Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/16/22

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Trump’s ‘Major Announcement’ is $99 photoshopped pics

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knock these buildings down will hear all of us soon. My official Trump digital trading cards are ninety nine dollars, which doesn't sound like very much for what you're getting. Buy one and you will join a very exclusive community. It's my community. And I think it's something you're going to like and you're going to like it a lot. They also make perfect gifts. Great moments in presidential speeches. And then there's Donald Trump

where the grift continues. This time embarrassing his remaining defenders. Literally, Steve Bannon was upset with this, with a sleazy trading card announcement. Let me just say what else we have, because we're never going to get to it after we show

this thing. I mean, it's going to be a complete breakdown on this show. How do we show this and keep a straight face? We don't. Let me just say, also ahead, Elon Musk, who has become a champion of free speech on the right, suspends the Twitter accounts of journalists who cover him. Who he doesn't like. We're also following the latest from Washington.

Some free speech you got there, Elon. Two bills headed to the president's desk, one funding the military, another giving lawmakers one more week to avert a government shutdown. Willie. We have Katty, Michael Steele. Willie. And Justin Lemire. I just.

Friday. It is Friday. There are there are few words. There are few words. I saw this yesterday and, you know, I thought it was like put together by a late night comic or something that they made his mouth move. But we may be going into the early days of Rudyism where you sit there and go, where are the children to like keep him away from camera so he doesn't embarrass himself? I mean, this is so out of touch, right? This is so. Well, we got to show what this is.

This is so dated. It was like a couple of years ago when I walked into Tom Ford's store with my baby blue leisure suit. And, you know, I had one of those silk shirts. It was like dogs playing poker. And I thought, well, this is like, right. If you're going into Tom Ford, this is what you dress it. Right. I was a couple of years behind the time. This is Trump.

It was so outdated. It was so off key. I really I just I couldn't believe he did it. It was so horrifically bad, especially at this point when people are saying Canada, is he relevant? Here's how bad it is. Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn said, boy, that was embarrassing. He really shouldn't have done that. That says it all, does it? Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn. I had the same reaction, Joe.

In fact, I just asked Alex and TJ again. I said, are we sure those are the real pictures? Because the NFTs or the baseball cards or whatever they are, they're so ridiculous. They can't be real. Is that real? And here's the worst part, Joe. Oh, there's the NASCAR one.

That's great. Nice Photoshop work there, too. Oh, my God. The worst part, Joe, is that he wants his supporters to pay $99 for that. What is that? $99. That's a glissad that. What is that? $99. That's a glissad guy. Give me your money.

Okay. Okay. Let's try and pull this back here. No. No, we're not going to pull this back. We have to show our viewers what we're talking about. The former president, now presidential candidate again, trying to get the Republican nomination,

had a major announcement. A major announcement. This is the major announcement from Donald Trump. Take a look. Hello, everyone. This is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time, better than Lincoln, better than Washington,

with an important announcement to make. I'm doing my first official Donald J. Trump NFT collection right here and right now. They're called Trump Digital Trading Cards. These cards feature some of the really incredible artwork pertaining to my life and my career. It's been very exciting. You can collect your Trump Digital Cards

just like a baseball card or other collectibles. Here's one of the best parts. Each card comes with an automatic chance to win amazing prizes like dinner with me. I don't know if that's an amazing prize, but it's what we have. Or golf with you and a group of your friends at one of my beautiful golf courses. And they are beautiful. I'm also doing Zoom calls, a one-on-one meeting, autographing memorabilia, and so much more. We're doing a lot.

My official Trump digital trading cards are $99. What's he doing? I mean, seriously, Willie. I can't. What's he doing? It's what we got. And I'll do Zoom calls with you, and I'll... He's selling them.

Yeah, no, he's selling all of this stuff. What's he doing? This is like late- television you know late night television where that we grew up on they're like really cheap public access stuff again i when i don't understand i don't understand like that right but wait there's more i mean what's going on here willie you know right for for a guy who says he's a billionaire he's out hustling his supporters for 99 bucks a pop to hop on a zoom with him i i don't i don't even know what to say i'm still watching this thing the santa hat all of it the photoshop what is the announcement people said okay well maybe he's got some plan

he's going to talk about. Maybe he's going to say something about DeSantis. Maybe he throws a vice presidential candidate in. He says he's running for president. But by the way, is there any evidence that he actually is? Yeah. The proportions on this photoshopping like it's like, wow, got a lizard head. Like all the proportions are just like Willie. Come on. Like who, who said, Oh, Mr. President, I think this is a good idea. Michael Steele, help Michael Steele help me out here. Joe, Joe, I love you, brother. I got nothing for you. This is some of the whacked out stupidest stuff I have seen. Oh, my God. I mean, it just it.

But, you know, here's the here's the interesting part about this. We get a chuckle from it. But there are a whole lot of people going by this stuff. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't know. In something that doesn't exist it's an nft all right it's not it's not like you can actually trade them so i i don't i i don't know what he thinks is well he does know what he thinks is, well, he does know what he thinks. He's not stupid. And I think the key thing really goes to what Jonathan, um,

uh, in his conversation with Alexi at the, at the end of, uh, his show brought out. And that is, this is a way to get back in the game. He knows he can get in the game.

He doesn't have to do traditional political stuff, Joe, you know, that Mika knows that he just, he can put this out there. We're talking about it. We're showing it. We're pushing it. And

yeah, it's not presidential, but what about 2016 was presidential? Or what about his presidency was presidential? For Trump, this is keeping in the game. He'll come back and collapse, you know, back on DeSantis when he thinks it's necessary. But right now he's going to grift.

He's going to grift. It is. Caddy, this guy is, again, as Willie said, supposedly a billionaire. this guy is selling Zoom calls, these horrible trading cards. Everything is beyond cheap. And again, when you've lost Steve Bannon and Mike Flynn, perhaps you've lost a lot more. I mean, the base can't look at this and go, oh, yeah, that boy, that's the guy I want to vote for next time. I think it's the holiday season and our gift to our viewers should just be play that on loop for the next three hours because it's so funny. Maureen has just done my makeup and I realize that my eye shadow is just running everywhere now because it's making me cry so much. I watched that and it just and I kind of thought, is he strapped for cash?

I mean, is it is he really poor or something that he's having to sell these things in the 1999 in the corner and the production is cheap? It looks like the shopping channel, the way he's doing it. There's a part you watch Trump doing this. And I watched a few times. And there's slightly an air about him of beleagueredness. Like, is this a you almost wonder there's a thought bubble slightly going on thinking, is this really a good idea? And even he seems to realize this is super tacky. But, you know, that Trump just thinking back to that Trump story, I spent the day in in Arizona where they couldn't keep stuff in stock because Trump fans around the country love Trump memorabilia.

And there will be somebody out there who gives this to somebody as their Christmas, you know, your least favorite aunt. Is this the Christmas present you give them? Maybe a person you never want to speak to it again? Just again, I don't think so. So Jonathan O'Meara also, I mean, just the way he was talking, as Mika said as we were listening to it, it was if Siri had Donald Trump's voice, hello, and we have more for you, and dinner for you if you want. I just, again, I've often said he's not well, but I looked yesterday at that announcement. I was like, something is seriously off for him. Joe Biden responded. Yeah, something

seriously. You follow this guy every day. You've written a book about him. What was your take about what we saw? Well, first and foremost, this is not going to quiet the doubts the Republican Party has about Donald Trump being its face and particularly whether or not he's really running for president. Let's remember, it's been a month now since he declared his candidacy and it's been a disaster. The dinner with the white supremacist saying he's going to terminate the Constitution, his business being convicted, found guilty in New York civil court, more legal peril. And he hasn't had a single rally. He hasn't had a single event. He's not doing interviews. He's not really doing anything except apparently making these NFTs, which by the way, a curious moment to be jumping in the NFT market as it

has completely collapsed in recent months. Although I will note there's a site that tracks NFT sales suggests that he's already sold about a million dollars worth of these. So if that's all what it is, then the grift might be working at least for a little while. But it's alienated allies. There were real hope yesterday that he was going to actually put out some sort of policy or announce he's coming back to Twitter or maybe even talk about a VP pick or a SCOTUS choice if he were to get a seat, a selection again. And it's none of that. It's an effort to make money. It's an effort to create baseball cards, except hopefully more exciting in his words. I mean, it is it is laughable and it is a parody. And a lot of Republicans I heard from yesterday are just like, are we really going to do this again with this guy? Yeah, well, that's

that's what they were asking yesterday. And by the way, they sold out. That's sort of like Trump family members books going to number one on The New York Times best seller list. Someone's out buying books for him. Someone's buying an NFTs for him or they're doing it themselves. I mean, unless there are people who would pay ninety nine dollars to get a screenshot of that hideousness. Here's reaction from two of former president's closest allies. Whoever advised him on that, I'd fire him immediately. These cards feature some of the really incredible.

Okay, I got it. I got it. I can't watch it again. Make it stop. Anybody in the comms team and anybody in Mar-a-Lago, and I love the folks down there, but we're at war. They ought to be fired today. So that is his major announcement.

Many thought it would be political. Many thought it would be about maybe creating a new party. I mean, there was so much speculation on this. But it's not that. It's a digital trading card. It's $99, and he said it would make a great Christmas gift. Oh, there's a bunch of them. Interesting timing for that. Yeah.

There you go. There's the announcement. And I think we got the website up there, too. If you are interested in supporting this business venture of the former president. Boy, Newsmax is hard just not in it there, trying to sell those NFTs at 99 bucks a pop. So he's lost Newsmax on this, Steve Bannon. I mean, you even had Sebastian Gorka shaking his head there

and Michael Flynn, of course, condemning this. But Joe, think how little he thinks of his voters, of his supporters to say, I think I can trick them into sending me ninety nine bucks for Photoshop pictures of me in an astronaut suit. Keep giving me your money. That's what he's been saying, by the way, around the January 6th, around the 2020 election. Give me some money so we can continue this fight. Give me some money. I'm not going to share it with Republican candidates who might actually be able to win and bring us back into power. I'm going to keep the money. It's all he wants in the end. He's fleecing his own supporters here. Well, you know, I had I had said six years ago after he won that this was a branding experiment that went horribly wrong for Donald Trump.

He never expected to win. He wanted to make money out of it. And, you know, he had his hotel. He had foreign dignitaries come stay at his hotel, hoping to make money off of that. But since he's lost, Michael Steele, I've compared him, I think, quite accurately to Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and how they used to fleece my grandmom for money and millions of Americans for money. They would use their love for Jesus Christ against them to take their Social Security checks from them. And since Donald Trump lost, he had his stop the steal farce where he said, send me your money.

He raised well over $100 million for that. And we find out that the money didn't go for legal challenges there for anything else. And then, of course, the January 6th stuff. I mean, there's constantly a grift. He raised money supposedly to help candidates. He ended up keeping one hundred million dollars for himself and he didn't spend the money on the candidates while Mitch McConnell was spending over one hundred million dollars on it. And then he blames Mitch. It is it is a grift. I mean, one grift after another grift after another grift. And I don't know. Again,

gravity is returning politically. Gravity is returning legally. Gravity is returning in so many ways. All this ends up weighing him down, does it not? I think we'll see. We'll see. There's always been a carnival barker sort of mindset with Trump. You know, everything is part of the grift. Everything is part of how do I make money. Everything is about me. This is just a farcical example of it. But, you know, in terms of how this plays out for him politically and certainly, you know, with all the other legal issues that are hanging over his head. I've always gotten the sense from Trump that, yeah, I kind of deal with that when it happens. You know, some of it can be annoying to him, but he's always got his eyes centered on his audience and how he continues to entertain and

draw them in. This is just another form of that. As you've already noted, you know, a million dollars since this thing has been launched. People just spent a million dollars for nothing. I mean, it's for nothing. And so the reality of it is, for a lot of these folks, it's less about the thing itself and still about the man. The RNC, the Republican leadership about the thing itself and still about the man. The RNC, the Republican leadership, the party itself still doesn't know how to deal with that. They still sit in quiet corners,

right? And talk about it under their breath. Oh, they're so exasperated. Oh, we're so, well, baby, you've been done for what, six years? At some point, you just stop being done and actually say, you know what? That's it. We're not doing this. There is no pathway for you to get the nomination of this party. We're just not going to lose any more. We're tired of losing. Republicans need to get tired of losing. And they need to understand that since this guy stepped into the White House, they've done nothing but lose, underperform, give, I mean, seed the middle ground to the Democratic Party, which they should be beating every election. Biden followed up Trump's trading card announcement with a little bit of trolling. He tweeted,

I had some major announcements the last couple of weeks, too. And then he listed recent accomplishments. Inflation is easing. The Respect for Marriage Act. Britney Greiner's return home, gas prices and new high paying jobs in Arizona. Ouch. Yeah. Well, and that that actually the list is a lot longer. The Democrats have had a runway to get a lot done because of all of these distractions and Republicans who don't have any options, Willie. Yeah. Ninety nine bucks. That's what Donald Trump wants from, you know, refunds, by the way, it says on the website, too. So be careful. They're sold out for now. But I have a feeling, Joe, he's going to find more and make them available just like they do on the shopping network. More on that later. Let's talk about Elon Musk and Twitter.

The Twitter accounts of several journalists who have been covering Elon Musk are suspended this morning. Hours after the accounts went offline, Musk claimed in a tweet the journalist had been involved in doxing his location and placed his family in danger. Musk later tweeted the suspensions would last for seven days. In other tweets, he claimed the journalist posted his exact real-time location, which he called assassination coordinates, and a violation of Twitter's terms of services. NBC News was unable to verify the allegation that his real-time location was in fact posted online. It's the same justification he used on Wednesday for suspending the account that used publicly available information to post the movements of Musk's private jet. All of this goes against the promise Musk made to run the site as a free speech absolutist,

which has led to the reinstatement of hundreds of accounts associated with QAnon and other far right groups. Many of those accounts promote conspiracy theories and hate speech. So, Joe, these are accounts he claims doxed him. This again, the flight stuff is publicly available, but he shut down the accounts for at least a week here. Yeah. And these people weren't doxing him. There were there were some people that had large followings on Twitter who would write a negative column about him on Mashable. And then they'd get get suspended or would tweet something negative about him and then get their account suspended. Katie Kaye, you know, again, it's crazy, isn't it, that Donald Trump, Elon Musk both seem to be losing it at the same time. And, oh, the bitter irony for those people who shamed themselves and said, oh, we're

going to look through the Twitter files and we're going to find examples of when content was suppressed and they spent a weekend pouring through all of these documents. Well, there was this one time when they didn't amplify this or they didn't amplify, oh, this is such a terrible First Amendment. Of course, it's not a First Amendment violation. Even suspending these accounts, if they suspend my account, it's not a First Amendment violation. It's called free enterprise. They can do with it what they want to do with their company. But all of these people on the Trump right, on the far right, that have been talking about how horrible Twitter was and how it violated free speech, they come out and they beat their chests in moral indignation right before the owner of Twitter just unilaterally

decides he's going to ban people who are saying things about him that may be critical. Yeah, I mean, I don't know whether being told that you're the richest man in the world day in, day out somehow warps your sense of your own invincibility. But the reality of his business decisions is coming back to buy Elon Musk. This is certainly hurting him at Tesla. It's hurting him at Twitter, too. He's not managing to make money. He's losing money from the site. Advertisers clearly don't like what they're seeing on the site. It has to be just a question of time before, whether it's Mastodon or some other site that actually operates in a more grown-up, responsible way, takes over all of the Twitter users. I mean, we will go there.

Twitter is still, I find it. I don't know about you. I'm still on it. I still find it a useful tool for finding the days. It's the most efficient way for me to catch up on the headlines. As soon as there is another platform that is just as efficient, I imagine you'll have a mass migration to that platform. And it's a question of the technology catching up with it. Because a platform where day after day it becomes about, and this is the parallel between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

They're super wealthy billionaire business people who are used to things being about them. And are used to people saying that they are wonderful and perfect and that everything they touch turns to gold. Until it doesn't. Until they actually realize the limitations of their abilities and their expertise. And he is not a media platform owner. He's never done this. He doesn't know what he's doing and he's grinding Twitter into the ground. Well, and, and, you know, uh, Jonathan O'Meara, he's been told how brilliant he is for the past 10, 15 years. We had renowned guests on here. And I would say, wait, wait a second. Elon shouldn't jump into Twitter. Does he not realize how difficult this is? Are there no lawyers around him trying to get him to stop this?

Are there no people? And it was like, oh, Elon does what Elon wants to do. Elon's like, but I said, but doesn't he realize what a mess this is and how it's going to distract? Oh, Elon. And again, these are supposed to be some of the most vaunted reporters in Silicon Valley. Their answer to everything was, oh, it's Elon. Elon can do whatever Elon wants to do. Elon's great. We love Elon. Elon can do whatever Elon wants to do. Elon's great. We love Elon.

Elon's one. This is what the toughest Silicon Valley reporters were saying about Elon Musk, right? And so it's no wonder Elon Musk finds himself where he is right now, because everybody's told him he was great. And by the way, by the way, when Caddy said being called the richest man in the world might actually impact your worldview, day after day after day, Alex Corson said in my ear, he said, I'm willing to take that experiment on. So if Elon wants to give Alex Corson all of his money, we'll see how it goes. I think Alex would be a great steward of that money.

He's been fed not just by sycophants inside his companies, like telling him how great he is. He's fed by sycophants in mainstream media. Yes. I think, first of all, let's all be grateful that Walter Isaacson is going to write a fantastic book about Elon Musk underway right now. But you're right. He has certainly achieved remarkable things with Tesla and with the space program. But this is off the rails. And someone said recently, and it's apropos, that you could take almost any headline right now that has Musk's name in it and swap out Musk for Trump.

And it would still feel apropos. The chaos, the ego, the insults, and the fact that he is bringing down an institution. And the Twitter is not the Republican Party, but it certainly feels like we're in the dying days of this platform unless something changes quickly. And that's what this is. And that's a shame. To Cady's point, I use it too. It is a great way to catch up on the headlines. It's a great way to talk about things that you're working on. But it feels corrupt and toxic. The number of the hate speech has dramatically risen in recent days. And yesterday, Steve Herman, one of the reporters who's been suspended from Voice of America,

all he did, his offense, was simply tweet the link to the publicly available website where you can track planes. He doesn't even write about Musk. But simply tweeting that link was enough to get him suspended off Twitter for at least a week. And as much as we all have sort of treated this platform as like the town square, the public forum, it's not anymore. It's Elon Musk's and he's going to do with it what he wants. And it's bad for the rest of us. Well, you know, I'm with Katty. I still go on it. It's the most efficient

way to get news. And I still love I can go on any time, five, 10 minutes can fly through there, get updated on what's going on. But really, if it goes away tomorrow, it goes away tomorrow. I'll just find different ways to get news. That's the thing. It's like if we have to walk away from it, we walk away from it. I hope it stays. I hope he can fix it. I hope we maybe can sell it. But, you know, life will go on without Twitter. Absolutely. And that's why I'm there, too. It's a great news feed. You follow reporters, you follow news organizations, you follow politicians, and it's a way to have a sort of streamlined news feed. But we'll find another way if it goes away. It's such a mess right now. It's

hard to even sometimes get to that news that you're looking for. They're showing you replies from people you don't know. It's hard to get through all that. We still we've been asking. I guess we'll just keep asking smart people what he's up to here, why he's doing this, why this genius, this guy, Thomas Edison. Some people have said of our time, why is he doing this? Thomas Edison wasn't working on the incandescent light bulb and then running into the town square going, prosecute Fauci. He was inventing things. Elon Musk should just invent things. Yeah, still ahead on Morning Joe, a retiring Republican congressman didn't hold back in his final speech on the House floor. We'll play for you. Adam Kinzinger scathing commentary on his own party, plus thousands of classified documents on the JFK assassination now public. But are we learning anything new? We'll dig into

that just ahead. And NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta gives us an inside look at the future of covid vaccines as the virus continues to evolve. You're watching Morning Joe. We will be right back. Wow. Welcome back to Morning Show. A very dark look at the White House this morning as the sun has yet to come up in Washington. It's time to go to work. Is it the Friday before Christmas? No, I guess it's not. We got one more. It's in a weird spot this year. 32 past the hour, the Biden administration has released more than 13,000 records into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. But thousands more documents are still being held. All of the files should have been made public under a 1992 law. And with

yesterday's release, about 90 percent of all documents related to the 19 98 percent, excuse me, related to the 1963 assassination have now been made public. Just three percent of the records remain redacted in whole or in part, according to the National Archives, which controls the JFK assassination records collection. All right, let's bring in NBC News senior national political reporter Mark Caputo. He's been covering this story also with us. Author at NBC News, presidential historian Michael Beschloss. Mark, let's start with you. You know, it seems like they released all the records we needed to see, except the records that we needed to see. Like, for instance, for instance, the shadowy CIA figure that ran the covert Cuba operation who met Oswald four months before the assassination.

They decided not to release those records. What gives? Right. The guy's name is George Ioannidis. And under the 1992 law that Mika just referenced, it created the structure to have a warehouse, a JFK collection under the National Archives. Well, the documents that this nonprofit group that sued to get all of these records released, the Mary Farrell Foundation, had found in separate sort of reporting and snooping around, there are probably about 44 records related to George Ioannidis that never made it into the JFK collection. So as a result, when the Biden administration is like, woohoo, we've released all these records. Look at all the transparency. The reality is, is that there are these records about George Ioannidis pro

Castro or better said, anti Castro group that somehow came into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald four months before the shooting. Lee Harvey Oswald somehow went to Mexico, somehow made contact with the Cuban and Soviet embassies and built up his name publicly as a pro Castro sympathizer. And so immediately after the shooting, all of a sudden, the news media and the public had all this access to Lee Harvey Oswald sort of being a communist and again, a pro Castro sympathizer. And all of a sudden, at the time, right after the shooting, there was this belief that, oh, my God, it's the communists who did it. It's the communists who are behind it.

At the same time, there's an operation that was that was being launched and considered by the Pentagon called Operation Northwoods, which was designed to stage a spectacular false flag terrorist attack in the United States to blame on Castro. And lo and behold, here you have Lee Harvey Oswald. A lot of suspicious stuff, a lot of strange stuff. And the other aspect of George Ioannidis, whose identity and role in all of this only came out as a result of this law in 1992. Only in the 90s did we find this stuff out. By the way, he died in 1990. Ioannidis had been appointed after his retirement, pulled out of retirement by the CIA to be a liaison with the House Investigative Committee in 1976. And the CIA and Joe Anides

never told the House panel, the general counsel, the investigators, hey, by the way, I was involved in this program that made contact with Lee Harvey Oswald four months before the shooting. And the CIA to this day will not answer the question why he lied, why they lied. And it's among the many questions they won't answer. Yeah, it is. It's insane. So, Michael, we have been we have been hypercritical of conspiracy theories on this show for years. I mocked and ridiculed truthers who claimed that George W. Bush, 9-11 was inside deal. You know, this is all leading to a bite. But let me say this, since I learned this in DBT and at the same time and at the same time, it's there are so many questions that lingered over this.

My parents who were never conspiracy theorists, they never bought the Oswald lone wolf story. Other people I've known, smart people have never bought that theory. Oswald saying he's a patsy. A couple of days later, he's gunned down by a bar owner, Jack Ruby. Again, so much of it just didn't make sense. My question to you is, Michael, as a historian, first of all, can you can you shed some light on who who killed JFK if he was a lone wolf? But more importantly than that, shouldn't they release every last document 59 years later, unredacted? They absolutely should, Joe. And, you know, look at it this way. Let's say that, you know, those who were alive at the time of the Kennedy assassination,

let's say two weeks after Dallas, the United States government just decided to release all sorts of stuff, which they would not have released, what would it have shown? It would have given details of Oswald's close contacts with our biggest enemy, the Soviet Union. Same thing with Castro's Cuba. Same thing with anti-Castro Cubans. And also, we would have found out at the time, if these things were released 59 years ago, that Oswald, down to the day of the assassination, was being tracked by the FBI in Dallas, which was even trying to interrogate his wife.

They knew that he was on the sixth floor of that book depository, where the president was going to go buy in this motorcade that had been pre-announced. There were maps in the Dallas newspapers. Same thing with the CIA. What if people, Americans, had learned in December of 1963 that Oswald had close touch with CIA contacts and also, by the way, that the CIA was trying to kill Fidel Castro? So let's unwind all this. Let's assume that you believe, by the way, that the CIA was trying to kill Fidel Castro. So let's unwind all this. Let's assume that you believe, if you do, that Oswald fired the gun that killed John Kennedy, which the physical evidence probably supports, although there are still many questions.

The question is, who was talking to him? Well, he was talking with Soviets. He was talking with Cubans. He was talking with anti-Castro Cubans. And plus, the question that all Americans would have asked then and should ask in 2022, if the FBI was tracking this guy, why didn't they tell the Secret Service, get this guy out of that book depository? He was a Soviet defector. He's a danger to the president.

Why didn't J. Edgar Hoover tell that to the Secret Service? And the same thing. Why was this lone wolf talking about talking to all these CIA agents? I would say that most people in Dallas were not having meetings with CIA agents. So the question is, why was it kept quiet all these years? If people had found that out then, much less now, because now it's a historical riddle, they would have said the FBI did not do its job. Why should we allow the FBI to go on as it is? J. Edgar Hoover might have even been prosecuted. They might have said CIA contacts with Oswald, November, October 1963. And earlier, you know, that period, they might have said, did the CIA kill John Kennedy? Would have unleashed all sorts of questions. So if you're Lyndon Johnson in 1963, what are the worst

secrets you want concealed? These are exactly what they were. So, Mark, if in fact Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, as the Warren Commission concluded almost 60 years ago, I guess the question is, why not release all the documents to prove that point? Why keep 4,300 or so, at least partially redacted, to allow the conspiracy theories to continue to fester? What's in those documents? Is there a chance at some point we'll see the rest of this stuff? I think eventually we will. It's just bound to happen. You're asking the eternal question in this case, like, what are they hiding?

I think Michael answered it pretty well. In a light most favorable to the government, they're hiding the fact that there were just all of these problems. The CIA, the Defense Department, everything. These are organizations. They're organisms. They have their own culture. They grow.

They reproduce. They protect their own. And it's just become part of the culture. And it is the culture of the CIA. It's a spy agency to be secretive. And it's also part of the national security establishment. What's interesting in the lawsuit from the Mary Farrell Foundation is one of the things they asked for is the disclosure of a 1961 memo. This is two years before the shooting of John F. Kennedy from Arthur Schlesinger to Kennedy saying,

hey, let's disband the CIA. Let's get rid of it because Kennedy wanted to do that after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. Now, this really has nothing to do with the conspiracy to shoot JFK. Again, this is two years before that happens. And this is just a historical memo. And the reason the Mary Farrell Foundation asked for that to be disclosed was just as kind of a trial balloon, a test, just to see, hey, is the government going to release this basic historical information? We found out yesterday the answer to that question. It's no. So the document is there and there are these redactions in it which make no sense. The Biden administration and the various federal agencies, including but not limited to the CIA, are saying, look, we need to protect this information from the public because these are sources and methods and we don't want to

endanger national security. Everyone who spent time looking at this, including various people involved in the various investigations from the government, say that that explanation is just bunk. It's not true. It's false. Right. You know, Michael Beschloss, anybody that's that studied this period and studied the Kennedy presidency, studied Bobby, read as many books as I have on Bobby, know that Hoover despised Bobby Kennedy. Hoover despised JFK. We just heard Marco Puto explain why the CIA despised the Kennedys. And here you have the CIA hanging out with Oswald right before the killing. You have the FBI knowing where he is and not warning the Secret Service. The question is, do the Kennedys, have the Kennedy family, have they had their suspicions through the years? Did Bobby have his suspicions that it may have been Hoover or the CIA or an inside job

that had killed his brother? Well, as you know from your reading and studying and talking to a lot of these people, absolutely. Bobby Kennedy in 1965 and 1966 told a number of people that he did not necessarily accept the Warren Commission. But the problem there was he was worried that investigating this would open the scab of assassination plots against Fidel Castro that might be traced back to him and his brother. And he felt that especially since he might run for president in the fairly near future, that was not something he wanted to get enmeshed in. But you're absolutely right. You know, we have to ask these questions and they are questions. J. Edgar Hoover hated John Kennedy. I don't think he told the local bureau in Dallas,

don't help the president, but they certainly knew that Hoover hated Kennedy. And there has to be some reason why the FBI in Dallas did not do its job that day. And Oswald was allowed to be in that building with the rifle sticking out of the six story window. And also why those FBI files were destroyed right after Oswald died a couple of days later. And then the other thing you're saying about the CIA. If Americans in 1963 had been told the CIA had people who were in contact with Lee Harvey Oswald, how many people in the United States and around the world would not have thought the CIA must have plotted against this President Kennedy. And a lot of leaders of the CIA had big qualms about Kennedy's nuclear test ban treaty,

settlement of the Cuban Missile Crisis. We have no way of knowing whether any of this is true, but we're going to have to keep on asking those questions. All right. NBC News senior national political reporter Mark Caputo, thank you very much. And presidential historian Michael Beschloss, thank you as well. And by the way, those questions can be answered when the government redacts all the documents, unredacts all the documents that they were supposed to unredact by now. Coming up as the coronavirus evolves, so must vaccines. We'll have an inside look at the development of a new nasal spray that could stop COVID from spreading between people.

That is, if the government will fund it. Morning Joe will be right back. Curb rising COVID-19 cases. The White House is making rapid COVID tests available for free again this winter by mail. The administration says it also will make vaccinations and treatments more accessible to those who need them. Meanwhile, questions loom over funding for the next generation of COVID vaccines. NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta gives us a rare inside look at one lab developing a new way potentially to stop the spread of COVID.

Dr. Akiko Iwasaki is pioneering the next generation of COVID vaccines. Everywhere in this country right now, the ER is jam-packed with people with respiratory diseases. Currently, we are in dire need of vaccines that prevent infection and prevent transmission. At Yale University, she is developing a nasal vaccine. It can be put into a nasal spray and sprayed into the nose. Unlike currently available mRNA vaccines, which are injected into a muscle, a nasal vaccine is sprayed directly into the nose, generating antibodies right where the virus enters the body. Not only is it easier to use,

Iwasaki says it also has the potential to stop the virus from spreading between people. The nation's top doctor, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, acknowledging the need for new technology like this. It's so important that we continue to invest in ensuring that our vaccines are getting better, that our treatments are getting better, because the virus is continuing to evolve. But developing a next-gen vaccine isn't cheap. Iwasaki estimates on the magnitude of hundreds of millions of dollars. With the current amount of funding that's available to us, it will take probably a year or two at the earliest to be able to start testing our approach in humans. The Biden administration is scrambling

to get $10 billion of COVID-19 funding from Congress next year. It's included in the year-end spending bill under a contentious debate on Capitol Hill, debate that could lead to a government shutdown. The bottom line is nasal vaccines are an important part of this strategy, but to invest in them to the degree that's required, you know, means that we need that funding from Congress to come through.

A decision is expected to come before the end of December. With little Republican support, that funding is far from guaranteed. For the time being, health experts urging lawmakers to act. All I can say is Congress needs to do its job and step up and protect the American people. And Dr. Gupta joins us now. Dr. Gupta, it's great to see you. This is such a fascinating angle to the story. I don't think a lot of people think about it because there was such investment with Operation Warp Speed and everything else to rush to these miracle vaccines that saved so many lives and yet not a lot of attention being paid down the road. So what else needs to happen from the government, from the pharmaceutical companies? Willie, good morning. And thank you for highlighting this. You know,

the big theme here is, as you point out, long-term thinking. If the government doesn't step in, Willie, then this is going to be just in the purview of the private sector and the whims of the private sector. And it's not clear that we're going to get what we need. Imagine, Willie, especially with vaccines today that don't prevent against transmission, really the value proposition of a nasal spray vaccine is it could do that and also keep you out of the hospital. And so it's really important that this funding isn't held up. Well, thank you for highlighting it, Dr. Gupta. And, you know, as we turn the corner here toward winter, officially toward winter into the holidays,

obviously there are lots of concerns among all age groups, especially among children, about this sort of confluence of COVID-19, of RSV, of influenza. What does the picture look like to you as someone who works firsthand on all of this? You know, Willie, I'm worried about middle of January. That's when we expect a rising, hopefully a peak, but that's when we're expecting a peak on certain how high it's going to be of flu A cases. That's when COVID is supposed to start really beginning to spike up as well. So that's what I'm worried about from an adult ICU standpoint, mid-January into mid-February is when we really expect cases to rise for kiddos, for parents out there. If your kid has not gotten the flu vaccine,

critical to get the flu vaccine for your kiddo. One of the benefits here, we're seeing out of the United Kingdom, Willie, 15 kids have died from invasive streptococcal infection. This is something that causes strep A. One of the things that's really important to keep in mind is that if you get infected with the virus, especially a young kid, it diminishes your defenses against something like streptococcus, strep A, that's all around us. So really important to bolster the defenses when you can. Parents out there, make sure your kids get this flu vaccine. There are tons of threats out there to our health, your child's health. You can guard against them. So, Dr. Gupta, I'm just curious, pulling out 20,000 feet in terms of how the fight against

COVID is going. And is there still an issue with people who are not vaccinated helping promulgate the spread because they get it easier than those who are vaccinated? To an extent. And we're certainly expecting that health systems in zip codes that don't have community protection because of vaccination are going to be really hard hit come this winter. Those are going to be the ones we have to really watch out and look out for. But to your point, even if you're vaccinated, if you're medically higher risk, you're still at risk of testing positive. We know that those that are 75 and older, frankly, the booster uptake rate is quite low, and they're still very much at risk here. So very critical for

all your viewers out there, especially if you're medically higher risk, regardless of where you live, to have a plan. If you've decided you're not going to get the vaccine, at least have a plan with your medical provider so you can get early treatment if you end up feeling unwell and testing positive, especially for something like COVID or flu where there's a treatment. Have a plan for providers out there, standing prescriptions. I've been talking a lot about it. Prescribe these medications in a standing way so that your patients have them if they need them. Dr. Van Gupta, thank you so much for being on. It's good to see you again. I hope you have a good holiday. Thank you very much. And still ahead on Morning Joe, the supposed leader of the Republican Party wants you to buy fake pictures of him for ninety nine dollars a piece.

And these are the pictures. I mean, you could just take a screenshot if you really wanted one. In a move that even his most fanatical supporters are criticizing. Morning Joe will be right back.