Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/12/22

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Trump says he turned down deal to release Paul Whelan

We talked about everything under the sun, and I was left with the impression that this is an intelligent, passionate, compassionate, humble, interesting person, a patriotic person, but above all, authentic. A U.S. ambassador gives his impressions of Brittany Griner after helping bring home the WNBA star who was locked up for 10 months in Russia. It comes as President Trump admits he rejected a deal to release another American who is wrongfully imprisoned by the Kremlin. Plus, what we're learning this morning about a phone call between President Biden and the president of Ukraine last night also had the latest from Capitol Hill as lawmakers have just five days to find a deal to prevent a government shutdown. Good morning and welcome to Morning Show. It is Monday, December 12th. With us, we have former White House press secretary, now an MSNBC host, Jen Psaki, the

president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, author and NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss, and the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Richard Haass, we're so sorry, but we do have to start with what happened yesterday with the Giants. I guess I should ask you what happened with the Giants yesterday. Joe, we don't have to start there, just to be honest. It was, wow, they weren't even in the same zip code yesterday. You're probably the best team in the NFL against a team that had been playing way, way over its head. And somehow the truth came out. It was ugly.

It was. Could we, like, move on to on to like any war story or something? He doesn't even want to talk about it. This was really up to. I don't think so. I think the fact that Jalen Hurts has just really become the surprise breakout star this year. The Eagles are by and far, like you said, they're on a different level than everybody else in the NFL. And I will say also, Jonathan Lemire, I know it hurts to see Tom Brady fall this quickly, but my God, just think how far his star has fallen.

Just a brutal year. You actually have wide receivers looking at Tom Brady going like, come on, it's not that hard of a pass to throw Brady has nobody to blame but himself he's actually got receivers that he just can't execute and that's fine what is he's like 67 or something like that nobody nobody would have faulted him he you know he's uh he's got his AARP card he's been in Medicare for a couple of years. He should have just, you know what, gone to the big house. Just celebrate. He's another

one of these guys that came back and played one year too long. Yeah, he's got those Social Security checks to bank on thankfully for Tom there. But yeah, no, it does. He could have had a storybook ending. He wins the Super Bowl his first year in Tampa. Last year had a great year, was second in the MVP voting,

had a wonderful playoff game that his defense left at the end. That would have been a nice walk-off, and we thought he did. He said he was going to retire, but then he came back a few months later, and it's hard to imagine he doesn't regret it. This has been a tough season for him personally and certainly professionally too. That Buccaneers team is just not good. He's had some moments of brilliance this year, including that comeback on Monday Night Football.

But he wasn't good yesterday against a great 49ers defense, a defense that looks Super Bowl caliber. And as far as Jalen Hurts goes, right now he's probably your NFL MVP with Eagles and Chiefs looking like your two best teams in the league. Well, yeah, they're really good. And, again, yeah, the Bucs aren't a good team this year. And I love Tom Brady. Tom Brady's not a good team either.

But, you know, when those cataracts start coming in, really you don't have the vision to scan the field, to look off the first receiver, go to the second. It just doesn't work out that well. Jan, while we're talking about numbers, let's talk about somebody going in the opposite direction. And that is Joe Biden. I mean, his numbers keep going. It seems to me the more the far right navel gazes, whether it's on Twitter or whether it's in other parts of the Internet and they're going, let's let's search this. Let's look at the hundred.

Well, they're doing all of that. Well, they're attacking Joe Biden for bringing an American home, actually giving a damn about an American. You know, I yeah, we'll get to that in a second. Donald Trump, of all people, letting the North Koreans brutalize and kill an American student and then writing love letters, as he said it, to the guy who killed the American student, not giving a damn when Americans are captured. And I think he's trying to like scurry up with the letters. We really don't need we don't need lectures from a guy who

lets American students get beaten up. But but while all this craziness is going on on the far right, Joe Biden's numbers just keep going up. Rasmussen has him at 50. CNN has him going up higher than he's been in quite some time. I'm curious, is that just the effect of the midterm? What's going on there? Well, I first have to give a tiny plug for Joe Bur burrow since i'm from a bangles household and they're gonna pay him approximately a zillion dollars joe to stay there so since you're all talking about football i didn't want to be left out um i will say what this there you go you can't nobody can track trash joe burrow i think um but i will say joe i mean what this tells you is that one twitter is not america i think we all know that.

Only about 20 percent of the country is on Twitter. So when you see people fretting about things like bringing Brittany Greiner home, which, by the way, is a positive story. I've been there many times for two different presidents where American citizens have been brought home who were detained. And what I can tell you is that no deal is ever perfect. There are always there's somebody who has given up in a deal. That's what happened here with with the exchange with the Russians. There is unfortunately often American citizens who don't come back in the full deal, as happened with Paul Whelan. But what I will tell you here, which is also a good sign, is Trevor Reed, remember, came home this summer. We had Brittany Griner come home just last week.

This means there is an open line of communication. You saw Roger Carstens say over the weekend that his next thought is how to get Paul Whelan back. That is all things to be applauded. And I think the American people like seeing things get done. And that's what we're seeing happen right now. Well, and Mika, obviously, anger from the Whalen family, not at Joe Biden, but at Donald Trump, said he didn't give a damn about their brother, never said anything about him. Again, whether you're talking about Russia, Russia kidnaps Paul Whalen. They kidnap an American student. North Korea kidnaps an American student,

beats him to death and sends him home to die. And what does Donald Trump do? Well, he keeps cozying up to the very people that kidnap Americans. And whether it's Vladimir Putin or whether it's Kim Jong-un, it's really sick. And this is a guy, again, who is actually lecturing Joe Biden on bringing Americans up. See, there's a thing he doesn't understand. Americans actually celebrate when other Americans come home. Sometimes it's not a perfect deal. Ronald Reagan had to deal with the Iranians, got Iranians home. Sometimes it's not a perfect deal. Ronald Reagan had to deal with the Iranians, got Iranians home. Sometimes

it's not a perfect deal. But you know what? Americans celebrate unless you're Donald Trump, unless you're some of the freaks on the far right, right, that are that are Trumpists who never said Waylon's name once, never said it once, never asked why Donald Trump was falling in love, writing love letters to a North Korean dictator who beat an American student from Ohio to death. Right. They maybe they don't get it, but Americans get it. They believe Americans should come home and they're happy when they do. WNBA star Brittany Griner is recovering after spending nearly 10 months behind bars in Russia. But even as the White House does celebrate Griner's release, officials say they're not relenting in their efforts to also bring home former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan from Russian

captivity. Paul Whelan's brother, David, is speaking out on why President Biden was able to do something former President Trump wasn't, to your point, bring the former U.S. Marine home. I think we understood that there were really two options. There was one option for Brittany Griner to come home, and there was one option for nobody to come home. And I think President Biden made the right choice, which is that an American should come home

if they can come home. Partly, I think the Trump administration was not prepared to or not interested in working on wrongful detention cases. And partly the tools didn't exist during those first two years of Paul's detention. We're starting to see that change. The Biden administration is much more engaged in wrongful detentions. David Whelan also tweeted this on Friday, quote, former President Trump appears to have mentioned my brother Paul Whelan's wrongful detention more in the last 24 hours than he did in the two years of his presidency in which Paul was held hostage by Russia. Zero. I don't suggest he cares now any more than he did

then. Zero. And then yesterday we learned that former President Trump actually had a chance to bring Paul Whelan home from Russia, but didn't. In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote in part, I turned down a deal with Russia for a one on one swap of so-called merchant of death for Paul Whelan. I wouldn't have made the deal for 100 people in exchange for someone who has killed untold members of people. This, by the way, with his. It is so rich, Michael Vesalas. Wow. This comes from the man that releases 5000 Taliban terrorists. I think he wanted to have a party at Camp David.

And gets nothing in return and then invites the Taliban to Camp David on the anniversary of September 11th. So letting the leaders of the country that actually harbored al-Qaeda to allow the attacks on 9-11. So suddenly this guy, again, this guy lecturing us, as Paul Whelan's brother said, he doesn't give a damn. He doesn't give a damn about Paul Whelan. He doesn't give a damn. He doesn't give a damn about Paul Whalen. He doesn't give a damn about anything but himself. And he's always just reacting. It's like when Vladimir Putin about American presidents, how, you know, they. A lot of times they look at these things like Marines look, look, look at look at warfare. You don't leave anybody out there. If you're if they're Americans, you bring them home. That's exactly what we do. And,

you know, thinking of what Donald Trump is saying, it's so ridiculous and it's so ugly and it's so un-American and out of our tradition, just as you were saying, that it reminds me of the saying, you know, we survived four years of that presidency. We're now watching this ridiculous sideshow of him running for president again, just grasping at any opportunity to get into the news. Here's a real life demonstration of the saying that the first time was tragedy. The second time looks like ugly farce. You know, think of 60 years ago, 60 years ago this year, the Soviet convicted spy Rudolf Abel was released on that bridge in Germany for the U-2 American pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who had been imprisoned by the Russians. And I just checked this the other day to make sure that I was right.

Almost unanimously, people said, you know, yes, we hated Abel, but this was a good trade. This is something for America's benefit. That was the way it was in this country. But to have a president, an ex-president like Trump, and it's even hard to use the word president of the same sentence as someone who made these accusations about this trade for Brittany Griner, thank God that she is home. You know, there's a tradition in this country that when this happens, everyone says, thank God for those who benefited. Let's go on all to the glory of America, to the glory of America. As so many people, so many people, they celebrate.

I mean, they celebrate when things go well with Americans and they celebrate when other Americans come home unless, again, you're so twisted by ideology that you can't do that. Now, listen, you can always have a debate about about hostages. It's very legitimate. This happens with every government. It happens in the United States where we make these these decisions. And usually one leader doesn't second guess another leader because they understand things are always different. It doesn't just happen with the United States. It happens with Canada. And, of course, there's a fascinating piece in The New York Times this morning. Richard Haass, Max Fisher talks about how countries that decide to take this approach of kidnapping,

kidnap citizens from other countries are the ones who ultimately end up paying. We could, of course, look at the major case, 1979 Iran, the Iranian hostage crisis. They never really recovered from that. They've been an isolated pariah on the international scene ever since. But you look what China did with Canadians twice. And they seized, I think, three Canadians. And before they did that, because they wanted an executive release, a Chinese executive release, before they did that, Canada was going to go into billion-dollar trade deals with China. We're trying to open up trade and have a more positive relationship with the Chinese.

After that, Chinese lost all those trade deals. And you actually had the Canadians that were leading, actually, the response against China to have a more united approach against China's expansion. So the cost of these deals in the long run, aren't they usually pretty devastating against the countries that break international norms? Absolutely. It's one of the things that makes a pariah a pariah. Look at the countries involved in this sort of stuff. It's China. It's Russia. It's North Korea. It's Iran. That's it's not exactly a group you'd want to be a member of. This is the pariah international. And this is one of the ways they define themselves. And whatever the details of particular exchanges, in the long run, the damage

this does to relationships, to reputation, to economic ties, to diplomatic ties is enormous. So on something like this, we can argue the details of letting this bad guy out, but does this fundamentally change anything about Russia's relationship for the better with the United States, with Europe? Does it advance Russia's goals with Ukraine? Absolutely not. This just further pushes Russia off to the sidelines of international relations. In the long run, it actually makes it even more difficult, I would argue, to normalize things with Russia so long as they continue to do this sort of thing. This is another example where they simply don't respect the norms of international law. Right. And with Paul Whelan and others still being held, I know Jonathan Capehart's

show yesterday, Ambassador Carson, Jonathan Lemire said that there would be a meeting at the White House today about Paul Whelan. What more do you know about what the White House plans to do next? They have certainly claimed they will not give up on remaining hostages around the world. And Paul Whelan, who was sort of left behind in this deal. Yeah, we heard from President Biden at the end of last week, certainly celebrating the return of Brittany Griner, but acknowledging there was more work to be done. Aides portrayed it to us as a very difficult decision, but one that Putin sort of forced on Biden. It was one or none, one hostage released or prisoner released, and that would only be

Griner. They weren't willing, the Russians weren't willing to talk Whelan just yet, accusing him of espionage. Both Whelan and the U.S. have denied that charge. But the White House is certainly not giving up hope. We're going to hear from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who's leading that meeting today. He's going to be speaking to the press this afternoon for an update on where things stand with Whelan. And there is some degree of hope within the White House that despite the war in Ukraine, there is at least

this channel of communication, that Washington and Moscow are at least talking about this, about prisoners. And in fact, we even heard from President Putin over the weekend in an otherwise rather blustery appearance, but said that, yes, he thought there could be other deals made to release Americans in exchange for Russians. Now, what that means precisely, we'll have to find out. But we heard from the Whelan family express a hopeful note that they believe that Paul Whelan can come home at some point. The administration has vowed to make that happen. This is certainly something that's going to remain near the top of the president's agenda in the weeks ahead. So, so, Jen, and tell

me about how how it works. I know a lot of people are asking how the back and forth works with the United States negotiating with the Russians. I know, obviously, UAE played a key role and act as an intermediary. But are we to assume that there are also these back channel conversations, negotiations going on regarding Ukraine? Well, I will say that as it relates to detained Americans, what is so hard and was going to be so hard for everybody in the weeks and months ahead is that the United States, even with Jake Sullivan out today, will say very little because the challenge is the more you say,

the more you put the possibility of bringing the American home at risk. And I remember, Joe, I was at the State Department as the spokesperson when Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post journalist, was detained in Iran in Evin Prison. And we could say hardly anything. I had about one or two lines I could say every day. We're doing everything we can to bring Jason home. It felt unsatisfying even to me right at the time. But we did that because behind the scenes, you have people like Roger Carstens, you have negotiators, you have intermediaries, as you said, other countries who are working with us to bring to strike deals and bring people home. What is important here to

also remember, and a couple of people have touched on this, including Richard Haass, is that while there is this channel that Putin has confirmed is open to get other have conversations about other American citizens, he is still drinking champagne while talking about targeting civilians in Ukraine. So this is the complicated nature of international diplomacy. They are still targeting civilians in Ukraine while there is still a conversation happening about bringing Paul Whelan, an American citizen, home from Russia. Yeah, well, so complicated. Well, it is. And Michael Beschloss, of course, you've written about presidents at war before, you know, FDR, Harry Truman, they had to deal with perhaps, along with Hitler, the most evil leader of the 20th century, Joseph Stalin. But they did it, understanding who he was, because they had a war to win. That's exactly right. And, you know, as has been said many times, you know, if an American president has to disqualify dealing with any other power because they have a bad leader something that's turned out to be extremely important in history.

Just two quick examples. 1961 and 1962, JFK defused the Berlin Wall crisis and also the Cuban Missile Crisis by having his brother Bobby beat with a lower level diplomat who was actually a Soviet intelligence officer in Washington and make certain deals and assurances that spared us having probably 60 million human beings in the Northern Hemisphere incinerated in nuclear war. And, you know, we'd only see the tip of these icebergs, just as Jen was saying. For instance, when Richard Nixon went to China, that looked as if suddenly, you know, he had sent a postcard to Beijing and Mao had written back, son, why not come to China?

As it turns out, there have been talks of this kind for years, not only under Nixon, but also under Kennedy and Johnson through such people as a distant post Polish ambassador and the Pakistanis. This is the way a great power behaves. So if you have someone like Donald Trump as a chronic campaigner throwing rocks at the president who tries to do this, despite the fact, as you mentioned, that Trump has been amazingly tolerant of Putin and what he's done in Ukraine, far beyond the tolerance of most Americans, even many of his supporters. That's what we're dealing with. We're in a politics that we can't take very seriously. All right. Here's a look at some of the other headlines making news this morning. A Libyan man who's accused of being involved in making the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland 34 years ago, is now in United States custody.

Two years ago, the U.S. government charged Abu Ajila Mazood for his alleged involvement in the bombing. The attack on December 21st, 1988, killed 270 people as the bomb detonated over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. Two others stood trial in an international court in the year 2000. One was convicted. The other acquitted. The U.S. did not say how it took Mazood into custody, but Libyan media reported last month that he had been abducted from his home by armed men. He is expected to make an appearance in Washington, D.C.,

in a courthouse there today. A rioter who assaulted police officers at the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection has been sentenced to five years behind bars. Thirty five year old Ronald Sandlin of Tennessee was sentenced Friday after he pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers. Authorities say Sandlin adhered to the QAnon conspiracy theory and traveled with two other men from Tennessee to D.C. with a rental car full of weapons. Prosecutors say he let the mobs charge against officers at the Capitol, shoving and attacking officers. They say Sandlin also smoked marijuana in the rotunda of the Capitol

and stole a book from an office. And Michael Beschloss, Doris Kearns Goodwin was on Friday. I saw. And we were talking about democracy and obviously a lot of concerns over the last six years, the election deniers, the people that were trying to stop peaceful transition, all of the lies that were told about the 2000 2020 election. We keep seeing these rioters, these insurrectionists, I would say these terrorists, they're getting convicted. Yeah, they're getting they're getting sent to jail because they believe Donald Trump's lies. You see time and again, this Supreme Court, this very conservative Federalist Society led Supreme Court time and time again. When it comes to the rule of law regarding Donald Trump, regarding elections, straight down the line, they rule for the rule of law. I'm just curious how

you're feeling now post-election with all the election deniers losing, with terrorists, insurrectionists, whatever people want to call them, going to jail for what they did on January the 6th, for the federal courts holding strong time and time again, whether it's the 11th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court, conservative courts. Wondering if you're feeling that Americans have initially passed perhaps the most severe part of the test of democracy. Totally agree with you. I have totally enjoyed the last month, not because Democrats won, but because I knew and you, Mika, knew and you, Joe, knew and others on our panel this morning know what this could have been. What if those election deniers

had been elected as governors, secretaries of state, members of state legislatures, key ones in those five or six battleground states that will be crucial, for instance, in 2024? We would have lost a lot of our democracy because we would be now looking at a 2024 election that would be sabotaged by people in states who don't want to see the winner installed as president and in other offices. And, you know, the other thing you were saying, absolutely true about the Supreme Court. This is a court that is one third appointed by Donald Trump. If you think about it, you know, this lawless marginal figure appointed three justices on the Supreme Court who are making decisions. Yet, despite that, they are ruling, you know, in many cases and other judges, not always,

but in favor, just as you have been saying, of the rule of law. That's the way it's supposed to work. And just in case they don't, you know, for instance, the Respect for Marriage Act of this past week, Congress said, we're worried about the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas, you know, made a little comment about perhaps marriage equality should be revisited. So the Congress rolled in, it'll be signed by President Biden with something that says not only will we preserve marriage equality, but also marriage between people of different races and other rights that we are entitled to. That's the way the system is supposed to work. So as I've said and as all of us

have said, anyone, and I said this long before the election, Anyone who ever bets against the American democracy will lose if you look through American history. Sometimes we take a step back, but we always step forward. Michael Beschloss, thank you very, very much for being on this morning. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Republican Carrie Lake launches a new legal fight after losing the race for governor of Arizona. Plus, we'll be joined by Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego, who has teased a possible Senate run in the wake of Kyrsten Sinema leaving the Democratic Party. Also this morning, Congress is inching closer to another shutdown deadline. We'll have the very latest from Capitol Hill and journalist Grant Wall was a pioneering voice within U.S. soccer. We're taking a look at his legacy and lasting impact on the sport.

You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. It's 32 past the hour. A live look at the White House dressed up for Christmas. You can barely see it as the sun has yet to come up over Washington time to get to work. Everybody, we've got some great must reads for you this morning. The Wall Street Journal has a new opinion piece by Barton Swain, Why the Smart Party Never Learns. And it reads in part this, the most obvious change in American politics this century is the sorting of voters along educational lines. The Democrats are increasingly the party of educated urban elites. The GOP belongs to white working class. If you're on the right, you simply can't isolate yourself from the habits and attitudes of left liberal progressives.

They are everywhere. The conservative voter who follows nothing but right wing accounts on social media still see CNN as a captive audience at airports. He attends a concert by the local symphony orchestra and has to listen to a four-minute lecture about systemic racism or climate change before the music starts. There is no bubble, no silo for such person. The left liberal outlook has triumphed across American culture, but that is precisely what has robbed progressives of any ability to criticize themselves or doubt their own righteousness. Progressives have become, if I could put it bluntly, incurious and lazy. Wow. By the way, I've got to say, I've got to say what this is one of the most fascinating op-eds I have read in a long time.

Here is a guy talking about people living in a bubble who is perhaps in the biggest bubble of all. First of all, Martin, as a Southern Baptist from the deep South who went to Southern state schools, I can tell you the left. I mean, if you think the left owns the media and academia and Hollywood now grow up when I grew up, when you had three news channels, the New York times, the Washington post, I mean, seriously. And I went to Southern State schools. I didn't have a single conservative professor. This was like 30, 40 years ago. Things have changed. And actually, there has become more ideological diversity now than ever before.

But, Jen, this is what almost made my head explode. I'm reading this and you have a guy in 2022 saying, oh, people on the right, they can't live in their, in a bubble like progressives. And you're right. A lot of progressives live in bubbles, right? And they usually lose elections unless they're from like the most woke parts of Brooklyn. But yeah, progressives live in bubbles. We'll all admit it. It drives us crazy. But to suggest that people in the right wing can't live in bubbles.

He's writing this in the age when a lot of my friends from from from earlier days, a lot of my church members from earlier days, a lot of my family members, still family members, they come at me with election denying nonsense. We hear people talking about Jewish lasers seriously. We hear people that Marjorie Taylor Greene did. We hear people talking seriously about some Italian dude with a satellite that stole elections. We hear people talking about bamboo and ballots in Arizona. We hear people talking about that suitcase lie in Georgia. We have people that get their news. A lot of them get their news from Chinese religious cults that run sites in America. We have people that get their news from from the plannedemic. Like I got family members that would just all of these anti-vax lies that like hippies in San Francisco used to talk about about now they're in these extraordinary bubbles.

And for somebody on the right to say, oh, we on the right, we can't live in bubbles. I've never seen people live in a bubble the way people on the far right, the Trump right, live now. And let me say it again for my friends and family members living on the far right. I'm trying to do you a favor. You keep losing elections when you live in that bubble. Get out of the bubble. Stop fearing people who actually think differently than you and like me. Learn from them.

Jen, I'm sorry. That's my speech for today. That anybody in the Wall Street Journal could say, oh, the right, they can't live in a bubble. When all of my friends and family members, the conspiracy theories are bizarre. And they live in this bubble that causes them to lose elections year in and year out. Yes. I mean, if you're writing with a $200 pen on like a long form at Wall Street Journal op-ed, you may be a little disconnected from where the country is. Bubbles exist, to your point, Joe, on all sides. It's not just on the right. There's also bubbles on the

left. But it's what is very true of the right, which you were just touching on, is that there is this belief that nothing will change in the country, that people will not evolve. And that is just flat out wrong. And Republicans pursue the same right wing policies at their own detriment. And if you just look at look, I worked for John Kerry in 2003 when he ran for president back then, which is less than 20 years ago. We had to find a slow bird for him to shoot in order to prove that he was for guns, right? That he respected people's right to have guns. You would never do that in a Democratic primary, right? Today, it's also true that in that same election, and I bet you, Joe and Mika, you remember this and other people on the panel. There were about a dozen states where gay marriage

was a was a divisive issue that was hurting the Democrats on ballots across the country. The country has evolved. And if you be if you are disconnected from that on those issues specifically and others, and if you are in this right wing bubble, then you are going to lose because you're going to be out of whack with the country. And we saw that play out in such a positive way with election denialism, right, that everybody in this bubble on the right wing thought could not be defeated. And it was just a little over a month ago. At some point, we're going to need to learn more about the process that led to the measure of the speed of a bird to make it appropriately slow for John Kerry to shoot it out of the sky. This will require a deep

dive in a later morning. Maybe they took the bubble of a Xanax or something. I don't know. How do you how do you do that? And how much practice? I will tell you, there was back then in 2004, everybody had a barn jacket on the Democratic side. Right. One of those, you know, look looking rural barn jackets, even if that wasn't actually who they were. And everybody went out and showed they could shoot a gun. That would never happen in a Democratic primary today. Certainly that has changed. And to Jen's point, there are certainly bubbles on the left as well. But it does seem this is a particularly pervasive problem, Joe, on the right.

That this is the Republicans now that it is going more extreme and the circle is getting smaller. And it's almost like they're talking to themselves often in code, like the big guy, plandemic, like things that people just, most of the country doesn't even know unless you're an extremely online person on the right, subscribe to QAnon or watch certain Fox News primetime evening opinion hosts. And they've become more extreme and more out of step with the American public. And it's, yes, it's on issues like abortion. It's on issues like guns.

It's certainly on issues like democracy. And that's where the Democrats in the White House in particular have really zeroed in on trying to paint them as out of step. And that's going to be the playbook going forward to Joe and Mika as the calendar turns to January and the Republicans have control of the House. That is what they're going to be talking about is how extreme and out of touch and insular the Republican Party has come. And that's a slow moving self-destruction of the GOP. Well, I mean, Richard Haass, let's compare what this incoming Republican House is talking about.

Oh, my God. And what our Republican House in 1994 was talking about. We can't say some of it on the air. Well, I mean, you look now and they're talking, of course, about Hunter Biden's laptop. They're in the middle of this this this Twitter thing that I swear I've tried to read through a thousand times and figure out exactly what they're trying to prove. And if they're proving anything, why? Maybe that Twitter made decisions that they didn't like. OK, well, Facebook does the same thing. But again, whether they're right or the obsession with Hunter Biden's laptop are being angry that American got released. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and we're going to talk about this

in a little bit, giving a speech, I guess, this past weekend, saying that if she had run the January 6th revolution, they would have won. And her exact quote, I would have got I want to get right. It would have been armed. It would have been armed. Now, they think that's cool. And here's the thing, my dear, sweet Republican brothers and sisters, you think you're owning the libs when you say that. And maybe, yes, there will be people on MSNBC that will scream in Yale and you'll get their heads disperse. That's fine. They'll be preaching to the choir. The choir will like it. Fox News preaches the choir. The choir likes it. I'm talking about the swing voters that made you

lose in 2017 and 2018 and 2019 and 2020 and made you lose again in 2022 and radically underperformed by 40 or 50 seats in 2022 in the House. And Richard, you compare that to 94. Yeah, Gingrich, obviously a very complex character, let us say. But in 94, when we came in, people said, what are you running for? Running for balanced budget amendment, running regulatory reform, running to bring down the costs of health care, running. We had 10 things we were going to limit, term limits. We were for term limiting committee chair people. We were for term limiting the Speaker of the House.

We were for making the laws of Washington apply to the rest of the country. I can go on and on and on. Here I am 30 years later. I can still remember the 10 things. What are you for? And every one of them was an issue that Americans said, that sounds good. And these clowns are running around talking about bringing guns to January the 6th, obsessing over Twitter, Hunter Biden's laptop, and just the craziest of things

that don't relate to quality of life, that don't relate to making our streets safer, that don't relate to inflation. That's absolutely right. I mean, the only thing you left off the list was they're also going after Tony Fauci, who's stepping down after a long, distinguished career of public service. No, that's what's so odd about this. You just had the midterms and you have a set of issues, the border issue,

inflation and the economy, the fact that millions of Americans have never come back to or a crime in the cities. If there ever was a moment where Republicans could just run on the issues, you would think this is it. And instead, you're right. They're dealing with their their hothouse issues. Let's make a point related to that show. I actually think this what worries me about this moment in American history is you actually do have respective sets of bubbles here in New York. You've obviously got one when you have one one party government in New York City. And what worries me is this is a country, when you think about it, was founded on an idea. The idea was certain things that were held in

common. But now everybody has their own media ecosystem, their own social media ecosystem. They live in communities and go to churches that tend to be one dimensional. They watch Fox. Then people, we no longer have the social mobility we did. I do worry that there's a separateness or in the political science literature, sorting, S-O-R-T-I-N-G, that increasingly we're leading separate lives in America. And I actually think that's really danger for the fabric of this society. It's one of the arguments for things like national service and so forth. We need some ways to get Americans out of their separateness and to give them some common experiences. If not, we're going to continue to drift apart.

And I think that's really unhealthy for the future of this country and for our ability to govern and live together. Great point. Well, it is it is a great point. And again, what we're what we've all said here is there are bubbles on both sides, bubbles on the left. There's bubbles on the right. But when when you obsess, when your leaders are inside that bubble, you lose elections. The Trump bubble has cost Republicans time and time again. In 2012, Republicans were in a bubble as well. They Mitt Romney, everybody on the campaign. They watched Fox News all day. They looked at Gallup polls.

They thought they were ahead of Barack Obama by 11 points. They read Drudge. They were certain late into the evening they were going to win. Remember, Karl Rove saying, oh, no, no, those numbers can't be right. Those numbers can't be right. Because even Karl Rove saying, oh, no, no, those numbers can't be right. Those numbers can't be right. Because even Coral Rove was inside a bubble, an information bubble that he since then he's not in that bubble now, obviously. But we can get in our bubble if we're not careful. But right now, it's the right. This losing election after election after election.

Well, why can't they see that? Like, what are they saying inside their bubble about their elections? I, I, I, I, Jim, Jim, I sometimes wonder, and I'm serious about this. I sometimes wonder whether they would like to think they're owning the libs more than winning elections. Like I've said it before on this show, like my parents taught me like to win. There was no losing. I remember one time I had like a 450 average in senior leagues. They were a little hard on you. I struck out with bases loaded to end the

game. I threw the bat down. I went to the car. I sat in the back seat and I said, I'm just going to quit. My mother driving off coolly and calmly says, well, if you're going to embarrass yourself and your family that way, I wish you would. Right. This is the same family that got angry when I only got 73% of the vote in my first reelection vote. Like, there were no participation trophies. But that's what I used to say Republicans were like. It was about winning. Maybe they just want to be a constant underdog. I don't understand why they're more interested in being victims than winners. But we're seeing it time and time again, Jen. And I'm serious.

It's baffling to me. Yeah. Well, first of all, that tough love parenting, I can tell you, as the parent of a four and a seven year old is is no more, Joe. But now we just like love on them and tell them, ask them what they want to do to make themselves feel better about their baseball game. Right. Exactly. You know, I would say what has happened, one of the developments, of course, has been the rise of Twitter, social media as a as a force for how people also raise money. Right. So the extremism, extreme comments, crazy things people are saying on the right has been incentivized because they get more likes, they get more followers, they can send out outrageous fundraising emails to raise more money. And they have decided, a number of Republicans, not all, for a long period of

time, and some in a different way, less evil, I would say, on the left, that that is the way to effectively run campaigns. But what we have seen that has disputed that, of course, is how a number of candidates ran successfully. I mean, look at Raphael Warnock, who just won last week, right? He was not thinking about how to be extreme online and raise money that way. He went out, he went to every part of the state, including red counties, where he had no probably business of going, where there were hardly any Democrats. He campaigned his heart out. He kept his head down. He talked about the issues and he won. And the model can be that. I think more Democrats hopefully saw that as a model. And in the Republican side, to your point, they're still running to satisfy Twitter,

to satisfy the extreme, to send out fundraising emails to their detriment. Jen Psaki, thank you so much for coming on this morning. Great to see you. And coming up on Morning Joe, after 26 days in space, the Artemis moon mission ends with a splashdown. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will join us to discuss what's next for space exploration. Plus, the Miami Dolphins get hit with a roughing the passer penalty. That's ridiculous. That had everybody upset.

Do you know what you call that? What do you call that? A tackle. Oh. It's a tackle. What? This is not a roughing the passer. Seriously?

Well, a little hard on him. No. He wasn't safe. No, Lemire, help me out here. This is ridiculous. Lemire, let's, let's, let's, we'll take a look at what happened. We're going to ask Lamere. Lamere can chime in. Morning Joe is coming right back. Wow, the Giants get close. 24. He's got heat on this one.

He's got knocks. Oh, look at that somersault. What a touchdown. This is Mixon. No, the fake to Mixon. The throw, and here is all alone for the touchdown, Trenton Irwin. Zeke up the middle. Into the end zone for the touchdown Vikings territory

Goff going deep on first down and is caught and taken in for a touchdown by DJ Shark second and 11 Lawrence looking deep in the end zone

Ingram holds on. Touchdown. On fourth and seven. Hurts lofts it for Smith. It's a touchdown. Devontae Smith. He's missed the past seven games with surgery. First and goal.

Dobbins again. Dances, tries, and scores. See what Andy Reid wants to do with something like that. If he calls his plays to the opposite side. Mahomes. He'll just chuck it ahead. And it's caught. McKinnon has that next gear.

Touchdown. For Tampa Bay. They're going to run it to McCaffrey. Right up the middle. And a stiff arm. McCaffrey for six. Darnold trying a stiff arm. McCaffrey for six. Darnold trying to cash in with a fake to Foreman. And a throw and a catch and a touchdown.

Those are just some of the biggest touchdown scores by winning teams across the NFL yesterday. The league leading Eagles are now the first team to clinch a spot in the playoffs after beating the New York Giants 48-22. I was expecting a good game there. Didn't get it. Let's go to Eaglewood, California. The L.A. Chargers hosting the Miami Dolphins on Sunday night football. The Chargers shorthanded on defense. The Dolphins held the Dolphins just 219 yards,

while quarterback Justin Herbert threw for 367 yards and a touchdown, the 23-17 victory moves L.A. into position for the final AFC berth ahead of the New York Jets. That'll be short-lived if the Patriots beat the Cardinals tonight. A lot to talk about. Jonathan Lemire, the Sean Watson experiment not going so well in Cleveland. The Texans, what a heartbreaker yesterday. You just knew they were going to end up losing that game, even though they led most of the way.

The Eagles, incredible. Just an incredible team. But I just got to say, how about those Lions? Even though they're like 1-5, 1-6, I was asking Jack, we were sitting watching the Lions this year, I'm like, how does a 1-5, 1-6 team look like one of the most exciting teams in football? And here we are five, six games later, and man, they're right in the hunt. And they took down a 10-2 Vikings team yesterday. Yeah, a little bit of a fraudulent Vikings team, perhaps. That doesn't take away from how good the Lions have been the last six weeks.

An explosive offense. They've had that most of the year. Jared Goff, a little bit reborn. Remember him as the Rams QB that lost a Super Bowl a couple of years ago. Pretty limited. But now the defensive line for the Lions has really picked up, too. And here's the thing. They have a ton of draft picks coming, including that Matthew Stafford trade that got them goth. Obviously, the Rams

make that deal every time. They won a Super Bowl last year with Stafford, but Stafford now been concussed a couple of times. His year is over. The Rams are one of the worst teams in the league, and the Lions get their pick. So they're going to get an early pick from the Rams, too. So they're really set up to be a force going forward, which would be fun. It'd be great to see Detroit have a good team again. But you mentioned the Browns. So much offseason baggage come with that Deshaun Watson deal. Huge contract, loading it so he doesn't lose much money when he's suspended.

And he has been downright terrible in his first two games with Cleveland. He's been terrible, and we've seen this time and again. When a team tries to look the other way on a character issue as bad as Deshaun Watson has, it just never pays off. It really never seems to pay off, and it's certainly not paying off here. Richard, I want to show you this roughing the passer call. I mean, you have been an envoy to Northern Ireland. You've settled disputes.

Settle this dispute for me, if you will. Make the call. You tell me what this defensive line could have done differently. How is that roughing the passer? Not only he couldn't have done anything different, he shouldn't. This is one thing I understand to protect quarterbacks. But then you might as well turn this into flag football. There's just nothing wrong

with this. Actually, the NFL has a real officiating problem this year. There's a degree of, shall we say, inconsistency that I think has got to be addressed because the idea that something like this happens is preposterous. Yeah. Now, it's ridiculous.

This is, as Alex just said, what you call that is gravity. A guy is going to tackle somebody. And yeah, gravity is going to pull a 320 pound lineman to the ground. We're not going to talk, Richard, about the Giants. Other than to just say that the Eagles are the best team in football. But really quickly, before we go on to the otherants, other than to just say that the Eagles are the best team in football. But really quickly, before we go on to the other football, I just really quickly want to ask you about the front page article about growing unrest among the young in China. What do you make of it? It's a really interesting story. It's quite a segue. It's a really interesting

unrest in New York football, unrest in China. It's realigning. The problems in China go beyond the zero COVID. It goes beyond the economic growth. You've got tens of millions of young people unemployed, even more. In some of these authoritarian countries, you see it in Russia. A lot of people are voting with their feet. Over a million young Russians have left. You see what's going on in China. You see the protests in Iran. These younger people see no future in these authoritarian countries. They're pariahs. They're isolated from the rest of the world. They've got no political freedom. They don't have much economic opportunity. Life is boring. Life is limited. And these authoritarian countries haven't figured out

how to deal with that in this age of social media and the rest. It's actually, I think, a really underappreciated situation. North Korea might be the only country that can kind of get away with it. But look at the price they pay for it. Look at the poverty. Look at the isolation. The China's, the Iran's, the Russia's can't quite control things to that degree. And what they're seeing, therefore, is increasing frustration. They're losing the next generation. It's not quite clear to me that these regimes are long-term sustainable.

I think all three are ultimately in play.