Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/13/24
Episode Date: December 13, 2024Trump’s pressure campaign on Senate Republicans ...
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With the Hegseth nomination, Gabbard, some of the others, I think the pressure has been
irresistible.
Raw political pressure is turning the tide with some of them, turning their minds.
The threat of a primary, let's be very blunt, is going to sway some of them, particularly
colleagues who have elections in the next cycle.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut talking about the pressure
campaign by Donald Trump and his allies to get some of his most controversial
cabinet picks confirmed.
We'll have more from Capitol Hill straight ahead.
Meanwhile, the president-elect is admitting now he may have some trouble
delivering on what was a key campaign promise for many voters.
We'll tell you exactly what that is.
Also ahead, we'll have the latest diplomatic efforts between the
United States and allies in the Middle East following the rebel
takeover in Syria.
Plus, some lawmakers in Washington now pressing the Biden
administration for answers on those mysterious drones that have
been in the skies over the East Coast. We'll tell you what the White House is saying about that. oppressing the Biden administration for answers on those mysterious drones that have been
in the skies over the East Coast.
We'll tell you what the White House is saying about that.
And the very latest on the extreme winter weather hitting the Midwest, causing a dramatic
crash in Michigan.
Lake effects snow up and down the East Coast and into the Midwest.
Good morning.
Welcome to Morning Joe.
It is Friday, December 13th.
I'm Willie Geis.
Joe and Mika have the morning off with us,
the host of Way Too Early, Jonathan Lemire,
MSNBC contributor, Mike Barnicle,
US special correspondent for BBC News,
Cady K, and MSNBC political analyst, Elise Jordan.
She's a former aide to the George W. Bush White House
and the State Department.
Good morning to you all.
Let's dive right in.
We begin this morning on Capitol Hill, where some Senate Republicans are acknowledging W. Bush White House and the State Department. Good morning to you all. Let's dive right in.
We begin this morning on Capitol Hill where some Senate Republicans are acknowledging
the pressure campaign.
President-elect Trump and his allies are waging about some of his controversial cabinet picks
and getting them confirmed.
During a discussion yesterday with the group No Labels, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
got candid about what's going on right now.
And Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina also weighed in on the matter while speaking to
reporters.
The approach is going to be everybody toe the line.
Everybody line up.
We got you here and if you want to survive, you better be good.
Don't get on Santa's naughty list here
because we will primary you.
I mean, we are seeing that play out
in real time right now with the nominees.
My friend Joni Ernst, who is probably
one of the more conservative, principled,
Republican leaders in the Senate right now
is being hung out to dry for not being good enough.
And you're going to get primaried.
We're getting a little bit of a preview now of what it's going to mean to be allegiant to party.
And I don't think that that's going to help us as a Republican party, believe it or not.
Do you feel like there's a pressure campaign against people who even throw out consorts?
I do, and I think that that's a two-edged sword.
I think that you could run to a point when we have thin majorities to where you could
— I think that it's more important to get behind closed doors, address concerns, and
have Republicans come together as one than to create controversy.
I just think it's a short-term win but a long-term loss if you're not careful with that.
Tom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina there.
Jason Miller, a senior advisor to Donald Trump, downplayed the idea of a pressure campaign
against those Senate Republicans.
Well, I think a lot of that's hyperbole.
I think the fact of the matter is President Trump has nominated people that he thinks
are going to be the best for the job.
Now, when it comes to whether or not senators are going to be backing any of the
nominees or what their decision-making process is, senators take it seriously. They want to have those
individual meetings. They want to have the hearings. Right now, there are no hard nos from Republicans
for any of President Trump's nominees because they're really good people. They're very good,
well-qualified people.
Let's bring in NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles, who's been covering all this very closely.
Ryan, good morning.
So we did see a change in tone from Joni Ernst from one week to the next.
She basically expressed some skepticism, to put it mildly, about Pete
Hegseth at defense and then appearing this week to be much more open about it.
What are you hearing behind the scenes from these members,
from these senators, about the pressure
that's being applied, not just from Trump
and his people directly, but from outside groups as well?
Well, it's undeniable, Willie,
and there's obviously the pressure campaign
that's happening behind closed doors
that we are not privy to,
where there is the president himself
who is making clear who he wants in these top jobs,
his allies getting that message to those senators as well.
But there's also in some ways a very vicious online campaign
against many of these senators who at this point,
if not publicly said there are no vote
on any of these particular nominees.
And it's almost a warning to those senators who are up for reelection in this next cycle,
which includes both Joni Ernst and Tom Telles, that if you're not going to toe the line,
you're going to see a primary challenge and you could be in trouble.
And we are going to spare no expense or effort to make sure that happens.
And that really has to be in the back of the minds of many of these senators as they weigh
this responsibility of advice and consent and the co-equal branch of government that
the Senate is.
And this is just kind of in many ways a foreshadowing of what we could potentially see as a showdown between Senate Republicans and the White House
throughout the course of the next two years.
This is basically setting the stage to determine
whether or not the Senate Republicans have the backbone
to stand up to Donald Trump when he makes a decision
that they don't necessarily like.
And it is fair to say that Pete Hegseth,
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gaetz,
who is no longer the attorney general nominee,
under normal circumstances,
these are the kind of nominees
that would have a difficult time being confirmed
under any circumstance.
So it's not a surprise that there is some skepticism
among these ranks.
And I think the question right now is just,
how far does Donald Trump himself, how far
is he willing to go to exert that pressure?
And does he pick and choose between which one of these nominees that he wants to use
that political capital on?
Because there's no doubt that if he wants, he can make life very difficult for these
Republican senators, particularly the ones that are up for reelection.
But he also knows that he has to work with them. There's going to
be a lot of votes that he's going to need from them because the margins are
so close over the next two years. If he wants his tax cuts, if he wants funding
for this mass deportation program, you go down the line of these massive policy
proposals that he has. Does he want to win then or does he want to win now? And
there could be a calculus that's taking place here
by Donald Trump where he's seeing just how far
he can push them and that'll tell us how the rest
of this will play out or at least over the first two years
of this second run in his presidency.
Ryan, I know you hear what I hear, what Jonathan hears,
what everyone at this table hears from Republicans privately,
which is they don't think that Matt Gates was qualified.
They don't think Tulsi Gabbard should be anywhere near the country's secrets.
They don't think that Pete Heggett, though they may like him personally, should run a
bureaucracy the size of the Department of Defense.
And yet none of them will say that publicly, at least as strongly as I just said it there.
So what is the calculus for the senators?
You talked about what Donald Trump is thinking.
How do they weigh this?
They have to live in Donald Trump's Washington
for the next four years,
but they also don't believe principally
that these people should be running the organizations
to which he is going to nominate them.
So what is that calculus for some of these senators?
Yeah, and I think it's important to keep in mind, Willie, that these Republican senators
want Donald Trump to succeed.
This isn't the Republican Party of 2017 where there was definitely a faction of never Trump
Republicans, even if they were quiet, that were hoping behind the scenes that he did
not succeed and did not make it through.
These Republicans want him to win.
And when they go through the advise and consent role here,
it's not because they want to trip him up.
It's not because they want to make his life difficult.
It's because they want him to have the best people
around him in these cabinet posts
when he takes office on January 20th and beyond.
And so what they would like to see happen is,
behind the scenes, there's a conversation.
They talk to the administration.
They talk to these sherpas that are working
with these candidates and they say, you know what?
It's just not gonna happen.
If you go through this confirmation process,
it's gonna be ugly.
We're gonna have a hearing where,
remember, Democrats get to ask questions.
They're gonna expose a lot of these issues
that have come up in media reports.
Your nominees are gonna have to deal with all of this
and it's ultimately gonna look bad for you.
And then at the end of all of it,
after this brutal situation,
we may have to vote against you
and make it look like we're in opposition to you.
The other path is, behind the scenes,
we quietly talk about how this isn't necessarily
the right person for this job for a whole range of reasons.
Why don't you find someone else
and let that person bow out on their own?
That's how it worked with Matt Gaetz
because it was clear that under any circumstance,
Matt Gaetz was not going to get the votes.
Trump got that message.
The question now and what he's dealing with
when it comes to Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard,
and we'll see what happens with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
when he begins his process next week, is Trump getting that message yet?
Are these Republican senators willing to say definitively, there's no way I'm ever going
to vote yes for this guy?
It's time for you to move on now so you don't go through that whole process.
With Hegseth in particular, it seems that Trump feels that he has the charisma and in a public setting,
he'll be able to win over some of these senators and he's willing for him to go through that
process and see what happens.
May not be the case for all of them, but that's kind of the dynamic that we see playing out,
the back and forth between the White House and the senators.
Yeah, and a week ago, Pete Hegs's potential nomination was teetering, looked like it was
on the brink of collapse and yet Donald Trump has dug in.
Let's talk about the FBI now with Director Christopher Wray
stepping down from his post next month.
He announced that this week.
Republicans are falling in line behind Cash Patel,
President-elect Trump's pick to lead the Bureau.
Patel was back on the Hill yesterday
meeting with Republican lawmakers.
Here's what he had to say ahead of a meeting
with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. All I can say is we've had a
wonderful first week on the Hill meeting with so many great senators, almost 20 of
them. It has been a humbling process to receive their advice during the consent
and advice process and I'm looking forward to continuing that during the
confirmation process as I learn every day as I go. And I'm
thrilled to be President Trump's nominee for the director of the FBI. And I'm very excited to see
Senator Ted Cruz, who is one of the most brilliant constitutional minds we have. Thank you.
You know, Jonathan Lemire, Cash Patel is viewed by many people as perhaps the most controversial of
all of President-elect Trump's choices here. And yet, he seems to be publicly, anyway, getting the most broad support from Republicans.
It seems, at least from the Republican side anyway, that he would breeze through if he
could get all those votes there from the Republicans who've come out and spoken and supported his
choice.
What do you make of this dynamic?
This is a guy, of course, who's called for the jailing of members of the press, jailing of opponents of Donald Trump, jailing of people he perceived to be
part of the deep state. He had an enemies list at the back of his book. So arguably
the most controversial of the choices and yet drawing widespread support on the Hill
the last couple of days.
Yeah. I was talking to a senior Hill aide yesterday who was very blunt. It's like this
pick right here, Cash Patel, more than Pete Hegseth, more than Tulsi Gabbard, maybe
even more than Robert F. K. Engineer, that this pick, Cash Patel, is not only the most
controversial but the one that could change Americans' lives the most because of if he's
willing to use the tools of power in the FBI to go after the enemy's list, one of which
he put in the back of his book.
Others are more he's going to take his cues from Donald Trump either directly or indirectly
This is someone who's gonna use the power of a the most important law enforcement body in the world potentially on
American citizens pressure campaigns for and even arrests as he has threatened lawmakers
Journalists others who he has deemed in opposition
To the MAGA movement.
And as so many people have said, Cash Patel really has no ideology of his own per se, but
rather simply channels whatever Donald Trump wants.
So at least it is striking though to Willie's point, we have heard senators both publicly
and privately express reservations about Pete Hexeth, right?
We knew Matt Gaetz was, that pick was in trouble right away.
Some have said, well, Tulsi Gabbard, do we really want her to have the nation's secrets?
I think next week the spotlight will turn a little bit to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Cash Patel has flown under the radar.
And my question to you is, there are some, obviously, Republicans, a number of Republicans
who do care about law and order, who do care about the norms of government and checking
its investigative powers, are they going to
stand up against Cash Patel, who more than anyone, I think, symbolizes what Trump 2.0
retribution is all about?
I don't think you can underestimate just how strong the anger is against the FBI by even
the rank-and-file Republicans, what they see as the department's excesses over
the past eight years or so, really starting with, you know, Comey and his announcement
about Hillary Clinton on the eve of the election was even an overstep some Republicans feel.
So I think that that's why Cash Patel they see as someone to come in and clean up and
he might, you know, he might upset some apples in the barrel cart,
but they're okay with it as long as there's radical reform.
And you see that with so many of those nominees.
They're willing to accept, like they are with Trump, that things are going to get broken.
There could be chaos, but they feel that they have to address the underlying problems that
their constituents are so angry about.
This reminds me that it could be like a 21st century version, an adaptation, an update
of Pat Moynihan's 1993 essay on defining deviancy down.
So Cash Patel is on the roster to be FBI director.
And he's on the roster.
He's batting third.
Number one, Pete Hegseth, senators walking around saying,
he's totally unqualified.
We can't have him, we can't put him in charge
of the Department of Defense.
Then they go to Tulsi Gabbard.
Tulsi Gabbard, no, if she's director
of national intelligence out of the White House,
the French, the British, the Israelis, the Germans,
no one will tell us about their intelligence
apparatus.
They won't deal with us because they don't trust her.
Cash Patel, oh, OK, all right, we'll define deviancy down.
And Cash Patel, OK, I'll vote for him to be FBI director, Willie.
And it's incredible to watch it and just thinking of what's happened to the United States
Senate over the course of the past couple of decades but especially over
the past ten years. I mean it used to be the greatest deliberative body in the
world and now apparently for the Republican senators it's check your
conscience at the door. And remember those senators principle objection they
say to the FBI right now under Christopher
Wray is that it has been, quote, weaponized against political opponents.
That's their perception.
Well, now you have someone in Cash Patel who explicitly is saying his job is to weaponize
the FBI to go after the opponents of Donald Trump.
So how are Democrats in the Senate handling all of this?
Pete Hegseth met for the first time yesterday with a Democratic senator on Capitol Hill.
Donald Trump's pick for defense secretary
spent the last two weeks in Washington
talking to Republicans.
Yesterday, though, he sat down
with Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
Before the meeting, Senator Fetterman told CNN
he's just doing his job, advising consent,
and that he'd never heard of Hegseth
before Trump picked the former Fox News host and military veteran to lead the Pentagon. Here's what the Are you considering voting for him? So it's just like it's a conversation.
Tough to hear though there, Cady K. But Senator Federman basically saying this is not news.
This is our job.
We bring them in.
We have a meeting.
It doesn't mean voting for the guy, but I'm going to give him a fair hearing like I would
anyone else.
What do you make though, just more broadly, that's one Democrat, there'll be others.
Senator Federman keeping an open mind broadly about the process that we're talking about
here, which is that Republicans, though they were able to run off Matt Gaetz, it appears
they're having a little more trouble, at least for the moment.
There's still hearings to come and there'll be much more in this process, finding their
conscience about some of these picks.
Well, briefly on Fetterman, it shouldn't be news.
If the system was working perfectly, then senators from both sides would meet the candidate
of any president.
But it is news, of course, because he is the only Democrat who has met with these proposed
candidates from Donald Trump.
So that in and of itself, he knows this.
It makes it news.
He also knows he's up for reelection in the election cycle in which Donald Trump will
have just finished his first term in office and in a state in which Donald Trump has just
won.
So, there may be a whole load of motives going on there.
You're right that it looks, for the moment, like this week, at the end of this week, very
different from the end of last week, Donald Trump's nomination picks seem to be in a stronger position than they were this
time last week.
We were surprised that Pete Hegseth made it through the weekend.
I've been told there is—you know, there are lots of different machinations going on.
John Thune, Senator John Thune, the incoming Senate majority leader, is having kind of
discussions about how he can play kind of checkers with
the senators, give some of them the opportunity to say no to one pick, but not have any of
them have to say no to more than one pick.
But at the moment, until this process starts, I mean, I think we have to slightly ignore
this process at the moment, because some of the signals we're getting as we're going
around the corridor being followed by reporters, is different
from what will happen when we actually have the hearings.
With Trump, you always have to kind of go with what is happening, not with what is being
said.
And once we sit down and these hearings start taking place, that could be the moment at
which you start to see some of these senators say, okay, we are going to find ways that some of us
on some of these picks are able to get enough cover
to vote no occasionally, and occasionally may be only once.
And at the end of the day,
will they vote against Donald Trump?
Will they cross him?
Historically, the answer has been no.
We'll see.
Ryan, before we let you go,
I want to turn to a different story
that you've been covering
that has fascinated so many people.
These drones, these mysterious drone sightings
over New Jersey, other states on the East Coast.
What more are you hearing today?
Yeah, Willie, this story's fascinating.
It's kind of funny how stories make their way
to Capitol Hill.
This story really originated on the internet last week.
People posting about it on TikTok,
seeing these mysterious crafts in the air,
looking for an explanation.
Then it got to local mayors wanting answers,
asking the FBI and others.
And now, yesterday, in a big way,
it finally made its way to Capitol Hill.
And while the White House is saying
it's nothing to worry about,
they're not telling anybody what they think it is.
And that has many leaders on Capitol Hill demanding answers.
This is over my house right now.
As mysterious drones continue to pop up in the skies over the East Coast.
Now it's hovering over my other neighbor's house.
Lawmakers in Washington are growing frustrated that the Biden administration isn't explaining what they are.
You've seen the Internet's running wild with conspiracy theories.
And do you feel like the administration needs to fill that void?
Well, I think they should get out something as quickly as they can.
Theories are running wild about what the flying objects may be.
One New Jersey congressman said they were being launched by an Iranian mothership off the Atlantic coast.
The White House saying an investigation is underway, but there is no cause for alarm.
Right now, there's just no indication that this is some sort of foreign malign activity,
or in fact, even criminal.
Adding the objects being seen in the sky aren't even necessarily drones.
It appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft
that are being operated lawfully. And while the Pentagon has said they aren't military drones and
they do not come from a foreign threat, senators like New York's Kirsten Gillibrand are demanding
more information. We cannot simply say, well, they're not causing any harm. Well, do we know
that? What are they doing? And who's sending them?
And you do get the impression that the White House feels that they can just tell everyone,
you don't have to worry about this.
It's not a foreign actor.
It's not anything that is a real threat.
But what you're increasingly seeing,
and what I think I saw yesterday talking to lawmakers,
is that their constituents,
the people that are actually seeing these things
flying above their house,
they don't feel confident enough with the White House
just telling them, don't worry about this.
They want to know what these things are
and they wanna know as soon as possible.
And if there continues to be this lack of transparency,
you're just gonna see conspiracy theories
continue to fill that void.
And so I think the administration here, the Pentagon,
they have a lot to do to try and ease people's fears here
and come up with some concrete answers.
We know there's an FBI investigation,
DHS is involved, the FAA is involved,
but at this point, they haven't given us any indication
as to what they have uncovered
and what these things could possibly be.
Yeah, interesting to hear Admiral Kirby say yesterday,
these are just legally owned licensed planes or helicopters that people are seeing and
the residents of the ground are saying, no, we know what those look like.
We've seen those.
We see them all the time.
This feels like something different.
So the saga continues.
So interesting.
NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles covering a lot of ground for us this morning.
Ryan, thanks so much.
We appreciate it.
Still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll take a look at what President-elect Trump is saying about
potentially ending some childhood vaccines and the, quote, big discussion he says he
plans on having with his HHS nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Also ahead, a live report from Damascus as the leader of the rebel group that overthrew
the Assad regime calls for Syrians to celebrate in the streets
today.
Morning Joe's back in just 90 seconds.
That is a beautiful live picture pre-dawn New York City
625 on this Friday December 13th. The new round of
heavy lake effect snow causing hazardous conditions this morning in parts of the
upper Midwest and the Northeast. NBC News correspondent Erin McLaughlin has
more. In the Midwest and Northeast yet another winter wide out and dangerous
moments like this. A box truck loses control on
a Michigan highway, slamming into a fire engine. Authorities say the driver was
taken to the hospital, suffering minor injuries. No first responders were hurt.
While in New York, officials in one county say they've responded to 50
traffic incidents in the last 24 hours. They're urging anyone out on the roads
in this to slow down. It's the third like effects no warning to strike the region since Thanksgiving. This time
it's so cold ice balls are filling up this michigan beach and in western new
york more than 30 inches have dropped in the last 24 hours. So much snow that in
buffalo, it's practice canceled for the bills. Their stadium blanketed in white
after pulling off a snowy victory over the 49ers earlier this month. Meanwhile, hard hit Erie
Pennsylvania woke up this morning to blizzard like conditions. The relentless
weather is straining infrastructure. Officials say at least eight commercial
buildings have either collapsed or partially collapsed under the weight of
the snow. A state of emergency remains in place there for a second straight week,
with no end in sight to this wintry mess.
And more of that dangerous weather ahead today.
NBC's Aaron McLaughlin reporting for us.
Turning back to politics and the economy,
one of Donald Trump's often repeated campaign promises
this year was to bring down the price
of groceries very quickly.
Because people can't afford their groceries and they're going to be affording their groceries
very soon.
And I went on groceries.
It's a very simple word, groceries, like almost, you know, who uses the word?
I started using the word the groceries.
A vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper.
It'll also bring your grocery bill way down.
I have more complaints on grocery, the word grocery.
It's sort of a simple word,
but it sort of means like everything you eat.
The stomach is speaking. It always does.
And I have more complaints about that bacon
and things going up double, triple, quadruple.
I don't like the tags very much. Look at that. Up 46% eggs. Wow. Up 65%. Wow. School lunches
up 65%. How can a family afford that? I haven't seen Cheerios in a long time. I'm going to
take them back with me. Bacon is through the roof. They're all through the roof. The milk, everything is bad and we're going to straighten it out.
We're going to bring prices way down and we get it done fast.
Marveling at his own discovery of the word groceries, but in his Time magazine
Person of the Year interview conducted late last month, announced yesterday, he
acknowledged lowering the price of groceries will not be so easy, saying, quote,
it's hard to bring things down once they're up.
You know, it's very hard, but I think that they will.
Jonathan Lemire, there's so much to plow through
and dig through in this time.
Person of the Year interview, all these admissions of,
well, I said a lot on the campaign trail,
but it's gonna be a little tougher
once I'm in the White House.
He talked about inflation, he talked about actually Ukraine, I'm not so sure I can solve that on the campaign trail, but it's going to be a little tougher once I'm in the White House. He talked about inflation.
He talked about actually Ukraine.
I'm not so sure I can solve that on day one, as I promised.
We'll dig into a whole bunch of that as we go.
But obviously, no one, no president, no person can come in on day one and bring down the
price of eggs, bacon, and other groceries.
You know it's a word, John.
It's a simple word that people are using now, groceries.
Yeah, groceries all the rage.
It's always such a tell when Trump is reading something for the first time and he reacts
to it in real time like he was with those price tags and then when he saw the Cheerios
on the table and realized that might be his lunch there at Bedminster that day.
But Mike Barnacle, you, among all of us at this table, have been, for months, if not
years, singularly focused on
the price of groceries.
You got there before Trump did.
And those particularly at the Market Basket franchise that you and I so near.
Because he goes early morning on his days off.
Saturday morning.
Near and dear to our hearts, Market Basket.
Saturday morning, 6.30 a.m., I'm in Market Basket in Waltham doing the grocery shopping.
And it was amazing to me during the course of this past campaign that the Democrats didn't
focus more on the actual cost of groceries.
They kept talking about the national economy in terms of global economies, the strongest
in the world.
Yes, but the lived economy, the way people actually live and pay for things, nowhere does it occur more
in reality each and every day than in grocery stores and at gas stations.
And I'm wondering, what do you think, Elise, what do you think the over-under is on the
last time that Donald Trump was in a grocery store?
Forty years?
Fifty years?
Wow.
I mean, does 7-Eleeleven count maybe on a campaign stop
maybe on the campaign trail he wandered in but I doubt that even as a teenager
he ever went to the grocery store. Yeah. Probably not but also I would add fast
food to your list of concerns too which kind of like merges with groceries. It is
insane how expensive fast food has gotten. And so much of the country relies on it.
Just the other day, getting a diet-liminated Chick-fil-A, $4.75.
That's insane.
Yeah, McDonald's now has semi-happy meals.
Yeah.
Yeah, he did an event.
We're reminded he did an event in a campaign stop in September.
He also effectively appeared at McDonald's, which was something that those in his team
thought was effective.
But, Willie, I'm curious.
This will be another moment, though, where Trump acknowledged, look, it's going to be
hard to bring these prices down.
Do we think that he will face any sort of backlash from supporters if he doesn't?
Well, we see that reflected in his poll numbers.
We know that President Biden, despite a robust legislative agenda, would drag down his poll
numbers more than anything was high prices, right?
Inflation, the fact that just cost so much more to go to the store, to go to McDonald's, whatever it might be.
You know, in the past his supporters have always stayed with Trump, but he made this such a signature promise.
One wonders if six months from now, a year from now, 18 months from now, things are still high, what that does to his approval?
Yeah, it's a good question because it is the issue that cuts across everything, right?
It cuts across all these demographic groups that Democrats were trying to target and Republicans
were trying to win over.
And we talked a lot about abortion and immigration and democracy and all those things that are
so important.
But at the end of the day, it was, as Mike has always said, the cost of groceries that
was decisive, Cady K. And there is nothing that Donald Trump can do.
Obviously, the prices have come down
since those peak days a couple of years ago
when prices were so astronomically high,
but not low enough.
And Joe Biden would be the first to tell you
that he suffered because of that.
Kamala Harris suffered because of that.
They thought they did what they could do
to strengthen the economy and bring the prices down.
But whatever those grand concerns were
about other lofty issues during the campaign,
at the end of the day, life was just too expensive
and remains so for a lot of Americans.
Yeah, ask all of those other governments
and leaders around the world
who also got swept out of office
in a year in which there were so many elections
and people post-COVID suffering from supply chain shocks, suffering from inflation shocks, everywhere got thrown out of office.
I mean, I think the Democrats did suffer from the fact, on top of that, that they were out
there trying to tell people that the economy was getting better.
And by many metrics, the economy has been getting better at a time when people didn't
feel it was getting better.
And that disconnect didn't help them.
I mean, saying to people, well, actually, you shouldn't be feeling bad about the price
of eggs, because if you look at it, the inflation is slowing or employment is picking up again.
You can't tell voters what they should be feeling.
Voters feel what they feel.
And that means that in four years' time, if the economy is still not doing well, if we
have a tariff war in which not only the price of imports goes up, but the price of
American exports goes up, making it harder for Americans to sell things abroad because
of retributive tariffs.
Is that a thing?
Anyway, it's too early in the morning for that word.
Tariffs that are opposed because of retribution.
Then you'll have, you know,
do you start then getting some added dissatisfaction?
I think it's going to be, it's this cumulative feeling of kind of unease, unhappiness, anger,
I'm pissed off.
If people are still feeling that in four years, sure, they'll blame the party that's in government,
whether it's Donald Trump or not Donald Trump.
You know, Katty, generally, I would hop in to save you,
but I don't know how to say that word either.
Let's dumb it down to punitive maybe.
Punitive tariffs. Maybe we both can say that.
All right, coming up, we'll have the very latest on the political upheaval in Syria.
NBC's Matt Bradley joins us live from Damascus
with a look at how rebel forces plan to govern the country
now that Bashar al-Assad is out of power.
Morning Joe's coming right back. forces plan to govern the country now that Bashar al-Assad is out of power.
Morning Joe is coming right back.
On Syria, very focused on the opportunity that now is before us and before the Syrian
people to move out from under the shackles of Bashar al-Assad
to a different and better future for the Syrian people,
one that the Syrian people decide for themselves.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Turkey
earlier this morning, speaking about the future of Syria
as the United States and its allies work to secure
a peaceful transition in the country
and flesh out future terms of engagement there.
Meanwhile, celebrations continue in Syria following the toppling of Bashar al-Assad
and his regime.
The leader of the rebel group that overthrew Assad's regime called on Syrians to take
to the streets today to mark what he described as a revolution.
NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley joins us now live from Damascus.
So Matt what's the latest there on the ground today.
Yeah, well, Willie know amidst the euphoria and the fear and I can tell you Willie there
really is both there is quite a bit of fear amidst all of these celebrations that we keep
seeing there is a real call for justice and not just this justice for those who were wrongfully
imprisoned who are wrongfully executed, who were tortured.
And we've been seeing so many stories coming out of that infamous Sidneya prison over the
past couple of days, but also for those who were victims of chemical weapons.
That was something that had been wielded by the Assad regime on several occasions over
the 13 year, more than 13 year long civil war that really just ended as far as we can
tell it is over
just in the past week. So I went down to Huta yesterday which is this town not so far from here
where I am in central Damascus where there had been a chemical strike by the Assad regime
back in 2013. I spoke with some young men about what they endured, about how many people they lost. This was an attack that killed somewhere between
nearly 300 or nearly 2,000 people.
We don't know exactly how many people were killed
and maimed and injured many others,
including the young man, Mohammed, who I spoke to.
Here's what he told me.
But you're afraid of the future?
Yes.
How?
What do you expect from the future?
A new victory for the people
What?
I think that when the regime fell
I feel very happy
Because I was able to know the number of martyrs and victims killed of the chair, but unfortunately we have lost hope.
But we hope that the new administration will be able to control this oppression. from these people. This is not just a time when they were calling something that has occurred to them, when they were recalling their victimization. This is really the first
time they're able to speak publicly about these events inside Syria, with comfort, with
knowing they're not going to be thrown in jail for speaking their mind and telling their
truth. That's why this is so momentous for so many people here in this country. Guys.
Matt, Matt, the stories from the people who are going around prisons trying to find their
loved ones after sometimes decades are just heart wrenching.
Are we getting any sense of what the new incoming government, I guess we call it, is going to
look like and whether it's going to be more open, more tolerant, whether it's going to be a government that Syrians will be able to keep their voices alive and allowed and in opposition if necessary to the incoming government?
Is this a real sea change?
It's a great question, Kadhi, and it's the one actually that everybody here is asking, and nobody really has an answer yet, except this new regime led by Hayat Tahrir-e-Sham.
They're an organization that has passed loyalties to Al-Qaeda.
They're listed designated as terrorists by the United States and many European nations
and even by Turkey who has backed their allies in just the past week.
So this is a really thorny situation.
We've heard from the US and from other countries that they're considering delisting this group as terrorists so that they can actually deal with this new government
here in Syria.
But they've been making all the right noises as far as the international community is concerned.
We heard from Abu Mohammed Al-Julani, who now goes by his real name, his not Nom de
Guerre, he goes by Ahmed Al-Sharah, and he's been saying that women will enjoy free rights, full equality
here in this new Syria, that any ethnic and religious minorities have nothing to fear.
They will be treated with respect and equal rights under the law.
This is exactly what the international community wants to hear.
But the question is, given the history of this group, will this group be able to talk
the talk or walk the walk as well as they're talking the talk when it
comes to liberalism guys. Many reminded that the Taliban said
all the right things a few years ago in Afghanistan about women.
What do you see in there, Matt? Well, I think we're hearing
celebratory gunshots. I hope that celebratory gunshots right
off my right shoulder. We don't know exactly what's going on. You hear this every once in a while as well, by the way, is the sound of
Israeli bombardments which are continuing around Damascus. All right, we'll let you get to safety
there. NBC's Matt Bradley in Damascus for us this morning. Matt, thank you very much. On the subject
of foreign policy, conservative columnist David French has a new piece.
For the New York Times that caught our eye this morning, it's titled, Biden has a pair
of gifts for Trump.
David writes in part, Donald Trump is a lucky man.
He's inheriting a growing economy and weakened enemies in 2025.
If Trump wants to capitalize on our enemy's weaknesses, he's going to have to shed at
least some of his isolationism.
Trump is far more self-interested than he is ideological.
And an American retreat in Syria, or the sight of Russian troops marching in Kiev,
or an Iranian nuclear bomb, would all be deeply humiliating to him.
They would signal American weakness, which would signal Trump's weakness.
In other words, Trump's vanity may save us from Trump's isolationism,
but vanity is a poor proxy for a coherent national security strategy.
Trump is a fortunate man.
He's inheriting the conditions for profound foreign policy success.
But he's also inheriting the possibility of failure, and the troubling reality is that
his instincts are wrong.
His national security picks are flawed, and he may well snatch a series of terrible defeats
from the jaws of extraordinary military and diplomatic success.
That's David French writing this morning in the New York Times.
Elise, what do you make of David's point there, which is that Joe Biden actually, for all
the criticism from Donald Trump, has left Trump in a pretty good position here?
I like David, but I really don't agree with that argument very much.
I think that the world, as Richard Haas would say, is in disarray right now.
I think that I'm not going to lay all that on President Biden, but it's just coming into
a very perilous point.
And I do think that the safe face aspect of Donald Trump and he's so reactive to
bad press will you know mean that we're not going to have some crazy retreat into isolation is I
should isolationism the way that some have predicted he's going to try to save face no
matter what I so I don't really think that that's exactly I just don't want to see bombing Tehran.
I don't want to see hardcore action immediately.
We're not going to we're not going to see any of that.
I don't think I mean, that's possible.
But we also let's remember he was this close to pulling on a NATO back in 2018 on the eve
of the Putin Helsinki summit.
It is interesting, Mike, that in the interview with Time magazine that was released yesterday,
he acknowledged that it was going to be harder to deal with the Ukraine-Russia conflict than
he originally promised when he said he'd get it done in 24 hours.
And he even suggested he might want to try to leverage US military aid there to try to
bring an end to this.
He also suggested that the situation in the Middle East was thorny and it wasn't going
to be just as easy as he talked about on the campaign trail.
There are some grownups in the room, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, as we prepare for
a second Trump term.
How do you see a Trump foreign policy doctrine 2.0?
You know, Jonathan, I was sentenced to Washington, D.C. for a couple of days this week.
We saw.
Our hearts went out.
Company town.
But you mentioned Marco Rubio.
Right now, he is the most interesting nominee of Donald Trump's secretary of state.
It's going to be interesting to see which direction he wants to take the administration
in terms of foreign policy.
The national security adviser, who has already been named, is a good pick, a solid pick that
everybody likes.
But you're looking at a situation where I'm told the question, the immediate question
is, is Syria going to be a failed state, like almost immediately?
Is it going to be Balkanized?
What's Turkey's role going to be in the future of Syria?
What are the Russians going to do with regard to propping up their existing naval base and
military bases in Syria?
Are they going to play ball with any other countries?
Who is going to run Syria?
It's an enormous question, because it spills over into the Israeli wars with Gaza.
Israel is still operating every day as if they are at war, and they are at war every
day.
And the impact that the Israeli attacks within Lebanon and Syria, what effect has that had
on the whole situation?
And then, after you get ready, finish worrying about that, Ukraine.
What's going to happen in Ukraine?
Is that going to be resolved within the next 90 days, within the next six months, or is
it never going to be resolved? I next 90 days, within the next six months, or is it never going to be resolved?
I mean, something's got to happen there.
The Ukrainians are running low on manpower.
It's a very small nation compared to Russia.
Putin doesn't care about life.
He just feeds, feeds anyone into the maw of battle.
And the casualties that they've suffered, Russia has suffered, are enormous.
So how are you going to handle this when you don't know who's going to be Secretary of
Defense, when you don't know who's going to replace Tulsi Gabbard, director of national
intelligence in the White House?
How are you going to handle this from within the administration?
That's almost as big a problem as America's role in the world, because
to play a role in the world, you have to be ship-shaped here at home going forward.
There's a lot on the chessboard and Donald Trump conceding in that Time
Person of the Year interview that Ukraine's going to be a little more
complicated than he led on during the campaign.
Still ahead this morning, the New York Mets introduced their $765 billion man.
We'll show you what Juan Soto had to say about that record setting deal.
Plus, why Bill Belichick is calling his new college coaching job a dream come true.
Bill Belichick.
It really happened.
He's at Carolina coaching in college.
Morning Joe is coming right back. Beautiful live picture, sunrise over Washington on Friday, December 13th, just before seven
o'clock in the morning.
The Carolina Tar Heels officially introduced Bill Belichick as the University of North
Carolina's new head coach.
Belichick, who spent his entire career in the NFL talked about his move
to Chapel Hill. I always wanted to coach in football, coaching college football
and it just never really worked out. That's some good years in the NFL so
that was okay but this is really kind of a dream come true. I grew up in college
football with my dad.
I was a coach of Navy for 50 years, so as a kid all I knew was college football.
And so it's great to come back home to Carolina and, you know,
back in an environment that I really grew up in.
You don't remember everything.
Obviously, I was too young to remember a lot of things from Carolina.
But as I grew up, you know, you hear the same story over and over and over again.
And so one story I always heard was Billy's first words were, beat Duke.
Mike Barnicle, coach already saying all the right things at the press
conference as he said his dad was an assistant coach at Carolina in the 1950s.
I said I see it I believe it when I see it Bill Belichick as a college coach
well now we've seen it he's coaching college football kind of amazing. Yeah you
know Willie a couple of years ago I was doing an interview with Bill Belichick.
It was a fundraiser, and he raised an enormous amount of money for the cause that he agreed
to sit with me and talk.
And it was the first time, despite knowing all about him or a lot about him, that I ever
got the feeling, the real feeling he has for those Annapolis days growing up in Annapolis, around Annapolis,
when his father was coaching at the Naval Academy and the impact, the lasting impact
it had on him in terms of football, teaching football like it's a college course.
And we just saw him talking about it in a sense a bit like that. He's a teacher of football and this reverts back to memories of his dad, Annapolis coaching
in an earlier innocent time and that's where he's going back to.
I'm kind of happy for him.
We should also note the classic Belichick in understatement there, quote, he had some
good years in the NFL so that was OK.
He's the greatest coach of all
time and won six Super Bowls.
Some good years in the NFL.
So that was OK.
I also I agree with everything
Mike said about wanting to
teach the game.
I think there's a lot of real
anger that he has towards the
NFL how his run there in New
England ended and how he didn't
get a job last year ESPN is a
terrific piece on that that's on
their website.
But I should note Willie it's a three-year contract but people who are
parsing the language of it yesterday it is a very very easy out for Belichick
after one year so I think that if an NFL job were if he has a good season in
Carolina and NFL job were to open up and he wanted to chase the wins record he
could do it easily leave Carolina to do so but the same time maybe this is where
he wants to have his last act there in Chapel Hill.
Love the big swing by Carolina going after him too, and it'll be fun to see him back
on the sidelines.
We'll see what happens.
It'll be fun next year.
All right.
We got the first look at Juan Soto in a New York Mets uniform yesterday during his introductory
news conference at Citi Field.
The superstar slugger talked about that record 15-year, $765 million deal
he chose to sign with the Mets.
Mets is a great organization and what they have done in the past couple of years showing
all the ability to keep winning, to keep growing a team, to try to grow a dynasty is one of
the most important things.
Definitely what you were seeing from the other side was unbelievable.
And the vibes and everything in the field and the future that this team has, it has
a lot to do with my decision.
They showed me a lot of love on the standpoint of what they have for me and how they're going
to try to make it comfortable for me.
That's one of the things that impressed me more and how they're going to treat everybody
around me and my family and stuff like that.
In Monia's standpoint, definitely he's going to be there.
He's going to come.
It's always great. But definitely
it was really impressive what they show me that they can do with my family and stuff like that.
You know, Mike, as a Yankee fan, I keep trying to be upset about this that we let him go. But even
Soto said yesterday, the Yankees put a great offer on the table. They put their best foot forward.
I just decided I want to come play for the New York Mets. He's an incredible player.
He's still young.
So just wish him the best.
Not too much, though, if we make it to a Subway series.
He's 26 years of age, Willie.
He has a massive contract, a historic contract.
And he has an option out of that contract in five years.
He's been compared somewhat to Ted Williams in terms of being
one of the greatest hitters ever.
Good luck to him catching up to Ted Williams
if that's another story.
But five years from now,
it's gonna be really interesting, Jonathan,
to see what happens with Juan Soto.
Yeah, he could certainly test for agency again.
And the Mets have an ability to pay him more
to make that opt out go away.
I think there are questions, how he'll age.
He's a great hitter, not much of a fielder already. No, no.
He signed until he's 41 years old.
And he, as he put it, the Mets showed him a lot of money.
But Willie, they also showed him a lot of cash.
And there was a sense that he was probably always going to go to the highest bidder.
Now the question is, what do the Yankees do to rebound?
Max Fried, solid lefty starter.
They picked him up.
You know, I think there's question eight years for a 31-year-old.
That's a lot for a pitcher right now.
But do you see them landing another hitter?
There's Alex Bredebing talk, the trade for Kyle Tucker.
But it's an interesting moment as a Yankee franchise to it can't be overstayed.
This is sort of never happened before.
It's not just that they were outbid on a player that they wanted.
It was a player who chose to leave the Yankees.
When they when they want to retain someone they do and
In this case they didn't and he and he went simply across town baseball in New York has been spun on its head
Yeah, the good news is we still have our best player Aaron judge is still in pinstripe. So we like that
We still have our best pitcher Garrett Cole. We saw that added another arm with Max Fried a lefty. So that's good
I think part of the feeling was
we would have loved to kept so as I said I love the guy he's a
dynamic player he's great with the fans I thought he fits so
well in the Bronx but it does free up suddenly Mike
Barnacle 760 million dollars to go make your team better.
Not only that but with the signing of Max Fried terrific
terrific pitcher.
You've got a maybe the strongest starting staff in baseball both American and National League.
Yankees might have the strongest sense of starters. You have enough starters you can trade
pitchers now. They have pitchers on that roster that they can trade along with some minor leagueers,
really good minor leagueers, for Michael Tucker. Kyle Tucker.
From yes.
Yeah, from music is the.
He would hit 50 home runs in that ballpark.
That's right. A lefty with the short porch.
We would like to see that.
The cheating. One other sports.
Yeah, one other sports note before we get back to the news.
A truly dreadful NFL game last night, a 12-6 final.
The Rams kicked four field goals to the 49ers,
two field goals in a game that set the sport back by decades.