Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/13/23

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

U.S. intel: Russia’s military has suffered huge losses

The American people can be and should be incredibly proud of the part they've played in supporting Ukraine's success. We'll continue to supply Ukraine with critical weapons and equipment as long as we can, including $200 million I just approved today in critical needed equipment, additional air defense interceptors, artillery, and ammunition. But without supplemental funding, we're rapidly coming to an end of our ability to help Ukraine respond to the urgent operational demands that it has. Putin is banking on the United States failing to deliver for Ukraine. We must, we must, we must prove him wrong. President Biden yesterday calling for Congress to act on critical funding for Ukraine. There are major developments with both hot wars overseas that the president is trying to manage right now. He's fighting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and that country's desperate

need for more weapons while talking tough about another leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is losing support globally over the mounting civilian casualties in Gaza, among other things. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, House Republicans are doubling down on partisan politics with the vote today on an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. It comes as the president's son is in a standoff with House Republicans over a public versus a private hearing. And we're keeping an eye on Wall Street ahead of the Fed's expected decision this afternoon on the future of interest rates. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, December 13th. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan

Lemire, former Supreme Allied commander of NATO, former retired four-star Navy Admiral James Tavridis. He's chief international analyst for NBC News. And President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, is with us. Also with us, congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. We have so much to talk about today. I mean, Willie, I've got to say of all these. So we also have a poll, by the way. These polls go back and forth. We have a poll that shows Joe Biden leading in the swing states that that he won last time. We'll get to that poll in just a minute. I wonder if people are going to obsess about this poll for a month like they do with all the polls that are bad news for Joe Biden.

But a number really stuck out to me in The Times report yesterday. Were these Republicans that are standing back, you know, the J.D. Vance has gone, oh, this is stupid. Why would we support the... Russia, here are the numbers. Russia started the war. And you know these numbers.

360,000 troops. They have lost 315,000 of those three hundred and sixty thousand troops. And that means they're having to go into prisons. They're having to scrape people off the streets. They're having to fight with people that have never fought in war before. And you even look at what they're fighting with their tanks. They started with thirty five hundred tanks. They have lost two thirds of them. They've they've lost about twenty two hundred twenty three hundred tanks, which means they're having to go back to surplus and salvage and find tanks that are 50 years old to throw out there. So here you have a country that considers itself America's enemy. Vladimir Putin considers America its enemy. And Ukraine has completely decimated any belief that Russia is a major military power.

And it's gutted their military. It'll take them decades to recover. And yet Republicans, the party of Ronald Reagan, doesn't see the value of continuing to support freedom fighters and letting them fight this war against Russia instead of us. Not one American has died in this war. And the toll on Russia has been just overwhelming. Yeah, I mean, we knew the war was going badly for Vladimir Putin. I don't think we knew it was going this badly. This is an American intelligence report that was made public, perhaps not by accident,

as the Biden administration is trying to rally Congress to support billions and billions of dollars more support here. And Admiral, the numbers are just staggering. As Joe said, Putin's having to empty the prisons to send people out to the front lines as cannon fodder and to die here. And I think the case that the Pentagon, the case that the Biden administration is making at Congress is you have the ability to help Ukraine win this war. They've got Putin on the ropes. We need you now. He needs us now. That's why he was on Capitol Hill. Now, he left probably a little bit disappointed about what he heard in that caucus meeting from Republicans. Zelensky did. But the case is clear. Without the United States, Russia could make progress in a way

it hasn't over the last almost two years now. Yeah, let's start with those numbers. You know, if I had started the war as a Russian general, and I probably need to stipulate there's nothing admirals like better than criticizing generals. But if I had started the war as the supreme Russian commander, I think right about now I'd be maybe a corporal in the Russian army. It's been a disaster of leadership, generalship, military operations, logistics. And to that butcher's bill that Joe laid out a moment ago, don't forget, probably 500,000 young Russian males of draft age have now left Russia. So you can add that to your casualty list.

And I bet most of those aren't coming back. And newsflash, those are the Internet savvy ones, the smart ones, the ones that had some resources to get away from what Vladimir Putin is creating. Now, in the midst of this, let's face it, good news for Zelensky. I just strike one cautionary note. Russia is reaching out to North Korea. They're reaching out to Iran to replenish these military stocks. They do have a population that's triple that of Ukraine. There's still manpower, albeit, as you point out, increasingly depressed capabilities coming out of prisons. But I'll tell you what, I don't like the Russian hand of cards militarily here. I think where this leads us is the probability of a static set of military lines between these two sides,

I think, is rising at this point rather than falling. Yeah, agreed. Agreed, which, again, suggests that at some point there need to be negotiations to bring this war to an end. And I think it would help Zelensky and it would help the Ukrainians to send that message to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. We're not going to keep fighting this war for three or four years. We understand if the lines don't move, if this looks like World War One, we're going to have to go to the negotiating table because this is this is not a forever war. So as we're finding. But, you know, Richard, we should look at the Republicans, the Republicans holding support for Israel hostage, holding support for the Ukrainian soldiers hostage. We should look at that through the lens of what Donald Trump did to Zelensky, where where he told Zelensky, I'm not going to send you any any defensive weapons

until you get dirt on my political rivals. So they're they're they're impacting. Trump is impacting U.S. foreign policy for his own personal purposes. You have these Republicans who claim they want to support Israel, claim they want to support Ukraine, but they're holding it hostage for border security. Here's the rub. Biden has let them know he wants the deal. He's going to get tougher on border security. He will meet them more than halfway. And the Republican response, we're not going to do a deal. We're going to make it impossible for Joe Biden to get a deal done by the end of the year, all for just just naked political reasons. And they're willing to leave Israel and Ukraine hanging out there. Like if that's the case, Joe, it's bad for border security. It's bad for America's reputation in the world. Bad for American security.

I was with J.D. Vance yesterday. We were both speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO conference in Washington. And when he spoke about Ukraine, his whole emphasis was really what I would call a kind of isolationist thing. We've got to be doing more at home, not not abroad. I've got to speak to the people of Ohio sort of thing. And then secondly, it was the familiar stuff of bashing the allies. They're not doing enough. What I think Ukraine also, though, needs to think about, and there was a big story in yesterday's New York Times about it, is I think they've got a much more compelling story if they focus on survival and maintaining what they've got. I think the idea, even if they got the sort of aid you would like to see going to them, the idea that they could roll back the Russians and regain the other 20 percent of their country

that's rightfully theirs, I think is a real long shot. As the admiral says, Russia's putting out a lot of ordnance. Russia can, by the way, produce incomparably more stuff militarily than we now can, which is another conversation about whatever happened to our manufacturing base. But let's put that aside. I think Ukraine has a much stronger story if they basically say we need this help to keep what we've got to survive. We can then talk about new relations with NATO, new relations with the European Union. But I think it's going to be harder and harder to make the argument that if you give aid to Ukraine, they will be successful in liberating the rest of their territory. I don't

think that's a credible argument. And I think at some point, Mr. Zelensky is going to have to pivot, not giving up his long term goals, but simply saying for the near term, we're not going to be able to accomplish it through military means, but we're going to keep it on the agenda. So let's talk about that funding and that aid. Supplemental funding for Ukraine before Christmas now seems very unlikely, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell saying yesterday it will be practically impossible, in his words, to get a deal done. Asked yesterday about where Republicans in Congress stand on aid for Ukraine, House Speaker Mike Johnson told NBC News it would approve it if, quote, they give us the

border. So, Jackie, let's talk about this proposal from Republicans. Zelensky was making the case to Congress yesterday that he needs the aid. He was pushed about the U.S. border. He said, I don't know anything about your border. I do understand there are politics involved here. I'm here to talk about Ukraine. It sounds like the White House may now be open to something on the border to talking to Senate Republicans about a deal that would get this aid to Ukraine. Where does that all stand this morning? Yeah, Willie, well, I will say that conversations were certainly more productive yesterday than they were last week after we saw Republicans storm out of a meeting on border security and having President Zelensky ultimately cancel his

scheduled Zoom with lawmakers to try to convince them to continue to aid Ukraine and send $61 billion to Kyiv as part of this bigger $100 billion foreign aid package. But that is not to say that there is optimism that a deal will get done prior to the Christmas holiday, as we've been saying for weeks now and our sources have been been worried about. But Zelensky did visit Capitol Hill yesterday. The pomp and circumstance around his visit was sort of bizarrely incongruent to the reception that he and the final decision he ultimately received from GOP lawmakers, which is that, you know, they still did not see his argument, as Richard was noting, as sufficient for why the United States should still continue to fund them militarily. Zelensky tried to make the case that, behind closed doors at least, that the warfare is going to turn increasingly brutal and bloody if the U.S. declines to continue to aid them financially, and that some of the tactics that we saw employed against U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are

going to continue and surge from Russian troops. But the remainder of those details of a game plan going forward were, again, not clear enough for leaders to decide, at least Republican leaders, that they were going to continue this. However, the Biden administration has privately been trying to encourage Democrats to engage in these border conversations. And Senator Secretary Mayorkas actually went to the Hill yesterday for a two-hour-long meeting with Senate leaders, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, to hash out more details about a package that the Senate and certainly House Republicans are not going to support Ukraine aid

unless they get more assistance when it comes to the border. But these tenants and some of the things unless they get more assistance when it comes to the border. But these tenants and some of the things that lawmakers are discussing about bringing back now, these Title 42-esque policies are not going to be popular with progressive Democrats. You know, Jonathan Lemire, the White House has calculated that in. They want a deal. They want a deal because they actually care about whether Vladimir Putin gets to Kiev.

They want a deal because they actually want the Israelis to be able to defend themselves and want the U.S. to get involved. And they also want a deal on the border because they know it's in their best political interest to get a deal on the border. And so I see all of this sort of negotiating and everybody sort of circling around each other. But this is sort of starting to remind me of debt extension talks where they say we're never going to do a deal. We're never going to do a deal. We're never going to do a deal. And then they get a deal done here. We have a lot of people squawking about we don't want to help the Ukrainians. We don't want to help the Israelis. It's all about border security. Do they have a border plan? Well, yeah, they do.

But it's not like I guess my point is they're going to get to a deal. It's the Republicans and play tough all they want to. But are they really going to be the ones that that, you know, Vladimir Putin is going to be thanking when the tanks roll into Kiev? Are they really going to be the ones that Hamas is going to be thanking in their Friday prayers? Are they going to really be thanking Mike Johnson and the Republican House for gutting support for it? No, they're not going to do that. So it's just these machinations. And talk to what you've heard in the White House about how they want to deal. They want to deal not just for Israel and Ukraine, but they want to deal on the border where they can be tougher than their progressive base wants them to be and be able to say we couldn't do anything about it because this funding fight. Yeah, there are a few things at play here, Joe.

First, the border. We heard from President Biden directly earlier this week saying he's open to deal. He's open to putting some pretty significant measures and changes at the border. And that's a calculation this White House has made that they know this is a political vulnerability. Yes, to Jackie's point, there will be real progressive blowback. That's happened before. And that is nerve that creates some anxiety in a reelection campaign as President Biden prepares to face voters again next year and is going to need to turn out his base. But they believe those voters will come back. They think that it's a far greater risk to not do anything at the border, which White House aides privately acknowledge has been a weak spot since the president's first day in office. They have not had a good plan there, and their efforts to this point haven't worked.

So there is an openness to deal and there is a sense. I talked to senior officials yesterday after all these meetings. There is a little more optimism that a deal could come. It's a question of when, though, and timing is important here. There does seem unlikely to happen now or before the winter holidays. So therefore, this is going to spill into January where there's also fights looming ahead about government funding and a possible shutdown. And there will be start that will start to feel the lack of American aid will be felt on the battlefield and that frozen conflict in Ukraine. And to circle back to those statistics, those incredible statistics about the number of

Russian losses. There's a sense right now, though, that Putin has a little bit of momentum that despite all that, because the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed and Russia has been able to resupply and there is a sense among national security officials that they're going to launch another counter. Russia is going to launch an offensive that could be more effective if the Ukrainians run out of supplies and ammo, which is at risk if a deal doesn't get done and get done soon. Well, and I just got to ask every day that this goes by, Admiral, what kind of message does it send to our NATO allies, to our European allies?

Katty Kay said yesterday the word is in Europe that Putin is winning. What message does it send to them? What message does it send to President Xi? As Mike McCaul has said, Chairman McCaul has said, all you're doing is helping President Xi here. Yeah. In a in a phrase, the world is watching. And what is going to occur in Ukraine will have knock on effects in decisions in Beijing by President Xi about ding, ding, ding Taiwan. It'll have knock on effects in Venezuela about whether they decide to roll tanks into neighboring Guyana and simply appropriate 11 billion barrels of oil. It's a global stage that Congress is playing on and they need to realize that. Richard was having with J.D. Vance. Hey, I would say, Senator Vance, you know, you're a veteran.

You understand what supply and logistic chains mean to a force that's in the fight. And you can't simply choke it off and think, oh, it's OK. In 60 days, we'll just turn the spigot back on. That gap plays its way through in real combat. And third and finally, I mean, let's do the numbers for a minute here. The total package we're talking about, and I support all four of those initiatives, they're all for legitimate security concerns, $110 billion. I mean, it's a lot of money. Our defense budget, which is what guarantees our national security, is $900 billion. The portion of that that's dedicated to Ukraine is well under 5%, 3%, 5% of that defense budget. What are we getting for that money? We're breaking the phalanx of the Russian military.

That's a pretty good trade-off at the end of the day. Last point. Last point. The Europeans are in the game. Europe has spent more on Ukraine than the United States of America. Twenty European countries are spending more on a per capita basis on Ukraine and total European contributions all in into Ukraine exceed those of the United States. Our allies are with us on this and they are seeing a blinking yellow light. Right. That's not a good thing. And add to that, add to that. Nobody said this was going to be a few weeks and then it would be over.

I mean, from the get go, it was going to be a long haul. And here we are in one minute. We're going to move from Ukraine to Israel, where some say President Biden's biggest problem is Benjamin Netanyahu. Well, Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be Biden's biggest problem in the eyes of Biden right now. We're back in one minute. Is this guy still in power after the most greatest intelligence failure since 9-11? Well, they're in a war. I mean, what do you want them to do, step down and go to war?

The reason they're in a war is because they kept getting intelligence and saying, there's s*** going on, and he was trying to take over the judiciary with all your right-wing s*** they're trying to pull over there. You did see the paper today, right? And they in israel i've been there any number of times 61 people in kinesia can do anything they want why is this guy still there why am i looking at him and all he's trying to stay in office so he keeps his ass out of jail okay well that is a good point they're in the middle of a war so you know what they would do to an incompetent general in World War Two? They'd fire him. So he didn't say quite like James Carville did, but President Biden offered his harshest criticism yet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

warning that Israel was starting to lose international support because of its military campaign in Gaza. He made those comments during a fundraiser in Washington yesterday. Biden suggested support from Europe and the United States is waning because of Israel's, quote, indiscriminate bombing. He also described Netanyahu's government as the most conservative in Israel's history, saying the prime minister, quote, doesn't want anything remotely approaching a two-state solution, adding that Netanyahu needs to change. Meanwhile, in Israel, shortly before the president's remarks, Netanyahu said he would block Biden's post-war plan to have the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza. In a statement, Netanyahu said, quote, After the great sacrifice of our civilians and our soldiers, I will not allow the entry into Gaza of those who educate for terrorism, support terrorism,

and finance terrorism. And I want to ask a question out of that quote. If you're so sure of that, Mr. Prime Minister, then why were the gates left open for these terrorists to run in and wreak havoc all over Israel? And it took eight hours for you to respond. If you were so clear on Hamas wanting to kill Jews 365 days a year, every minute of every day, Why in the world weren't you ready? And why were you supporting funding to go to Hamas? It makes no sense. And actually, to Carville's point, I just question at this point what he would do to stay in power because he has done a number of things in his government leading up to the war to stay in power that many say are naked moves that are just completely corrupt to stay in power. Now he's in

a war. Oh, you can't move him now because we're in the middle of a war. What next? This is exactly when they need new leadership. They need new leadership. And the White House knows this because you have a guy whose very political existence has been centered around security. And so this is a guy that oversaw the greatest failure of intelligence in Israeli history led to more deaths because of his intel failure of Jews than any time since the Holocaust. He knew that this attack was coming for a year. They had the plans in his government for the year written down how Hamas was going to do it. They knew this was coming for a year, written down how Hamas was going to do it. They knew this was coming for a year. And not only did they do nothing,

they had a meeting in Doha, Netanyahu's people, in Doha in September, less than a month before these attacks took place. And the Qataris asked Netanyahu's government, less than a month before these attacks took place. And the Qataris asked Netanyahu's government, does Netanyahu still want us to send money to Hamas? And Netanyahu's government said, yes. Yes.

Please keep sending money to Hamas. Keep funding Hamas. The Israelis, the Netanyahu government had been in on Doha funding Hamas. You know, we sit back and we're like, oh, my God, what in the world is Qatar doing? They're supposed to be our ally. And then we find out in The New York Times two days ago that actually it's Netanyahu who's telling Hamas to keep funding, keep funding Hamas. Israel to keep funding Hamas. Israel to keep funding Hamas. So and by the way, we still haven't gotten an answer from anybody in the government on why. After 9-11, it took three minutes for our first responders to get there. After a school shooting in Nebraska, it took three minutes to lock the school down, five minutes for the cops to have the place around and 10 minutes to shut down the entire town. And that's the story across America.

There is no answer. They have no answer. They have no. And this whole thing, I will worry about that. No, no. This is what we keep keep getting told. A guy told Qatar to send hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas weeks before the attack. And then when the attack came, he didn't do a damn thing for eight hours while women were getting raped, while concert goers were getting butchered, while old women were being taken hostage. Live on Facebook. While young boys were seeing their parents shot dead. And this is that now who's governed. Richard Haass, this whole security argument doesn't work. And James Carville is exactly right. It's something that

I keep asking myself, oh, we can't do anything till after the war. You have a guy that allowed this to happen. It was on his watch. He asked Doha to fund Hamas. His government waited eight hours to go down and answer the calls of women being raped and children being gunned down. And he's saying, oh, well, we got to get through the war. No, he's incompetent. And the Israelis don't even like him. They want him out. The question is, when are they going to get the guy responsible for the worst killing of Jews since the Holocaust out and bring in responsible leadership that the United States

can work with. The sooner the better, but not necessarily soon, Joe. It's one of the incentives Bibi Netanyahu has to continue the war is he continue to make the argument we can't change horses in the middle of it. So the real question. But we're here. We're here to stay out of the hell of him, Richard. I understand the question is any sense. It's kind of like if I said I burned down my house and then I go in, are you burned on your house?

Yeah. And then as it's burning down, I'm walking in and I'm throwing some buckets on there and you go, let's get the fire. I go, Richard, Richard, let's take care of your burning house first before we call in the fire department. But Joe, what this is about is right now he's got a majority in the Israeli Knesset in their parliament. And these people agree with him on one big thing. They do not want a Palestinian state. They want the settler movement to continue. They like the status quo. They couldn't care less about Gaza.

They just want to fence it off. What they want to do is avoid a two state solution. They want to continue to populate the West Bank. They do not want in any way to meet the Palestinians halfway. So what was interesting about yesterday is we ripped the bandaid off a little bit. The Biden administration and Netanyahu, essentially, it's clear. We see things fundamentally different as to where this needs to go. The plan for Israel right now is a prolonged occupation. They have no alternative to Israel being in Gaza open-ended because they don't have anyone else to hand authority to. So, Richard, if the president of the United States asked you, what do we do?

Do we keep funding Netanyahu to let him continue bombing indiscriminately without trying to figure out a less painful way? And conveniently, you can avoid the charges against him. I've talked to people in this administration. I've talked to people in the Trump administration. I've talked to people just like you in the Obama administration, in every administration, and they all say that we prop up Israel. We prop up especially Netanyahu. He's incompetent. And so we prop him up. So how long does the United States prop Netanyahu up? Not Israel. We support Israel. But how long do we prop up Netanyahu as as he damages not only Israel's reputation across the globe, but damages ours?

I agree. And the Biden administration has to be really careful here because we're beginning to look like enablers. We begin to look feckless. We criticize Israel every day. We get ignored every day. What can we do? Let me suggest three things that I'm comfortable with, particularly with one. One is in the U.N. We can stop giving Israel pretty much an unconditional veto. Why isn't the United States introducing resolutions of its own that it believes in? Secondly, we've got to look at what kind of military support do we give Israel? Now, Israel faces real threats, Iran and other places, but do they necessarily need certain types of ordinance that when used in Gaza kills an awful lot of civilians. Maybe not. Third and most important, Joe, here's what I would do. I would right now have the United States not wait for

Netanyahu. I would take the diplomatic initiative. 30 odd years ago, the United States under George Herbert Walker Bush, we convened the Madrid Peace Conference. I would do something like that now. I would have the United States working with the Arabs, working with the Europeans, maybe even bring in China. I would have an international effort right now to talk about how do we secure Gaza and how do we restart a diplomatic process in the Middle East? You'd invite Israel to it, but basically tell the Israelis, we are going to get going with diplomacy because this ain't working. What this is, is a warning shot that having a vacuum of diplomacy is dangerous. We are going to get going. We want to do it with you.

But if need be, we are going to launch this as as as required. That I would basically take the initiative. So, John, as you know, covering the White House as closely as you do, what we saw spill into public a bit yesterday from President Biden is what he's been saying privately, almost from the very beginning, which is we are with you, Benjamin Netanyahu, shoulder to shoulder. I'm going to fly to Tel Aviv. Anthony Blinken is going to be at your side in Tel Aviv. But you've got to be careful how you prosecute this war and not give Hamas what it wants by provoking you, which is scenes of the death of tens of thousands of civilians, including many children in Gaza. Now it appears the patience has run out. What does it mean for

the relationship? What does it mean for the future of how this war goes forward? Yeah, things are only going to get tenser from here. It would certainly appear. I talked to officials yesterday in the aftermath of the president's comments, which you're right. He's been saying things like that behind the scenes for a while, but now they've spilled out into the open. It took some people by surprise. No one in the Biden administration who's been they've been saying this for a while, that, yes, in the early days of the war, Israel took U.S. advice on some military strategy to keep their targets more selective. Largely, though, Israel is now ignoring what the U.S. has had to say, the guidance the U.S. has tried to provide. And the onslaught in Gaza,

it is in these images coming out are not just hurting Israel standing in the world, which is what the president said yesterday, but it's also fueling a true humanitarian crisis. And and there's some dispute over the exact number killed there. But what's clear from everyone agrees it's a lot. It's a lot of people have died. Innocent civilians have died, many of them children. And that seems untenable. And this comes just as Netanyahu says that they won't even entertain the idea of the future of Gaza. There's such a disagreement there between what the White House wants to happen and what Netanyahu wants to happen. There's just going to be further clashes. And I was the first to report in the early days of the war that this White House believes Netanyahu's political viability is untenable,

that at a certain point he will go. The question is when, Joe. But now there's real concern that Netanyahu will continue to escalate the fighting in order to stay in power. That is something that at least is being kicked around in the highest levels of the Pentagon and the State Department and at the White House. And they're growing less and less convinced that he can be a true partner in this effort. Well, and the thing is, for people, they're going, God, the United States shouldn't tell the Israelis how to do it.

We can have a debate over that if the United States continues to be the guarantor of Israel's safety and security, which we do. And somebody like Benjamin Netanyahu so mangles and mishandles it that he allows more Jews to be slaughtered on October 7th than any day since the Holocaust. But here's the problem, Willie. It's not just people in the United States and Europe and across the world that don't trust Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israelis don't trust him. A recent poll showed that 49 percent of Israelis wanted Benny Gantz to run the government. Only 27 percent wanted Benjamin Netanyahu. His approval. I mean, you know, there was a poll out on on how many people trusted what he said. He's in single digits.

People don't trust him in Israel. And yet he's saying, oh, let me just run this war the way I want to run this war and blow up as many things as I can blow up and look as tough as I can look so I can stay in power and not be arrested. Those are the things that the world's thinking right now. Those are the things I'm sure that some of the Biden administration, things that the world's thinking right now. Those are

the things I'm sure that some of the Biden administration, a lot of Israelis are thinking right now. And it's absolutely ridiculous. Why do you let a guy that allowed the worst slaughter since the Holocaust to say, just sit back and be patient? I burned the house down, but I'm going to stay here until it burns completely to the ground. Well, there's a good reason that the only answer we get again and again is there is no answer. We'll talk about this later. He can't have that conversation, given the intelligence failure and what happened on October the 7th. Let's be clear, though, Admiral Hamas did this. Hamas came in and slaughtered and tortured and raped Israelis.

But the reaction that they were hoping for in doing so seems to be the one they're getting, which is the death of civilians. Again, civilians that Hamas places in the path of those bombs. That's on them as well. Tony Blinken, it's not just President Biden. The secretary of state two days ago said of Israel, there is a gap between the intent and the results. The intent is not to kill civilians, but civilians are being killed. So what do you do with that tactically if you're Israel and if you're the United States supporting Israel in this war? Yeah, I've personally been in this situation a fair amount. As you look at targets and targeteering, as you use the word in the world of defense, you just have to be critically careful with every bomb you drop. Every time you send a missile, every time you drop a bomb, you are creating the conditions that Hamas desires.

And there are technical, military and tactical ways to deal with that. For example, during the war in Libya, we dropped 25,000 precision guided weapons with virtually zero collateral damage. It's very difficult in a place like Gaza, obviously, but there are technical, tactical means here. And I'll close with this. I would point to the relationship between the Israeli Defense Forces and U.S. Central Command, the four-star general who runs that, highly competent. These connections are very strong. That military-to-military piece of this can be quite useful. Just final aside, I know Benny Gantz quite well, General Benny Gantz. He was chief of defense of Israel for the four years that I was in charge of military to military relations with Israel and the United States. He is steady, calm and the kind of leader you want to look to.

You know, you know, you know, Richard, this this New York Times story from a couple of days ago shows that, yes, Hamas did the killings. They were terrorists. It's unsas did the killings. They were terrorists. It's unspeakable killings. And it's why we've said from the very beginning, Hamas must go. They must be destroyed for what they did. They cannot coexist next to Israel. That said, though, again,

we're not talking about supporting Israel. We're talking about Netanyahu here. The Qataris asked Netanyahu's government in September, hey, do you want us to continue giving Hamas money? And Netanyahu's government said yes. Yes, they did. So they're the, excuse me, they're the ones who have been funding Hamas, the Qataris, with Netanyahu's approval. Absolutely. And look, this is all about two things. The Israelis had an incorrect assessment of Hamas because it was the way to put the Palestinian authority on its heels. And that way you wouldn't have the emergence of a Palestinian interlocutor or partner that could move you down the path towards a Palestinian state. Again, the whole purpose of Netanyahu's leadership of his government coalition is drift. They want to have a version of the status quo, what I call the one state non-solution.

This is not a problem for them. This is their goal. To the extent he's under pressure, Joe, it's from the right. It's to get rid of the Palestinians living in the occupied territories. It's to annex territory. But Joe Biden has one big piece of leverage here. Any Israeli prime minister is judged, among other things, at the top of that list. How does he manage Israel's most important bilateral relationship, the relationship with the United States? And what Joe Biden needs to make clear and escalate, I would argue, is that Bibi Netanyahu is mishandling Israel's most important relationship, as we say it. And if he's not going to be a partner, we are going to proceed without

him. And that gives Joe Biden enormous leverage. It's not going to make everybody partner. We're going to proceed without him. And that gives Joe Biden enormous leverage. It's not going to make everybody happy. You know, he's got a problem. His base is divided on this issue here in the United States. But I think what's happened here is clear that Bibi Netanyahu has an agenda that does not I think it's bad for Israel. It's clearly not good for the United States. So I think the moment has come to basically stop being the friendly uncle and think you can bring Bibi Netanyahu along. He's not coming along. We've got to chart our own path. That time is past. He definitely has his own agenda.

The United States has a right in protecting Israel, even from Benjamin Netanyahu, of attaching any funding to Israel to get answers. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu continue to allow Doha to give billions of dollars to Hamas? Why did they encourage the Qataris? Why did Benjamin Netanyahu's government, even weeks before the attacks, why did they encourage the Qataris to give Hamas money? That's number one. Number two, why did they sit on a plan for a year that showed what Hamas was going to do in the killing and the raping of Israelis? Why did he do nothing about that, even though he had that information for a year? And third, why did he allow Israelis to be slaughtered for eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 hours? And why did they do nothing?

Why did they do nothing? Saying you'll answer that question afterward, that's not good enough. That's not good enough. We need the answers to all of those questions, especially that last one, because there's no good answer. Retired four star Admiral James Trevitas. Thank you so much. We greatly appreciate you being here. Jackie Alimany, a lot going on on Capitol Hill today. A vote on potential impeachment inquiry into President Biden. And then also, will Hunter Biden testify or won't he?

Yeah, Mika. And just to put a cap quickly on the Israel conversation, if there is one upside to the delay in getting through any sort of funding and foreign aid package, it is that Democrats are delaying the inevitable wave of backlash that's going to come when they do provide aid to Israel without the assurances and conditions that Joe just suggested Democrats be demanding. But pivoting to what's actually happening today, the vote, the House floor vote to finally formally authorize the impeachment inquiry that Speaker Mike Johnson's predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, had unilaterally directed to occur is now going to hit the House floor. We are expecting near unanimous support from House Republicans, some of whom were previously reticent to get behind this impeachment inquiry. But Speaker Johnson has rather strategically, especially in comparison to his predecessor, Speaker, former Speaker McCarthy, actually positioned this more as a way to bolster the House's legal hand when it comes to enforcing subpoenas and fighting certain legal battles with regards to continuing this inquiry. have been working on this investigation into the Biden family finances, have not found any direct

link about any of the evidence that links back from these purported nefarious business deals to President Biden. So as House members are going to authorize this inquiry, again, there are still some who see that they do not see any sufficient evidence to actually go ahead with formal impeachment proceedings. Simultaneously, Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear on the Hill today as well for his closed door deposition. He is not expected to participate in that since he had put forward this counteroffer after a subpoena was issued for him to appear behind closed doors and said that he would only testify publicly. James Comer, who had all but dared Hunter Biden to come in either publicly or privately to testify, rebuffed that offer and said that they needed to go ahead with a closed door offer. So, you know, while this impeachment authorization is happening, it is definitely

strengthening House Republicans legal hand to maybe go forward and hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress. You know, I mean, of course, they don't want it to be public. No way, because you're going to look like idiots to be green acres. You're going to find out that Arnold the pig is probably the best questioner up there. Arnold the pig may even be their legal counsel. Okay. I mean, so they don't want, they don't want this to be public because every time they do, they just, they just, they completely make fools of themselves.

And also impeachment, it's never helped anybody. It's only helped the presidents that are being impeached. That's it's, it's at what point and will they figure that out? We figured that out. We impeached Bill Clinton back in the 90s. He left with a 60 percent approval rating. That was something. Yeah, no, it was. And it's it just all you do is help the presidents that you're impeaching. But I guess I guess we should thank the Republicans for helping Joe Biden. The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. Thank you very much for being on this morning. It's great to see you. And coming up, a conversation on the economy and

the future of interest rates. The latest data shows that inflation has cooled substantially in the past year. Steve Ratner is here to explain what we can expect from Fed Chair Jerome Powell later today. We'll be right back. Beautiful sunrise over lower Manhattan at 649 in the morning. New inflation data released yesterday shows consumer price increases remain moderate in November, ahead of a key decision by Federal Reserve officials later today on whether to raise interest rates. With the new data, economists expect the Federal Reserve to keep those rates unchanged, at least for the moment. Joining us now, former Treasury official, Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. Steve, good morning. Does that sound right to you? Sort of the conventional wisdom. And actually, what we've heard from the Fed for the last couple of

weeks is that they may be done with the rate hikes for now. Yeah, I think they are done with their. This is going to be an unusual meeting because for the for an unusual thing, they're going to be focused not so much on the rate increases, but on what the future of the economy looks like. And they will do what they do every three months, which is to reduce what's called this release, what's called their summer of economic projections. And what people are going to be watching for is the Fed ready to declare, in effect, a soft landing. We were all hoping that we would be able to get inflation down without a recession. A lot of private economists are now saying that we think that's going to happen, in part because of that price report that you just referenced.

Price is only up 3.1% over last year. And it'll be interesting to see whether the Fed gets on board. The market is expecting significant interest rate over last year. And it'll be to see where the Fed gets on board. The market is expecting significant interest rate cuts next year. The Fed has been more reticent about that in their in their last economic report. We'll see what they have to say later today. So for all the grumbling about these ongoing rate hikes from the Fed, does it look like given the data we now have and even this data yesterday that it got the outcome it wanted by taming inflation with those rate hikes? Yeah, Willie, I know I would say inflation has come down faster and further than probably any of us would have guessed. I don't think many economists,

there's almost no history of taming inflation of this magnitude without some kind of recession. And I don't want to declare victory completely, but that's the trajectory we're on at the moment, that things are looking pretty good. We had also had a good jobs report since we last talked about this. We had good economic growth reports. It's really an exceptional economy on many levels that the president gets no credit for. If you looked at that recent poll and the handling of the economy, the popularity of Bidenomics, which is under 30 percent approval rate of Bidenomics. It's a disconnect that I can't remember seeing in many years of watching all this stuff. Well, I think I think it's there. A lot of these numbers are leading indicators that at some point will start. If we continue going in this direction, I think we will start to see more of an impact. But so much of it, Steve, goes on, you know, how much are people paying when they go to the pump?

It's less now. Obviously, gas prices continue to go down. But where prices don't continue to go down are at the supermarket. People feel that in a real way. I'm curious, what's still driving? Because this is one sector that continues to like hammer Americans in their pocketbook. What what drives the inflation at the grocery store? What's driving inflation for food? Well, actually, Joe, inflation for food has also come down a lot. I think it was also up something in the three, four percent range year over year. We did have food is a very idiosyncratic category because it depends a lot on weather. We had the problem of avian flu where chicken prices went up. We had a problem with eggs. You have a lot of

different factors driving it. But here's a fact that probably most people don't know. Two facts that most people probably don't know. Inflation on goods, everything from used cars to computers to televisions, has actually turned into deflation. Prices on those items are actually lower than they were a year ago. You're going to pay less this Christmas for a lot of things, toys, things like that, that you're going to buy for your kids than you did a year ago. The second thing that most Americans may not realize is that in the past year, their incomes have gone up on average about 4%. Prices on average have gone up a little

over 3%. So in fact, you do have what economists call real after-tax income. The amount of purchasing power that Americans have is actually going up at the moment, mostly because inflation has come down so much. And yet none of this has permeated the polls, people's appreciation of what's going on, people's sense of positive versus pessimism kind of attitude. It's I've never seen quite this much disconnect between the state of an economy and the state of how people feel about the economy. Well, you can thank certain news networks for that. But, you know, we have 3%. Yeah, housing market's tough. The Wall Street Journal had a great piece a couple days ago about how this is just not the time to buy a house.

It's still the time to rent a house. But it costs less. But I want to go back again. You're right. Electronics and a lot of other goods, we're actually going to be having deflation this year on those items. But again, groceries. What what what drives prices up in grocery stores? Well, again, Joe, first of all, I would just emphasize that food price inflation has moderated a lot. It's only it's also the three or four percent. I haven't seen it.

I mean, I that's what I still hear people complaining about it right now. You're laughing and I see charts to the show. No, I'm actually I'm actually I was actually just laughing at thinking about you in the grocery store. But that's a different that's a different subject for a different day. Actually, it comes with me. It's but if you if you compare the the problem is, as we've said before, if you compare what people were paying in a, as we've said before, if you compare what people were paying in a grocery store for bread or milk in 2019 with what they're paying today,

yeah, maybe it's only 3% higher than it was last year, but it's 19, 20% higher than it was in 2019. People are still feeling that. No question, Joe. Look, we did have a lot of inflation go through the system. And for a Look, we did have a lot of inflation go through the system. And for a while, we did have very high energy costs that affects farmers. We did have the supply chain problems. So when a farmer needed a piece of equipment or something like that, it costs more. We did have a lot of the lower wage workers get very substantial pay increases, which is great for them, the grocery store workers, people like that. But that increases costs at the grocery store and drives up prices.

So we definitely did have a lot of inflation moving through the system, which did raise food prices to a permanent level. And I think you may be obliquely referring to a point that I'd also just like to mention, which is that something like two thirds of the people who are going to vote next year were not voting 30 years ago, the last time we had inflation over 4%. They've never seen inflation like this. So this comes as a shock to them. And some of them at least kind of expect prices to then go back down again to where they were before. That doesn't happen. And in fact, deflation is actually kind of a bad thing. And so people just have no experience with this and they're trying to wrap their minds around it. And they're taking it out on President Biden, which is not entirely fair at all.

And Richard, it's worth pointing out, not only is the economy, the data, the economy doing well here in the United States or better in here in the United States, it's doing much better than competitive economies around the world in terms of growth and unemployment and other factors you look at. We are the envy of the world right now. I was just out in Asia. Chinese are going through all their difficulties, Willie. Europe is doing OK. But again, they look at us and they think we've got it really good. And it's again, Steve just alluded to the political issues. But I think the Fed came under tremendous criticism here for allowing inflation to ramp up. This doesn't undo that, but they seem to have gotten this side of the cycle much better. So I think Jay Powell's, shall we say, historical legacy is looking better today than it looked

a couple of years ago. All right, Richard Haass, thank you. And Steve Radner, if we could get you to return tomorrow with the charts from the Southwest Wall, we would appreciate that. Thank you very much. Very exciting. Yeah. Steve, are you are you reading? Have you read The Times yet?

Adam McGorney's great, great book on The New York Times. Sure. Cover to cover. I lived through a little of it and certainly a lot of people I worked with are in it. And so, yeah, I keep I keep, you know, keep your name keeps popping up chapter after chapter. You you like you said, you lived through a large part of it. I thought I thought it was really I thought it was an extraordinary story, a history of the times. Yeah. Look, he he was up against the gold standard. Gates Elise's book, The Kingdom and

the Power, which came out just when I was just before I went to college, is the gold standard, not just of journalism books, probably, but of any kind of narrative nonfiction. It's an extraordinary book. And many people have tried since then to duplicate it. None have succeeded. I think Adam got pretty close. I think it is a really, really well-reported, well-written history of the Times over this sort of roughly 20-year period. And yeah, look, the Times has come through this in an extraordinary state, and it is truly the newspaper of record, unlike some other newspapers of record we talk about. It is truly the newspaper of record, and they're doing a fantastic

job. Why are we all laughing? Well, top this, Steve Ratner. We got Joe touchdown Tommy on the front. Yes. And the back. I'm going to go. It is. Oh, yeah. He knew where this was going. The the paper of record, of course, for Morning Joe. And that's Willie front and back. That's sort of a springsteen on the cover of Time and Newsweek. This is going so well. It is fantastic. It's his town.