Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/14/22

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

Text messages show Trump White House engaging in wild election conspiracy theories

It wasn't just Trump. He had dozens of enablers and a lot of them are still in Congress. We have people who tried to overthrow the government in the government right now. And I continue to be blown away by how dumb they are. Even Scooby Doo villains know not to write it down. And they did write it down. They did. This morning, we're seeing more text messages from sitting members of Congress aimed at overturning the 2020 election. We'll have new reporting on the attempted coup and the cover up. Plus, new polling shows Republicans are Republican voters are fed up with Donald Trump.

Maybe not Republicans, but Republican voters. That's not even. Hold on. OK, Willie, hold on a second. Let's write it down. Hold on. Because they write it down. Hold on, hold on a second. We should write it down.

So DeSantis is at 56%. Donald Trump's at 33. Can we do the math? If you subtract 33 from 56, that's like 87 points, Willie. Donald Trump getting crushed by one hundred and three points right now. I mean, that's pretty. And Ron DeSantis is just governor of Florida. He's not like running or campaigning and look at me, look at me. Just sitting there trying to own the libs. And look, Willie, I mean, that's pretty massive.

That's a staggering number. It really is. And it's a recent trend. I mean, that's just in the last couple of weeks. Donald Trump still had a firm grip on the party. Maybe he still does. But now you're seeing more people who don't want him to run for president than do in the party. And that head to head matchup, that will certainly change the dynamics of the way Republicans are thinking. If there is an alternative who maybe has some of the aspects of Trumpism without being Donald Trump. There he is, apparently, Ron DeSantis. Wow. I must say, I'm shocked by those numbers. They are breathtaking. OK. And moving on as Tesla. OK, so that's Trump. OK, Trump. You did it. I know you've already done the arrow down. I'm moving on to the arrow down on Trump. OK,

who do we have next? Tesla stock drops amid his takeover of Twitter. Elon Musk finds himself dethroned as the world's richest person. So listen, I mean, he's still like, okay, so he's the world's second richest person. I mean, that's not too bad. That's nothing to sneeze at. That said, I was reading, I think it was on CNBC, a sister company here in Comcast, reminded children all over the world, the Comcast Commerce Tree now up and running. Maybe some flashing lights. So beware that. But Willie, Tesla stock has dropped by like 25 to 33 percent since Elon took over Twitter.

Again, I wonder what the Thomas Edison of our time is doing, like rummaging around in the sewer, like on this social media app that we could all do without. Why is he doing this? Why is he blowing up his other companies, too? It is confounding. And he's gone so far into sort of troll them on Twitter, talking about prosecuting Anthony Fauci and doing all the things he thinks a certain audience wants to hear, maybe trying to bring them back onto Twitter. But at what cost? We're going to talk to Steve Ratner in a minute who understands this better than most and just look at what damage Elon Musk has done. And is there a strategy here? He is,

as you say, a brilliant guy, a smart guy. Is there some 3D chess at work or is he just blowing it all by buying Twitter and becoming a troll? Well, I mean, that's the thing that and Willie, this was so fascinating. We'll talk about this a lot more. But the trolling doesn't work. It doesn't work for Donald Trump. It didn't work for Oz. It didn't work for that guy in Arizona that looked like he was like a robot that lost the Senate race. It just it's not working. Like Republicans keep losing elections. The trollers keep losing. And you take this over to Elon again. You know, work on like the Mars project, work on things that help mankind. Again, I don't. Somebody needs to get to him and say,

hey, this trolling thing that we all like have been worried about. All it does is it makes the troller the loser. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've seen that again and again and again. And I think the answer to your question is there's probably nobody at this point who can get to Elon Musk. When you reach that point in your life, Donald Trump is similar. You have people around you who tell you you are a genius and they affirm for you that the in your life, Donald Trump is similar. You have people around you who tell you you are a genius and they affirm for you that the thing you're doing is smart and good, paying perhaps three, maybe four times for Twitter what it was worth. And now spending most

of his time, it appears just objectively tweeting and responding to random people on the website he bought. You remember that House judiciary thing? What was it? Trump, Elon Kanye? Yeah. Like who who knew at the time it was a hex? It was like it's it's a hex. They wrote it down. No. And all three of those guys after they wrote it down, like they're losing money. They're Trump's. I mean, the bottom's falling out for all of them. Well, we'll be following this. We've got two Donny Deutch brand downs before we even start the show this morning. Trump and Elon Musk, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the host of way too early White House peer chief at Politico, Jonathan LaMere. Brand way up. And member of the

New York Times editorial board, Mara Gay. Like a rocket ship. Always up. Like a rocket ship. Straight up. Text messages that have never been seen publicly are providing new insight into just how deeply the Trump White House engaged with debunked election conspiracy theories following the 2020 vote. The 2,319 texts are from the phone of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

They were recently obtained by Talking Points memo after being turned over to the House January 6th committee earlier this year. The latest batch of released messages shows multiple Republican lawmakers offering to cooperate with plans to keep Trump in office, seemingly in exchange for pardon requests. Yeah, that's not good. One such message came from North Carolina's newly elected Senator Ted Budd, who was a congressman at the time. The man Budd asked to be pardoned may possibly be former Congressman Robin Hayes.

In 2020, Hayes was found guilty of bribery and fraud charges, but was pardoned by Trump shortly after this text was sent. Another message has to do with the call where Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find the exact number of votes he needed to reverse Joe Biden's 2020 win in the state. So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state and flipping the state is a great testament to our country. The people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry.

And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated because the 2000, 236 and absentee ballots, I mean, they're all exact numbers that were done by accounting firms, law firms, etc. And even if you cut them in half, cut them in half and cut them in half again, it's more votes than we need. Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. I just can't. I gave you that challenge. That call never hits old. So, you know, Willie, the thing is. In a bad way. We all grew up, and we'd see reruns of Perry Mason where somebody breaks down on the bench, right?

And they'd be like, you know, and there would be the smoking gun. There's always a smoking gun. And the first thing every law professor taught you was, this ain't Perry Mason. There's never a smoking gun. You got to piece your case together with depositions, with interrogatories, piece by piece, bit by bit. And over time, if you work hard enough, you'll get the theory of the case and you'll prevail in court. This is straight out of Perry Mason. Like Donald Trump is like, I want you to steal this election for me. Get this many votes. It's really shocking. There's no way that I believe that that that I would be careful what I say here.

Let me just say you certainly seem to have a prima facie case in the state of Georgia to indict Donald Trump. It's it's it's just shocking. Well, we know that Jack Smith, the special counsel, is talking to Brad Raffensperger, is going to talk to Brad Raffensperger, an indication that that's where the Justice Department is looking, exactly what you're talking about right there. But you're right. If this were Perry Mason, you go, come on, guys, would the writers take a week off? This is too easy. You can't just have the guy say it on the phone. And there he did. And it was recorded. And Brad Raffensperger recorded the phone call because he suspected that Donald Trump was going to do something like that. More text now. Pennsylvania Congressman Fred Keller floated a plan to Meadows that would make it seem as if Trump didn't actually want Raffensperger to find the votes.

This is actually how they were going to explain this. Instead, Trump would claim he was trying to trap Raffensperger to see if he could be trusted. If the phone conversation was leaked, the theory went. Keller said it would raise the question, quote, if Raffensperger can't be trusted on a phone call, how can he be trusted with Georgia's elections? Get this now. Wow. Meadows replied he loved that idea. So we'll explain it away by saying it was all part of our plan to trap Raffensperger to see if he could be trusted. Another exchange shows Meadows agreeing to meet with Georgia Republican Rick Allen after the congressman tells him he has a, quote, source that can prove there was election fraud. Allen later tells Meadows that his source is actually, quote, a source that is feeding his source. He then sends Meadows a conspiracy theory about Romanians and Ukrainians stealing the identities of U.S. citizens for the purpose of rigging the 2020 election for Democrats.

We're not making this stuff up. We will note some of these conversations appear to be incomplete and may be missing context. NBC News has reached out to those involved for responses. Joe, some of the texts we've talked about yesterday included our running joke, yours and mine, about the Italian dude with the satellite. That conspiracy theory being taken very seriously by Mark Meadows, passed on to President Trump,

who then went to the Justice Department and said, look into the Italian dude with the satellite who used the satellite to change votes from Trump to Biden. Yeah. Speaking of running jokes, you remember back in 1947, you and I come back from the war and what do we do? We're like, we saw a patent. He needed a little more. He needed a little more oil to get into Germany. What did we say? What if we created something called cold fusion, right? And we've been working on it since 47. It looks like they finally, finally listened to us. It looks like the government did. And so now this cold, I hope that we get at least some

recognition. I don't need to get rich off of cold fusion. I just, you and I, we've been working on this, what, 70, 80 years. Like we need some credit for this. We never do. The Nobel Committee overlooks us every single year. But we know we know what happened. I think that's enough for us in our hearts. All right. So, Willie, as we as we bounce around like a ping pong ball in a marble cage, I don't

know what that means. 1980. I read you something from the Google machine from December 10th, 1980, because as you were talking about how medicine is like, oh, hey, well, wait, maybe we can just say that we were doing an investigation of our own on Raffensperger. I said, wait, this sounds a lot like that Florida congressman, an ab scam that was caught shoving cash into his pockets and he couldn't get it all in. And they asked him how later he said, I was conducting my own investigation. Listen to this. Laura Kiernan from December 10th, 1980, Washington Post. Representative Richard Kelly took $25,000 from FBI agents posing as representatives of oil rich Arabs because he was investigating his own suspicions that his congressional staff had been infiltrated by persons who could destroy his political career. A federal court was told yesterday he took $25,000 in 1974 to, quote, seek out the truth on his own. And, you know, Jonathan LeMire passed his prologue. Nobody bought that in the 1970s during abscam. Nobody's going to buy this now. I think the shocking thing is I know I know Martin Meadows

have known him for quite some time. I sat and talked to him when he was still a member of Congress. I tried to provide him some guidance every time you talk to him. He seems like he's listening. But then you talk to others who who are telling you the exact opposite. And he seems like he's listening there. The lack of judgment shown by Mark Meadows on the incoming is absolutely shocking. I had staff members that were in their 20s and early 30s when I first got to Congress. They would have cut anything off approaching any impropriety like this in a second. It's shocking what these reveal about Mark Meadows. Yeah, I'm still blown away by this idea for a cover story that Donald Trump was trying to ensnare Brad Raffensperger, test his loyalty. Can we double agent Donald Trump going undercover to suggest if Brad Raffensperger was an ethical public official or not?

But yes, we, Joe, we know this. The chief of staff position is meant to be a gatekeeper. It's meant to keep things away from the president that are damaging or conspiratorial and only put to the president things that would matter, could advance his agenda for the American people. And that's not at all what Mark Meadows is doing here. He's a conduit taking these crazy theories, allowing them into the White House, some of them bringing them into the Oval Office and placing on Donald Trump's resolute desk. No geek keeper whatsoever. And the texts, which we've been revealed now over a couple of days, just show that, though not uncommon for the chief of staff to speak to congressmen,

to text with them, that he is up to his neck in these conspiracy theories, willing to play ball with some of the most outlandish and potentially even criminal claims. And these texts seem to be on a silver platter for any number of the investigations that are currently underway against Donald Trump. Well, they're talking about overthrowing an election. They're talking about overthrowing an incoming president of the United States. So, yes, there's some criminal liability attached to these texts. And let's step out for a second here, Willie, and see. Yes, I mean, what Talking Points memo has gotten a hold of, absolutely incredible. And we see these members of Congress being encouraged by Mark Meadows to continue their attempts to overthrow a Democratic election.

But let's remember, he was doing the same thing to Jenny Thomas. Yeah, he sure was. I mean, those those texts early on were damning to Mark Meadows as so much has been damning. And think back to the videos we've seen from the January 6th committee, the testimony we've heard about the way Mark Meadows behaved on January 6th. People came to him and said, you've got to do something. The president has to go make a statement. He said, I don't want to cross the big guy. Just extraordinary cowardice. And now we're seeing it again in these text messages.

It would be easy, again, to laugh at some of these theories about the satellite and the Romanians and all that stuff, except for the fact that they made it all the way into the Oval Office. And then Donald Trump went to the Justice Department and said, go look into all this stuff. This is an attempted coup. It's an attempted coup. You know, in some ways, Mark Meadows was kind of acting while treating the democracy like like a mob boss or like the aid to a mob boss, right? Handing his candy around for those who would play his game and tow the company line. You know, my personal favorite is when Rick Allen, you know, asks for a pardon for a friend and then says at the end of his text, and Merry Christmas. You know, I mean, the casualness with which these people thought that they would not get caught. I mean, we know that. And they they still these texts are kind of out there to these

prosecutors, just as Joe said, you know, daring them to be held accountable. I think it shows you that if they aren't held accountable, we have a real problem on our hands. And if this comes out and nothing happens to these individuals and they are allowed to continue to do quote unquote, the people's work so far as any of them are capable of it, we're going to have a real problem here. I mean, you do have to laugh because it's just dark times and you have to kind of find some way to cope with it. I just watched a Home Alone classic and it's like, this is like Home Alone villain, Harry and Marv level, you know, ridiculousness. But it's all to Joe Pesci. That's probably true.

My apologies, Mr. Pesci. But but they have to be held accountable. I mean, please, somebody hold them accountable. And guys, I would just point out this is the same group of people. Many of these are sitting United States congressmen who have just been reelected, who have pledged on the first day of the new session because they have power in the House. They're going to read from start to finish the Constitution to get back to our constitutional foundations in a way they say we've lost ourselves under the Biden administration. Look at the text messages. Ask yourself if these are the people who uphold the Constitution. Well, it really and again, it's unbelievable. I go back to I was talking about people that ran my congressional office at a young office when I went in there with Rachel,

who was 25 at the time, chief of staff. I was 31. Bart was in there. He was 31. Dave, David was like 28, 29. James. I mean, they were all young. But inside that office, every single one of them, because I was new to Washington, I said, well, what about you can't do that? Why can't I do that? Because this there actually were guardrails from day one. And I knew that when two or three of them said, no, we're not going that direction. I'd sit, we'd talk, we'd debate. We understood. And then and here. What they're doing is so beyond the pale, not only of anything that I saw in my office, nothing, nothing ever approached this through through seven years. But in any office of any people that I knew, this is this is so out of control, shattering norms, and it does shatter norms. And I've got to say, yes, we are laughing.

We are laughing at what clods these people are is for as legally. They're just legally just plotting their way through on a way to indictment. Some of these are indictments just like we there were there was laughter at the abscam with them shoving the money in their pockets that they would be that stupid that they think they could get away with it. Well, yeah, we laughed at their stupidity. They also ended up being indicted, also got sent to jail. And again, how? I'll just say, I said this on January the 7th.

On January the 7th. How does Donald Trump not get indicted for a conspiracy to commit sedition. If you read, if you read the statute, if you read other statutes about getting in the way of public business that's to be done, he's guilty. He's guilty. If you just look at it. Of course, in America, everybody is innocent until proven guilty. But no man is above the law. No man's above the law. You look, though, at these statutes and it was obvious the day after. And we just keep getting more and more and more evidence that's stacking up on top of. I, I think Republicans are starting to understand that. And that may be, Mika, why you're starting to see so many Republicans break away from Trump, not because of, you know, they were concerned. Right. For any moral reason.

Please. These are people who were fighting and screaming and scratching and clawing and voting and supporting this guy. And in 2020, two weeks after he was pressuring his attorney general to arrest his political opponent, who was ahead of him in the polls and the family. So it doesn't have anything to do with that. Maybe they understand, though, all of these crimes are going to add up to making him unelectable in 2024. To Mara's point, these text messages, which are so revealing, they have a blasé quality to them. Merry Christmas. These conversations have been going on for a long time in different ways. To your point, Joe, new polling shows support for Donald Trump's 2024 presidential bid is trending downward. The USA Today Suffolk

University poll had him at 60 percent among Republicans in July. The number dipped to 56 percent in October and is now at just 47 percent. While 31 percent of Republicans want Trump to win, 61 percent say they prefer another nominee who would continue the policies Trump has pursued. The overwhelming choice is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. That's amazing. He leads Trump by double digits, 56 percent to 33 percent. DeSantis also outperforms Trump against Joe Biden in hypothetical matchups. DeSantis leads Biden by four points while Trump trails Biden by seven. And look at those numbers. Let's keep that up right now. And Jonathan Lemire, at the end of the day, this is the calculation that Republicans are making. Not that they're shocked and stunned that he is an immoral guy who's committed a lot of crimes, but just he can't

beat Joe Biden. He keeps losing election for Republicans, elections for Republicans. I think they finally understand that. Yeah, we can tick through the disastrous launch that Trump has had since he launched, as he began his 2024 campaign, the dinner with the white supremacists saying he'll terminate the Constitution, all of that. But what matters is how poorly Republicans did in the midterms. And that's what the GOP is grappling with right now. They should have had that red wave with historical trends and economic data, the inflation. They should have done far better than they did. And they didn't, large part because they were saddled with Donald Trump's handpicked candidates who were disastrous

in the Senate. And that is what they're thinking about right now. Now, look, we shouldn't draw conclusions. We don't know that this is a done deal. Trump has looked weakened before and has somehow rallied back. But this is his lowest moment since the morning of January 7th, to be sure. Republicans came back then. A lot of people I talk to say they're less certain they're going to come back now. Because it's not just that Trump's had a bad campaign so far. Trump's vanished. Where has he gone? The Republicans are asking, why is he not out there? Why is he not doing rallies? Why is he not trying to change the narrative? Why is he not trying to get people excited about him again? He's not doing anything. And yes, DeSantis is a

blank canvas to many Republicans. They can project what they want to see on him. So he, of course, will be vetted and tested in the months ahead. But right now, what that poll shows us, though certainly good for DeSantis, it's more about a problem for Trump and so many Republicans feeling he can't win again, considering breaking away. And this is with Ron DeSantis doing nothing to indicate whether he would run for president. He's just going about his job as governor of Florida. But Republicans, as John said, are excited about what he did in his election back in November. Governor DeSantis now is launching a new battle against COVID-19 vaccines in his state.

I'm announcing a petition with the Supreme Court of Florida to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate any and all wrongdoing in Florida with respect to COVID-19 vaccine. Governor DeSantis did not specify about what wrongdoing the panel would investigate, but suggested it would search for evidence to bolster claims about harmful side effects. Joining us now, NBC News senior national political reporter Mark Caputo. Mark, we'll let you talk broadly about this idea of Ron DeSantis taking on Donald Trump, but specifically this this action about vaccines. What's he up to here? Well, that's a good question. What DeSantis is definitely up to is that kind of his political

brand was built in 2020, questioning expert opinion about covid, covid-19 response to covid, opening schools, opening the state up, fighting vaccine mandates. And what's happened over the years is DeSantis has gone from this full-throated supporter of COVID-19 vaccines, you know, he toured the state, told people to get them, called them life-saving, and then just kind of slowly morphed as a portion of the Republican Party became anti-vax when it came to the COVID-19 vaccine. And now we're here. And when he made this announcement, it landed in Trump world as, in the words of one advisor, a shot across the bow. There's one thing that Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis definitely disagree on now, and that's the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine.

That was something that Donald Trump liked to brag about. definitely disagree on now, and that's the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine. That was something that Donald Trump liked to brag about, the development of these things and Operation Warp Speed under him as president. But what happened last year, it was about a year ago, at an event in Dallas, Trump talked about, hey, have you gotten your booster? Boosters are good. It was an event with Bill O'Reilly, and he got booed. And according to people that we've spoken to, who have spoken to Donald Trump, this really surprised him and made him realize like, oh, there's a portion of the Republican base that's anti-vax. Well, that space now appears to be being filled with Ron DeSantis,

and it's being viewed as a threat by Trump supporters, Trump backers, Trump advisors, Trump world more broadly. You know, what's so funny about this, Mark, is, again, it's all gesturing. It's all Ron DeSantis playing the shock opera. He wants to shock Democrats. He wants to shock the media. He wants people to scream and yell. You look at his history, though, we're starting to see a trend, right? He goes after Disney. He attacks the Magic Kingdom. He attacks Mickey Mouse.

I'm taking away their tax, blah, blah, blah. The election's over. Now, suddenly we hear maybe Disney's not going to get touched after all. It's the same thing with this election crime unit. He runs around and we see video of a lot of black Floridians being arrested. You get to the end of it after the election, you find there's really not a whole lot there other than Ron DeSantis wanting to grab headlines. You can say the same things about him lying to migrants, getting him on a plane, flying him to Martha's Vineyard. Again, all gestures, all shock opera, no follow through.

And here now he's sounding like an anti-vaxxer from San Francisco. He's sounding like some left wing anti-vaxxer from, you know, 1998. But he knows the stats. He knows all the stats. Don't back this up. He knows there will be nothing that comes out of this investigation. Is it just more gesturing, huh? Well, I'll I'll be interested to see what's interesting about the timing is the day he made this announcement. There was a study that was released saying that the covid-19 vaccine had saved three point two million American lives. Now, DeSantis's tenure as governor and his management of covid has been pretty controversial because, you know, at a certain point he flung the state open. And that almost coincided with the Delta wave, which really ravaged the state. But it hasn't politically affected him so far in

that he just won his election by nearly 20 points, which is pretty darn big in Florida, which used to be a swing state. But it's difficult to get an answer out of the administration as to exactly what sort of lying the pharmaceutical companies allegedly did, what sort of criminal exposure they have, because during his announcement, he sort of compared this to the opioid manufacturers. And that's a pretty different sort of matter. Right. Yeah. Willie, it's just absolutely insane. And by the way, Willie, if you look at the states that had the most most deaths per capita. You have a lot of states that are deep, deep red at the top of the list, where anti-vax sentiment runs as high as it used to run among hippies

on the West Coast. Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, West Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, you've got New Jersey in there, Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia, and yes. And then you keep going and there's Florida at number 12, I believe states like California down at 40. Um, and, and, and so again, he understands, I mean, he'd be maybe like trying to run as the guy that got COVID right. You look at the numbers. You didn't get COVID right. I mean, he just didn't. And the same thing, again, with the vaccines.

This is this is what you and I deal with every day with our friends and the conspiracy theories and people sending around Facebook posts and people getting information from Chinese religious cults and people getting information from plandemic. He, you know, I'm not shocked. I'm not stunned. I'm not playing into the shock opera. I'm just saying here's another example, just like Disney, where Ron DeSantis is going to prove at the end that he's all hat, no cattle, and it's all a big, fat, phony gesture. We will see. As John said, he's a blank canvas right now.

Some people are going to fill in the blanks on Ron DeSantis as his profile continues to rise, which raises the question, Mark Caputo, about those polls we just showed. Kind of eye-popping numbers at this point to have the former president of the United States, who's already announced his run, trailing Ron DeSantis by 23 points. In this poll, anyway, this is obviously a big hypothetical. We have no idea if DeSantis is going to run. But talking to people around Florida, talking to people around Governor DeSantis, when they see a number like this, what does it tell them? Well, what it tells them is kind of what you guys had said before.

It is Donald Trump since his announcement, which really hasn't gone as smoothly as anyone would have wanted in Trump world. His numbers have just continued to erode. Here in the Suffolk University poll, you reference the pollster David, David Paliologos said that his numbers actually cratered, which is, you know, apparently true. But the main problem that Donald Trump has right now is he wanted to get in early. He really thought there would be a big midterm election wave for Republicans. He committed to an announcement right after the election, didn't go Republicans way. And since then, he's just been sort of floundering.

And DeSantis has had the luxury of both and has the luxury of both time and money. His poll numbers continue to either increase or Donald Trump's continue to decrease in theoretical matchups. And DeSantis has had at least sixty three million dollars in the bank after the election. And what he's done since then is he's kind of steadily taken on these issues which get people talking, get the right wing riled up, get the left wing very mad. He's also done a good job of avoiding things that he doesn't want to talk about. Right now, you wouldn't know it. In Tallahassee, there's a special session of the legislature to address a looming financial crisis with millions of Florida homeowners, and that's property insurance.

And the legislature looks right now in order to address the issue of skyrocketing property insurance rates to pass a quote unquote reform that's going to limit people's rights to sue and might raise rates for people and not guarantee any lower rates. And what's Ron DeSantis wind up doing? Well, he winds up talking about COVID-19 vaccines, not property insurance. Yeah, just just trying to distract. It's the shock opera. And you're all invited to be outraged. Mark Caputo, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. Great reporting as always. So, Maura, it's also important. I know the election was was what, a month ago or something like that. It's all a blur. It's all a blur. But it's important to look back at the results of that election. If you're a Republican, if you want to win in 2024, election night was really a tale of two Republican parties.

You had Ron DeSantis's Republican Party, he swept in county commission candidates that had no, no idea that they were going to win. It was like up and down the ballot. It was massive. But then you get outside of Florida, a nightmare for Senate Republican candidates, a nightmare for Kevin McCarthy, who said last year he's going to win by 60, 60. They're going to pick up 60 seats. Now McCarthy's even fighting for his political life because they they so badly underperformed. So if you're a Republican, it's a pretty simple choice, isn't it? Yeah, it's clear that that the Trump brand is now toxic And not necessarily because those around him, some of them may apparently end up in jail, although that should be a reason, but also because he's not winning elections for

the Republicans anymore. So that much is clear. And that's why we're seeing this shift toward DeSantis. Again, that kind of blank slate that voters can kind of, you know, make whatever they need to make for themselves. But the question I have, and maybe this is kind of a question for you, Joe, but I was always taught in college. I was a political science major. I actually studied political science of the American South specifically. I mean, we were always taught that politics in the South is very local. So the question is, can the DeSantis effect be replicated elsewhere? Or is actually is this just something beyond Trump? And is it about the toxicity of Trumpism? And will DeSantis's antics that we just talked about play with independence anywhere else?

Will he play with moderate Republicans anywhere else? We don't really know that yet. So that's that's to be to be determined. Yeah. And, you know, yesterday somebody brought up the Washington generals, the hapless basketball team that always played against the Harlem Globetrotters. They lost every game. There's another side of Florida. There's no doubt DeSantis did a great job politically in getting all the money, in playing the shock opera, getting people, giving money from across the nation, and also crowding out opponents.

But there's another part of it. He was running against nobody. He was playing against the Washington generals. The Democratic Party in the state of Florida is dead. You talk to Charlie. Chris won't say this. He's far too polite. But you talk to people who work for Charlie. Chris, you talk to people that work for people running for Congress that were running for constitutional offices up and down the ballot. The Democratic Party was never there. There was never a get out the vote operation. There was never money. There was never support. So can it be replicated? I mean, maybe it

can. I know the donors absolutely love Ron DeSantis. I suspect, though, he's going to run into some problem in states like Iowa, South Carolina, smaller states where you have to do some retail politicking because people in Tallahassee just say one on one. He's not that good of a politician. But they'd rather have him than Trump. Oh, yeah. Oh, no doubt. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is again pointing the blame for Republican midterm losses squarely at Donald Trump. Well, that sounds about right.

But the head of the RNC says she needs to study it more. Oh, sweet Jesus. What does she need to study? What does she? She's been doing this a long time. But you know what, though? In her defense.

She needs to study. She's been doing it a long time, but in her defense, she loses every election. So that would be a good lesson that perhaps it's time to move on. Yeah. If you keep losing, Ronna,

maybe you should figure out what's the common theme in every year that you keep losing elections for Republicans. Plus the latest from the southern border. The Biden administration is proposing a new asylum policy as a huge number of migrants flood into Texas. It's just it's out of control. We're going to look at the new bipartisan effort to ban TikTok in the United States. This is really interesting.

And as we mentioned, Elon Musk is no longer the richest person in the world. We're going to be talking to the person who is, Steve Ratner. He joins us with charts next. Musk is facing problems with Twitter and Tesla. Steve Ratner joins ahead with charts on that. Yes, you're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. An Olive Garden manager was fired

after sending the staff an aggressive warning about missing work. Listen to this. The message from an Olive Garden manager in Kansas to employees. We are no longer tolerating any excuse for calling off. If you are sick, you need to come prove it to us. If your dog died, you need to bring him in and prove it to us. Good news, though. Today, the White House to address the major

surge of migrants at the southern border. Four sources familiar with those plans tell NBC News they involve restricting the number of migrants who qualify for asylum while opening pathways for some would-be migrants to apply from outside the United States. Meanwhile, city officials in El Paso, Texas, say the new migrant influx is stretching resources as a Trump era immigration policy known as Title 42 is set to end next week. Let's bring in NBC News national correspondent Gabe Gutierrez, who joins us live from the Mexican side of the southern border. Gabe. Mika, good morning. The temperatures here are hovering around freezing right now. Let me set the scene for you. Let me step out of the way. You see this long line of migrants. These are hundreds, possibly around a thousand migrants here. And I'm standing in Ciudad Juarez. Just to put it in perspective,

the water you see is the Rio Grande. Those migrants are technically on U.S. soil right now, waiting to get into the U.S. Beyond the border fence is downtown El Paso. And this line, as you can see, stretches all the way down there. They're burning fires to keep warm. And local officials in El Paso say this is a sign of things to come. Even more migrants crossing the Rio Grande into El Paso, Texas. Thousands have come in huge groups just over the past several days, burning fires to keep warm, many from Nicaragua. Here in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, tension has been ramping up. Weeks ago, riot police broke apart a migrant camp that had formed along the border.

Now shelters are filling up. There are still hundreds of migrants that have walked across the Rio Grande and right now are waiting to get into El Paso. This new influx that we're seeing comes just days before a federal court is set to lift the pandemic era border restriction known as Title 42. We met this family of four from Guatemala who arrived here weeks ago. Now they're waiting until Title 42 is lifted before they decide whether to cross into the United States. With U.S. migrant processing centers already crowded and some migrants even sleeping outside, some officials in El Paso are urging the mayor to declare a state of emergency. It is a crisis. It is a state of emergency. There is no municipality alone that

could handle what we're seeing and what we're about to see with the lifting of Title 42. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas visited El Paso and he's facing Republican calls for impeachment. There was a record-breaking 2.4 million illegal border crossings in the last year. Critics of the Biden administration say its lax border policies will encourage an even larger influx when Title 42 is lifted. Customs and Border Protection agents tell NBC News daily illegal border crossings could reach a record 10,000 per day. This man from Ecuador says a cartel kidnapped him during his grueling journey, and that he only survived because the Mexican military rescued him and hundreds of others. Secretary Mayorkas says that immigration is a complex issue and he is defending the Biden

administration's border policies. The Department of Homeland Security has also just announced that it's deploying more agents here to the border to handle this influx. Mika and Joe. All right. Thank you so much. Gabe you. Gabe Gutierrez live from Mexico, from the Mexican side of the southern border. So Jonathan O'Meara certainly is a complex issue when you have this many migrants coming to the United States. But from the very beginning,

this administration has had a serious problem. The Trump administration had a serious problem. It drove Donald Trump crazy. As we all know, under Barack Obama, illegal crossings reached a 50-year low. They spiked during the Trump administration, and they've gone to record highs this year. But I'm trying to understand what's going on here with the administration, their reasoning, their thinking. I mean, we need a safe, fair process that respects the rule of law,

that's a humane process. Having these people flood up to the United States when we don't have the capacity to process them, we don't have the capacity to make sure that they're safe on their journey here or their journey. There's nothing humane about that. That's as humane as letting homeless people sleep on grates in New York City in zero degree weather. There's also a lack of fairness for immigrants, people that want to migrate from Pakistan, from Poland, from Sudan, from other parts of the world who want to come here and go through a legal process. This has to end. This just has to end, Jonathan. Is there anybody in the administration that feels a sense of urgency to stop this humanitarian crisis on the southern border? And by the way. This is not me saying we need less immigrants in the United States.

Let's increase the number of immigrants we have in the United States. Let's increase the number of refugees we allow in. that's just as fair to a migrant from India or Pakistan or Sudan or Poland as it is from somebody from El Salvador or Nicaragua. This is just not fair. Yeah, this is an issue that has challenged the Biden administration from the start, Joe. They say they inherited it from their predecessor, from the Trump administration, but they recognize that what is happening now is not sustainable and likely only to get worse. There's a suggestion that when Title 42 expires next week, and let's remind everyone, that's a CDC policy put in place during the pandemic that sort of really trapped down the asylum system here in the United States. The Biden administration has looked to extend it.

They've gone to court to extend it, but it is going to expire. And they believe their estimates that more than 10,000 people a day could be crossing that southern border once that happens. And the administration, in its new funding request, has asked for $4 billion to try to deal with what's to come. But to your larger point, in terms of needing a broader, comprehensive immigration reform, the Biden administration, they say it, They've told, officials have told me, they've told others, they're willing to have that competition. They want to have it,

but they're not seeing an appetite from Congress in order to do it. That there hasn't been any sort of, beyond a fits or starts, no real momentum, a bipartisan momentum to get a deal done. The latest, we had a few senators a week or so back float something that kind of quickly came and went.

They recognize it's a problem. It's only going to get worse. It will become also a political liability beyond a humanitarian crisis. But right now, they feel like their hands are tied and they're looking and they know that things are only going to get likely worse when Title 42 expires in just a matter of days. Yeah. And Jonathan, while we're talking about the White House, a couple of things yesterday happened.

They had a really good day yesterday. Economically, things going much better than expected. Looks like there is a possibility of that soft landing. And also, Mika, of course, a historic event. President Biden signing the Respect for Marriage Act into law yesterday. Yeah, the legislation codifies federal recognition and protections for same sex and interracial marriages. So this was a big win at the White House and there was a lot of celebrating that. And also President Biden talked about the latest economic numbers.

And, you know, he made it very clear that things are looking a lot better than people expected. Right. And and it really there is a really moving part, Willie, at the end when he talked about Brittany Griner. Yeah. And he talked about families and he talked about her family, the bond of love, her family being complete again. You saw Republicans. This is a bipartisan piece of legislation. You know, you really when you saw it yesterday afternoon, you understood you were you were watching history, not just political history, but a real shift. Yeah. And America culturally over the past decade, past 15 years culminating in yesterday's signing by President Biden of this legislation. Yeah. Think about that. An 80 year old Catholic man who became

president of the United States, who's lived a lot of life, who's had revolving positions on this, but was out front actually in the Obama administration on the issue of gay marriage, signing into law, codifying at a federal level protections for gay marriage and interracial marriage. Mara Gay, as you look at the scene out there, a lot of this, of course, is in response to the Dobbs decision. There was a particular urgency around this, but really an extraordinary scene yesterday at the White House. Well, it is. And it's a nice reminder that actually the majority of the country is continuing to move forward. It's also just to be clear, I mean, we've been living in this reality, uh, many of us

where, uh, interracial and of course, uh, you know, my parents got married in 1980, um, Barack Obama's parents before that. So this is not new, but it does actually matter when you see, um, your relationships, your life, uh, validated actually, actually, in front of the White House. And so, you know, to some, they may dismiss symbols, but actually there's great power in them. And there's also power in numbers. So it's very validating to a whole lot of people. And Willie, as President Biden brought up yesterday, this wasn't just an act, a feel good act. When you have the Supreme Court taking away a right from women that they've had for 50 years. And then when you have in a concurring opinion, a conservative member of the Supreme Court said, oh, by the way,

we really ought to look into possibly taking away the rights of Americans to have contraception, the rights of Americans to marry whom they love. There's actually a reason why there was a sense of urgency yesterday to getting that legislation passed and signed into law. Yeah. and President Biden referenced Clarence Thomas, Justice Thomas yesterday, and that opinion saying this is part of why we felt like we needed to push forward. And we should point out 12 Republican senators signed on to this. They got a handful in the House as well to put this over the top. We'll have much more on that ceremony. Play some sound in just a bit.

Some headline news out of Forbes this morning. Elon Musk, no longer the richest person in the world. He'd held that title since September of last year. It now belongs, though, to LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault. That is according to Forbes. Arnault oversees a luxury fashion and cosmetics empire with brands like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany and Sephora. Forbes puts his net worth at just under one189 billion. Musk is now second on the billionaires list. I think he's going to be OK. He's got a net worth of almost $177 billion. Most of his fortune is tied to Tesla's stock, which has lost nearly a third of its value

since Musk brought Twitter. It dropped another 6% on Monday following a weekend of tweets from Musk, which he targeted a formal official at Twitter and Dr. Anthony Fauci. All of this has some major investors in Tesla voicing their concerns about Musk's focus on Twitter. One hedge fund manager with about $50 million invested in Tesla tweeted that Musk's Twitter drama is negatively impacting the brand. A recent survey from The Wall Street Journal supports his claim and found Tesla is falling out of favor because the brand is now viewed as more partisan because of Musk's ongoing political tweets.

Let's bring in former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. Steve, good morning. It's mystified a lot of people in the business world and the political world. What is Elon Musk up to here with Twitter? I can't explain what he's up to with Twitter. It doesn't make a lot of sense. It feels like he was intrigued with buying Twitter. He got himself into a contract that was so irrevocable that when he got inside Twitter and found out that the business wasn't as good as he thought it was, he couldn't really back out of it. He had to go ahead and close the deal. But his behavior since then is kind of inexplicable to me. Inexplicable.

Well, let's look at the impact it's having. In your first chart, you've got Tesla sort of versus Twitter and Musk polarizing brand here. Yeah. So it's interesting because Tesla for a long time was a kind of apolitical brand. People bought them because they liked the cars. They love the cars. But what's happened this year, as you can see, is a spread between the Republican view of Tesla and the Democratic view of Tesla. The first few months of the year, it was pretty much the same, a net favorability rating of about 25 to 30 percent from both Republicans and Democrats. And now you see the sort of jaws opening and you now have a

Republican net favorability to Tesla of 26 percent, but only 10 percent net favorability rating from Democrats. And so it's become a politicized brand. I put Twitter in here just as a point of comparison, which is kind of interesting in itself, in that Twitter was pretty widely perceived as a Democratic brand, more favorably by Democrats. But that is also closed. And now it is roughly even on Twitter between Republican and Democratic views of Twitter. But Tesla, the jaws have opened and that's not particularly good for the company. Yeah, I mean, if you look at that chart, that's all just in this year. That's an amazing change in just the span of a few months.

Your next chart, Tesla now facing a little competition. Some people out in that market facing a little competition, some people out in that market smelling a little blood in the water, maybe. Yeah, there's a lot of competition coming. And that was coming anyway. Obviously, people were going to get into the electric car business. We have there are 48 electric vehicles being sold today. And projections are it's going to go to 159 by 2025. And so Tesla was inevitably going to lose market share. If you start with 80% plus market share, there's only one way to go. And you can see that happening here. How much of that is Elon Musk's current activities? How much

of it is the competition? We don't know. Tesla will sell more cars this year than last year, but not by a huge margin. But Tesla has other issues. And you can see on the right, this is a chart of recalls that have happened to Tesla, a combination of software, which is the dark colored bars at the bottom and service required, i.e. hardware at the top part of it. And so there are also now quality controls about Tesla that is starting to work their way through the ecosystem, something that Elon Musk also should be worrying about if he weren't spending all of his time worrying about something else. And as I said, all this activity on Twitter, all this sort of

dabbling into politics on Twitter is affecting the price of Tesla's stock. How bad has it gotten? It's gotten really bad. There have been a number of analysts and investors and all that who put out statements and tweets and things, basically, as you said, saying that Elon's got to get back to business. And what's he doing over at Twitter? He should be at Tesla because they do have these issues. And so what you can see is that the stock is down 54 percent, 54, 5, 4% so far this year. The 15th worst out of 500 companies in the S&P. It is the 15th worst. The market is obviously down a little bit, but nothing like that. And you can also see in the gray line in the middle that the auto companies as a whole

are not down nearly as much. And they're actually up a bit since the 27th of October when Elon bought Twitter. Tesla's down 29 percent just in those couple of months. And the S&P is up. Ford is up. GM is up in that period of time as well. So he's had he's had a rough time. You know, just back to the politicization of this thing. There's an interesting irony, which is that Tesla got, Elon got a huge loan from under the Obama administration to build his factory. Mitt Romney in 2012 called Tesla a loser company. And now it's all sort of flipped around. Wow. That's crazy. And what a disastrous move on Twitter for him economically. Let's talk really quickly about the numbers

yesterday. Steve, just want to get your input. Inflation down more than expected. The Fed, bit of a split jury on what that means over the next year. But it certainly does look like there's more of a chance of a soft landing through 2023. What's your read on everything you've seen over the past few days? Yeah, definitely the news yesterday was good news. We're talking about tenths of a percent of interest, a tenths of a percent, not huge amounts. But it was better than what we thought. The market liked it. The market rallied. Bond price, bond yields came down, which is a good thing. And so people, I think, are feeling a bit better about it at the moment. The Fed is going to meet today.

We're going to this afternoon around 2 or 2.15. We will get there, not just their latest interest rate move, which will be up 50 percent. We will also get their new economic forecast as well as their interest rate forecast. And all of that will tell us a lot about the future course. I would say, honestly, yes, the odds of a soft landing have improved somewhat. I would say the vast majority of economists and Wall Street types and all that still do expect that there's a recession or a future here if we're really going to get inflation all the way back to the 2% that Jay Powell keeps talking about.

All right, Steve Ratner, thank you very much for coming on this morning.