Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/1/23

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Israel knew Hamas's attack plan more than a year ago: NYT

That was the moment Karen Shem found out her daughter Mia was coming home. Yesterday, the two were reunited for the first time in nearly two months. The 21-year-old was kidnapped from a music festival on October 7th. Unfortunately for dozens of other families, their loved ones remain captives of Hamas terrorists and other groups in Gaza. This morning, it is not clear when more hostages would be freed. A temporary pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas ended yesterday. There is much to get to, Mika. The front of The Washington Post, the pope actually offers a warning to Israel over Gaza.

And Wall Street Journal's front page, right at the fold, you have the Israelis planning a year-long manhunt around the globe to kill militants, which is probably what this was destined to be from the very beginning. But the news that is really, really rattling things in Washington from Washington to Tel Aviv is this explosive New York Times exclusive that the Israelis actually knew of this plan of attack in great specifics for a year, for a year before October the 7th. And we're going to speak to one of the reporters who broke that story in just a moment.

With us, we have columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius, congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alamein. Who will be reporting, of course, on Kevin McCarthy's call with Donald Trump. Yeah, what's that? He's not eating. Come on, man. He's not eating. He's so depressed.

I got to go see him. Mike, I'm okay. And then he's like calling him. Also with us, U.S. national editor at Financial Times, Ed Luce. And Katty Kay is making her way to the table as well after way too early duties this morning upstairs. Yes, exactly. Great group this morning. Israel and Hamas have resumed the fighting in Gaza, ending a seven-day truce in the region.

The Israeli government says rockets were launched from Gaza overnight in the final minutes of the truce in the region. The Israeli government says rockets were launched from Gaza overnight in the final minutes of the truce. The prime minister's office also claims Hamas did not meet its obligation to release all of the women hostages, thereby violating the agreed-upon terms of the deal. The truce had been extended and was set to expire at the end of the day yesterday. Diplomatic talks to continue the temporary pause in fighting came down to the wire last night, signaling negotiations may have broken down, but international mediators are continuing discussions in Qatar in the hopes of another breakthrough. Before the fighting resumed, Hamas released eight hostages yesterday. The group consisted of mostly women and included dual nationals from Mexico, Russia and Uruguay.

In exchange, Israel once again freed 30 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas released a total of 105 hostages during the seven-day pause in the fighting, Israel freed 240 prisoners. It is believed about 137 people are still being held captive in Gaza. That includes a few Americans. The majority of the hostages are men. It's unclear how many of them are Israeli soldiers. And, David, also unclear how many are actually still alive. The question is, right now, based on your

reporting, what is going on in Doha? Are the negotiations continuing? Is there any optimism that there may be continued negotiations and more joyous scenes of hostages being released? Joe, the mood in Doha as of Tuesday was pretty positive. They thought they had a program, a set of categories for additional releases. They were beginning to talk about the particular details of how many would be in each group, how many Palestinian prisoners would be free for each group of Israelis. And Hamas seemed to have said they were prepared to release Israeli military hostages, the biggest prize of all. So at that point, it seemed hopeful. The problem that negotiators understood then and that's staring us in the face is that Israel was determined to continue this conflict when the pause ended and continue with its campaign to destroy Hamas.

That has not changed. Netanyahu couldn't have made it clearer in his meetings with Blinken that he has sworn to destroy Hamas. Blinken is trying to limit in this next phase the civilian casualties, but you can see that Netanyahu's determination continues. I'm sure they'll go back to work in the following hours and days to see if they can resume it. But for now, I think the guns are going to be roaring. Well, and Ed, you look at the news again, that is just shocking. Israelis and, of course, people across the globe that actually Netanyahu's government knew about this plan for a year, had the details of it, the specific details for a year, the blueprint for it. And and and and again, continued to not only mishandle the initial surge, but then sat back

and did nothing for hours, hour after hour after hours. People were calling for help. Netanyahu's government couldn't get the military, couldn't get anybody to go down to work. So go down, save these lives of these people who were being terrorized. So the question is, where is the pressure for Netanyahu? Is it to start bombing again or is it to have Israelis continue to see men, women, children released from captivity? I actually think this news would put even more pressure on the man whose government so badly muffed everything to get more hostages, to get more Israelis home. Distracted.

And of course, you know, the bulk of the Israeli forces were dealing, fighting fires in the West Bank because of, you know, incidents with settlers. And so they weren't in Gaza. It's not only that they weren't taking... By the way, that wasn't just sort of this chance. No, no. This was calculated by Netanyahu. This was all calculated by Netanyahu to win political supporters in the West Bank by supporting extremist settlers in the West Bank. And so he kept his focus on the West Bank, delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority while supporting extremist settlers that made things

worse in the West Bank. Indeed. I mean, this is this is I mean, we have to we have to tell the truth to be absolutely have to tell the truth. That's what he was doing. And that's why his eye was off the ball. And that's why when he knows what's coming from us, they say, oh, no, they won't do that. We're going to keep focusing on supporting extremist settlers in the West Bank because that helps Netanyahu with his religious extremist base. And it's not just that the majority of the IDF resources were focused on firefighting in the West Bank. It's that the Gaza Brigade was in the West Bank. So the level of negligence here exposed by The New York Times, they knew they knew the

intelligence. They just clearly didn't believe that Hamas was capable of doing this Operation Jericho Walls, I believe it was called. They had actually stopped listening in on Hamas operators. They had discontinued an eavesdropping campaign because they weren't taking it seriously. That's how negligent they are. There is a reason why Netanyahu. Again, we have to be clear here. It's not that they weren't taking it seriously. It's that they were focused on the West Bank for Netanyahu's political survival because he has three indictments and he has to stay in power or he goes to jail.

So paying attention to Gaza was politically inconvenient for him. Focusing on the West Bank helped him with his religious extremist settlers, helped him with religious extremist groups, helped him stay in office, helped him stay out of jail. Let's be clear here. They have a blueprint to slaughter, to massacre Israelis. And what do they do? They stop listening in. They stop listening in. And even before these revelations, the trust level of the Israeli public in Netanyahu had dropped to single digits. This is a wartime leader who's getting 4 percent public trust, according to Israeli opinion surveys.

This, I don't know whether you can go down to zero. He has no credibility as a war leader. Even his supporters understand his culpability, his negligence, and the element of design in destroying the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and stoking up Hamas over a period of many, many years. So let's go into the why here a little deeper into the New York Times report that Israel knew Hamas was planning a wide scale assault a year before the October 7th terrorist attack. One year. According to the Times, Israeli officials obtained an approximately 40-page document, which they codenamed as

Adzad Jericho Wall. It outlined point by point exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people, probably many more. The Times writes, Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out. Earlier this morning, Israeli defense forces responded to the report, writing in a statement, quote, the IDF is currently focused on eliminating the threat from the terrorist organization Hamas. Questions of this kind will be looked at into a later stage.

And I will say, Joe, that has been the answer from Benjamin Netanyahu and his people every step of the way. We'll talk about this later. Well, the problem with that is, and we're going to talk to Jackie about this very soon. And the reporter behind this piece. The problem with that is that Israel needs U.S. funding. We need to know what we're are we funding Benjamin Netanyahu? Are we funding his designs to stay in power? Are we funding an operation where we have to look

and guess, OK, well, is this for the in the best interest of the Israeli people or is this in the best interest of a prime minister who deliberately focused on the West Bank, deliberately turned a blind eye to this plan for a year, a year where it's specifically laid out? So I'm not so sure that Congress and the president want to approve even more money for Israel until we know that there's actually somebody running Israel that even the Israelis support. The Israelis don't trust Benjamin Netanyahu. The region doesn't trust Benjamin Netanyahu. Political leaders in the United States don't trust Benjamin Netanyahu. Political leaders in the United States don't trust Benjamin Netanyahu. So there's not really a later. Later is now. And let's bring in right now one of the authors of this explosive report, Ronan Bergman. He's a staff writer for The New York Times magazine, an author of Rise and Kill First, a secret story of Israel's targeted assassinations.

Well, Ronan, that's just a perfect jumping off point because I will say in the United States, I'm sure in Israel, across the world, we've always looked at the Mossad, we've always looked at the IDF as next level, as the best of the best. Oh, that was in a Mossad operation. Oh, the Mossad always gets their man or their woman.

We see it in movies. We read about it in books. And they've been Israelis militarily and in the intel community have been painted to be seven foot giants. Giants here in your in your report. They're like the U.S. would say, like Mr. Magoo with tragic consequences. They had the plans for a year and did nothing. Tell us about your reporting. follow your line mentioning books and movies and TV series, it turns out that the Israeli James Bond is not more than Inspector Clouseau. And what we saw is the biggest intelligence blunder in 50 years and a day. I think Spinoir and Mohamed Def did not coincidentally chose a day. I think Stinouar and Mohamed Def

did not coincidentally chose that day. It was a Saturday like the Yom Kippur War, the 73 October War, which was the result of massive intelligence failure. It was a day after the 6th of October,

so the 7th of October, which turned out to be, I assume, the darkest day in the 6th of October, so the 7th of October, which turned out to be, I assume, the darkest day in the history of Israel, much darker than even the Yom Kippur. The toll of death is the highest since the Holocaust. The intelligence blunder, just to put this very concise, and I'm just, for one minute, please, putting Benjamin Netanyahu aside, intelligence blunder focuses on two main fiascos leading to the third. The first one was a total inability to assess what is in Hamas' mind, what is in Sinua's mind? Yechad Sinua, the leader of Hamas in Gaza. Israel thought that he's about being a governor, being the ruler of a state, a small state,

but still a state that he understands that he cannot go into a whole lot of war with Israel because he will lose that state. Israel got it wrong. This is one. Israeli intelligence got it wrong. And it was also Benjamin Netany. Israel got it wrong. This is one. The Israeli intelligence got it wrong, and it was also Benjamin Netanyahu who got it wrong. He wanted to weaken the... Now I'm bringing him for one minute back. He wanted to weaken the Palestinian Authority,

have a foe to Israel that would not be considered as a partner. He allowed money coming from Qatar and others. And so Israel thought that Hamas is deterred. National security advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu five days before said Hamas is afraid of Israel. Hamas will not go to another defiance. They learned their lesson, he said, in a public interview to Israeli radio. The second was about their lesson, he said, in a public interview to Israeli radio.

The second was about their capabilities, not the intentions, but the capabilities. And Adel Golda, my friend and colleague, the New York Times and myself are publishing this story that you mentioned. A year, a little more than a year before, Israeli intelligence was able to get the detailed plan of the attack that Hamas was planning for a long time, about 40 pages. The Israelis codenamed this Jericho Wall. And it's about breaking a wall. It's about breaking the wall, separating between Gaza and Israel, destroying the front, ramping the Gaza division headquarters, killing the soldiers, and allowing many, many hundreds

of other Hamas militants to storm into Israel and kill civilians, kill children, kill soldiers. We know how it ended. But if you look at the plan, it's amazing. It's shocking. Both as a journalist and as an Israeli, the extent of knowledge that Hamas had about Israel, about Israeli secret fortification in the border.

I'm sure that one day we will know how they got this information, but this was not open source. Please. All right. We're just going to put up here some of what was seen in that report up on the screen for you. This is out of The New York Times. Israel knew Hamas's attack plan, again, more than a year ago. Officials privately concede that had the military taken these warnings seriously and redirected significant reinforcements, Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles, and on foot, all of which happened on October 7th. It played out exactly to the T.

David, it's shocking that even five days before this attack, Netanyahu and his cabinet were saying, quote, Hamas is afraid of Israel. So they got it wrong at every level. It's clear that the intelligence failure was was deep in the Israeli agencies, that political leadership all the way up to Netanyahu was part of that misreading. I want to ask Ronan, Ronan, this is a stunning piece of journalism. I want to ask you whether the prime minister, Bibi, was briefed himself on Jericho Wall in this process. And the second question, your reporting describes an analyst who got it right. While everybody else was ignoring this intelligence, there was a woman who said, this is a plan for war. They're coming after us. She took it seriously. Tell us a little bit more about her and why people didn't listen to her.

When Jericho Wall was obtained, a super secret way to have a copy from Hamas. This was the most updated copy of a plan that they started to devise in 2012 and made it more and more precise based on more and more accurate intelligence. Israeli intelligence, both military intelligence and the Southern Command intelligence, looked at that. They did not disregard, but they said this is a sort of a dream, aspirational plan. This is where Hamas wants to be, not where they are able to be. This plan was detailing how 1,680 Hamas commandos will cross the border in 60 different places.

Israeli intelligence said they can only have 70 cross in two places. So the gap was significant. Nobody saw that the gap is diminishing, except for one person, a veteran analyst who warned that they are closing the gap. She didn't know that they are going to attack. This is part of the intentions. But she said they will closing the gap she didn't know that they are going to attack this is the part of the intentions but she said they will have the capability and the other intelligence officer just you know pushed back and said no this is imaginative she even said we are closing into the 50th anniversary for the yoki poor war then in the southern of Israel, everybody thought it's just imaginative to

think that they will cross the Suez Canal. We should not disregard and patronize other forces. We should treat the enemy as they should be treated. All right. Ronan Bergman of The New York Times, thank you very much for that reporting this morning. Incredible. It really is. He talked about them being, instead of the Mossad, that they had always been built up to be, and the IDF. A group of Inspector Clouseau's, a massive intelligence failure, the darkest day in Israel's

history, and they had the inability to assess Hamas's mind. I don't say this, Jackie, with any glibness at all. But you get the sense from his reporting, there were a bunch of men running around with their chests stuck out going, we're Israel. They're afraid of us. They're not going to touch us. They couldn't do this. This is aspirational.

They're weak. We're strong. And the exact quote, Hamas is afraid of Israel. There was one woman analyst, as David pointed out, one woman analyst that said, no, this could happen. They're closing the gap. And we need to be aware of the anniversary that's coming up, the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. She was right. Everybody else was wrong. Yeah, I mean, reading this bombshell report from Ronan and Adam Goldman last night, I read it several times and kept stopping at the fact that this analyst was a woman.

Haaretz has done a series of reporting leading up to this in a similar vein, not on this blueprint exactly, but about all these female commanders who were watching over the border in advance of this attack, reporting back to their bosses that they were watching Hamas practice these assaults and they were dismissed time and time again. So there are so many lingering questions here. But this is certainly a big black eye for Netanyahu and his government, especially as the Congress and the Biden administration have yet. Can you talk about that from your reporting on the Hill? Can you talk about the funding and what does this do about the funding again for people on the Hill who are already skeptical, seeing what they're going to go? What we're going to fund a government that knew what was coming for a year and did nothing and let their people get slaughtered. Is that who

we're funding? So right now, there are no Democrats who are out publicly against this this additional package of 14 billion that the administration is asking for. But there are lots of concerns that are cropping up in my conversations with lawmakers this week. There are complaints that the U.S. is not tracking civilian deaths of Palestinians with U.S.-sourced bombs, that the rules just don't apply when it comes to how we loan money and resources to our ally, who I believe we give them more money than any other foreign nation in the world. One Democratic lawmaker was telling me in a briefing prior to Thanksgiving, they were asking Department of Defense and CIA briefers about the exact numbers of how many Hamas militants they have killed throughout this bombing so far. And yet the briefers couldn't even give them specifics.

So, you know, this is obviously extremely politically tenuous. I don't think you're going to immediately hear some of these big Democrats who are involved primarily in these conversations come out against the funding. But people want more strings attached. They don't want to call them conditions. That's a sort of loaded word. But I think Biden's trip to Israel and sitting in on the war cabinet meeting was in one way telegraphing to Bibi Netanyahu that he's got his eyes on him and this has got to get straightened out

in terms of how you're running this place. And I need to see what's going on here. And now you see why. With warnings dismissed, women analysts dismissed, as these leaders in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu specifically, extremely distracted over a long period of time, facing indictments over a long period of time, perhaps the eye off the ball. Yeah, the BBC actually had the same reporting a week ago about these female border guards who'd

been watching over what was happening. And even a month ago, they had seen a senior, I mean, a month before the attacks, they'd seen a senior Hamas leader come very close to the wall a kilometer away. And they'd raised a whole load of red flags. Again, all of them summarily dismissed. And the fact that so many people have been able to put this together shows you that the intelligence was there and that it was being reported up. So the Netanyahu government had chosen not to listen to all of this. It was interesting. I had a conversation with somebody in Morocco just a couple of days ago after seeing this kind of reporting saying, but, you know, why did the Israelis take 10 hours to get to the kibbutz? It's didn't make the conspiracy, which is a very good question. But in a land of conspiracy

theories, it's quickly being translated into the Israelis knew this was going to happen and they allowed it to happen. And why? Why would they do that? Because conspiracies run wild through the Middle East. I grew up in the Middle East and it is an area of the world where there are a lot of conspiracy theories. And there's, you know, the implication is going around these countries that Israel somehow knew this was going to happen, turned a blind eye, allowed it to happen for their own nefarious means, which is, you know, if you're going to go with conspiracy theory or cock up, in my mind, you nearly always go with the screw up. I mean, that's nearly always the case. I don't buy the conspiracy theory, but it's interesting how this intelligence and the failure of the intelligence is already being weaponized in the Middle East to cast blame on Israel.

Well, I don't I don't buy the conspiracy theory. But if you want to talk about the series of mistakes that Netanyahu's government made, this is find even more extraordinary, the fact that Israelis were getting slaughtered, were getting raped, were getting tortured for seven hours, for seven hours in a small country before anybody came to their aid. Children were hiding in shelters for 14 hours after seeing their parents shot. And nobody did. Again, people were calling out. There is no explanation. There is no explanation for that. David, I want to I want to just

I'm sorry, maybe just kind of continue to pick away at a scar here. And you had said when this war began that Israel had to fight the war with the first day after the war in mind. Now, I bring this up and I brought it up several times over the last couple of weeks because after the attacks, I said this is like 9-11. We'll talk about the details in a few weeks. This is a terror attack. We mourn the terror attack as a nation. And we support the Israelis. At this point, we still support the Israelis. But this idea that we're going to continue supporting Netanyahu's government and have them say, well, you know, we'll get to it when we get to it. The United States could say that after 9-11 because the United States was fighting that war. So and we had allies, but we were funding the overwhelming majority of it.

The Israelis know it. Certainly our enemies across the Middle East know it. We are the primary funder of Israel and we are propping Israel up so they can continue this fight, not only against Hamas, but for their very existence. You see something like this, you keep looking at the mistakes the Netanyahu government makes. And let me add, you look at the chaos in the West Bank that I lay all at the feet of Benjamin Netanyahu and his policies over the past 10 years. People listen closely. I didn't blame his policies for the attack in Gaza, but the chaos in the West Bank that threatens any peace process moving forward and also threatens another, a second front in this war, possibly a third front in this war. The United States has the right to say,

if we're going to continue propping up your government, if you don't have faith in this guy who knew this was coming a year away, we need a better partner. And Benjamin Netanyahu is not that partner. When do we get to that point? Because if I were in Congress, it's what I'd be saying. And if I'm saying it as one of the biggest supporters of Israel, then there's got to be a lot of other people saying it. We're not going to we're not going to throw money down a rat hole for a government that knew this was coming for a year and didn't do anything. So I trust people in Israel are watching the show and you're hearing your voice and that of people in Congress on the Hill saying much the same thing. It's a situation where there is fundamental American concern about Israeli handling of the war, and in particular, the prime ministers. I'll just tell you, Joe, having come back from Israel not long ago, Israelis are as angry at

Bibi Netanyahu as you are. His popularity ratings just have collapsed, and they feel a deep sense of shame as they look at what happened on October 7th. And by the way, David, if his approval ratings were at 75 percent, I wouldn't be saying this because I trust Israelis to defend Israelis. People are always telling Israelis how to defend themselves. That's their business. But in this case, when there's a leader that is this neglig has been rocked by what happened. They never imagined that this kind of slaughter could happen, that they'd be so slow to react, as you said. So how do they respond to this? So they responded. Israelis could never imagine it. We could never imagine that this was like we looked at this like we saw the Twin Towers when they were going down. We never imagined it, but it would be as if the firefighters and the NYPD waited seven

hours to get down to the burning towers. Absolutely. So what this says to me is the United States has a special responsibility that Blinken, our secretary of State, is trying to exercise now to express tough love, to be firm, not to let mistakes deepen. You know, we made mistakes before 9-11. We didn't see it coming, just as Israel made mistakes before October 7. They didn't see it coming. And we made mistakes after. We overreacted. We did the wrong things. You know, we created more enemies than we were killing. That seems to be happening now. So I think part of what Blinken wants to say is we see the mistakes you made before, but it's the mistakes you're making now that we want to we want to prevent. Don't overreact. Don't do what we did. That was Biden's message when he went there. I'm sure that Blinken is saying it again. But are they listening? So, you know, when you say they, I just want to say one final thing. In Israel, I met some outstanding military commanders.

You know, they look like Inspector Clouseau in this report. But don't forget, as in the U.S. military, these are people of very high quality who are going to lead Israel out of this mess. And David, for a year, though, David, to put context to this, for a year, I was hearing from people in Israel, from fierce defenders and friends of Israel, Netanyahu is screwing up the cabinet. He's screwing up the military. He's screwing up the intel services. He's bringing in right wing religious zealots who know nothing about defending Israel. He's not talking about the military leaders you were. No, no, no, no.id knows because i'm just saying those those guys are still those those men and women are still there right they were just pushed to the side

they were not by net yahoo thank you think of the woman who said who kept saying yeah these it tells us this is real this is real they're coming that woman is still there doing her job i mean even since october 7th the is the Israelis have failed to answer the questions. What's happening in the West Bank? Why have we got ourselves into a situation now where Hamas's approval ratings are rising in the West Bank? Because they are the only group that's managed to get our prisoners released because settlers are not being controlled in the West Bank and the number of attacks against Palestinians is being picked up. There are things that the Israeli government could be doing even now. And it's the American government not having success in reining them in in the West Bank. It doesn't seem so. We'll see. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we've got a lot to cover from Capitol Hill,

including Jackie's new reporting on why Donald Trump did not intervene during the effort to remove Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker. Maybe he was depressed and not eating. Plus, it could be the final day in Congress for Republican George Santos, as his colleagues are set to vote on a resolution to expel him from the House. And new signs. Senator Tommy Tuberville might be ready to end his blockade on hundreds of military promotions. This is a there will be the end to one of the stupidest stunts in Capitol Hill history. So Kevin McCarthy, George Santos and Tommy Tuberville. Send in the clowns next on Morning Joe. A lot going on on Capitol Hill at 38 past the hour.

Welcome back to Morning Joe. Jackie Alamany, you've got a bunch of reporting for us. I want to know if George Santos has any chance of surviving today and staying in Congress and Tapperville giving in. What else? Go. Yeah, George Santos is very much a question mark. This is someone who I think thinks he was Kim Kardashian, but in reality is more of an Anna Delvey. And in terms of the potential criminal conduct. Wonderful. That just came to me. Our demo just popped 25 to 54. Thank you, Jack. But this is something that Speaker Johnson isn't even whipping. He said

himself that members should vote their conscious. The majority of Democrats are probably going to vote to expel him. That means Republicans need around 80 people to get behind this expulsion. But there are a number of Republicans who feel like they don't want to break precedent here. The only other people in Congress who have previously been expelled have been people who have been disloyal to the union during the Civil War and then two other members of Congress. Wait, but this guy's worth expelling, isn't he? I mean, he was indicted by the Eastern District of New York on a 23-count indictment.

We've all read the ethics report. The ethics committee was working on their report for eight months. They obtained 170,000 pages worth of evidence and information. Just I think I think it's a baby. Was he holding that day? We're still we're going to have to wait for the post congressional reality TV show on Netflix. But that's all. That is actually a good question. A lot of people have been asking him, what is he doing next? Is there some sort of dating show for people in prison? He can maybe go on or some reality show.

That is a serious question that people have been asking him. But it remains to be seen whether or not he's he's actually going to get expelled today. The House Freedom Caucus has come out against it. They have said that, one, they find the ethics committee biased, which, by the way, is equally comprised of Democrats and Republicans. Republicans on the committee unanimously voted to expel call that bipartisan committee biased. I think that's also for some members who probably are going to get hit pretty hard by the Ethics Committee in the future. But Tommy. But, yeah, I'd say Congress usually, you know, they're like, you know, we won't support them in the next primary and then we'll leave it up to the voters. I think that's always been the mindset. We'll see if they break that precedent here. Tommy Tuberville, is he beginning to back down? He has said that he wants to get as many people nominated as possible in the coming weeks. He says that there have been some agreements come

to strip the language about abortion from the National Defense Authorization Act, which was why he claimed he was holding everything up. But based on reporting from from our colleagues who cover the Senate, it's actually just frustrations have been boiling over from his own colleagues. Really getting hammered by Republicans, isn't he? Exactly. People like Joni Ernst. It's gone beyond, you know, the the sort of hawkish Lindsey Graham types and really started to hit the whole conference. And then finally, a call between McCarthy and Trump. Tell us about it.

Was it like a wellness check or like what are we talking about? That's actually a good question and that we weren't totally able to get to the bottom to exactly why they were speaking. We were told it was sort of a routine checkup post. Routine checkup. McCarthy. He was making sure the burgers were being delivered on time. They both have jobs to do despite McCarthy being ousted from the speaker's seat. But that in the course of that call, Trump expressed to McCarthy why exactly he declined to get people like Matt Gaetz and these other hardline Republicans off of his back and back down from their plan to remove him from the speakership by pushing forward

this motion to vacate. Trump said that McCarthy was essentially insufficiently loyal, didn't endorse him, didn't bring to the floor these two bills that Trump wanted to expunge his impeachment inquiries. McCarthy, in recollections about these conversations to other people after the fact, claimed that he told Trump to, he said, F you. He has said this before. This is a very similar McCarthy story that we've heard, sort of the discrepancies between his recollections of his private conversation with Trump versus what he actually said. McCarthy's people said he didn't curse him out. No, we've talked to people who said this is this is an ongoing routine by Kevin McCarthy,

who claims to third parties that he shouted, screamed and shouted at Donald Trump and and told him to blank off and yelled at him on January 6th. You don't F with me. You know exactly who these people, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't know. It never squares up. We never hear him saying that publicly. Never hear him talking. If he talks stuff about Trump, he backs down the next day. Goes to visit him. So I don't believe a word. I mean, I'm very excited. Thank you. Exactly. Using terms like F you are getting very close to the edge.

Yes, yes. But I don't believe a word of it either. I don't believe a word. You know, I can believe Liz Cheney saying F you to all these people and then deserving it fully. But McCarthy to Trump. No, George Santos is likelier to be to have a truthful resume. Yeah. And that to be true. The best thing said, one of the best things said on January 6th,

speaking of Liz Cheney, was when a certain member of the Republican Congress, well, Jim Jordan, put his hand on her arm to help her. And she goes, get your hand off of me. You're responsible for this. You did this. All right. The Washington Post, Jackie Alomany. Thank you very much. Thank you for all the pop culture references.

Helps us. All right. Coming up, the top Democrat in the House calls out Republicans for their lack of legislative achievements. We'll play for those comments. Well, he was quoted. OK, it's Hakeem Jeffries. All right. And we'll also bring Chris Matthews into the conversation. Morning Joe's coming right back. failed. As we head into yet another winter, we expect that Russia will return to this cruel

tactic and again try to pursue a campaign to destroy Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure. In just the last couple of days, we've seen some airstrikes taken by the Russians that seem to be going after the kind of defensive systems that the Ukrainians have in place to protect their energy infrastructure. National security spokesperson John Kirby warning that the United States expects Russia will again target Ukrainian energy infrastructure this winter. Last winter, rather than limit the fighting to the battlefield, Russian forces launched attacks throughout Ukraine aimed at power stations and energy sources, trying to cut the power to both military targets and civilian populations. Joining us now is Poland's former foreign minister and minister of national defense, Radek Sikorski.

He's a current member of the European Parliament and chair of the Delegation for Relations with the United States. It's really good to have you here on the set with us. Great. Great to have you here. Can we talk first about it's been a while, but talk about the significance of Poland's election. One of we think one of the most important elections, at least here stateside in Europe in quite some time. We had a backsliding on rule of law in Poland, and we managed to defeat the populists. And it happened through a huge turnout, unprecedented. When we voted on communism back in 1989, the turnout was 63 percent. This time, turnout was 74 percent. What do you think made the difference? Because most people thought it wasn't going to happen. Justice Party would probably win because they had all all the controls of the government, the media. They you know, most outside observers

would say, well, they basically control all of the levers. They should be winning this. But they didn't. What happened? The former prime minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, returned and put together a coalition. And he very effectively mobilized the Polish people against the corruption, against taking us out of the European Union. That, I think, in the end, what the election was about. We want to stay part of the West. We don't want some kind of authoritarian experiment. And I will tell you, Ed, traveling around Poland, when going from Warsaw, going down to Auschwitz and traveling around, you really could see

the impact of the EU and the funding on the infrastructure. I mean, it's an extraordinary difference. Well, one thing that I think is relevant in the American context is that the outgoing government imposed the harshest anti-abortion law in Europe, in Poland. That's right. And young women turned out to vote because they said enough is enough. Right. So what I'm really interested in is, Donald Tusk, your leader, spent a year going around and touching people, right?

Basically speaking to people, spending weeks in different provinces, getting round the state media monopoly of the Law and Justice Party through spending time on the ground and you getting these extraordinary turn at 85% in Warsaw. People understood what was at stake in the Polish election.

What lessons do you think we can take this side of the Atlantic for 2024? Well, electoral systems matter, mobilization matters, and then a piece of luck also matters. The luck being? Well, the Polish populists gained power because one party didn't make the threshold back in 2015. And this time we all got into parliament and that's why we have a majority. So institutions, personalities and shaping the issue. You win or lose depending on what the people think the election is about. Sometimes when it's about cultural issues, you lose.

And when it's about the economy or about geopolitical orientation, in this case, we won. David? Barak, we read about war weariness in Europe, about the Ukraine war, and even in Ukraine itself. When I was there six weeks ago, people seemed exhausted by the war. Is that the same phenomenon happening in Poland? Do you find Poles who were so supportive of Zelensky in Ukraine beginning to flag in their enthusiasm, or is it as strong as it was? You know, it was easy to support Ukraine when they were winning. The Ukrainians are the only ones who are entitled to feel tired because they are actually losing

people. It's their cities that are being bombed by the Russians. We have not made huge sacrifices. You know, our contribution on both sides of the Atlantic is about the same, about 79 billion when you count the American contribution and you add up Brussels plus what the member states are doing. You know, you are a $14 trillion economy, so are we. These are not huge funds. If Putin conquers Ukraine, the bill for that will be much, much higher. We need to support Ukraine in time for them to be able to recover their territory and end this war. And we need to do it for the sake of Ukraine, for the sake of principle, that you cannot grab other people's land across an international border. And also as a demonstration effect to other authoritarians that recovering what you

regard as a renegade province is harder than you think. So, Radha, even by Ukraine's own expectations, this offensive hasn't gone well. By some reports, they've got less than 1% of the territory that was taken from them back again. As they look to try to make sure that the Americans don't give up on Ukraine because of what you've just been saying, does it seem to you that there are any messages that those who are in favor of supporting Ukraine, both the Republican and the Democratic parties, and of course in the White House, could be making to the American people that they're not making yet? Is there a way to reach American voters that would be more successful than anything that's been tried so far? Because that seems to be key to maintaining

support up on the Hill. First of all, we are very grateful to the United States and personally to President Biden for taking the right decision and standing up for freedom and for Ukraine. But secondly, the Ukrainians have already destroyed about half of the Russian army at the expense of 5 percent of a U.S. annual defense budget. It's a it's a really good economic ratio. And remember, most of the armaments supplied to Ukraine are manufactured in the United States. Say that again. Give our viewers that. Manufactured in the United States. About the percentage of the Russian army destroyed.

Well, I mean, the Ukrainians have been fighting, first of all, recovered half, about half of the originally conquered territory. And they are dying and depleting the resources of an aggressive genocidal dictator. We owe them. You know, if the UN, if the international order is to mean anything, we need to supply the victim of aggression with the means to redress the crime that's been committed in the international arena. Having taken out half of the Russian military with 5% of the annual US.S. defense budget, this is good value for money, right? It is. But we have the same problem on both sides of the Atlantic.

We have not put our defense industries on a crisis footing. The Russians have put their defense industry on a war footing. And, yeah, we are richer, but we are not making enough equipment and ammunition. We should redress that. All right. Former Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski, thank you very much for joining us here on set. It's great to see you. Great to have you here.