Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/19/23

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Giuliani sued again just days after defamation trial

Your initial allegations, you still believe them to be true? Yeah, well, of course, they'll sue me again for it when I say that. But yeah, I do. But they want me to lie. They basically, they are suing me in order to lie to them. I'm sorry, I can't do it. And the most important thing is it doesn't have to be absolutely true. It has to be supportable.

They have to prove that I was deliberately lying, which I wasn't. You know, it's so fascinating about what he just did there. Yeah, that was good stuff. It's as if he read David French's column yesterday in the New York Times talking about Maga Man and what it takes to be a Maga Man. And he mentioned Rudy Giuliani as the prime example, but listed Mark Meadows, Carrie Lake,

listed a number of other people who may have all done different things in the past, may have all had different backgrounds, different political ideologies, but said the key was once they became infected by Trump, there were two things you had to do. And again, David French wrote this before Rudy went on and lied again last night. He said, number one, you have to lie. The key is if you're going to follow Donald Trump, if you're going to be a part of Donald Trump's team, you've got to be a liar.

You've got you've got to bend reality to whatever Donald Trump says it's going to be. And then the second thing is and he did it there. It's so funny. He just walks right into it. He does it there, just like Donald Trump, just like the rest of them. You have to be loud and angry and defiant. It's not enough to just lie. Delusionally defiant. Not delusional. Well, not delusional. They delude people. Not delusional. Because that suggests a sort of a sense of confusion. As David French said yesterday in The New York Times in his op-ed, he knows exactly what he's doing. Rudy Giuliani knows exactly what he's doing.

Donald Trump knows exactly what he's doing. Mark Meadows knows exactly what he's doing. Carrie Lake knows exactly what she's doing. They all know exactly what they're doing. They had past lives. A lot of them supported Barack Obama. A lot of them like to paint themselves as supported abortion rights, supported abortion rights were very.

But what they do here is and what Rudy Giuliani just did there was first, as David French said, you got to lie. You've got to you've got to twist reality. In this case, it was the biggest lie of all. Oh, my gosh. I forgot. Jesus is man in Congress. God said, all you need to do is look at the Bible, and that's what I do.

The Speaker of the House. Right? What did he have to do to get to power? Liz Cheney told us. But Liz didn't really have to tell us because we already knew. He embraced this guy that uses Jesus as a political shield and claims that he may be the Aaron or the Moses. What does he do? He embraces the big lie. And then when he's called on it, remember that first press conference, the anger, the rage, people shouting down the press for even bringing up the fact that this speaker, this guy who claims Jesus as a political like this political badge of honor. The biggest liar of all embracing the biggest lie of all in politics.

So you've got the lie and then you've got to be very indignant about the lie. And that's what Rudy Giuliani did yesterday. Yes. And it's exactly what David French said. It's and so so Democrats need something. Oh, my God. What? How can they say they're delusional? No, they're not delusional. Read David French's column. You got to lie if you're following Donald Trump and you've got to be indignant while you lie. Yes, but they act utterly delusional because the lies they stick by are literally so obviously lies that it's hard to watch. It's hard not to laugh out loud. But in this case, you know, it's defamation. And just like E. Jean Carroll learned she can do to Donald Trump, what the two women who Rudy Giuliani defamed are learning is that they're going to have to work harder to shut him up, to stop his lying, go back to court, take him back to court.

I mean, he will not have a penny left to his name and he will be shut up and he will not be able to say a word ultimately when they're done with him. But my God, it is unbelievable how far these MAGA Republicans will go to hold up their lies and to sort of bring people along with them and create danger. Well, of course, Rudy will be able to continue to lie and he will continue to lie so long as he supports Donald Trump, because if you support Donald Trump, you have to embrace the big lie. Right. So with us, we have the host of Wait Too Early, White House Peer Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four star Navy Admiral James DeVritas. He is chief international analyst for NBC News.

We have a lot to get to this morning, including our legal experts are coming in to talk about the developments with Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and others. But first, Israeli leaders say they are considering the next phase of the war in Gaza as the U.S. pushes the country to shift away from a high-intensity military operation. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with leaders in Tel Aviv yesterday and called on Israel to protect civilians, saying it is their moral duty. Israeli officials said they will soon start working to bring back the local population, adding this will likely happen in northern Gaza first. But officials stopped short of saying what changes will be made to the military campaign. Austin also explained the U.S. is not putting a timeline on when the next phase needs to begin,

saying this is, quote, Israel's operation. Well, you know, we have Richard Haass here. We have some annex game going on because, you know, Joe Biden said that Israel needed to stop its indiscriminate bombing. You have U.S. officials quietly behind the scenes, as you know, applying great pressure to Israel to stop the bombing. You, of course, have the British and the French foreign ministers coming out yesterday saying it had to stop. Talk about the relationship here and how much how much longer is Netanyahu going to be able to act, act indiscriminately in a way that most of his own country don't even support? Morning, Joe. The discouraging answer to your question is probably for quite a bit longer.

What General Austin, Secretary Austin was saying to him was not just it was a moral imperative, I thought the most interesting phrase, it was a strategic imperative that Israel refine its military operations, give up, if you will, the wholesale approaches, do something much more retail based upon small units and intelligence. And the Israelis have essentially pretty much rebuffed that now for what, 10 weeks. And my guess is they'll continue to rebuff it for the most part. What the Americans are saying is essentially friendly advice. The Israelis don't accept that. I think the prime minister wants to do this not simply as a military operation, but he's looking at it as a political operation. He wants to basically say that if there's somebody like watching, getting upset about that, that's what Israelis think.

You get Israeli. You talk to Israelis. They think he's doing what he's doing to just stay in power. And how does he respond to three Israeli hostages coming out, waving white flags with their shirts off to show that they don't have any bombs, speaking. How does he respond to them getting gunned down? Look, he starts talking about he. Hold on. He talks about how he's proud that he's gotten in the way of a two state solution.

That's his response. He hardly even responds to this tragedy. Look, you're right. On what happened with the three hostages, that's a real breakdown of discipline on the part of the Israeli Defense Forces. Quite stunning, I thought. There's going to be investigations, not simply about October 7th. There's got to be an investigation into that.

How in the world did this professional army get to that point? So I think that's there. But look, Bibi Netanyahu is essentially recasting himself. He's trying to almost repackage himself, rebrand himself, not as the leader who failed on October 7th, but on the leader who's going to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state, what he calls Hamas-stan or Fatah-stan, that he said would inevitably be anti-Israeli. And the one thing he has going for him, not simply that he's there and he's got a very conservative coalition, but there's a really interesting piece in the New York Times today. Essentially, there's no doves left in Israel, that what October 7th did is transform the political and psychological basis of Israel. So you're right, Joe, there's zero love for Bibi Netanyahu.

He has, as the Chinese would say, lost the mandate of heaven. He's not trusted. But the Israeli populace has really swerved to the right. And that's part of the challenge facing President Biden, quite honestly. The Israelis aren't in the mood to hear stuff about two state solutions or peace or anything else or partnering with Palestinians. So that's what the president's trying to figure out. How do they get the Israelis to refine their military tactics, introduce a necessary political dimension at a time most Israelis aren't very interested in a political dimension? Well, of course, right now, Admiral, the Israelis rightly want Hamas destroyed. I think we all understand that.

We also understand that Benjamin Netanyahu wants to do whatever he can do to destroy the possibility of a two-state solution. That's not going to happen next week. It's not going to happen next year. But what's happening next week, what's happening next year will determine where we are five years from now, 10 years from now there and whether this cycle of violence continues. I find it remarkable that you've got a guy talking about being the great defender of Israel against Hamas, Stan, when he was the guy that knew about the billions of dollars flowing to Hamas and said, let's do nothing about it. He's the one who sent his people just a month before the attacks, before October the 7th. He sent them to Doha and Qatar.

Who knows? Qatar's been blamed. A U.S. ally has been blamed for funding Hamas. We find out now that it was Bibi Netanyahu who was telling them to fund Hamas. And a month before the attacks, Netanyahu's people go and they go, Doha. And the Qataris say, do you want us to keep funding? Do you want us to keep funding Hamas? Netanyahu, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, keep funding Hamas.

And now he's playing great protector while doing extraordinary damage to Israel's reputation, not only across the region, not only across the world, but really importantly, across the United States, Admiral. What what does the Biden administration need to do? Well, you saw one manifestation of it, which is they're flooding the zone with interlocutors, people like Lloyd Austin, who we think of correctly as secretary of defense civilian. He's also General Lloyd Austin, a contemporary of mine. He's a seriously imposing figure who has also commanded all of our forces in the Middle East, Joe. He knows all the players intimately, sending him at this moment to make the point that it's not only morally the right thing to do, but pragmatically part of war is

information control, the narrative. You've got to get a grip on that. And I think that message is even louder behind closed doors. Now you're seeing it bleed into the open. And oh, by the way, Team Biden has also got another superb figure, and that's Ambassador Bill Burns, director of the CIA, former ambassador to Syria, fluent Arabic speaker. He's in Warsaw today working with the Israelis and the Qataris to try and breathe some life into this hostage situation. Tony Blinken's been there. Jake Sullivan's been there. All of us are talking about it. The drumbeat is growing and it's got to be answered by a much more precision surgical approach. I think you are going to see that happen in the next month. Tell us why you believe that's a strategic necessity by Israel, just for those at home who may not understand.

Absolutely. Because point one, every time you you kill a Gazan indiscriminately and kill a woman or a child there, the military age males in that family click over to I'll be part of Hamas. I'll be a foot soldier on the front lines. You create many more terrorists than the civilians you kill. Point two, you gather growing condemnation of Israel against all the actors in the region. Look at what's happening at sea, Joe. Tankers being seized, missiles fired at ships all over the Red Sea. And by the way, 15, 20 percent of the world's shipping passes through there. That's happening because of the Israeli indiscriminate campaign against civilians, Houthi rebels, all creatures of Iran. It puts airspeed behind them.

And third and finally, and you're seeing it in Washington, D.C., Israel will lose capacity, resources and support from not only the United States, but other allies around the world. So it's a losing proposition for Israel at every level, but particularly strategically. Admiral, really quickly before we go, is it strange at this point that we don't know what caused Israel's delayed response to October 7th? Or is this still a reasonable amount of time past the attack to not know sort of basic answers. It is no longer reasonable to at least have a quick wash up, a quick assessment of what happened, not only to satisfy global and above all Israeli and above all the families of those killed.

They deserve to know what we know now. But secondly, in order to be careful about a resurgence of this, to draw the lessons learned. So, Mika, yes, it is very reasonable that we should have a briefing, a basic understanding of this massive operational failure that sits alongside the intelligence failure. And U.S. officials that I speak to have also been baffled by the delays there from Israel, and they do believe that that will be part of the pressure campaign that eventually moves Netanyahu from office. But they do think that's not going to happen anytime soon, despite some wishful thinking in the West Wing, who think that Israel will be better served by new leadership. But Joe Amica, to the present point, we have now seen National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, both in Israel in recent days. Obviously, the Secretary of State has made several trips there as well. The Biden administration is

really trying to ramp up pressure on Israel to try to slow down the attack, the pace of attacks, to be more selective, to be less indiscriminate what they're doing. And I'm told that Secretary Austin received word from Israel as a sort of a yes, yes, we will, but no firm promises, no real surest, no commitments as to when and to what exactly that would mean. So what I'm told is U.S. officials anticipate that the sort of international pressure on Israel will only grow and that the images from Gaza are likely to get worse before they get better. God, retired four star Navy Admiral James Stavridis, thank you very much for joining us this morning. Really quickly, before we let you go, Admiral, Gerard Baker, the Wall Street Journal editor,

Emeritus said, along with the U.S. economy, he said Vladimir Putin was one of the winners of the year. And it said, you know, it was very painful for him to write that, especially considering that what's what's what's happened with one of their reporters there. But but Mr. Baker went through a list of things that have gone well for Vladimir Putin this year. His economy is withstood a lot of the outside pressures. And the so-called spring offensive was a failure. And now he's got American support and EU support wavering. Would you agree with that assessment? Unfortunately, I would. And think back to the summer when Yevgeny Prigozhin mounted what appeared to be a credible coup attempt and was absolutely crushed in the aftermath of that. Putin has used that to purge his inner circle, the senior people around him. He has had the successes that you described. And on top of all of that, he is watching like Mordor, like Sauron from Mordor

in The Lord of the Rings, watching, watching, watching U.S. politics and the bleed of support to Ukraine and the potential return to the White House of someone he believes is a very, very strong supporter of his. So, yeah, Vladimir Putin's having a pretty good Christmas and New Year's. Let's hope his fortunes turn against him as we head into 2024. Well, a big play for that, Mika, will be if actually the Republicans in the House of Representatives decide they want to stop doing Vladimir Putin's bidding. And that starts again with the speaker of the House. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. Richard Haass stays with us. Admiral,

thank you very much. And coming up in one minute, Ru Giuliani already on the hook for a whopping one hundred and forty eight million dollars in damages for defaming two Georgia election workers is being sued by the duo again. We'll go over what they're seeking this time and why. Plus, former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows has denied an appeal to have his Georgia election interference case moved to federal court. How many times is he going to do that? Delay. As long as he can delay. What it means for the other co-defendants trying to do the same. Morning Joe is back in 60 seconds. You had a certain gentleman behind the desk, that beautiful, resolute desk in the Oval Office.

What was his name? His name was Trump. Happened to be Trump. But it was all of you, actually. In a certain sense, you were all sitting behind that desk. So in a certain sense, you're all in a lot of trouble for what you did behind that desk. Ninety one charges. What were you thinking? Taking those classified documents and don't get me started on your family life. You never remembered Eric's birthday. So in a certain sense, you're the terrible dad, not me. Just three days after a jury ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay $148 million in a defamation suit, two former Georgia election workers have filed a new lawsuit against the

former Trump lawyer. The new complaint filed by Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss focuses on comments Giuliani made about them both during and after the civil trial. Listen as Giuliani doubles down and continues to push lies, false election theories from outside the courtroom just last week. Whatever happened to them, which is it's unfortunate if other people overreacted, but everything I said about them is true. Do you regret what you did? Of course I don't regret. I told the truth. They they were engaged in changing votes. There's no proof of that. Oh, you're damn right there is. Stay tuned. Oh, my God. His guy tries trying desperately. They're trying so hard.

Trying desperately to get him to get him away from the microphone. Stop lying. And stop blowing himself up. But he did. In their latest complaint, attorneys for Freeman and Moss write that when they asked Giuliani to stop lying, he refused to do so. Quote, defendant Giuliani's statements coupled with his refusal to agree to refrain from continuing to make such statements make clear that he intends to persist in his campaign of targeted defamation and harassment. It must stop. The new lawsuit doesn't specifically ask for money. Lawyers are looking for a targeted injunction that would bar Giuliani from repeating his damaging, debunked claims about the poll workers. A spokesperson for Giuliani did not immediately

respond to a request for comment. And Joe, we know how hard it is to get lies to stop rolling around on the Internet or on Twitter and situations that you've had yourself with Trump and myself as well. Imagine these two women, their lives were turned upside down. They were getting threats. They couldn't walk into a bakery without getting yelled at by people because of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. And he doesn't give a damn. He continues. He even after losing and it being proven that he was lying about them, he continues to hurt people. He continues to hurt these specific two innocent women who are public servants who are working to help with local elections. He wants to hurt them. He wants them to have pain. These two women, like who would support a president and his, quote, attorney, a former president running for office who wants to just

indiscriminately hurt people for fun? Well, the thing is it destroyed their lives. Correct. You, you talk about, I mean, we certainly understand the consequences. We're in a, we're in a good position. We're in a better position to take, to take care of ourselves. We have chosen these two women who didn't choose to be in this position and don't have the support that others may have, those two women were not even able to stay in their own homes. And again, I have people that sent me after Rudy Giuliani spread those lies in 2000, 2000, was it, I guess, early 2000, whenever it was, I guess, late 2000, were all sending me questions. What about those women that stole votes? They are standing up for the truth.

Ruby Freeman, Shea Moss, I have so much respect for you. I'm so grateful for you because the truth is part of what's at stake here in this election. And they are standing up for it. And I'm sorry, they are not people who chose to be in the public eye, who chose to take on something as big as this. And they are doing it. And Rudy Giuliani, whatever he thinks he's proving, he's hurting himself, first of all, every time he steps behind that microphone and lies. But to make his bigger point, every time he does that, he makes their life more dangerous and he doesn't give a damn. And the question is, who are these people? How were they raised to be so absolutely vacant and void of any compassion for these these women that when they spread these lies just for the hell of it and act indignant? America, stupid people that will look at TikTok or look at a feed on Instagram or will look at

Twitter, stupid, stupid people and stupid people that will look at stupid people on other TV channels lying to them about the big line about this. They will spread this lie and there'll be these women whose lives will continue to be in danger. Let's bring in right now MSNBC legal analyst, Sandra Weissman. He's the co-host of the MSNBC podcast, Prosecuting Donald Trump.

Also with us, former U.S. attorney and MSNBC contributor, Barbara McQuaid. She is, of course, the co-host of the Sisters in Law podcast. Barbara, let's start with you. Mika has asked since this verdict came down, is this going to stop him? Is this going to stop Rudy Giuliani from lying? And others. What are the consequences? And right now there don't appear to be any consequences because

Rudy just keeps on lying. Yeah, that's why I think this particular lawsuit is is really clever. They've already got one hundred and forty eight million dollars as a judgment. So they're not looking for more money. What they really want is for Rudy just to shut the hell up. And so by seeking a court order, an injunction to stop spreading these lies, one of the things that the parties could do if he continues to do it is to seek a contempt order. So once they've got that injunction demanding that he stop ordering him to stop, if he fails to do so, he could be held in contempt of court. And of course, with contempt, a judge has the ability to jail someone until they comply for up to 18 months. So that may be what they're seeking here is the ability to hold that over his head.

And maybe that will provide some disincentive to finally cause him to stop spreading these lies. Andrew, he's sure not stopping his lies just just yet. Let's talk about that. One hundred forty eight million, though, that he's already been ordered to pay. How is that going to work? Rudy Giuliani does not have $148 million to his name, we certainly all believe. So explain to the viewers here, how much should they actually expect to receive? What are the mechanics of this payout from the former mayor of New York City? Absolutely great question. Well, it's worth remembering the reason that Rudy Giuliani is in the situation he's in,

in terms of liability and damages, is that he refused to participate in court-ordered discovery. So he did not give to the plaintiffs, although the plaintiffs gave to him all of the documentation that needs to be given in a civil case. That included any information about his financial condition. And so, finding his assets is going to be a challenge. But as Barb said, at this point, what is going to happen is the plaintiffs are going to be tenacious about getting information from Rudy Giuliani about the whereabouts of all of his assets.

As we know, he has an apartment he's trying to sell for millions of dollars in New York City. That's one of the assets. If Rudy Giuliani, though, continues to violate court orders to turn over that information, Barb has it exactly right. The one tool that Judge Beryl Howell has not yet used is jailing Rudy Giuliani, which can happen if he goes into contempt that can happen either for violating an injunction which is now being sought by the plaintiffs or for failing to turn over the location of his assets which the plaintiffs are entitled to so stay tuned here for more uh action happening in this case once omika's Andrew and bar both said he could end up in jail if he insists on continuing to lie against court orders if that injunction is put in place.

I've got to say, you've got a lot of things going on in Georgia. Of course, he also faces significant jail time in Georgia, as does Mark Meadows, who continues to try to delay, delay, delay this trial. Look, I think women like E. Jean Carroll and these two women at the center of the Rudy Giuliani defamation, now second suit, are heroes because you can look at the big lie and all the big ramifications of a second Trump term or what Trump has done to our democracy. But it starts with fixing one lie, with taking one small step. And these women are holding on to their truth. They might not mean anything to people across the country, but you should take a look at them because what they're

doing is standing up for. Let's be clear. It's not their truth. It's the truth. Correct. Rudy Giuliani lied about them. That's their truth. So, yeah, talked about Mark Meadows. We're going to talk to our expert panel about Mark Meadows and whether he's going to be able to continue delaying, I guess, to avoid the trial and avoid jail time. We'll talk more about that when we get back. Live look at Washington, D.C. at 35 past the hour. The second attempt by former chief of staff Mark Meadows to move his Fulton County election interference case to federal court was rejected. A federal appeals court yesterday upheld a lower court ruling that Meadows did not prove that the alleged actions that led to his charges were

related to his official White House duties. A move to a federal court would have likely given Meadows a more conservative jury pool. He, along with 17 others, was indicted this summer on felony charges related to the alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. The Fulton County District Attorney's Office declined NBC News' request for comment, and an attorney for Meadows did not respond. So, Barb, he can appeal this and keep appealing this as long as he's going to keep losing, right? I mean, maybe that's the point. It seems whether whether you're talking, whether it's Meadows, other co-defendants, whether it's Trump in so many of these instances, the federal courts seem to have very little patience for their procedural tactics.

Yes, you know, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected this, but it was a three-judge panel. So Mark Meadows has a couple more cards to play if he wants to. He could seek an en banc review, which is a review by the full court. He could even seek a review by the Supreme Court. But I don't think in the end the decision is going to be any different. You know, this is a legally sound decision supported by the district court and now the Court of Appeals. And in fact, the judge who wrote this opinion, William Pryor, is an appointee of George W. Bush. So, you know, there's no political allegation here. This is simply activities well beyond the scope of his duties as chief of staff.

And as the court said here, applies only to current and not former federal officials. So he can delay maybe a bit more, but ultimately he's going to have to face the consequences. And then his question will be, does he go to trial or does he cooperate? And Andrew, that's exactly where I wanted to go with you. Barbara teed this up nicely. Certainly if he had gotten a federal jury pool, it could have been a little more conservative, more advantageous to Meadows. He's not getting that now. So do you think this increases the likelihood that he will in turn cooperate? And if so, what can he give up? Well, let me answer the last part, which is what could he give up? He has the keys to the kingdom. I mean, there is nobody closer to the former

president than the chief of staff, given his position. He was there for almost all important meetings and conversations. So he certainly has enormous interest for state and federal prosecutors. Second, this, I think, does put more pressure on him. He obviously wanted to be in federal court. That simply isn't going to happen. Chief Judge Pryor is an enormously respected judge. He wrote this decision. It is in line with a recent D.C. Circuit judge. So there are now two circuits that have ruled in very similar ways. It's also terrible news for Donald Trump in terms of his effort to claim presidential immunity because of the language that Chief Judge Pryor used. So Mark Meadows is going to be in state court.

What's important to remember with respect to that is regardless of whether Donald Trump wins the presidency or not, Mark Meadows is going to face criminal charges in state court. There is no federal pardon power. Even if Donald Trump manages to wriggle out of this, Mark Meadows does not. So for him and his counsel, he is going to have some tough decisions to make because he will be facing those charges. Right. Andrew Reisman and Barbara McQuaid will be watching this together with you. Thank you both very much for coming on the show this morning. Greatly appreciate it. And Richard Haass, let's go back to Russia, the Ukraine war.

And let's look, headlined right now in today's New York Times talks about how Putin turned a Western boycott into a war chest bonanza, talking about how he further enriched himself, further enriched his allies when Western companies departed Russia, turned that into a scheme to make everybody around him richer. Talk about where Putin stands today compared to a year ago and the challenges facing Zelensky in Ukraine as support, again, seems to to to waiver not only in Europe, but also in the U.S. Look, domestically, Putin seems pretty strong. He controls the political narrative in Russia. Economically, he's figured out how to essentially live with sanctions. Joe, you're right. He's gotten some fire sales of Western companies leaving. So he's gotten assets on the cheap and he's been able to distribute them to his crony cronies around Russia. So I think domestically he's he's pretty strong. Ukraine, this political infighting we're seeing, we obviously have Jonathan and others have talked

about what's going on on the Hill here. That said, I think the pessimism is a little bit overdone. Ukraine is still controlling 80 percent of its territory. They didn't lose anything in the last year. Quite remarkable. They essentially fought Russia to a draw. I think they're going to get considerable aid here from the U.S. Congress probably in January. I had dinner last night with a visiting French official. They're all very committed to supporting Ukraine. Indeed, I think one of the things you're going to

see is the Europeans are going to probably draw up some contingency plans, how to make sure Ukraine gets essential help if the United States begins to falter, particularly after November. And it's one of the reasons people like me are arguing that Ukraine needs to change over its strategy, move to a more let's consolidate, let's keep what we hold. It's a less resource intensive, less demanding strategy, almost a hedge against the uncertainty in the West. But two years ago, Vladimir Putin sought to extinguish Ukraine as a country. Now Ukraine has begun the talks with the EU. There's a possibility of ultimately talks with NATO. So what I think we need to do is ease up a little bit on the pessimism and basically say, how do we take what we have, make this a long term base for Ukraine? And then

over perhaps literally years or even decades, you can try to build up. But I don't think Ukraine's in an impossible situation now by any means. Yeah. Well, and Jonathan, one of the things that obviously people on the Hill, especially chairman of important committees for Republicans, whether it's armed services or foreign affairs, one thing they understand is that Intel report from last week that Putin started with 360,000 troops, 320 of them, 320,000 of them have been taken off the battlefield. One third of his tanks destroyed, one third of his armored vehicles destroyed. This war has without cost of a single American troops life. This war has set Putin's military back a generation. So while, yes, Putin is the winner of the year for surviving, according to Gerard Baker, I think is very insightful piece. That's all he's done. He's survived. His military and his economy have both

just had a crippling, crippling impact in this Ukrainian war. Yeah, you just detailed the losses the Russian military has suffered. Talk about a return on investment in terms of American aid being sent to the Ukrainian military to demolish so much of Russia's force there. And yes, there is a sense that right now Putin does have a little momentum because the Ukrainian counteroffensive stalled and the two sides seem pretty dug in for the winter. And Putin is watching the events here. But I'm told lawmakers believe a deal will get done. It's probably going to get pushed into January. That's going to make things dicey, to be sure, because the government funding deadlines loom as well.

It'll be a smaller number, I suspect, than the Biden administration wants. But some funding will be pride free from the Hill to head to Kiev to continue their defenses. And then, of course, the big decision will be what happens, what American voters decide in November of 2024. And that's why Putin is waiting. That is, even as this invasion has been a catastrophic failure, there's no other way around it. It's been a failure for Putin. But he thinks things could actually change in his favor were Donald Trump to be returned to the White House. Well, Richard is so right.

Both sides are dug at me. And it is so important for the Ukrainians to look at what they've been doing and see that that the counteroffensive is not working. And and they need to dig in, as Richard says, get defensive positions in place, prepare for the worst, expect the best. So coming up, we'll explain how Trump administration immigration policies are playing a large role in the current negotiations over foreign aid. And we'll have an update on the NBC News investigation into the use of child labor in slaughterhouses across the country. One of the key investigative reporters on this story, Julia Ainslie, joins us next on Morning Joe. Forty nine past the hour over the past year, NBC News has been conducting a groundbreaking

investigation that has led to the discovery of children as young as 14 years old working in slaughterhouses across the country. Communities have called the practice an open secret. In a new documentary, Slaughterhouse Children, our journalists tell the story of these kids, beginning with 16-year-old Duvon Perez. Take a look. Duvon Perez was working the night shift at Marjack Poultry in July

when he was killed after getting sucked into equipment that accidentally turned on. He was 16 years old. His uncle told us he was a happy teenager. I go every day, every afternoon, I go to see my sister. She's destroyed. She's her first child. She's destroyed. I mean, no one can take that pain away from her. Duvon worked overnight at the slaughterhouse, and by day attended middle school here,

a few grades behind other kids his age. He wasn't the first person to get caught in a machine and die at the plant. Joining us now, one of the key reporters behind the new NBC News documentary, it is staggering, Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley. Julia, what more have you discovered about this story? And my God, I mean, it just it is so, so unbelievably stunning to hear that this would happen in this country. Yes, Mika, I've been covering immigration, as you know, for almost 10 years. And I think at every turn of this story, there was something that shocked us all and my team of reporters as well. Particularly when you look at someone like Duvall Perez, one of the reasons he came here is for a better life. Most of these children, in fact, all of the children that we found out about were all from Guatemala. And one of the reasons why this is happening is because there was a perfect storm

during COVID when the Trump administration only allowed an unaccompanied children. Many children decided to take the fate of the family in their hands and come to the United States to work. They tried to get jobs, making enough money to send that money back to their families who were desperate in Guatemala, many of them facing famine. Then you have the labor market shortage and you have places that are desperate to hire. Those things came together. We've now seen an 88 percent spike in child labor in this country. I talked to labor department investigators who said they were walking through these plants where the company said they had no idea there were children working there. And they were able to point and say, that's a kid, that's

a kid, that they said there was no way anyone could think that they were actually over the age of 18. Another surprising thing is that a lot of these children and a lot of these workers were scared to talk to us. Some of these interviews we did are in shadow. A lot of times we're able to go back and piece together the details after an incident because everyone in this town will scatter after a raid where they go after children because for a lot of these people, even though the work is so hard, there are children falling asleep in class with burns on their hands from these chemicals. Even though it's that hard, they're desperate to hold on to these jobs

because they're trying to not only feed their families back home, they're trying to pay off their smugglers who brought them here, and in some cases pay rent to the adults who are supposed to be caring for them. It's a really troubling story, and it's a system that continues. Even while we were reporting this, there was a raid in Ohio at an Amish chicken plant that found over 50 children working there, again from Guatemala. Julia, truly important and tragic reporting. Thank you for for doing it.

Do we see any changes coming in the wake of tragedy like this? Either new regulations put in place by federal or state governments or companies themselves trying to limit these sort of behaviors? Is there any glimmer of good news we can take from this? Well, states actually are going the other way, Jonathan. There have been a lot of states who have passed laws recently to try to make it easier for children to work, but not in jobs this dangerous, I will say. Congress, on the other hand, there are some glimmers of hope there where they're trying to make these penalties steeper. Right now, if a company is found to have hired a child, they're only fined a little over $15,000 per

child, which is nothing when you look at the vast profits a lot of these companies are producing every year. So Congress is working to increase those fines. We also know there are federal investigations by the Justice Department, by Department of Homeland Security and Labor to try to see if there's anything criminal here. They've been looking at whether or not there are human trafficking conspiracies to bring these children from Guatemala to work in these plants. We know those investigations are ongoing, but we don't know yet whether or not any of this will actually result in anyone going to jail.

All right. You can watch the new documentary Slaughterhouse Children right now on NBC News dot com and NBC's Julia Inslee. Thank you and your team so much for your reporting on this. We appreciate it.