Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/17/24

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Trump: Senators opposed to cabinet picks should face primary challenges

Christmas is just nine days away, and everyone's in the spirit. Tonight, I was admiring all the beautiful lights, and then I realized that there was just the drones over in New Jersey. Yeah. One New Jersey politician proposed a bill to give local law enforcement the same type of capability

as the Department of Defense and Homeland Security permission to down one of these unmanned drones. He wants local police to shoot at anything in the sky in December. (*audience laughs*) Santa, I hope you have a Kevlar sleigh. (*audience laughs*) And don't forget to take the battery out of Rudolph's nose.

We will have more on the story as we continue to learn nothing about it. The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is our military knows and our president knows. And for some

reason they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy because it was the enemy that blasted out, even if they were late, that blasted. Something strange is going on. For some reason they don't want to tell the people and they should. Donald Trump yesterday not exactly tamping down public concern about the possible drone sightings across several states. We'll go through what federal agencies are actually saying about the sightings and if they are a security risk. The president-elect also addressed the pressure campaign on Republican senators to get his cabinet picks confirmed. We'll play for you those comments.

It comes as his controversial choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will be back on Capitol Hill today to answer questions about his long history of vaccine skepticism. And we'll go through the new reporting on the man who has been escorting Pete Hegseth around Capitol Hill for weeks in his bid to clinch the nomination for secretary of defense. Willie, is this true? I just said that. Deon, go into the Giants.

I think what could be true is Jadur Sanders. He could be the number one pick in the drive. Maybe number two. He's the quarterback at Colorado who's Deion Sanders' son. Deion? Prime, I don't know. I think Dable gets another year. Are we ready for prime time in New York City?

Man, what a spectacle that would be. What a spectacle that would be. I don't know. Stranger things have happened. I think Dable gets another year though. Okay. So good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, December 17th. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of Way Too Early, not for long,

Jonathan Lemire. You are not counting the days, are you? I am not. This is my last week doing it, but no, it's not like I'm banking or rolling asleep already. I swear. I swear I'm not wrong. Pullard's surprise winning columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. Congressional Investigations reporter for the Washington Post, Jackie Alamany joins us and here on set in New York, former Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio joins us. Good to have you on board. So I'm curious. So Lemire's last run, right?

Is this more like... Lemire's last run. ...Johnny Carson saying goodbye. Right? Lemire. Remember Letterman, how moving it was like that? It's more like Dr. J going around the NBA. And, you know, what's more like that?

It's Larry Bird's. Yeah. Well, his editor abruptly was a bad back, so that actually might be me as well. NBA and like you know what is what's more like it's Larry Byrd's yeah, I know I have well it is that abruptly with that back so that actually might be as good because you're going on to play for an yeah, yeah, so I was it I've asked for the food fighters to play me out like yeah, yeah, they haven't responded to our request so I'm not sure that's going to happen or not we'll be reaching out to them.

See if he's available. All right, let's get to the news. You've been great, and we look forward to you in your new iteration. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. We begin this morning with President-elect Trump's warning to Senate Republicans opposed to some of his cabinet nominations. In a wide-ranging news conference from his Palm Beach estate yesterday, the president-elect was asked about lawmakers who don't support his picks. Here is what he said.

Senators who oppose your nominees, your cabinet nominees, should they be primary? If they are unreasonable, I'll give you a different answer, an answer that you'll be shocked to hear. If they're unreasonable, if they're opposing somebody for political reasons or stupid reasons, I would say has nothing to do with me. I would say they probably would be primary. But if they're reasonable, fair,

and really disagree with something or somebody, I can see that happening. But I do believe that if they're unreasonab- I think we have great people. I think we have a great a great group of people. Boy, Willie yesterday we were talking about the back and forth. A lot of the Republican senators saying, hey you know what the pressure campaign not really gonna work. In fact it may be backfiring. Press conference, very interesting. He said if they're unreasonable and personal, then I could see him being primaried.

But if they're reasonable and they don't like their views or something like that, I could see that. That comes, again, just background. We first of all remember Gates going down and people around Trump saying, wow, we really traded up with Pam Bondi. We actually got a better deal out of it. And just the facts that Hegseth, there's still the feeling he is not going to make it through. We have a news today suggesting even yesterday he's showing horrific judgment on the Hill with a person that's taking him around on the Hill. But also Tulsi Gabbard just again, the word just isn't she just did terribly last week,

not up to it, not even up to doing the interviews in a way that gave confidence to Republican senators who wanted to support her. So there are at least two picks right there that I have a feeling if they go by the wayside, he's not going to be too upset. He does want RFK Jr. from all we hear, but these two, I'm not so sure that wasn't just a tip to the Senate going, if you have good reasons to not take those two, we understand. And yet it came two days after he took great pains to be seen publicly with them. He took them to the Army-Navy football game, which he wouldn't have done if he were casting

them aside. So I think what I'm hearing, and I think you guys are probably hearing too, is from some of these Republicans is to Donald Trump and his team, look, there are conservatives, there are Republicans, there are Republicans, there are people who will be loyal to you who are not Pete Hegseth, who are not Tulsi Gabbard, who are not Matt Gaetz, is what they made very clear to him. And so I think they're trying to massage Trump a little bit. They're trying to finesse this and say, we hear you, we understand, we're going to give

these guys a fair hearing, we're going to give them interviews, but we have some other ideas of people who could be in those jobs. So I'm curious, Tim, Congressman, you serve with a lot of these people. The big question that hangs over all of these choices and really the next four years is how far can Donald push these members, Donald Trump push these members? How far can he push them to say, you're going to do what I say or else? Do you think they're willing to cross him on Pete Hegseth, on Tulsi Gabbard, maybe even on RFK Jr.?

I mean, the good part is we're starting to see the system actually play out. We said, well, there's not going to be any guardrails. Well, I mean, there kind of still is. And to Joe's point, it's like these guys aren't up for the job. You can get somebody else. We'll be nice. We'll do it politely and quietly, and then we'll give you everything else that you want.

So I think that's how it's gonna play out. But you think about Pete, I mean, the Pentagon would swallow him up in one week. I think that's a joke. You just push aside all the other horrific episodes of judgment. Yeah, of course. You look at his lack of experience, and I've said it time and time again,

that's a job. I'm sure you and I think we can do most jobs. I don't want that job. Don't want that job. I don't want that job. I remember Chris Lake called me up and he said, he said, hey, I may be able to take the CNN job. I go, let me tell you, there are two jobs you don't,

I said this, there are two jobs in America you don't want. The CNN job because of the bureaucracy and, you know, I said that there are 2 jobs in America, you don't want the CNN job because of the bureaucracy and the pinnacle. But the pinnacle is even harder. The bureaucracy will swallow you up all in less you really have been walking those corridors for years. I mean, I was on services Committee, you know, for four terms. And even if. Yeah.

And even then it was like... I mean, the weapons systems, the training, the tanks, the guns, the bullets, the satellites, the bureaucrats, the cybersecurity. I mean, like... The housing, the benefits. Yeah. It's wild. It would swallow anybody. He's not up to the task. If you want to reform the Pentagon, it would swallow anybody.

He's not up to the task. If you want to reform the Pentagon, you're exactly right. You better get somebody that knows the Pentagon. Yeah, 100%. So, The New York Times has new reporting on the man who has been escorting Pete Hegseth around Capitol Hill this month. According to the paper, John Hasenwein is a former Army Special Forces master sergeant who left the military after attacking a civilian during a training exercise back in 2019.

So this is the guy who's escorting Hegseth around Capitol Hill now. To the senator's office. Witnesses said he beat the civilian role player who is a former member of Iraq's Army elite, Counterterrorism Service, kicking him, punching him, and leaving him hogtied in a pool of his own blood. Among other injuries, the civilian was left with a broken nose, a broken tooth, a sprained shoulder, a scalp hematoma, and blunt facial trauma, according to memos and statements by company employees about the episode.

The Army charged Hazenbine with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. A military jury found him guilty of the assault charged in a court martial in 2020, according to Army records. But the judge overseeing the case declared a mistrial after learning that a friend of Hazenbein had been talking to a juror throughout the trial, court records show. The Army did not retry the case. In a statement to the Times, Hazenbein said, I have no conviction and was honorably retired after 22 years of service that's all you need to know. If I'm not mistaken he was he was given the

choice of being retried or leaving and I think that's that's that's how it happened but you know it's beyond I mean beyond telling Jonathan Amir, when his nomination is already on life support, that he brings a guy like this that has been charged with this by the United States military. Right? That's the thing. The United States military of beating the hell out of someone in a military exercise and being charged for it. A guy who's a U.S. citizen now being charged for it, and he has no better judgment than

that. This is who he is. This is who he has been. He went time and time again to Donald Trump, didn't he? And try to get people that were charged in the military for abusive behavior. And he became champions of abusers. Yeah, that's the important context here. That's how he got on Donald Trump's radar to begin with,

is that he would defend members of the military who were accused of misconduct, some of them in matters of abuse or worse, and that he was able to successfully get some of them clemency from the President of the United States. DeKex of Camp is saying that this is a sign of loyalty, that he's sticking with his guys no matter what the accusation was, then this is what he's going to bring to the Pentagon, defend those who serve the country and stand up for those with the ability. There are a lot of people who serve the country

who in military exercises, and I know, because on the Armed Services Committee, I get to see a lot of the military exercises, they don't kick the hell out of somebody. They don't kick them in the ribs. They don't hog tie them. They don't shake their tooth. They don't leave them in a pool of blood. There are a lot of people, a lot of honorable men and women that serve in the military that

could have been escorting him around like that. But it's almost like he's constantly got to prove a point. Yeah, every bit of that is right. He had other options. He gives a deliberate choice, a signal that he's sending, in part because I am told he thinks Donald Trump respects that, the idea of doubling down, fighting, don't give an inch.

We will see if that plays out in this the politics though of his confirmation choice because we already know there are a number of senators who've expressed reservations public and private about Hague's conduct about his judgment. This is a matter of judgment here and we also reporting shows including folks that I talked to yesterday that though Trump is still supporting this pick he took him to the army Navy game as you noted but he hasn't gone fully to bat from yet. He hasn't, he has not personally said, Hanks that's my guy, hasn't called those senators. They think more things are coming out. There's an expectation that more is coming. Hanks has still a few votes short. All those senators

are just saying, this wasn't it. All these senators are saying, why do I have to say anything when gravity's gonna do all my work for me? That's what they're thinking. So when you hear them going, oh, hey, let's let the process play out, let's see what happens. How could there be more? We're just gonna wait, we'll process, play out means, yeah, yeah, we're gonna just sit there and watch him

and watch the gravity pull him through with weight of more things coming out. So Jackie, you obviously cover these members every single day. What's your sense of how or how not this has evolved? There was great skepticism a couple of weeks ago around Pete Hegsit that seemed like he was doomed. It's a little bit of a tone shift at least from someone like Senator Ernst last week, but not a full endorsement by any stretch of the imagination.

What's your sense of where things are now with his nomination, potential nomination and where they're headed? I think this wait and see posture, wait until there's more FBI background checks, wait until we get closer to the process and keep quiet until then is the strategy that most senators are currently employing doing everything behind closed doors after seeing Joni Ernst take a radically different approach that staffers and members that we've spoken to were really critical of who said she sort of overshot her own power and influence by going out on Fox News getting ahead of herself

saying that she was not ready to support Hegseth in a pretty public way, having sort of triggering this public criticism and full court press on her from MAGA World, and then four days later backtracking on it in a way that sort of damages her credibility and also her standing in Trump World. You're seeing the rest of these senators now learning a very different lesson from her actions. But we have seen a slight win for some Republican senators. Tom Fox successfully was one of the people

who lobbied Trump to step down from considering Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, who was being proposed to be the CIA number two, the deputy to John Radcliffe. After some private conversations and concerns raised with Trump directly about Kennedy's past comments and statements and beliefs about the CIA, Trump ultimately decided that he wasn't going to consider her anymore. And this was done in a very stealth way, behind closed doors. You know, Cotton, along with some other Republican senators, have a very ideological approach

to foreign intervention and foreign espionage and sort of some of these subversive espionage tactics that the CIA does and that Cotton, particular has viewed as very valuable to U.S. intelligence and communicated those concerns and was successful in his lobbying. So I think this is sort of the approach that we're going to see going forward because so far you haven't really seen many other public specific criticisms of people who might have similar problems to Amaryllis Fox, such as Tulsi Gabbard. Yeah, you know, Gene Robinson, it seems that everybody has taken the let's wait and see, no need to have people screaming at us and our staff members over Christmas holidays were saying we're not going to support a

Trump pick. It's a let's let's let the FBI investigations, let's let the further newspaper investigations take its course. And then, you know, you'll see people like probably people like Murkowski, Collins, who has got to win in a very blue state two years from now, Mitch McConnell, maybe Cassidy, who's already voted against impeachment doing what they will likely do, especially on Hegseth and Gabbards. But you know what? That's what was so interesting yesterday in what Donald Trump said at the end of that

statement we played, which is, you know, if you disagree with them, if you disagree with their policies, if you disagree with them personally for those positions, I get it, which is sort of, I think... Some space. It's extraordinarily telling and a lot of space, and it's a lot different than what all these outside groups are doing to try to make money on this? Yeah, Donald Trump is not going to the mat for these nominees, not for Hexseth, not for Gabbard. Maybe he is for RFK Jr., and I think he'll likely get him through.

But look, I come back to what you were saying at the beginning of the segment, which is Pete Hexeth is in no way qualified to be Secretary of Defense. And that's just... I think those senators that you mentioned and probably others really can't get past that. I'm not sure they could get past the fact that this guy walking around with him who was court-martialed for that horrific incident. But he's... Look, the world is on fire. The U.S. has forces around the globe and is constantly moving resources and people here and there trying to put out the flare ups of these fires

as best it can to keep our people as best we can out of harm's way while fulfilling missions. That's enormously complicated. And it takes somebody who really knows the military inside out, who knows the Pentagon inside out, who knows what levers to push and pull, and Hexas has none of that. And it would just be madness to have somebody like that

running the Defense Department now. It's just not acceptable. And then, of course, Tulsi Gabbard presents a whole different set of issues around the question of loyalty, frankly. Well, yeah, loyalty to Syria, loyalty to Russia. I mean, the loyalty, yeah, it's really, really bizarre. Yeah, but again, even with Pete Hegseth, as we said, not qualified and yet still doing things. Yeah. Even yesterday, where he gets a guy who's charged and we went

through the details, he's just beating the hell out of somebody that was there to help them with an exercise. And then, you know, the case thrown out on a technicality, but the facts are still there, and Hegseth knows it, and I guess wants to prove a point that he can champion people that have been accused of abusing others in the military. The Washington Post, Jackie Alamany, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe, what we're learning about a private school shooting in Wisconsin that left a teacher and a student dead and several others injured.

We'll get a live report from Madison next. Plus we'll hear from Tim Ryan on where he thinks the DNC headquarters should be moved to. It's a hint where he's from. We're back in 90 seconds. 22 past the have identified a shooter at a private school in Wisconsin as a 15 year old female student. Two people were killed, a student and a teacher and six others were injured after that female student opened fire yesterday. Officials say the shooter was also killed. A second grade student called 911 to report a shooting at school.

NBC News correspondent Kathy Park joins us live from Madison. Kathy, what is the latest officials they are telling you this morning about what happened? Mika, good morning to you. Abundant Life Christian School is a small private Christian school here in Madison with roughly 420 students, K through 12. And it has now turned into a crime scene. They were just days away from being released for Christmas break. As you mentioned, the shooter came in yesterday morning killing a student as well as a teacher, injuring six others.

And as of this morning, we know two are still in critical condition. The 15-year-old shooter was a student and, according to authorities, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound as she was being transported to the hospital. We do know that a handgun was recovered and the shooting happened in an isolated part of the school. We're told that it was in a classroom, during study hall. There were students of all grades at the time. And as you heard, the police chief say a second grader called 911 reporting this emergency, this active shooter yesterday morning.

We do know that the investigation is still in its infancy, preliminary stages at this point. Authorities were at the shooter's home yesterday. We know there was a huge law enforcement presence and they were collecting evidence, but they did not say what they were able to pull from that house. We do know that the parents of the shooter,

they are cooperating with the investigation. There is also a document related to the shooting that is circulating online that is also being processed at this time. But still so many questions about the motive. We still don't know what the motive is at this point. But we do know that there will be another update for media and the public later on this afternoon. NBC's Kathy Park live in Madison, Wisconsin.

Thank you. And you know, Willie, the timing, of course, there's never a good timing for this. This does bring back though just haunting memories of 12 years ago. Sandy Hook, the last Friday before the kids were supposed to go home for their Christmas holidays and just the tragedy there. And in those years, you know, a big belief that that horror would finally lead to some reasonable gun safety laws that 90% of Americans supported, 80%, 70% on several issues. And it just happened.

We had small gains for it a few years ago, but just not enough. Yeah, the anniversary actually was on Saturday. Yeah. 12 years since the Sandy Hook school shooting. I live not too far from there. And every time I drive past, I kind of stop and sometimes I have to pull over thinking about what happened that day. And here we are again. It looks like in this case, according to police, it was a handgun.

It was a girl, which is unusual for these school shootings. Usually you have a male with an AR-15 or an AR-15 style rifle. We don't know motive. We don't know how she got the gun. It has been interesting in the last couple of years has been this new movement to hold, and I'm not suggesting anything in this case because we don't know, to hold parents accountable. Right. Some have been prosecuted successfully for providing weapons or not reporting information about their child. So we'll learn more as the day goes on here.

But for now, just a horrible tragedy. Again, remember last year in Nashville, a small Christian school, the Covenant School, a horrific scene. And here again at the abundant life school in Madison. It's really something. Congressman, you and I grew up in cultures where there are a lot of guns. And there may be people who say, well, if there are a lot of guns, boy, there must be a lot of recklessness.

No, we would go into relatives' house on Thanksgiving, and yeah, they had shotguns, and guess what? They were locked up. They locked up their guns, they knew how to use them, they kept them safe. So let us hope that in cases that we see moving forward that if somebody is reckless and leaving guns around, I'm not saying this case here at all, we don't know, but that yeah, parents or people that leave guns lying around are liable. But I just want to go back to what we've been talking about since 2012 and Sandy Hook. I mean, 90% of Americans support universal background checks. 80% of

Americans support red flag laws. Even two-thirds of Americans in many surveys support military style weapons being banned. I'm sure the number would go higher if you just said you're making making it harder for killers and criminally insane people getting their hands on those. And yet, there's such little progress. And I know you've been there since Sandy Hook. You've been on the floor of Congress. What gets in the way? Well, the gun industry, I mean, clearly.

And I think we've got to take a step back and say, okay, everything you just said, if you have a mental health issue, if you're a criminal, absolutely not, the red flag laws. I think that's completely reasonable. Most people agree with that. You're an honest law-abiding gun owner. You want to go hunt, fine. No one cares. We can have two conversations.

This woman's obviously, the girl's very disturbed. We see a crisis with young men across the country in mental health. Mika, and I know you talk about this a lot, we shouldn't just say, oh it's the gun or oh it's mental health. It's both. It's how do people who have these issues, how are they able to get a gun? Clearly, I mean if it was the same woman I saw on social media, clearly she was pretty disturbed. And so how does that kid, kid, get the gun? And then the second grader and all of that. So you've got to have both discussions at the same time, but the people who get the

contributions from the gun industry, manufacturing industry, they're the ones that say, oh, it's mental health. And then you go try to fund mental health, and they tell you to go pounce. And they don't want to fund mental health. It's such garbage. It really is. That's the argument. It's always a circular argument.

They start with a circular argument about the guns. Oh, well, this regulation wouldn't have stopped that shooting. That's kind of like saying, OK, well, that car accident wouldn't have been saved if you had an airbag. People would have been da-da- No, you make the entire situation, you make it holistically safer for children to go to school, for parishioners to go to church,

for workers to go to their jobs. You look at it and you look at it holistically, and you look at mental health holistically, too. Instead of that cop-out, oh, I think we need to fund mental health. And then you go, okay, well, let's at mental health holistically, too. Instead of that, cop out, oh, I think we need to fund mental health. And then you go, okay, well, let's fund mental health. And they go, no, we're not going to fund mental health. Exactly.

100%. It's the same as we were talking about the Senate with the nominating process. You just let the news cycle cycle out. And then it goes away and nothing gets done. All right. Time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. The German government has collapsed. Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in Parliament yesterday putting Europe's

largest economy under a caretaker government until snap elections in February. Olaf we hardly knew you. Yeah. I mean look at this we got we got Germany. Yeah. We got France's government that collapsed and now they have new prime minister. Oh Canada did you see Canada looks like that's that's about the what I mean going on Western Western governments man are are really having a huge challenge right as Joe, the government of France also broke apart earlier this month, both countries struggling to revive their economies and social divides and geopolitical pressures. A lot going on.

Also battle-tested Ukrainian forces are reportedly taking out waves of North Korean troops sent into battle by the Kremlin. Who's surprised here? Anybody surprised here? Anybody surprised here? No hands raised. Ukraine says the inexperienced fighters make for easy targets. Three Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the Kursk region described waves of what appeared to be North Korean troops flooding the battlefields

in full view of Ukrainian drones and other weaponry in recent days. So the Russians are just sending them out to go, hey, why don't you go see that? And why don't you go... Wander out into that open field. Wander out into that open field to see what you can find. It'll be fine. Yeah. It'll be fine.

Yeah, we probably just did it last week. Oh, you're going to love it. Also, it's not going to work well. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost a key show of support yesterday in her push to serve as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee next year. The powerful steering and policy committee recommended Congressman Jerry Connolly of

Virginia instead. While that panel wields strong influence over the party, the results are not final until full caucus votes today. So Congresswoman, let me ask you about that. AOC, obviously, she energizes younger voters. They really do. And even across party lines are energized by her. I know the establishment, the Democratic Party, not going to be as excited. Some of her views will be left of center where probably the mainstream Democratic caucus is. But how does she get involved in a meaningful way?

She lost the race yesterday. That certainly would have done it. But what's a good pathway forward? Because again, the challenge for Democrats, stop firing at each other, right? And instead, figure out how to get the progressive wing, which I've said time and again, they were in many ways pretty patient during the Biden administration, going along with some bills they didn't agree with. And the more conservative, the moderate wing, how do they get together, move forward with a common goal of winning elections? I think Hakeem Jeffries is going to, the leader of the Democratic Party in the House, is going

to have to figure out how to position someone like her. Because you run into the inertia of Congress. On the Republican side, you have six-year term limits for committee chairs. On the Democratic side, you do not. So people can get into the leadership position and really there's no movement. And I think that was a lot of frustration for guys like me and others who were trying to climb the ladder or get into positions.

It just takes so much time. But she's such a powerful voice, I think, for the party. And I think you see how she handled like the Trump Bernie voter phenomenon about how to really talk to, I think she's trying to educate Democrats on how do you talk to people about these working class economic issues in order to bring them into the fold, whether you're an agreement on the solution of redistribution or grow the pie, democratic socialism or reformed capitalism, that's the argument you should have. But she's clearly very talented in understanding how to connect the working class people, so she needs a place in the party to talk about those things. Congressman, let's talk big picture,

Democratic Party post-election. Let's talk about soul searching, what has to change. Let's do it. I'm gonna read out your piece in Newsweek. It's titled, DNC Should Move DC Headquarters to Youngstown, Ohio. That's where you're from, Youngstown, Ohio. You've been talking about what happened on election day for 10 years or so.

You've come on this show and saying, we're losing these people. We need to work harder to keep these people. So now that I think a lot of Democrats have woken up to what you've been saying for a while, what now for Democrats? Well, I'd say that a little bit tongue in cheek of move the headquarters to Youngstown, Ohio, where there's working class people. It's an old factory town. They're gritty.

We've created a great coaching culture. Youngstown has been known as the cradle of coaches, the Stoops Brothers, Jim Tressel, Urban Myers, not from far away. We've created this culture of how are you gritty? How do you lead? How are you disciplined? And how do you have some some straight talk like honest conversations with people so that so that your team trusts you? And I think Democrats have lost that trust so I say Youngstown. It could be Flint It could be Detroit Toledo Steubenville Milwaukee Pittsburgh. It doesn't matter

It just can't be in freaking Washington, D.C. Like, how many times are we going to talk to ourselves about something that's irrelevant to that person in Youngstown, Ohio, who comes out of that culture, the economic anxiety and all of that? And so it can't be in Washington, D.C. I think it would be a very good strategic move. And as I say in the piece, to have the workers there, have these high overpaid consultants go to a place like Youngstown, play bocce, watch sports, be in the community, eat dinner, great Italian food, they're going to eat well. Go there and just listen. Don't be on Twitter, don't tell them what you think.

Nobody cares what you think. Listen. Two ears, one mouth. You listen, just like we were raised. And if we do that, we will begin to shift the culture of the party. Congressman, so Youngstown is a great example because I think decades ago, I guess the big employer there was probably Republic Steel. I remember when I was in college, I had a friend who grew up in Youngstown

and his dad worked for Republic Steel. So it's one thing to listen and to play bocce, but what should the message be for a place like Youngstown, Ohio? What should Democrats be saying they intend to do or they want to do to make people's lives better there? We have got to become the party of reform. Period.

End of story. Everything needs to fit under that. Everyone knows that the government is broken. Everyone knows that the economy is not working for them, Eugene. Whether you're white or black or brown, you're male or female, whether you work in manufacturing or retail, you know that we blow way too much money on healthcare. You know we're spending billions of dollars on education, but yet we're not getting the skill set that we need to dominate the new economy. We know that affordability around energy is not where it needs to be.

We know these communities need rebuilt. These downtowns are empty. The rivers are dirty. Like we need a huge reform agenda. And that's where I think we dropped the ball and we gave Trump that lane on reform. You're seeing it now with Doge and you're seeing he's the one taking on the broken economic system. Even though he's got concepts of a plan with health care, you know, he's at least acknowledging that there's a lot of problems with health care. And we didn't get the message out on the insulin and those other things.

So I think that the brand for Democrats needs to be, you know, reform and renewal, a la Teddy Roosevelt. We're going to take on these entrenched interests. I actually think what Robert Kennedy Jr. is doing talking about food. I mean, what we've done to the food industry, the consolidation in meatpacking, the consolidation around seed and pesticides. Why can't we go into rural America and tell farmers that we're on your side? We know that it went from seven, eight or nine different seed producers to now two or

three and it's basically a monopoly and you're getting screwed. We've got to have some courage. We've got to have the guts to say we're going to go into rural America. You can't leave voters out there just like they don't know what you stand for. But let me ask you this though. How can it be that in Youngstown, Ohio, the average salary last year was $34,000 a year for a family, for a household? Household average salary last year, $34,000. And yet a government of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires, won Ohio overwhelmingly. How does that happen? How do Democrats miss that layup? Why have they continued to miss that layup for years? Average household

of $34,000? Yeah. Voting for the government of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires, over and over again. How could it be that Ohio is gone? They, I don't think Ohio is gone, but they saw Trump as the blue-collar billionaire who's going to go in and help fix it, and maybe he's the only guy that could. And unfortunately, as much as I love Bill Clinton, they see the Democrats as the ones who passed NAFTA and led us through globalization. And those workers at places like Delphi or General Motors, we literally watched those jobs go from Warren,

Ohio, over the border into the maquiladoras in Mexico and ship the product back. Our workers were unfolding machines. My cousin did from the factory floor and shipped it to China. Workers went to Mexico. That happened in 1994. It's still in the DNA, Joe. Yeah. I mean, Democrats can't figure something out from 1994 forward

Well, no, that's the problem is they said you did this and Obama was in for eight years and we The things are not have not gotten any better now finally to Biden's credit. We have re-industrialized We are re-industrializing the country, right, but we didn't have a reform Reindustrializing we're taking on those guys and we're putting putting them, there's a battery plant outside of Youngstown, 2,000 UAW jobs, 30 bucks an hour, just renegotiated the contract. We didn't hear about that. So all the upside, we didn't talk about. All the reforms that we were trying to make around insulin and these other, you didn't

hear a ton about it. It wasn't this big, bold agenda. It was really piecemeal. And we need that big reform agenda. Carry a big stick. All right. Former Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan, always good to see you. Great to see you guys. Thank you for coming on this morning. Thanks for having me. And coming up, the biggest trends to watch in 2025, The Economist is out with its annual predictive guide to the coming year. We'll break it all down in 10 themes. Number seven theme, bocce in Youngstown, Ohio.

All right, we'll be right back. I see a road trip. All right. Welcome back to Morning Joe, 46 past the hour. So it's not going well for the North Korean troops, Willie. No. You know, when I heard that they were importing North Korean troops to help the Russians. It's terrible. When things weren't going well for the Russians, I'm thinking, okay, if they're not going

well for the Russians, are they going to go any better for North Korean troops going into Kersan? This is terrible. When they're training in the hermit kingdom in preparation for French warfare of World War I, that's probably not a good sign for your prospects on that. Okay, moving on. I got the invisible cell phones, remember, that they used in the World Cup? Moving on.

For nearly four decades, The Economist has released its annual year-end issue predicting the geopolitical trends and events of the upcoming year. The World Ahead 2025 issue is out now, assessing what the global impact will be from Donald Trump's win, how democracies around the world will respond to the widespread losses of incumbent parties, and what surprises may be in store. Joining us now, Deputy Editor at The Economist, Tom Standage. He's editor of the World Ahead 2025 issue.

Tom, thank you so much for being with us. Greatly appreciate it to be here again. I want to start. I'm going to ask a general question just about Britain right now. And and the new we're going to we're going to get to what's ahead. But we've been talking this morning about the German government falling, the French government falling last week. It looks like Canada's government may

fall. Obviously, the Biden-Harris team lost. But in Britain, you have a new Labour Party, but it's got off to such an absolutely miserable start based on conversations I've had with dozens of people in Britain. What's the political climate right now in Britain and the economic climate as well? Well, the economic climate is quite gloomy. The government has promised to boost growth and so far growth has actually proved to be weaker than expected. I don't think that, I mean, if you look at those other countries, the governments have been collapsing. This government has got four years or so, four and a half years until it has to have another election.

So they've got some time to make some pretty unpopular changes. And I think if you look across the world, we've seen in this unprecedented year of elections that incumbents have done badly everywhere. And we've seen the common parties chucked out like we did in Britain and America. And that means that people have a lot of expectations right now and going into 2025 about whether these new leaders can deliver on what they promised. So far, Labour is not doing a great job of that

and doesn't actually seem to be terribly good at doing politics, which is kind of strange. But of course, the person who's made the most promises about big sweeping changes and shaking things up is Donald Trump in the US. There is a sort of commonality around the world that people have voted for change, and now they're expecting it to happen. And so far, we've been disappointed. OK, so let's get now to the top trends, top 10 trends to watch in 2025.

Number one, you just mentioned it, America's choice, which of course is Donald Trump returning to the White House. You said it could lead to geopolitical realignments. What is a second term for Donald Trump mean for the world? Well, that's the whole problem. We don't exactly know because these are actually points three and four. We don't know what it means for geopolitics, which is three, and we don't know what it means for economics, which is four, because he's promised some all sorts of things. He's going to end the war in Ukraine in

a day. He seems to take a much more transactional approach to alliances. And what does that mean for America's allies in Europe and Asia? We don't know yet. And then on the economy, is he serious about these tariffs? Are we going to have a big trade war? That would be bad for America and in fact for everyone else because it would mean lower growth and higher prices in America because these tariffs remember are a sales tax on American consumers. They are not a way of helping yourself to money from China. They are literally a sales tax on American consumers. And so that risks reigniting inflation. And of course, one of the things that voters around the world have been complaining about in 2024

is high prices and inflation. And that's one of the reasons why Donald Trump got in. He said, I will fix all of that. You'll see your food prices go down again. He's been backpedaling a bit on that in the last few days. But his policies point literally in the opposite direction. So Tom, it's hard to have a conversation about the future or frankly even the present without thinking about the role of AI. I know that's made one of your broader trends.

That's a global issue. How do you see both tech leaders and world leaders grappling with it? Well, I think there's an interesting thing going on with AI right now. There's an enormous amount of investment going into it, something like one and a half trillion dollars in AI infrastructure between 2024 and 2027. And yet we're not really seeing the demand there from companies. So only 5% of American companies who you would expect to be leading the charge here say they're actually using AI. And that might go up to 7% next year. So there's this weird sort of disparity between the enthusiasm of

investors and technologists and the actual adoption by companies. Now maybe it will just take a bit longer. Maybe we need to wait for these new agent-based systems. So, agentic. There's a candidate for Word of the Year for 2025 already. Everyone is talking about it. You're not going to be able to get away from people saying that word. It's like, do reger in your PowerPoint presentation now. But the other interesting thing I think is that if you look at surveys of employees rather than companies, you get much higher numbers. So something like 80% of programmers, 75% of HR people, and 30% of employees overall in America say they're using AI at least once a week. So that suggests that there's a lot of AI adoption going on. It's just in secret because people

don't think that their bosses will approve of what they're doing. And that suggests that there's actually a big sort of cultural and management challenge for AI to overcome if it's going to be widely adopted and to justify all of those massive investments. So I think it's a bit of a crunch year for AI in 2025, because if we don't see that adoption and we don't see that traction by companies in a more formal way, then some of those share prices you may think look a bit overvalued. Tom, I'm going to resist using the word agentic as long as I can. I'm going to try to make it all the way through 2025 without using that word. I want to come back to the point number two.

Voters want change. That's obvious, right? The German government just fell. France is a mess. Every place is a mess. Canada, you know, the deputy prime minister, Christian Freeland, quit yesterday, and Justin Trudeau is in serious trouble. Across the world, what do they want? Do we know, politicians don't seem to know, but does the economists know what voters want? Well, they want not this, they want change.

What's really interesting is that incumbents have done badly, regardless of their political orientation. So this isn't a shift to the left or to the right or towards or away from nationalism or greenery or anything like that. It's just whatever, whoever's in charge now, we don't like what they're doing. We want someone else. And I think the thing that, you know, generally advanced economies all have in common has been inflation, higher interest rates as a

result, and therefore, a cost of living crisis in many countries. And so people blame governments for that. And they say, you know, you need to you need to do something different. And so that's, I think, one of the factors that we've seen. There's also been a loss of faith in the political process generally and in traditional parties. And that's contributed a bit to it as well. But I think the main thing has been we blame the government for the fact that things cost more and maybe some different people would sort that out. So that is, I think, the main factor that has driven this enormous wave of voting for change. And it's seen parties being chucked out altogether, but also we've seen parties returned in countries

like South Africa and India with smaller numbers of MPs, and so they've had to go into coalition. So that's another factor. Yeah, you know, it's really something when you look across the West and the most stable government, Italy. Okay. And it is. And it is. The Economist's World Ahead 2025 issue is out now. Deputy Editor Tom Standage, thank you so much.

Thank you, Tom. For coming on the show this morning. We appreciate it.