Morning Joe - Morning Joe 1/2/25

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Investigators probe for motive, possible accomplices in New Orleans attack

The guy in the pickup truck just punched to the ass and mowed over the barricade and hit a petty cab passengers and there were just bodies and the screams. I mean you can't you cannot think about you know, unhear that. Um it was chaos and very, very scary. This morning, a deadly New Year's truck attack in New Orleans is being investigated as an act of terrorism after a driver mowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street, killing 15 and injuring dozens more. We'll get a live report from New Orleans in just a moment.

Plus, authorities are also investigating a Tesla cyber truck explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. What we're learning about that incident and any possible connection to what happened in New Orleans. And also ahead, tomorrow is the start of a new Congress. And the first order of business is electing the next Speaker of the House.

Will Mike Johnson have enough support to keep the gavel? Good morning. It's welcome to Morning Joe. It's Thursday, January 2nd. I'm Jon Thelamere in for Joe, Mika and Willie. We do hope you had a happy new year, a Happy new year that began with sadness for so many. And we'll begin this morning with the deadly New Year's Day attack in New Orleans. We want to warn you, some of the footage you're about to see is disturbing.

Surveillance video shows the moment that a man drove a pickup truck into a crowd of people celebrating the new year on Bourbon Street early yesterday morning. He drove onto a sidewalk bypassing a police vehicle. At least 15 people were killed in the attack and 30 others injured. The driver then opened fire at police and died in the resulting shootout. Two officers were also shot but they are in stable condition. According to the FBI the the suspect was a 42-year-old U.S. citizen from Texas. He had an ISIS flag mounted on the back of the truck that was used in the attack.

Officials are now looking into whether the terrorist group was indeed involved. The vehicle was rented from the car-sharing marketplace Turo. Authorities say they found weapons and potential explosive devices in that truck. And at least two IEDs may have also been planted near the scene of the attack. Three US defense officials tell NBC News

that the suspect served in the Army. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 and was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant in the year 2020. Yesterday's attack was the deadliest act of a mass murder in the US in more than a year. Only a few of those killed have been identified so far. Joining us now from New Orleans is NBC News correspondent

Jesse Kersh Jesse good to see you what's the latest there from that shaken city. Yeah, Jonathan good morning to you I'm standing outside of the Superdome it is set to host the sugar bowl this afternoon that game was initially supposed to be played yesterday, last night, but that has been postponed because of the events in the early hours of New Year's Day. This is also set to be the host site for the Super Bowl

in less than two months, so a lot of attention on the security situation here right now. I can tell you that people coming to this game today are to expect heightened security measures. Among them, people parking at the Superdome itself are subject to security screenings. I can also tell you what we've seen over the last 24 or less than 24 hours. When we got here yesterday morning, the barricades along the curb here stopped back there, but now they extend to the end of the curb. And there were always going to be a lot of people watching this football game but now it and this city are under the microscope for a very

different reason. Hours after that bloody attack on Bourbon Street growing questions about the physical barriers used to secure the area. Devices known as bollards typically short stainless steel posts are often used in high-profile parts of cities and towns to help control crowds and vehicles. But on Bourbon Street, the ballers weren't there. New Orleans is mayor explained that the system was in the midst of repairs. Ballers were not up because they are near completion with the expectation of being completed. Of course, by Super Bowl, the game set to be played in New Orleans next month.

The superintendent of police says other barriers, like police vehicles and officers, were in place to secure Bourbon Street on New Year's Eve. But video shows how the attacker drove right around a patrol car. So we did indeed have a plan, but the terrorist defeated it. Anything that is currently in the midst of being repaired had a backup replacement for last night.

It had vehicles and officers were there where all of those bollards, ballasts had been. We had that, we knew. So we did have it. And like I said, in this particular case, terrorists went all the way around up onto the sidewalk. Was someone getting up on a sidewalk considered impossible or nearly impossible, or was this not something you expected you would have to account for? Yes, of course it wasn't something we expected to account for.

New Orleans, the latest high-profile deadly ramming attack following the German Christmas market attack last month, the Berlin truck attack in 2016 and the one in Nice, France that same year. Jose Leris was visiting New Orleans and left the area just before the attack. The metal barricades were not up just the standard plastic ones like you see there. There was police there at the entrance. A lot of police there, but the metal barricades were not up. A city website showing what the new bollards may look like says the project is set to be completed next month But a nationally televised college football playoff game is supposed to be played here

New Orleans City Council member Helena Moreno says the city is ready Do you think New Orleans can host a football game here this week safely? I'm gonna tell you this that right now so many resources are being deployed down to the city of New Orleans that no doubt about it. We will host a safe game Everything from federal resources state resources additional intelligence that you name it. It's like that's all happening and Jonathan I want to go back to that press conference exchange. I had with police there for a moment again they say they did not think they needed to account for a vehicle going up on the sidewalk and plowing through Bourbon Street that way. But clearly those gaps were wide enough for a vehicle

to make its way up onto the curb and go down that very busy street on New Year's morning. And all of this is happening again with the Super Bowl set to be held here in less than two months. A lot of questions unanswered at this point about the security preparations and the thought that was going into that ahead of that major global event. Back to you. Yeah, it's hard to imagine. There won't be questions about why those bollards weren't fully replaced and repaired ahead

of New Year's Eve and these two high profile football games coming to New Orleans. NBC News correspondent Jesse Kirsch. Jesse, thank you so much. Now joining us, we'll bring in NBC News national security analyst, former FBI special agent Clint Watts, NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delaney and cohost of the weekend on MSNBC. You just saw her host way too early, Simone Sanders Townsend. My thanks to all three of you.

Ken, let's start with you. What is the latest we know about this investigation and the suspect? A lot of real concern about possible connections to ISIS. What's the latest we know? Good morning, Jonathan. Yeah, President Biden himself said that this suspect was inspired by ISIS, the president's words.

Obviously, they discovered that he had been flying an ISIS flag on the back of that white pickup truck. But the more information that emerges about this man, the more perplexing it is, because he does not fit the typical profile of a radicalized ISIS terrorist. He was 42 years old, a US Army veteran, had held a six-figure job at a big four accounting firm, father of three children, we believe, twice married and divorced, appears to have had some kind of mental break. His brother called it radicalization. There are reports that he made Facebook videos vowing to kill, I think President Biden referred to that, shortly before he carried out this attack. One of the big questions remaining,

Jonathan, though, in terms of the investigation is, did he have accomplices? And there's been a lot of confusion on this point, because the FBI assistant special agent in charge in New Orleans said clearly at one of the briefings yesterday, we don't believe he acted alone. And other officials at that briefing said that they were on the lookout for other bad guys as they put it. But after that briefing, we at NBC News had some reporting, we talked to senior law enforcement officials who said that may have been based on a misunderstanding of some surveillance video. They were looking at video that they thought showed other people planting two of the IEDs that they found in New Orleans, but it turns

out those people were just bystanders. They've been ruled out as suspects. So they don't have additional suspects, is our understanding in this case. They're not ruling out that he had help or that he was in touch with people online, but right now there are different theories and some law enforcement officials believe that he did act alone, that that's how it's going to end up. Again, they're not saying that definitively right now, but the idea that there were definitely dangerous people in New Orleans that led them to postpone the Sugar Bowl football game last

night, that appears not to be the case, Jonathan. So Ken just mentioned some remarks from President Biden last night. Let's play those now. I know I can speak for all Americans when I say our hearts are with the people of New Orleans after the despicable attack that occurred in the early morning hours. To all the families of those who were killed, to all those who were injured, to all the people of New Orleans who are grieving today, I want you to know I grieve with you. Our nation grieves with you. We're going to stand with you as you mourn

and as you heal in the weeks to come. The FBI also reported to me that mere hours before the attack, he posted videos on social media indicating that he's inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire by ISIS, expressing desire to kill, desire to kill. That was President Biden last night at Camp David. So Clint, let's seize upon the phrase he just used there, inspired by ISIS. You know, obviously it was ISIS has been dealt some major blows in recent years after a spate

of successful attacks in the US and Europe. But there's been a sense that they've been reconstituting gathering and strength. But inspired by ISIS, that could mean any number of things and not necessarily a direct connection between an overseas terror group and an individual US citizen here. Talk to us more about what the ISIS component here and just how dangerous it is that simply a vehicle could be turned into a weapon. That's right. So Jonathan, we rewind 10 years.

We were talking about a spectrum of attacks. We'd say they're directed by a terrorist group, they're networked or enabled by a terrorist group through facilitation sometimes online or totally inspired. Someone takes up the cause of the ideology, they decide to do something and they come up with the plot, the place, and the devices. When we're looking at this yesterday, that initial report that Ken was talking about, you start to think, well maybe this is a larger network of operatives that could

be really pushed by an ISIS affiliate. What we've seen in the last two years is a couple things. One, in Syria today we have the original location where ISIS was formed, complete instability in a power vacuum. In Afghanistan, ISIS-K has really become kind of the regional player and has done regional terror attacks, could maybe facilitate this, but across the board just looking at the evidence so far we're not seeing any strong linkages to ISIS and as Ken noted you're seeing a lot of things that might point to psychological factors, financial difficulties, professional failures, adding that to a very late sort of notice or discussion of ISIS.

I think looking at this, it's just not showing networked at this point, more inspired, and then even that inspiration, it's a little bit thin at the moment. Normally in these cases when we see ISIS inspired, we see a longer history of someone talking about ICEs, a lot more witnesses or others that know about it. Maybe that will come out today as the investigation proceeds. So Ken, let's talk about what those next steps in the investigation will be. What are investigators looking at today as they comb through the suspects past? And also to Jes Jesse's reporting earlier.

What have you heard in terms of measures being taken to really harden security at New Orleans for a high profile football game later today and then arguably the biggest event on the Americans calendar, the Super Bowl, in just over a month? Yeah, in terms of the security measures, the Super Bowl has a special designation. Normally, it's a national special security event. It doesn't have that designation this year, but it has something called SEER 1, which calls for the FBI and Homeland Security and other agencies to come in there with a kind of a maximalist security profile. So we can all be sure that the security posture for the Super Bowl will be dramatic.

And in terms of what they're doing for the Sugar Bowl tonight, no doubt they're responding and they're going to bring in trucks and other things to make up for the lack of those bollards, which ironically they were working on and trying to replace in time for the Super Bowl, but they weren't ready for this event, obviously. So sort of cities tend to respond. sadly, after something like this happens, they bring in all sorts of security. In terms of where the investigation goes now, we saw that the FBI and the FBI acknowledged last night they had served a search warrant and

they were at the suspect's residence in Houston for a long time yesterday and may still be there. So they're scouring his residence, his digital profile, talking to relatives. His brother gave an interview to the New York Times. So there are people that know a lot about this suspect that they are talking to. And their main goal right now is to try to figure out whether he was in touch with anybody from ISIS, as Clint alluded to, or whether he had any accomplices at all. And then what actually happened? What led to this?

What was the motive here? Because they want to figure out how they can prevent this kind of thing. So that's where the investigation is going. And then, of course, they have not ruled out a connection with that bizarre incident in Las Vegas with the cyber truck. There's no evidence of a connection, but investigators in both cases are saying they haven't ruled it out, so they're looking to see if there's any connection there, Jonathan. Yeah, we're going to dive into that story in just a moment, but first, we're also learning more about some of the victims

who were tragically killed in the New Orleans attack. A Princeton graduate, a father of two, an aspiring nurse, a young mother. Their lives cut far too short as they celebrated the promise of a new year. Police say the majority of those killed were local residents, those for the New Orleans area. Here is Martin Tiger Beck. He grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana and went on to graduate from Princeton University. At the time of his death, he was living in New York City

and working on Wall Street. Martin played football at Princeton and trained with his younger brother, Jack. Martin was on Bourbon Street with his Princeton teammate, Ryan Quigley, who was injured in the attack. Martin's mother said that his death now leaves a huge void in their lives. Reggie Hunter was just 37 years old.

He was from Baton Rouge. Reggie was the father of two boys, ages 11 and just one. And he worked as a manager at a warehouse. He's described by his cousin as an awesome person with a big heart. This is 18 year old Nakira Cheyenne Dedoux. She was a recent high school graduate from Gulfport, Mississippi.

Nakira was with her cousin celebrating the new year. Later this month, she was set to start college and planned on studying nursing. Her mother is asking for our prayers at this time. Matthew Tenadorio was only 25 years old. He was born in Minneapolis, New York, but lived in Carrier, Mississippi. He had dinner with his mother Tuesday night before going to celebrate New Year's with his friends. The next time she saw him was at the morgue.

His mother said he had the dreams of someday working at the Superdome there in New Orleans. This is Nicole Perez. She was only 27 years old. She managed a deli near New Orleans. Nicole leaves behind a five-year-old son. Her employer remembered her as a really good mom. And lastly, Hubert Gothrow was 21 years old. A statement from his high school in Marrero, Louisiana is asking for prayers during this difficult time. Simone, obviously, in a moment like this, something so terrible and so scary, it's easy to focus on the suspect.

Why did he do it? Why did he take these lives? But the answer, there's never a good answer. These are people, Americans, just like you or I, celebrating the new year, trying to bring in the promise of 2025, fresh starts perhaps, new beginnings, celebrating with loved ones, and then just senselessly, for no good reason, their lives cut short. Lives cut very short. That's so hard to read, Jonathan. I had to read that. I read it earlier

today and I cried as I was reading it. And I think it is very important that we always remember that there are people at the center of every single story we are telling, the center of every single news story, at the center of every single controversy, these terrible, senseless acts of violence, they affect real people. And in this particular day and age in our politics, I think it is very easy to get caught up in the back and forth, if you will, the remarks that President-elect Trump made on his social media site, where he incorrectly identified the shooter as an immigrant, right? It's really easy to get mired down in the politics.

But always we must take a step back and remember that there are people, there are children who are going to grow up without their mothers and fathers. There are parents who are missing their sons and daughters. There are friends and family members who are now grieving and don't know what to do with all of these, these, these feelings. There are, there are first responders who are now questioning, could we have done a little bit more to maybe save another life? There are people who survived the attack, who were with people who did not come home, who are grappling with why them.

So we need to just take a step back and I think give each other a little grace and remember that there are always people at the center of every single one of these stories. Simone, I couldn't agree more with what you said. And you're right. What President-elect Trump did yesterday, deeply irresponsible, if not surprising. But we should never lose sight of these are people. They're now empty places at the dinner table. Children without parents, parents without their sons or daughters, loved ones gone.

We will have more on that, of course, as the morning continues. But we should also now turn to Las Vegas, as Ken mentioned. Meanwhile, authorities are now working to determine whether or not there is a connection between the attack in New Orleans and this other incident involving a vehicle in the Nevada city. Just hours after the Bourbon Streak attack, a Tesla cyber truck exploded and burst into flames just outside the entrance of the Trump International Hotel.

It's just off the Vegas strip. Here's video here. The fire killed one person inside the car and injured several others standing nearby. According to three senior law enforcement members, the blast is being investigated as a possible terrorist attack. The driver of the cyber truck drove the vehicle from Colorado to Las Vegas early Wednesday morning, and after reaching the hotel,

the vehicle exploded 15 seconds later. According to the Las Vegas sheriff, at the moment, police have not released the identity of the person who was inside this vehicle. In a post on X, Elon Musk wrote that Tesla was investigating the matter. So Clint, let's talk about this. Obviously, Elon Musk, a top advisor to Donald Trump, it's a Musk vehicle outside a Trump

hotel. That's one possible motive here, but we should be clear. Authorities don't seem to know much about what this is about. What's the latest you've heard about possible connections to New Orleans, and what do you think the intention of this driver was? Yeah, two things that we know. It happened on the same day, less than 12 hours apart. The second part is this rental app, the Turo app also used to get this vehicle.

I had never heard of this app until yesterday. Heard about it twice in 12 hours. So those two connections are there. Other than that, we don't know who the actual driver was of this vehicle. And so there's some question last night, why is this being investigated as terrorism? What is terrorism? It's the use of violence, threat of violence for political, social, religious change. You're looking at President-elect Trump's property. You're looking at President-elect Trump's property. You're looking at his chief supporter's brand for a vehicle. When you put that together,

that's a natural place to look at. Today, I'm really curious what the vehicle, or the driver of this vehicle, where they're gonna be from. Did they have any sort of connection to any other extremist group? And in terms of the identity, what's the history of that individual?

If there is a broader network between any of these two attacks, I think that's really where investigators are going to go in the next few hours. And hopefully, we'll know more about this attack today. Yeah, we hopefully will learn more in the hours ahead. NBC's Ken Delaney, and thank you so much for being with us this morning. We appreciate it.

Let's time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines today the the man who was shoved off a New York City subway platform on Tuesday has a fractured skull for broken ribs and other injuries. Fortunately he survived and is even speaking to his family from a hospital bed. Police say that Joseph Linsky was struck by a train after a suspect, a 23-year-old named Kamel Hawkins, violently shoved him onto the tracks.

This was all caught on video, truly terrifying footage. Hawkins is charged with attempted murder in the second degree. In four counts of assault, he stepped up behind the victim, simply pushed him in front of an oncoming train. Meanwhile, the US government says that unlawful border crossings along the US-Mexico border have dropped to a four-year low. Just over 46,000 people were stopped between ports

of entry in November. That's an 18% decrease from the previous month. Federal officials cite enhanced enforcement efforts and executive actions for the decline. President-elect Trump has made cracking down on undocumented immigration a top priority of his new administration. Actor and director Justin Baldini

is suing the New York Times. This comes amid his public feud with Blake Lively, his co-star in the film, It Ends With Us. Baldoni claims that paper defamed him and his publicists in an article published last month about Lively's allegations that she had been the victim of a smear campaign. The actress says that Baldoni worked to harm her reputation

after she complained about misconduct during the film's shooting. He denies it and is now suing the Times for $250 million, claiming it deliberately omitted key details from its reporting. Coming up here on Morning Joe, following the New Orleans attack, lawmakers on Capitol Hill want answers from Homeland Security and the FBI

on how this happened. We'll dig into that. Plus, the future of House Speaker Mike Johnson hangs in the balance as Republican support on the Hill continues to waver. The Hill's Michael Schnell will break down Johnson's tough fight to retain the gavel. Also ahead, Steve Ratner standing by with his charts on the two major issues that dominated the year 2024. Morning Joe, be right back. Welcome back. House lawmakers will vote whether to re-elect Mike Johnson as Speaker tomorrow, and President-elect

Trump is now calling on Republicans to fall in line and support him. Speaking to reporters from his Mar-a-Lago estate on New Year's Eve, Trump said he would be willing, if necessary, to make calls to lawmakers to drum up support for Johnson in order to help him keep the gap. Because of the GOP slim majority Johnson can only afford to lose vote. He's a good man. He's a very wonderful person and that's what you need. Because of the GOP slim majority, Johnson can only afford to lose one vote tomorrow. Republican Congressman Thomas Massey has already come out against Johnson. No other Republican has publicly said they would vote against the speaker, but some have questioned whether Johnson will get enough support to stay in power.

Joining us now, Congress congressional reporter for The Hill, Michael Schnell. Michael, good morning, good to see you. Donald Trump, the president-elect, had been content to let Johnson sort of twist in the wind for a week or so there after the fight over the continuing resolution, the spending measure. Now he is supporting Johnson.

Talk to us about what sort of difference that might make and what's the latest you've heard in terms of the whip count, whether there's simply enough votes to get him through. Yeah, hey, Jonathan, good morning and happy new year. Trump's endorsement did finally come a few days ago, and you're right, President-elect Trump was essentially letting Johnson twist in the wind

after he gummed up that government funding process late last month. And his endorsement is helping short to shore up some support. We have seen some hardline Republicans now further backing behind Johnson. For example, Congressman Josh Perkin and Congressman Paul Gosar, two members of the House Freedom Caucus, have since said that they will support Speaker Johnson. But that is not unanimous throughout the House Republican Conference. You mentioned Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, was always against Johnson and re-upped

that opposition even after the Trump endorsement. And we're hearing from a handful of other Republicans that they still remain undecided and unsuade by President-elect Trump's endorsement. That's people like Chip Roy, Scott Perry, Andy Harris, Andy Biggs. We're still seeing these folks keep their cards very close to their best. So you ask what the whip count is, it's a little difficult to say because some of these lawmakers are saying that they remain undecided. But even that in itself is a problem for Mike Johnson. Beforehand, before Kevin McCarthy, these speaker races used to be routine, more ceremonial

processes because the conference, whether it was Democrats or Republicans, were really united around their nominee. That obviously was not the case with Kevin McCarthy. It's obviously not the case this time around. So any of that discontent and skepticism is a problem for Mike Johnson. And you said it correctly. He can only afford to lose one vote. He can't afford to lose any other votes other than Thomas Massey if all Republicans and Democrats are in the chamber and vote for a specific candidate.

So right now Johnson is in trouble. Michael Johnson is the speaker because the former speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted after changing the rules to allow for one person, just one member to call for a vote in removing the speaker. Well, now these new House rules that Speaker Johnson and Steve Scalise have unveiled in the other Republican leadership, they changed that threshold to nine. Can you just talk about the dynamics currently within the Republican conference and how they arrived at that number? Yeah, that's right. So Simone, that was a sensitive negotiation that went on. It came together,

rather, in November, right before the speaker election, right before Republicans came around. And remember, unanimously nominated Johnson to be speaker then. There were negotiations between the conservative House Freedom Caucus, who we so frequently hear about, and then the Main Street Caucus, which likes to call himself more of a pragmatic group. That group had negotiated that nine member threshold for motion to vacate.

Members in the Main Street Caucus wanted to increase that threshold from one member, because we saw what happened to Kevin McCarthy back in 2023, when former Congressman Matt Gaetz brought a motion to vacate that was successful. But members of the Hardline Freedom Caucus did not want to bring it up too much. So they negotiated this nine-member threshold, the thought being that if there's enough support to house the speaker then it would rise above the nine-person threshold. Right now it does not seem like there's no

indication rather that lowering that threshold once again is on the table. Of course, that was one of the linchpins that led to former speaker Kevin McCarthy's success back in early 2023 when he first tried to get the speakership. Right now though, I haven't heard from any hardline conservatives

that they're pushing for that threshold to be lowered. Of course, anything can change. These are very tenuous negotiations and there's not a lot of time before that speaker's race tomorrow. And if Johnson fails on the first ballot, he's going to be feverishly trying to talk to his colleagues to get to a resolution. But at this moment, it does not seem like lowering the threshold for motion of vacate is on the table or even a request among heartliners who are holding out.

On the topic of Congress, also the attack in New Orleans could be investigated on Capitol Hill now. Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri is requesting that Alejandro Mayorkas and Christopher Wray both testify in front of the Senate. He says that the Secretary of Homeland Security and the outgoing FBI director respectively should provide answers about what happened. So, Michael, let's talk about the possibility that politics will get involved here with this investigation. But also, there's a growing theory in the hours after the attack on the right that if there's a new focus on terrorism and on national security, that might ease the confirmation

process for some of Donald Trump's picks for posts in that realm including FBI Director Patel, the Attorney General pick, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, National Security, and perhaps even Pete Hegs at the defense. Yeah, Jonathan, it's not so much even a theory on the right. It's something that we're already kind of hearing folks push for. We heard from Senator John Thune yesterday, who is of course the incoming Senate Republican leader, gonna be such a key figure in all these conversations about confirmation hearings and votes. And John Thune himself said in a statement

following the two tragedies yesterday, saying this is a clear reason why we need to expeditiously confirm Trump's national security nominees. And as you mentioned, that group includes some of the most controversial of the few, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Cash Patel. So we're currently starting to see some dates for when these confirmation hearings will happen.

We've heard that Pete Hegseth is gonna take place on January 14th, unclear when the others are going to take place so far. But I do suspect that we will hear this argument among Republicans saying this is why we need President-elect Trump's nominees to be in place. We need to have a full team ready and installed to take on these challenges. Whether or not that'll be convincing enough for a smooth confirmation process, unclear. We know that all of those nominees carry their fair share of baggage and more could come out during these hearings.

It's a very volatile situation at the current moment. Yeah, a lot of business upcoming on the Hill when they return tomorrow, starting with that speaker election. Congressional reporter for The Hill, Michael Schnell. Michael, thank you again. As we mentioned, the FBI says that the man accused of killing 15 people in New Orleans had an Islamic State flag in his truck. As New York Times reminds us, the terrorist group, known as ISIS, has left a brutal legacy

of death and destruction across the world. Though the group no longer controls significant territory in the Middle East, it has continued to launch terror attacks around the world and inspire believers of its extreme ideology to carry out atrocities of their own. Joining us now, columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius. David, we're so glad to see you. Let's talk about ISIS, the state of ISIS, if you will, here in 2025, nowhere near the height of their powers of a decade or so ago, but still potent. And I know national security experts we've been talking to over the last year say it

has sort of regained some strength. So talk to us about ISIS, and then what do we know about any connections with this man who carried out this attack? So Jonathan, ISIS itself, the cable of it, as it declared itself, is in ruins. I've walked the ruined buildings of Raqqa, which was their capital city in Syria. It's obliterated. It looks like the pictures you see of Gaza. It was destroyed by a coalition in the United States and its Syrian Kurdish allies over

a period of several years. But the ISIS idea remains potent in online media. And so the fear increasingly among counterterrorism officials has been about virtual recruitment, virtual guidance. People don't go to training camps. They don't go to the caliphate in Syria now, but they have available online resources that, as President Biden said, inspire them to these acts of violence. I noted with interest that the head of the National Counterterrorism Center said in November

in a speech at one of the Washington think tanks that vehicle ramming, the very technique that we saw used by this apparently ISIS-inspired actor in New Orleans, was increasingly one of the weapons of choice of these lone wolf actors inspired by ISIS. Are there specific materials instructing people how to engage in vehicle ramming operations. That's the kind of thing I think we're going to see the FBI and other agencies digging into carefully. But the difficulty of addressing this problem is the networks are largely online. The FBI and other agencies depend on cooperative people in Muslim and other communities in

the United States who will report unusual behavior, who will say there's somebody in our community who's causing concern or suspicion. That often has been the way that people were able to identify suspects. Final point, Jonathan, is that the FBI has been conducting an extraordinary number of operations, stings really, to draw out people who are potential violent terrorists. There was an election day plot that was uncovered in Oklahoma City involving a person who had served, in his case, as a CIA assistant in Afghanistan who was purchasing materials for a plot that he planned to conduct. It turned out he was purchasing them from FBI plants, and that's why the plot was rolled

up. The FBI has had many operations like that to go after ISIS-K, the spin-off of this group, which was thought for a time to be wandering free in the United States, getting ready to conduct operations. So I think this is a new challenge, but the point would be even as the ISIS capitals, strongholds are destroyed, the idea remains powerful in social media, and that's the arena in which it will have to be contested. David, just looking back over the last year, we were very focused here at home in 2024.

Looking at 2025, rewind 10 years, we always talk about three places with terrorism, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen. Looking at these places right now, Al-Qaeda and ISIS, we're hearing some of the rumors that there could be a resurgence, al-Nusra Front led by Jalani 10 years ago, now in charge basically in Syria in many ways. How do you feel just in general going into 2025? Do you see this as a resurgent year for international terrorism that may be moving back towards what we saw 10 years ago? Or each of these battlefields may be limited and not really projecting in terms of international terrorism?

Clint, I know you saw, as I did, the statement many months ago back in April by FBI Director Chris Wray that he'd never seen a Moment in which there were so many potential threats against the homeland To worry about it and that's in part as a result of the number of conflicts that have been taking place in the Middle East We have now Syria a country struggling to be reborn It's hard not to be joyous if you knew the regime of Bashar al-Assad. But it is true that the opposition leader, the seeming leader of the new government, has deep roots in what was an al-Qaeda offshoot, would have been seen as somebody who might

have been a recruiter for terrorist operations. He has insisted now for years that he has no intention of outside operations. The issue that our law enforcement intelligence agencies will want to focus on is, is Jolani, now Alshara is his real name, is he prepared to cooperate actively with Western intelligence agencies to identify and imprison potential actors who might go against the United States. And I just mention one final point, crucial for President Trump and his new administration. There are several thousand of the most hardened ISIS terrorists, people who conducted operations

throughout Syria and the Middle East, who are now in prison camps being held by relatively small groups of Syrian Kurdish guards assisted by US special forces operators. Trump in the past has said that US presence should be removed. If it was, those prison camps might well blow wide open with thousands of the most dangerous people on the shores of the Mediterranean in Syria potentially ready to threaten Europe and perhaps beyond. So that's one thing your viewers should think carefully about. It's a real decision for President Trump.

What does he do about people he has said in the past he thought should leave, but who may be crucial in this next phase of trying to contain terrorism? So, David, while we have you, there is so much going on overseas right now. Stay with us for a moment. So it's beginning with the war in the Middle East, which is grinding into a new year. Gaza's health ministry says that Israel struck several targets in recent days, killing at least a dozen Palestinians, mostly women and children. Israel's military says it eliminated Hamas fighters.

Israel's defense minister warned in a statement yesterday that Hamas will, quote, suffer blows of a magnitude not seen in Gaza for a long time, if it doesn't soon release the remaining hostages and stop firing at Israel. To Europe now, Ukraine is refusing to extend a possible deal that brought Russian gas supplies to Europe. An existing transit agreement expired at the end of 2024. Ukraine says Moscow is using the money to fund its ongoing war. This represents the end to one of the last remaining energy links between Russia and

what was once its biggest market. Stay tuned for developments there. And China's leader is using the new year to threaten Taiwan. In a wide-ranging speech he delivered on Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, no one can stop the reunification of the motherland. China has long wanted to take control of that island nation. As the Washington Post reports, Xi's warning comes after the United States increased arms sales to Taiwan and follows China's large-scale military drills in the region back in October.

So David, let's focus you there on this situation, really, bellicose words from President Xi, coming just three weeks until Donald Trump comes to office. And Trump has, shall we say, vacillated on how much support he thinks the United States should supply Taiwan. What's your read on this situation? So, simply put, I think President Xi is trying to demonstrate both the military capability and some exercises that took place in December at a scale that we haven't seen for a long time in the Taiwan Strait, and in his rhetoric, a commitment to try to move, alter the status quo in Taiwan and move toward reunification, which has been his goal

announced now for years, which he loved to complete during his time as president of China. It's a huge question for Trump. Trump prided himself in his first term on having a personal relationship with President Xi Jinping. In some ways, that was a centerpiece of his China policy. Many of his closest advisors, as he prepares to take office, are strident anti-China hawks. His secretary of state, his national security advisor, have been warning about growing Chinese power, the Chinese threat to take over Taiwan by force. So there again, President-elect Trump is going to have big decisions early on, and she in a sense is saying, you're going to have to choose

because we're coming at you hard. Yeah, no, a great point and a relationship to watch in the weeks ahead. The Washington Post's David Ignatius. David, thank you. We really appreciate it. Up next here on Morning Joe, we'll go over how the economy performed during the Biden administration versus the Trump term when it came to inflation, GDP, and jobs. And whoop, you can all expect this year. Morning Joe, we'll be right back with that. Morning Joe, we'll be right back with that. Morning Joe, we'll be right back with that. Beautiful shot there.

The sun's starting to come up in Washington, D.C., a little bit before 7 a.m. here on the second day of 2025. So for more than a decade, Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Redder has published a compilation of charts for the New York Times, breaking down the most significant events of the previous 12 months in his annual Year in Charts opinion essay. This year, they touch on everything from the economy to immigration. And Steve joins us now with his first charts of the new year. Steve, so good to see you.

So let's run through some of the top issues for 2024. Tell us about that first chart. Sure, Jonathan. So obviously we had an election. Tell us about that first chart. Sure, Jonathan. So obviously we had an election, we have a change of president, so it's a good time to compare the record of these two presidents, one outgoing and one actually incoming, but also of course a previous president. And so first let's look at the sort of central measure of the economy strength, which is GDP.

And you can see that both Trump and Biden had pretty steady GDP. Trump, of course, did have COVID, but Biden is leaving Trump with a really strong economy. And in fact, even if you exclude the effects of COVID, Biden's performance in the GDP was really quite strong, over 2% growth, and we're going in with a big tailwind. Similarly on jobs, Biden really has created a huge amount of jobs big tailwind. Similarly on jobs, Biden really has created

a huge amount of jobs. He created over 7 million jobs, about 165,000 a month during his term. And actually with more than Trump really, even before COVID hurt him in the end. And so Biden was in fact a jobs president. Now we all know inflation was a big issue in this campaign and it's been a real sore spot for the Biden administration.

We did have inflation getting up over 7%. A lot of that was COVID related, but of course there were some policy things that maybe were not ideal. But inflation has come almost all the way down to the Fed's 2% target. So again, Biden is leaving Trump with an inflation rate that is pretty low and gives Trump a lot of freedom of movement. And then finally, of course, Trump thinks the S&P is one of the best measures of success of a president. He watches it so closely.

But in fact, interestingly enough, the S&P was up by almost identical amounts under Biden and Trump, 56%. So they both turned out to be great stock market presidents. Yeah. And as we have said so often on the show, the strong economy that Donald Trump inherited, and now we're from Barack Obama, and now he's doing it again from Joe Biden, who did oversee a lot of growth. So Steve, let's turn to your second chart, where you highlight how the border and climate

change were major issues in the year that was. The border, yes, that's exactly right, of course, Jonathan. The border was not Biden's finest moment, frankly. You can see what happened here. And Trump is not wrong when he talks about how border crossings were quite low. They were running about $74,000 a month when he left office. And they, in fact, did shoot up. Some of it was some things Biden said and some ways that they put a moratorium, for example, on deportations. But in fact, we did get up here almost to $300,000 a month. But what maybe people don't entirely know is that border crossing stuff come back down almost to where they were under Trump.

They're running at about $100,000 at the moment. So we went up the hill and we went down the hill, but unfortunately that was pretty costly to Biden during the election. Climate should have been a more important issue in people's minds. I wish it were because the numbers are really frightening. You can see that at 2023, 2024, these are all the years of climate going back all the way to 1850. And this is the...and they're color-coded. So these are the earlier periods and it literally follows a consistent timeframe,

and then it takes this huge jump. 2024 actually was the warmest year in history, but both 2024 so far above anything we'd seen previously, and this really needs to be a major issue going forward. Steve, what about AI, AI usage? It boomed last year. I feel like I'm hearing about chat GPT everywhere I go. Talk to us about those developments.

Yeah, you heard about it because it's really quite extraordinary. It's a new technology that has been adopted at a faster rate than any technology that we know about the adoption rate for. We obviously don't have data going all the way back to the invention of the typewriter or whatever. But when you look at recent technological innovations like the internet, like usage of computers, AI is outstripping them. Forty percent of Americans have used AI or are using AI now.

And that is way up from what we saw with the internet and with computers. Where this is going, we'll see. But it is certainly an extraordinary change, and it really promises to revolutionize life in many ways for all Americans in terms of more information, better ability to work more efficiently, and things like that. And yes, I know people worry about jobs. There's never been a technological innovation in history that hasn't ended up creating more jobs than it costs, so I'm an optimist.

The stock market, for different reasons, is also an optimist. These are the seven stocks, they call them the magnificent seven, that drove a lot of that stock market performance in the past year that I referred to. Nvidia, the chip designer, up 179%. And then other big beneficiaries, MEDO, also known as Facebook, Amazon, Google, and so forth. And then we'll beneficiaries made out also known as Facebook Amazon Google and so forth And then we'll get to Tesla and the S&P as a whole was up 27% last year these stocks as a group were up a 70% Tesla is interesting for a different reason because you can see it really didn't do much at all during the year

And then it shot up after the election Elon Musk has been a huge beneficiary of Trump's win. The value of all of his holdings have gone up by a couple hundred billion dollars, and Tesla being one of the most recent to shoot up like that. All right. Morning, Joe, economic analyst. Steve Ratner, thank you. We'll be looking for the fullest of those charts in the New York Times.