I don't know if it's fair to call it a manifesto, but some complaints he had about the healthcare system. We know he'd recently had back surgery, been estranged from his family who hadn't been in touch with him for a while.

What more do we know about Motive this morning? Three plus pages of kind of handwritten notes. It's kind of a little bit all over the place. You know, I think when all the details of it come out, it's going to point to the fact that, yes, he definitely had an animus towards the healthcare industry over some specific things, and in particular perhaps this company, United Healthcare, or at least referenced it. And there are some specific things that he apparently says to law enforcement in there as far as what they will find and what they won't find. I think it could potentially be if there are other articles or other written items that

he has and there's some indications he might help law enforcement understand how he put this all together, the work that he did as far as his time in New York City trying to determine where Brian Thompson, the CEO who was killed, who had his funeral yesterday by the way, and leaves behind a wife and two kids, how he knew he was going to be where he was and the type of work that he did. I think that there might be some more details that'll come out about that in the coming days. But, you know, putting it all together, the evidence against him is very damning. And that's why he's been charged with murder here in New York City.

And so he's no longer a strong person of interest. He's the guy they're charged. So, Tom, so police sources for a while were almost impressed by how he had pulled this off here in New York. It was clearly meticulously planned. He knew where Thompson was going to be. He had a getaway route with the bike. He paid cash at the hostel. He went through the park.

He got out of town right away. But it seems like he got tripped up by some pretty basic mistakes here, right? The same ID and also still having the weapon on him. Yeah. So you could look at that a couple of different ways. Maybe he didn't want to ditch the weapon because he was afraid that somebody was going to find it. It is a ghost gun, meaning that it was manufactured effectively at home or by a

3d printer whether or not he manufactured it whether or not somebody else manufactured it that's going to be a question somebody could face charges for that of course but having that idea on him certainly helped them out but he had a manifesto so at some point he wanted to be caught he wanted people to know why he was doing this but the fact that he was able to evade detection for so long in New York City And the fact that it's really just this one mistake that we're looking at on screen right now This two to three seconds when he pulls that mask down That's the reason why we're able to sit here today and say that there's been a rest no doubt about it. I mean Sunday night

When I talked to people from the NYPD, we were at the stage where they said, if anybody has any information, no matter how small, whatever little detail, anything, you get to that point of the investigation, you're struggling to try to figure out where this person might be. And they were just trying to backtrack them the whole way. Boy, how fascinating that we talked about cameras all over the place and it ends up actually being eyes. Eyes on him in Altoona, Pennsylvania, at a McDonald's that actually brings this manhunt to an end. We'll be following this. Also a verdict has

been reached in the case involving Marine veteran Daniel Penny and Jordan Neely, a homeless man, that Penny, who Penny put into a chokehold on a New York City subway that resulted in Neely's death. Penny has been acquitted of criminally negligent homicide after Neely's final moments were captured on video by a bystander that set off weeks of protests and drew national attention. The decision came on the fifth day of deliberations after the jury was deadlocked last week on manslaughter charges, which the judge later dismissed. And Tom, a jury of his peers found him not guilty.

A lot of people that are also screaming. When a jury of peers found Donald Trump guilty. Of course, they were dismissed as hacks. Well, in the same Manhattan jury pool, a jury of Daniel Penny's peers found him not guilty. Talk about this case. You know, one of the interesting things you all were touching on it before, this idea of safety in the subway. So when you look at subway crimes per ridership, the subway system is statistically very safe. When you, you know, I've talked to transit chiefs, I've talked to people, when

you look at the underlying information, yes it is very safe. But when you look at and you ride it, and I ride it every. But when you look at and you ride it and I ride it every single day, most days to and from work every day, the feeling that you get is a little bit different than what the statistics are. And so there have been numerous occasions, particularly post-pandemic as you've all mentioned before, this idea of do I feel safe versus am I safe? And we've all seen things on the subway that make us concerned. So I think when you put people into this mindset,

and it was interesting to hear some of the testimony from frankly even some of the prosecution witnesses who talked about how scared they were, it ultimately comes down to I think two things just looking at the look at the facts of the case and then thinking about this a little bit from a larger scale. When you look at what Daniel Penny did this idea of holding on to the choke hold for too long there'll be a lot of debate and a lot of discussion about that whether or not he should have let him go whether or not he was fearful for his life. Certainly can't put myself inside of that subway car, but would you look at the overall case, what we're doing for people that are consistently

arrested and consistently have mental health issues in this city. Every time this guy has been arrested, it was... It was a significant, a significant rap sheet, significant rap sheet, and then you look at the mental health component and the fact that this is the ecosystem where some of these individuals live, when is enough enough for society? I mean, I think that's the big question here, and I think about it all the time. There was a proposal to be able to involuntary commit people for mental health, not just for three days, five days, but for 30, 60, 90 days to give people some help so that they can break

this. Or if you've been arrested, like how many times you need, not specific to this case, but we see cases all the time when we're talking about burglary, theft, things like that, 10, 20, 30, 40 arrests. What is enough to say, you know what, you need an extended period, not a society. And so that's a big question I think that is going to be coming up for voters here in New York State and perhaps in major cities around the country. What types of laws are we going to go to? Gene Robinson, so much of this, as I said, was framed around the environment in the subways post-COVID and a specific case, 40-year-old woman, professional woman, Michelle Goh, pushed

in front of the R train on 42nd Street back a year or so ago. And there's just been this focus of violence down in the subways. You talk to most of the people you see on police tape. Afterwards, most of them said they felt unsafe and uncomfortably. Does remind us, doesn't it, of you and me? We're old enough to remember nobody else probably is. Bernie Getz, when New York was really just an absolute mess. He actually became a villain to many, but a hero probably to more New Yorkers, again, because of the overall conditions that happened.

So I'm curious about your take on the real tragedy here, the issues, of course, that Tom brought up about just not a safety net for people with mental health problems, and also a sense of insecurity for New Yorkers and people in Washington when they're on the subway or metro. Well, look, I think mental health is the key issue here. We don't have any system, we don't have the institutions, we don't have the clinics, we don't have the housing, we don't have what we need to deal with chronically mentally ill

people who are not so ill that they're judged a danger to themselves or others in a legalistic setting. And so, we have to address that. We need to confront that as a society. At some point, it's not fair to anybody. It's not fair to us, it's not fair to them. And so that's number one. And number two, there is no comparison between the Bernie Getz days and today in terms of

crime, in terms of what New York feels like and is like, the sort of danger that you felt justifiably 20, 30 years ago as opposed to today when New York is the safest big city in the country going away. But the New York subway, you know, I'm not a New Yorker. I've ridden the subway on occasion. I usually get lost. I take an express when I should have taken a local or vice versa. That happens to us all. You end up in Flushing Meadows when you were trying to get to Macy's. Exactly. I've seen parts of Queens and the Bronx that I really never intended to see.

But there is a feeling of kind of menace and danger still in the subway. and I think that's more related to what the passengers are doing than the actual infrastructure of the New York subway. You know, it was so early and it's really a great system that gets you around, but it's just not as, it feels more dangerous going into the New York subway than it does to me, at least going into underground transit systems that are newer in other cities. And, of course, that's a mammoth, Herculean task to modernize the New York subway. But it ain't the Tokyo subway. It ain't Tokyo, Will.

It ain't the Tokyo subway. That's what we always say, right? This ain't Tokyo Tokyo subway. It ain't Tokyo, Will. That's what we always say, right? This ain't Tokyo, baby. This ain't Tokyo. Yeah, I will say as someone who will be on the subway a few hours from now, I don't feel danger when I'm down there, especially when you've got big crowds down there, but I understand why some people might. But we've all had a moment, Tom, where you're down there, somebody gets on the train and

you go, what would I do in the situation that Daniel Penny found himself in? And I'll defer to the jury on this case. I didn't hear all the evidence. I haven't seen all the video, the witnesses and all that. Should he have held him for six minutes in the chokehold and killed him? That's a question that the jury answered yesterday. But you do have those moments where you go, okay, this person does seem to be erratic, does perhaps could pose a danger.

Do I step in if something happens? If he goes after that woman right there, do I step in? The answer you tell yourself is yes, presents a weapon. You just don't know what happens in those circumstances. And it happens so fast. Exactly. That's the big thing. It happens so fast when that goes down.

One technical question before we let you go. So the jury was deadlocked on the manslaughter charge on Friday. So they moved the charge to criminally negligent homicide on which he was found not guilty. What's the distinction between those two there? Yeah. So the details of this are pretty complicated, but I think ultimately what the jury said is and they have the option to do this is to say, okay, we're not going to be there with respect to specific intent.

And so now we go whether or not he was negligent. In other words, this idea of should he have let that chokehold go after a certain amount of time. But then this gets to all sorts of other permutations. So if he lets him go out of the chokehold, does he get up? And Jordan Neely, does he get up? And does he start to go after Daniel Penney or somebody else in the choke hold? Does he get up? And Jordan Neely, does he get up and does he start to go after Daniel Penny or somebody else in the subway car? There's all sorts of different permutations of this. At the end of the

day, Jordan Neely, who lost his mother as a result of a homicide, to Joe's point, has 30 plus, maybe even 40 plus arrests in New York City, documented history of mental health. There is somebody who's dead as a result of all of this, whether or not it was for criminal reasons or not, as you just said, Willie, a jury decided on it. But I think it just kind of underscores the people that moved through the cracks. And I think that's what everybody said when this case came up. And so, again, the police department would sure love a solution for this because they don't want to keep arresting and people go and arresting and letting people go.

So there's definitely a challenge for New York City. I mean, Mika, the mental health system in this country, again, is just grossly insufficient. Whether you're talking about New York, whether you're talking about Florida, whether you're talking about California, you have people walking around on the streets that have mental health issues. And the fact that some progressives have said basically, well we're just, you know, let's pass laws that allow homelessness. You look in San Francisco, you look at Los Angeles, as we've said all along, and

Rev and I have said all along, there's nothing compassionate about that. No. There's nothing progressive about that, leaving people with mental health problems on the street. No. We need to spend more money as a society taking care of those who have mental health challenges and not just say, yeah, you can live on the streets. Bad things happen. NBC's Tom Winter, thank you very much for your reporting and analysis this morning.

We appreciate it. We're going to turn now to overseas to the major developments out of Syria, where the outgoing prime minister of the Assad regime has agreed to turn over power to rebel forces. NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel has the latest from Damascus. In the main square in Damascus, thousands gathered to cheer the end of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Entire families came to witness history in the making. Syrians have been coming from all over the country to gather here.

Hello. I'm from the United States. Thank you very much. NBC News. How are you feeling today? Very happy. Very happy. It seems to be the sentiment here.

Everyone says very happy. Wow. So this is a symbol of everything that has transpired here over the last, really just two weeks. The rebel forces moved into Damascus and the government and its armed forces simply melted away. We've seen uniforms on the ground. This tank was just abandoned.

Now the tank is in the hands of the people it was used to repress. There is one word I'm hearing over and over again it is Korea. And a lot of celebratory gunfire. The rebels were given a hero's welcome. Many are from an Islamist group called HTS, considered a terrorist organization by the US and the United Nations. Their victory was swift after Assad's long-time backers, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, did not or could not intervene. Everything will be excellent in our foreign and domestic relations.

We don't want to be hostile to anyone, said one fighter. The leader of HTS was once an al-Qaeda commander, although he split from the group years ago. He promised tolerance for all religions and said there would be no restrictions on women's rights. Syrians are overwhelmed by all the sudden changes and they're getting their first glimpses of Assad's life of luxury. A video claims to show his vast collection of sports cars and SUVs repossessed by revolution. The rebels have also been freeing political prisoners from a notorious prison once dubbed the human slaughterhouse. Assad escaped from Moscow where he and his family

were given asylum for humanitarian reasons. With him gone there is nervousness but also hope refugees are rushing back to write the next chapter of Syria's history. That's NBC's Richard Engel with that report, front page of the New York Times. Extraordinary story, William. By the way, Richard Engel's sitting there reporting, gunfire goes off, you know what Richard Engel calls that? Monday.

Yeah, another day at the office. Another day in the office. That was an incredible piece that captures the moment, including what the New York Times describes as the unease. Of course, there's celebration that Assad has gone. It's been 50 years under the Assad rule, the dictatorship, brutal for many people inside Syria. But now what comes next?

You get these rebels coming in, they've liberated the country, but what kind of rule do they impose? That's what we're waiting to see. Jonathan Lemire, I want us to undercut right now the whining from some people saying for Joe Biden since he's been president yesterday reports that 75 ISIS targets inside of Syria, targeted and bombed. I mean, he's moving, they're doing everything they can do right now to try to move this, this action in Syria in the right

direction. So the idea that he's sitting around, you know, playing poor and cheesy inside the White House is just garbage. Yeah, administration officials en route to the region now to start getting to lay the land in since Assad has been deposed. You're right, President Biden was just in Africa, a trip that Donald Trump never made

during his first term in office. It fulfilled a campaign promise, Biden to go. And this is going to be a deeply consequential foreign policy legacy for this president. And certainly there have been questions even within his own party, how he has cozyed up to Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel. But we're seeing there the changes in Lebanon with Hezbollah down. Of course, the situation in Gaza continues. There are still hostages. We're seeing his support for Ukraine and how that has shaped alliances and shaped Europe.

And now he will be handing off to his successor, who obviously has very different foreign policy views, but he hasn't done so just yet. And that's a key point. He, though, though Trump has been on the global stage, we know he was in Paris over the weekend. The Biden team, the Biden administration still conducting foreign policy and will to until the last minute. Still ahead on Morning Joe, President-elect Trump's pick for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says comments he made about women in comeback

have been misconstrued. We'll show you what he initially said. Maybe we should go through the sentences. And do you think that an adjective was misplaced? We'll take a look at what he's saying now. Oh, repeat it. Plus Hexeth was on Capitol Hill yesterday, along with Cash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard. We'll go live to

Capitol Hill for the very latest on where those controversial nominations stand. We're back in 90 seconds. I think huge is women in combat in quotas. I think the way they pushed that under Obama in a way that had nothing, zero to do with efficacy, zero to do with lethality and capability. You don't like women in combat? No. Why not?

I love women service members who contribute amazingly because everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated and complication in combat means casualties are worse. I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued that I somehow don't support women in the military. Some of our greatest warriors, our best warriors out there are women who serve, raise their right hand to defend this country and love our nation, want to defend that flag, and they do it every single day around the globe.

So I'm not presuming anything, but after President Trump asked me to be his secretary of defense, should I get the opportunity to do that? I look forward to being a secretary for all our warriors, men and women, for the amazing contributions they make in our military. So women in the military, of course, very different than women in combat, which you saw him talking about in the soundbite before, and he was extremely against women in combat. He made that very clear. And of course, there are many women serving this country in that capacity.

Donald Trump's pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegsath last night attempting to soften comments he has made about women's ability to fight on the front lines. But he didn't. He just separated from it. Hegsath will be back on Capitol Hill today to meet with Republican senators. He says he is meeting with Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska today and with Senator Susan Collins of Maine tomorrow. It comes after he sat down for a second time yesterday with a key lawmaker, Senator Joni

Ernst of Iowa. Last week, she was hesitant to support the former Fox News host who has been accused of sexual assault, abusing alcohol and financial mismanagement of two nonprofits dedicated to veterans, all of which he denies. But yesterday, Senator Ernst had a different tone about Hegseth, releasing a statement praising him for his responsiveness and respect for the process and calling their conversations encouraging. Here's what she had to say about the meeting when pressed by reporters. Does that say you're supporting?

I'm supporting the process and I'll just refer you back to the statement. Is that a yes note on the floor? It was a very productive meeting. I think we're just moving through the process, but he does respect that I'm taking the time to defend. Back up, back up. Did you talk to him about the allegations? Thank you guys, thank you.

Did you talk to him about the allegations as well, Senator? Thank you very much. I'll look forward back to my statement. Did he commit to the process? It doesn't sound like you're a yes yet. Is that fair? I am supporting the process. Did he commit to keeping women in their current roles in the military?

He is very supportive of'm supporting the process. Did he commit to keeping women in their current roles in the military? He is very supportive of women in the military. It is one thing that we discussed. So he changed his position? He's changed his position on that? Memo to self, John, when you're being chased by reporters on the Senate side of Capitol Hill, do not take the freight elevator. Take the stairs. That elevator door, so you can see the aid. It would not close.

I'm growing panicked about why. Try to hit the door close button. But they kept getting in the... I think the reporter had a hand in, I think. That's a pro tip. Is that a pro tip? Pro tip. On that side of the Capitol, put your hand in.

Some people are good at gaggles and other people are... Some people are like pro gaggles and some people are... The person is already talking now. Even though we haven't introduced him, NBC News national affairs analyst and a partner Some people are like pro-gag-alors and some people are making filibuster games. Even though we haven't introduced some NBC News national affairs analyst and a partner and chief political columnist at PUC, John Hileman's here and NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent and the new host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitale. So Ali, let's start with you on the Hill. We've been hearing through our sources over the past week or so that there are up

to six Republican senators who are no votes on on Hegseth. And I John I think you're reporting matches the same right? Yes. And right now, they are just waiting for Hegseth in the the words of R.A.M., to feel gravity's pull much in the same way that Gates did. And you listen to Joni Ernst, again, I find it impossible, hard to believe she would ever support him given everything in his background. But yesterday she said, had a good meeting, we respect the process,

we'll play this out until the end. What's your read with Joni Ernst and also those Republicans that are still hard nos but aren't saying anything? So there are the Republicans that are hard nos that you guys are referring to, and you're right that the unofficial whip count stands at about six.

But there are plenty of Republicans, including in the president-elect's orbit, who are hoping that it's not the gravity you're talking about, but instead the gravity we talk about in Wicked, where he'll be defying gravity. And I'm sorry for the pun, but we've got a lot of time still to go

on this kind of a confirmation battle. It's early in the process, and I think that's either gonna work in Hegseth's favor favor because he'll be able to continue to have these kinds of meetings that go from productive and frank is how I think Ernst was initially describing the tone of their conversations last week to now she's supporting him through the process. And Lamir and I were talking about this on way too early. The idea that she's had a clear tone shift is notable. The way that she's talking about in that last answer, how she didn't say anything about Hegseth committing to keep women in their current roles in the military, specifically that reporter trying to get at the idea

of combat, instead Joni Ernst just said he's very supportive of women in the military. She said it's one thing we talked about. Clearly he was not always in that stance. I mean, I don't think we should let anyone rewrite history, but it does give us a good sense of the way that Hegseth is trying to at least soften the image that he came into Capitol Hill with.

And as much as I think we're seeing Ernst say she's supportive of the process, that's not saying I'm supportive of the man, at least not yet. It's saying I'll let him continue doing these meetings. I'm not going to be the next person or at least the first person to publicly tank the nomination. And I think that's important, just giving him the space and they'll see where it ends up. But that confirmation hearing is going to be bruising and brutal.

You know, one of the complaints we had, John, of our leadership when we were in Congress is they never saw around the curve. They were just winning, fighting to win the day. I'm talking about back when I was in Congress. Fighting to win the day. Fighting to win the news cycle and not looking at the bigger picture here. All right, so maybe Pete Hegseth, maybe he wins a news cycle here. Maybe he wins a news cycle there.

But you go to the end of this process, they don't want Senate hearings. Because if they get Senate hearings with Pete Hegseth, they're going to see testimony, certainly reports, NBC News reports from Fox News employees of public drunkenness recently at Fox News, they're going to see reports of alcohol abuse when he was running two vets organizations and some pretty tawdry behavior while he was running those organizations that have all been outlined in whistleblower reports. They're going to see in black and white, they're going to see financial mismanagement of vets

organizations that were very strong when he started there, that ended up basically on the verge of bankruptcy and irrelevance through his stewardship of smaller vets organizations, let alone the DOD. And, yes, they're going to see testimony, just like we would have seen with Gates. It may not have been the 17-year-old girl for Gates, but it may have been the other women around that with Gates. But here we have the alleged rape. We have the police report.

We have somebody who leaked that to the New York Times and members of this woman's family, if she doesn't testify, other people testifying about what Pete Hegseth has done in the past. The email from his mom. And the email, of course, from his mom, which actually lines up neatly with everything we've heard before and after about Pete Hegson. This is again I will just say this I

said with Gates this is one of those old Midas commercials you can pay me now or you can pay me later. Yeah. And it is not in Donald Trump or the new administration's best interest that this is played all over the front pages of newspapers for a week or so while he's trying to get momentum for whatever policies he wants to push. Again, maybe they want to put up a good fight, but at the end of the day, this is just bad news for the DOD. It's bad news for America and the world. It's even bad news for the incoming president.

Well, I think that's definitely a point of view. And it's a point of view that I think- Thank you, thank you. Well, I mean, it's a point of view that I think- It's not really a point of view so much as a projection of how this ends up. It's not, I mean, look, I as a projection of how this ends up. It's not. I mean, look, I'm not taking the other side of the argument, but if you listen to people

like Mike Davis, the head of the Article III project and a Steve Bannon ally, you listen to Steve Bannon, people who have a lot of influence with Donald Trump, they disagree with you. They want that fight. I'm just talking about the hearing. They want the fight. They disagree with you. They want that fight. And I'm just talking about the hearing. They want the fight, they want the hearing, they want it all. They have a much more scorched earth view of this.

And look, everyone around this table, I think, would agree with your point of view about this, which is like, why would the president want this? And I think if you had those two guys sitting here, they would say, we want to win this fight and no matter how bloody it gets, the bloodier it gets in some ways, the better. Because we saw what happened and in Mike Davis' case, he analogizes all these things to the Kavanaugh experience, which is it was a brutal experience.

It was really bloody. It was really terrible. And yet we ended up getting our guy in this Supreme Court. And I'm not trying to compare the two. I was gonna say for those that do compare the two that's a big difference between a note that hey Bubba and Buster drank in the backyard and squeezed in 10th grade. There was a woman who came up on Capitol Hill and testified that he had sexually assaulted her So it was brutal for all parties there.

Let's be very clear there. She went up and testified. Nobody else did around there. Here, we have one case after another case after another case. We have documented whistleblower reports. We have testimony. I said already, I'm not trying to take the other side of the argument.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that the question of what is about to unfold there is not it's not like there's a you if there was unanimity of opinion in Donald Trump's world that this was a mistake and they wanted to get out of it. They could have gotten out of it. I think there are people around Donald Trump who are very Donald Trump wants. I don't know what the one's testimony about this person coming up saying he raped me and the public drunkenness and the destroying the vets I

stations and Jonathan O'Meara do do they like because there are 2 different things it's one thing to say I want to fight about the mismanagement inside the Pentagon and the bureaucracy and all the ways and how they won't listen to Donald Trump. That's one thing. And they can get plenty of people to run the DOD that can go up there and do that and be clean, just like the difference between Pam Bondi and Matt Gaetz. But you know, we're talking about two completely different things here.

You can have a fight on, hey, let's clean up the Pentagon. That's one thing. The question is whether this is a deeply flawed individual at this point in time to carry that fight out on Capitol Hill. And there's a bit of a split in the Trump camp right now, the people that I've talked to, absolutely, to Hileman's point.

There are some who want this fight. They don't care who it is. This is about breaking in the DOD. This is about having the public spectacle. This is about ramming their choice down the throats of the public. There are others though who do have that concern. First of all, also let's remember Donald Trump famously disdains people who drink too much.

We know that cost Rudy Giuliani a cabinet post in 2016 because he would drink too much and fall asleep on Trump's plane while they're hurling across the country. Trump has told people, I am told, that he doesn't care for that. It's more than he expected. They also, let's remember, the transition team, surprised by even that initial sexual assault allegation because of their lack of vetting, because Hegseth didn't come forward with the information right away.

And there are some who believe that, even if Hegseth were to go down, they could find a more palatable choice, one where there's a better chance of being confirmed, who still could enact all those policies. So right now, it is a great debate, but they are great with Hegseth taking so much oxygen though they feel better about some of the other's chances of slipping below the radar,

Casper, Tell, Tulsi, Gabbard and the like. And I just say it's true Donald Trump doesn't like the drunkenness he does not mind as much people who have been accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment. He's picked a lot of them and he's and he often sides with them and and I think you know they have this view which is a view that you've heard from a view first attributed, I believe, to Bill Clinton, which is, you know, strong and wrong is better than weak and right. They do not want to be seen as folding over nominee after nominee because they think that

it's not like, hey, if we give it on these two, that's going to lessen the taste for blood. They think that the more that they capitulate, what they see as capitulation, backing away from their picks for totally sound strategic reasons. Joe, I think your analysis is, would be the standard analysis. This is terrible for Donald Trump. And I think a lot of people around Trump say what's worse for Donald Trump is to give in and back away from someone who was one of their loyalists. But on top of everything that Joe has put forward here

is the fact that he's completely unqualified for the job. Completely. I do not disagree with that fact, but I'm trying to do the analysis of why this isn't an... This is not a foregone conclusion that eventually they're gonna walk away. Let me give you the other side, though. There are people, quite a few people, a lot of people inside of Trump World that look

at the Matt Gaetz pick and they laugh and they go, we traded up. We went from getting a guy who wasn't up to the job to getting a woman who was attorney general in the state of Florida for eight years, has Democrats saying positive things about her and also who they believe is far more competent. So they actually, they're not sitting around going, oh that Gates thing was just horrible for us. They're sitting there thinking, kind of laughing on, yeah we traded up, we're good. So I can't believe they can't trade up with somebody like Hegseth who is again woefully unqualified given all of the other problems. And your point applies also to DNI, it applies to Tulsi Gabbard, it also applies to FBI, to Cash Patel,

which is you can find a MAGA loyalist who will disrupt those agencies and do all the things you want to say that you want done to them without all the baggage that comes with them. There's somewhere in the middle there that they can land on. We'll see if they get there. Ali Vitale, first let me officially congratulate you on the way too early gig. Nobody better to take. Thank you so much started with Milton Berle continue. I started to see how 2000. Pre game show to morning Joe 30 minutes long that we put together with chewing gum and

duct tape. Yeah, can you believe that back then we had ash trays we're smoking that was the best. So yeah, the shag carpet carpet. We had the the pan member the band. Yeah. And we do. level. Yeah, I had to know changing gene remembers just change their. Yeah, remember, you know like like it was just.

I car just like yeah, Ali welcome this is how we do congratulations. Yeah, but let's talk about what's going on in Capitol Hill take us inside and let's use senator Ernst as the example here. Her calculus, which is she sounded skeptical last week because of all the things, not limited to but especially because of that Pete Hegseth has said about women in the military. To be clear, this is a quote from him not 10 years ago last month on that podcast. I'm straight up saying we should not have women in combat roles. That's a quote on the podcast from Pete Hegseth. And then yesterday she sounded more open to it. So what did you read into that and what is the vibe on Capitol Hill this morning about Pete Hegseth? I think with

Joni Ernst as the example, though I will say I think other senators, I believe it was Kevin Kramer, have warned Hegseth about the way that he's talked about women in combat and the fact that some of the very senators that he'll be testifying before Senator Tammy Duckworth among them have been women in combat themselves who have the physical scars of that to show for it. So that's going to be yet another wrinkle if Hegseth does move forward in this process. But for someone like Ernst, her calculus is so layered. It's the fact that she's up in 2026. We've already seen Republican senators who are not constant Trump backers

already drop primary challengers. She probably doesn't wanna be among those. There's also the fact though too, that she's also, at least in the reporting that we've done, a name that's in the mix if the Hegseth nomination ends up falling apart. Everyone at that table that you guys are sitting at knows that the way to get in Trump's good graces and stay there is to stay loyal. So by saying I'm supporting the process and falling short of saying I'm supporting the man, Ernst is saying

that she's being good going along to get along in this case while also doing a thorough check in her private meetings with him and then the confirmation hearings will be what they'll be. I think that you guys are right, at least the way that Heilman is talking about it. Like the chaos is the point, oftentimes in Trump world, they're not shying away from the fact that this is going to be a nasty, nasty confirmation hearing. Democrats are going to drag up all of this

and they're not gonna have to look too hard when it comes to maligning Pete Hegseth, bringing forward the allegations that you guys have talked about. All of that is going to be in there. But I also think that there's a very pervasive thinking in Trump world that if you fold on the first one, you're just gonna have to start folding

later on down the line. This is a man who has never said I'm sorry for any number of the public controversies that he's been at the center of. Certainly that's not the tone that they want to set now. But look, a long time between now and the nominating contest on Capitol Hill. The mood was bad last week. It's better this week, but it's only Tuesday.

We'll see where it goes. We'll see what happens. And Gene Robinson, great point about Joni Ernst being up in 2026. Something that Jon Hyam and I were talking about earlier. The fact that she has to worry about her primary and probably doesn't have to worry quite so much about what happens in the general election. But there are a lot of Republicans that are not up in 2026, that are up in 2028, that

are up in 30. And for these Republicans who actually can actually dare to be concerned about America's national security, I mean, if you are, if you're up in 2030, after Donald Trump is out of office, you can actually sit back and go, alright, this would be horrific for the Department of Defense, especially at a time when the Middle East is in more turmoil, I would say, many times since 1973. Absolutely.

Look at what's happening in Syria today, right? Israelis have gone across the border into Syria to try to neutralize possible attacks. The Turks have gone into Syria. There's questions about getting the Iranians who are already there out. This is a mess. And, you know, there are, I think, a thousand, or maybe it's just a hundred, U.S. troops somewhere in eastern Syria that have to be taken care of and given assignments and what are they doing today. This is an enormously complicated and that's just Syria the Middle East is a complete mess right now. And Pete

Hexeth is manifestly completely unqualified to serve as Secretary of Defense at this moment or at any other moment. And that is something, I mean, Mika mentioned it, but the focus has to come back there, regardless of what kind of person he is, which is certainly important, and regardless of his drinking. He is unqualified. He's a Fox News host. The Secretary of Defense is in the chain of command, from the president to the Secretary of Defense to the commanders who are trying to execute our foreign policy and keep Americans

safe at a very dangerous time. And that's something that I hope, and I think those senators are cognizant of and will keep in mind as this process goes along. I understand why Joni Ernst might not wanna be, wanna run point on this, but she served in combat, Tammy Duckworth served in combat. It's just, this is a bad nomination any way you look at it, and I hope those senators

keep, you know, not only recognize that, but act on it. Remember, Meek and I saw Conclave, by the way. Oh, I did too. Whoa. Really good. Oh my gosh. So what's the best way to become pope? Don't want to be pope. By not wanting to be pope.

And a brilliant insight about Joni Ernst. Yeah. Right? Best way to become sect-deaf? It's not by pushing over the current sect-deaf. It's no good for her to have her name in that mix. And you talked about feeling gravity's pull before. She has been, for the last couple weeks,

stuck in a moment she can't get out of. Oh, they're nice to die. All this move is is the move of, you go up to the Capitol Hill every day and have everybody just swarm on you and be like, you're the key person. What do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Are you gonna vote against him?

Are you gonna vote against him? And you won his job. Her maneuver right now is, please stop, let me just not be in the middle of this for a little while so I can just sort of like get a little further along here and hopefully this thing will go away and I don't have to take a position. You just did a Ghostbusters thing, crossing streams of morning and night. Eugene Robinson, John Allen, and Ali Vitale. Thank you all very much for coming on the show this morning.

Great conversation. Coming up on Morning Joe, we're going to turn back to the latest developments out of Syria, where rebel forces are now in control of the country. We'll dig into how the fall of the Assad regime is Before the top of the hour, time now to take a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. Rupert Murdoch has failed in a bid to change his family's trust. A Nevada commissioner blocked the 93-year-old's attempt to give full control of his empire to his son, Lachlan. According to the New York Times, Murdoch's effort is

aimed at locking in the right-wing editorial slant at Fox News. His other children, according to the Times, are both known to have less conservative political views than their father or brother. The scathing ruling characterizes Murdoch's plan as a carefully crafted charade. So I wasn't following this really closely, but I actually saw John Heilman that they got the idea to actually bring this action, watching an episode of Succession. I was just thinking exactly the same thing. Thank you.

This is pop flashed on my thinking about that parallel. When it was on a real time, it wasn't, to me, like obvious that it was just the Murdoch family. In retrospect, it seems more like the Murdoch family with each passing day. Right. All right. the Wall Street Journal has this headline this morning. In China's rapidly aging cities,

young people flee and few babies are born. And one example, only 5,500 babies were born in a city of 1.7 million last year. By comparison, Michigan's Wayne County, which includes Detroit, has a similar-sized population logged more than 20,000 births. While China's one-child policy supercharged China's economic surge, it now means there are fewer young people to take care of the elderly and fewer women to start families. This is a critically

important issue when you look at all the problems that China has been strapped with over the past decade You talk to economists you talk to CEOs You talk to people that are projecting out where they want to move their businesses where they want to do their work You keep hearing over and over again about the demographic time bomb in China That's going off and it is a nightmare for them So every man at this table is going to want to hear this next story because they're going to want to get their watches today Tom Brady's rare watch collection goes up for auction

at Sotheby's the 7 time Super Bowl champion is selling dozens of timepieces and personal possessions, including game worn helmets and jerseys some dating back to his time at the University of Michigan and ultra rare 1969 Rolex Daytona Paul Newman is priced to sell for up to 9. I come on bargain. I have to price don't what have the. I listen, I know that people are probably that get watches and that's very important. I like my watch collection, I

think I found in 1978 time X. close watch. This watch okay, people of the people of the guys know people that like to buy. I just lose some yeah, I just lose some way to get them okay, he has a royal oak that he wore that. This is really the these things. Lamer shots are not for this table and purchased in 1970 17 Tiffany's pocket watch. How much? I don't know.

How much are these things? Anyhow, we'll be back in 90 seconds with what we're learning about the identities. Why? A lot of those... That's 900 grand. A lot of these watches, I would bet money, were purchased for him by someone who was... These are investments. And the reason why he bought them in the first place is because he's now going to make a

ton of money selling them at a huge profit from what he bought them from a couple years ago. Well, let me tell you something. I mean, the guy needs money, obviously. So good for him. Hey, you know, it's funny, even people who are really rich play the stock market. Really? Yeah, it's wild.

Okay. Don't worry. I'm not getting you a pocket watch for Christmas. I got my Timex. Shout out Shinola, made in Detroit, baby. Oh, yeah. Look at the Shinola. Oh, yeah. I love it.

Okay wait, give me the info on that. Give me the info on that. Yes. Do they sell much swatches? Oh yeah, I have two swatches. They're under 100 bucks. Oh wow. I think they're 75, 85, depending on the one you get.