Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/30/24

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

Jimmy Carter dies at 100

We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now. Former President Jimmy Carter has passed away at the age of 100. This morning, we are remembering his lasting impact, both in and out of office.

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, December 30th. I'm Jonathan Lemire. Joe and Mika have the morning off. Thank you so much for joining us. And joining us for this conversation, we have the co-host of the weekend on MSNBC, Simone Sanders Townsend, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, and author, columnist, and political analyst Jonathan Alter. He wrote the acclaimed 2021 biography of President Carter, titled His Very Best. And with us by phone is Roger's chair in the American presidency at Vanderbilt University, the historian, our friend John Meacham. We will get to

all of our wonderful panel in just a moment, but we're going to start this morning with reflections on the remarkable life of the 39th president of the United States. Mika Brzezinski had a front row seat to the Carter White House and now brings us a deeper look into the late president's legacy. He was the man from Plains. An outsider who rose from the southern soil to the ultimate seat of power. I'd like to announce that I am a candidate for president. America turned to Jimmy Carter after years of upheaval. A person of integrity to calm a pained nation. Born in 1924, his boyhood home lacked electricity and indoor plumbing.

They were peanut farmers. And at an early age, Carter declared himself born again. I worship Jesus Christ whom we Christians consider to be the Prince of Peace. As World War II raged in the Atlantic and the Pacific he attended the US Naval Academy graduating in 1946. Just weeks after receiving his commission, he married 18-year-old Rosalynn Smith, his lifelong neighbor. I went over next door to look at the little girl who was a newborn baby on the street. So I've known her ever since the first day she was born.

The Carter's growing family traveled the country on military assignment, and Jimmy worked on launching America's first nuclear submarines. When Carter's father died in 1953, Jimmy left the Navy and took over the family farm. And I'm proud of a heritage that shows concern for the working men and women who are the backbone of our great nation. It provided the platform to launch a political career in the turbulent 1960s when civil rights and Supreme Court rulings were changing southern politics. But I didn't realize at that early age that my friends, mothers, and fathers couldn't vote. They couldn't serve on a jury. The schools were inferior.

Carter ran for governor, lost, and came back four years later to win in 1970. He became the face of the new South, painted in Dixie colors on the cover of Time Magazine. But Carter didn't have much time to build a national profile, constricted to just one term. He announced his bid for the White House during his final weeks in office, and Carter was so unknown that a television quiz show panel was unable to name him. Come down to Georgia to see us.

All right, we'll come down here and make a movie. Thank you for being with us. Southerners were long written office presidential contenders and few thought Carter would make it. The New York Times wrote, as a national political base, the governorship of Georgia has been only slightly more awesome than the governorship of American Samoa. Obviously, I'd like to win all the primaries.

I can't deny that. But Carter was propelled to the nomination by early wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, and elsewhere, defying expectations as Watergate and the Vietnam War had shaken Americans' confidence in their leaders. He was accessible and candid, sometimes too candid. Like when he caused a stir admitting to Playboy Magazine, I've looked on a lot of women with lust. Carter said he regretted the interview.

His opponents pounced. Couldn't understand, frankly, why he was in Playboy Magazine. And we'll give him the bunny vote. Carter went into the general election with a big lead until October when the race tightened between him and President Gerald Ford, who had a quarter century's worth of experience in Washington. But on election night, Americans turned to the peanut farmer.

If I can tap the greatness that's in you and in the American people, we can make our nation's government great and a source of pride once again. Carter walked the mile and a half length of his inaugural parade hand in hand with Rosalynn. To display his openness to the American people, the president sought to lead by example throughout his administration, a frugal commander in chief conserving energy by putting on a sweater. The press office was chillier than usual today. He ordered the thermostats in the White House turned down to 65 degrees. His focus on foreign policy would define his presidency for better and worse.

We will not seek to dominate nor dictate to others as we Americans have concluded one chapter in our nation's history and are beginning to work on another. My father Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had been informally advising him, joined his staff as national security advisor. You had a good sense of humor in the kind of waking you up in the morning fashion. But President Carter was serious about making a lasting impact on the world, a treaty over the Panama Canal, an agreement with the Soviet Union on nuclear arms control.

Yet his proudest legacy was his most personal. As governor of Georgia, Carter had traveled to the Middle East and bathed in the River Jordan, inspiring him to aggressively seek peace in the Holy Land. He studied the profiles of the leaders of Israel and Egypt and brought them to Camp David for 13 days of tense negotiations. Beggin and Sadat were so completely and personally incompatible, they couldn't even be in the same room without exploding in an anchor. So I kept them apart.

They never saw each other for 10 days. At its end, peace accords, uniting bitter enemies. The scene in the White House last night was almost unbelievable. Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, in a bear hug, will be the first time in history that an Arab nation has agreed to a peace treaty with Israel. Foreign policy was the high point of his presidency, but also the low. Islamic fundamentalists took control of Iran's government and seized the American embassy, taking over 50 American citizens hostage. A crisis Carter was unable to resolve. That was the worst year of my life. I never went to bed. The last three days I

was in the White House to get the hostages released. Tensions escalated with the Soviet Union. The Cold War was the critical issue. The president was decisive. In 1979, when the Soviet Union went into Afghanistan, I warned Russia that the Soviet Union then, if they went into a different country, we would respond militarily with all the weapons that we had at our disposal. It led to a boycott of the Olympic Games.

I would not support the sending of an American team to the Olympics. Ours will not go. There were other crises on the home front. In a nationally televised address, Carter spoke to what he called a crisis of confidence in America. This is from a Southern governor. Mr. President, you're not leading this nation. You're just managing the government. Though initially well-received, many objected to the tone of what was soon dubbed the malaise speech. Challenged from within his own party, Carter persevered, but his reelection bid was devastated

by 10 simple words. Are you better off than you were four years ago? Carter left the White House humbled, but not anywhere close to finished with public life. Founding the Carter Center, a concrete building set into a hillside, a sturdy foundation for unprecedented ambition, with an agenda for seeking peace in global hotspots, housing for the homeless with his passion for habitat for humanity, and being a voice for the diseased and depressed. We treated 36 million people for what the World Health Organization calls neglected tropical diseases.

And this year we'll go over 70 million people. That's about seven times as many as live in Georgia, as a matter of fact. Out of office for more than four decades, he defined the modern post-presidency. He faced the final challenge of his life with the same abiding faith that propelled him into history. Morning, everybody. Morning. Morning.

Morning. Teaching a Bible class, a Sunday after announcing treatment for brain cancer, and soldiering Morning, everybody. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning.

Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning.

Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Mika Brzezinski there. Jonathan Alter, you of course wrote a biography, a definitive biography of President Carter published a few years ago. But this morning, share with us, if you will, a few of your top lines, a few of your biggest thoughts about President Carter, someone who so acclaimed in his post presidency, you argue underrated while in office? Well Jonathan, President Carter led what can only be called an epic American life.

He was born as we know a hundred years ago in 1924 but it might as well have been the 19th century even earlier. No indoor plumbing, no electricity, no mechanized farm equipment. So in some senses, he was actually the only person you could think of who effectively lived in three centuries, the 19th century, the 20th century, of course, where he was involved with all of the great movements of that century, not to mention being president. And then the 21st, where he's been on the cutting edge, and the Carter Center has been

central in the challenges of global health, conflict resolution, democracy promotion, the big issues of our century. And so I think it's important to look at him beyond this easy shorthand that you see everywhere. Mediocre president, great former president. Actually, that cliche is only half true. He was an inspirational former president who redefined that role as Joe Biden said yesterday, but he was a much better president than people recognize. He's not going to go on Mount Rushmore, but he was in many ways a visionary American president who put a lot of points on the board for the environment with his domestic legislation and other areas and internationally even beyond

Camp David, the Panama Canal treaties, his human rights policy, normalization of relations with China, even bringing the hostages home safely. The foreign policy record of Jimmy Carter is much undervalued and I think there's a long overdue appraisal underway of his presidency. So John Meacham, let's turn to you now. What should, how should we be thinking in your estimation about Jimmy Carter today, a son of the South, a man of devout faith who has presidency and post presidency triumph and failure so defined by the world stage? Well, I think it's, I agree with my friend John Alter

and the way I think about President Carter is, he's a complicated man and driven by, like all people in the public arena, driven by different elements of ambition and service. And when you look at most American presidents, most of our key leaders in the arena, you have this tension. And what's so fascinating to me about President Carter is here he is, an evangelical Christian, a New Testament Christian who had a fascination with Reinhold Niebuhr, who is the Protestant theologian who wrote books like the titles like The Tragedy of American History. And so you have someone who believed in the capacity of human nature to make our lives,

the lives of the less fortunate better, stronger, even nobler. But you also have someone who recognized the limitations of human endeavor. And the epigraph of his great campaign book, Why Not the Best, in 1975-76, was from Niebuhr. And the quotation was, it's the sad duty of politics to establish justice in a sinful recall. It's not exactly a bumper sticker, but there's a great truth to that. What I think we are examining, what we're going to experience this week is something that often happens in American life, which is great public commemorations, great public contemplations often tell us as much about ourselves as they do about the person

being contemplated and commemorated. And what you're seeing, I think, with the passing of Jimmy Carter is a sad but illuminating, sad but illuminating instance of someone who, while imperfect, believed in the centrality of character, the centrality of abiding creed at a moment in American politics where character is not at the forefront of most voters minds. So Richard Haass, with that in mind, let's dive into President Carter's foreign policy record. Yes, highlighted in many ways by the hostages, highlighted by the Camp David Accords, but also set against the backdrop of the Cold War, a time so tense where there was a moment

when his national security adviser, Mr. Brzezinski, thought that the nuclear end of the globe was coming, that it was just moments away. Talk to us about that particular time in American life. Jonathan, let me just full disclosure. I was at the Pentagon during the Carter presidency, the last nearly two years of it. And what we saw at that time with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as well as the revolution in Iran, there was a real sense of upheaval. And the optimism about how history was going was interrupted. People forget, towards the end of his term, Jimmy Carter dramatically increased defense spending.

He put down the foundations of what became the American military capacity to intervene in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. In taking a step back, what was so interesting to me, and I actually agree with Jonathan Aldo, I do think he was underestimated on his foreign policy, in part because of the Iran hostage crisis, which in many ways was his political undoing, perhaps along with inflation. But what was so interesting to me about Jimmy Carter is he encapsulated, he embodied the two great traditions of American foreign policy. He was at one in the same time an idealist, brokering peace in the Middle East.

It was, shall we say, a long shot at the time. His views about human rights in the Soviet Union. At the same time, he was a realist. The normalization of relations with communist China, recognizing them, derecognizing Taiwan, the nuclear arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, the Panama Canal treaties, highly controversial. But from his point of view, this was the realistic way to go if we wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be violence on the scene and the United States and others could continue to use the canal.

So that to me is what is so interesting. Most other presidents have struggled with getting that balance right. And again, I think as time passes, he will be seen as a successful one-term president in foreign policy. Interestingly enough, not unlike the subject of someone else I worked for and John Meacham wrote about, George Herbert Walker Bush, another largely successful foreign policy president who's seen better with the passage of time. And I think it raises the interesting question of whether that might also be Joe Biden's fate. Jonathan Alta, Smolle Sanders Townsend here. You know, President Carter, he had a strong civil rights legacy.

It's not known to many, and I'm sure you are very familiar, but he was the senior Dr. King. Dr. King's father was a close confidant of his. Dr. King's father advised him on many things. Civil rights is a key part of his legacy. And so is Ronald Reagan. Talk to us a little bit about the legacy that President Carter left and how in the end of his presidency, Reaganism was ushered in, and now that transformation to what we now know as MAGA and the current iteration of this Republican Party.

So just on the civil rights question, the journey that Jimmy Carter was on from growing up in the brutal Jim Crow South to becoming a president of the United States who took the government from tokenism to genuine diversity. And he appointed more black judges than any of his predecessors, all of them combined. Same thing with women, he appointed more women to the bench than all of his predecessors combined times five. But it was a bumpy journey.

And I remember when I was interviewing him in one of my many interviews with him for the book, at one point he stopped me and he said, you know, I never claimed to be part of the civil rights movement. So he never knew Martin Luther King, even though, you know, he was serving in the state senate in Atlanta. But he represented a very conservative district in Georgia. So he actually tacked right, not to the racist right, but he tacked right early in his career. And then when he became governor of Georgia Georgia within seconds of taking the oath of office he said the time for racial discrimination is over and this was a shocking statement

in Georgia politics. It put him on the map nationally in 1971 and there was a walkout of his white colleagues and from then on he basically spent the second half of his life making up for what he did not do in the first half, i.e. stand up for civil rights. And he put Dr. King's portrait in the Georgia State Capitol and became very close to Daddy King, Coretta King, and went on to this career that we're familiar with in civil rights. As far as Reagan goes, you know, the idea of make America great again, MAGA, that notion actually started with Ronald Reagan.

So he was using some of these same nationalist arguments, including against the Panama Canal, that we now can see in the Trump movement. There is a connective tissue between Reagan and Trump, although Reagan had some character. And so we were living in a time when, even though politics was rough, there were these guardrails that existed in the Carter Reagan period. And these are now back at issue. And we're asking questions about decency in our politics that are raised

by the life and career of Jimmy Carter who was a man of peace and great decency. So John Meacham, let's dive in a little more about Carter the man here, someone who married for more than seven decades. You know, we had a complicated family history and an upbringing, to be sure, but then who one who did, as Jonathan Alters used to say, both as particularly as post-presidency tried to devote himself to peace, sometimes raising the ire of whoever the current occupant of the Oval Office was. Talk to us about what drove Jimmy Carter, not just the politician or the president,

but the person. Well, John, the title of John's biography of the late president captures a great part of the drive of ambition. And so I hesitate to say it with John right here, but there was a moment where Carter was asked by senior legendary naval figure, had he done his best at the, had he done his very best at Annapolis? And Carter said, no.

And the question was, well, why not? And I think that there was a kind of, and I say this as a Southerner, there was, particularly in the 20th century, a sense that Southerners had to prove themselves in the national arena. The South was seen as backward. It was seen as a Southern accent, was not a calling card to Richard Haas's Council on Foreign Relations to link everybody here. And I think President Carter and Mrs. Carter, and John can check me on this, were very conscious that they had a long way to go to impress the world outside of Plains, Georgia, outside

of Atlanta, outside of the state. And they were emblems, really, of a kind of self-improvement. These were tireless people. They never stopped learning, reading, creating, working. And I think it was for the greatest of motives. But I also think there was a little bit of, I once heard Mrs. Carter talk about this. She wanted to also make clear, say to people in Washington or New York, that, you know what, we did read books down here.

We did go to museums down here. We were engaged in the broad arguments and the cultural currents of the time. And so you have really with this couple from south central Georgia, emblems of, as John said a moment ago, of the mobility of the American century, of people who were from the literal provinces, who by their merit, also by the institutions of American democracy, right, public schools, the military academy, military service, electoral politics. These were folks who took advantage of the engines of social mobility that were available to white people in that era. And they rose to the pinnacle and they made a difference. And again, complicated, interesting people who really did give their all, decade after decade after decade, in a tireless way to

make the world a better place. It's a wonderful legacy. And on that, presidential historian John Meacham, our sincere thanks that you could join us this morning. And political analyst Jonathan Alter, we're so grateful that you could join us today as well. Thanks, Jonathan. Your book, your book, his very best, a must read, as we all think this week about the

life and legacy of Jimmy Carter. Thank you, Jonathan. Richard Haas, stay with us. Still ahead here on Morning Joe, we'll bring you the very latest on the deadly plane crash at a South Korean airport and what investigators are saying about the possible cause. Plus, the apology from Vladimir Putin over the civilian airliner that US officials say might have been misidentified and then shot down by Russian forces last week. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be back in just 90 seconds.

This morning, investigations are underway after a passenger plane crashed at a South Korean airport yesterday, leaving 179 people dead. Just two passengers from that plane survived. NBC News international correspondent Megan Fitzgerald has the latest. And we do want to warn some viewers now, some of the images you're about to see are disturbing. Horrifying images from a South Korean airport, a passenger plane skidding across the runway after the landing gear appears to have failed before crashing into a wall

and bursting into a massive fireball. Miraculously, first responders who rushed to the scene managed to pull two people out alive. But many of the families of the 179 others waited inside the Moen airport, just 180 miles south of Seoul, as the names of the deceased were announced. Screams of agony and devastation filling the airport. As South Korean officials offered an apology and vowing a swift and thorough investigation. So far, the flight radar for tracking the plane's journey from Bangkok, Thailand to South Korea didn't appear to show anything unusual.

But officials say a bird strike may have started the deadly chain of events, which caused the pilot to issue a May Day warning. When you see this video of the landing of this aircraft, what does that tell you? This crash was tough to watch and it's tough to piece together based on what we know so far. Bird strikes don't bring down airplanes like this, nor do they prevent landing gear from extending. But it comes after a weekend of aviation incidents. A KLM flight heading to Amsterdam made an emergency landing in Norway

after what the airline described as a loud noise. And an Air Canada flight in Halifax experienced a suspected landing gear issue as well, preventing it from reaching the terminal. And back in South Korea, so many unanswered questions surrounding one of their most deadly plane crashes in history. We'll bring you any updates as they come on truly terrible tragedy there in South Korea. Elsewhere, the White House this morning, just a few moments ago, is announcing that an additional

$2.5 billion in U.S. support is heading to Ukraine. President Joe Biden says the funding will provide Ukraine with an immediate influx of capabilities that it continues to use to great effect on the battlefield and longer-term supplies of air defense, artillery and other critical weapons systems. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered an apology to the president of Azerbaijan following last week's deadly plane crash in Kazakhstan, but stopped short of taking responsibility for the downing of the airliner. This comes amid mounting allegations that the plane was hit by two was hit by Russian

air defenses. Two US military officials told NBC News on Friday that there was intelligence indicating that Russians may have misidentified the plane as a drone and then shot it down. 38 people were killed when the plane crashed. Richard, let's turn to you on this. Putin stopped short of saying that Russia was responsible, but did offer this apology. Certainly this is not the first time

they have been accused, credibly, of taking down a civilian aircraft. And now we have news this morning from the White House. More aid heading from Washington to Kiev set against the backdrop of a ticking clock with January 20th and a brand new approach, we assume, for President Trump coming to office. How would you assess where things stand right now in that conflict in Ukraine?

Well, in terms of Ukraine, Jonathan, the battlefield is not all that different from what it was three years ago when Russia invaded in February of 22. In recent months, the Russian troops have begun to gain a little bit more territory in the East. They're attacking civilian infrastructure, so there's a kind of war fatigue in Ukraine. I think rushing this equipment to Ukraine, on one hand, it's needed. On the other hand, it's not going to change any of the fundamentals. I think what's really important is to nail down the position of the Ukrainian government, that in exchange for American military support, they're prepared to compromise not their principles

or their long-term goals, but accept some type of an interim or temporary ceasefire. The reason I say that, so when Donald Trump becomes president, I think it's important that he sees Vladimir Putin rather than Mr. President Zelensky as the impediment to peace. Because Donald Trump has talked about how much he wants to bring of this war to an end. Well, again, I think it's important

that he sees the problem in Moscow and not in Kiev. Richard, so let's talk about where Putin stands right now. We've spent years talking about the state of this conflict, his grip on power, that it seemed like he was vulnerable a year or two back. There was the progosian, the Wagner group mutiny that he put down. Certainly Russia has grown that much more of a repressive society since the war in Ukraine began. But there's also real warning signs with the Russian economy,

as well as the un-toward toll of this conflict in terms of men going into battle and being killed or coming back wounded. How would you assess, how is Putin right now, how is his grip on power, what is Russia's strength writ large right now, coming up on the three-year mark of this war? My guess, Jonathan, is Putin strongly in power until he's not. The parallel that comes to mind, and a lot of people are not going to buy this, I expect,

is Syria. This is a highly personalistic regime. Putin has basically destroyed institutions in Russia. What he's done instead is built a kind of cronyist government. He does control a war narrative that seems to be fairly effective, even though the cost, the economic and military and human costs of the war have been astronomical. Russia has not realized its ambitions in Ukraine. So that's where things stand. The economy is weakening.

The price of oil, which Russia is so dependent on, has gone down in recent months. The sanctions have had some effect. So again, it's the reason that I think it's so important that if Donald Trump wants peace, what he basically says to Putin is, we're going to continue to arm Ukraine if they're willing to compromise. We'll relax some of the sanctions against you, Vlad, but only if you compromise. So I actually think this backdrop does give Donald Trump something to work with. I'm not going to suggest it's easy.

Putin's going to work with. I'm not going to suggest it's easy. Putin's going to hate compromise. He's going to have to spin it as a victory. But I do think the cost of the war and the weakening of the Russian economy give Donald Trump something to work with here. So Richard, your latest substack article has the headline, No More 2024, in which you look back at the events of this past year, writing this, The year of elections proved terrible for most incumbents in their parties, while the underlying reasons behind the outcomes varied, from reactions to corruption, poor economic performance and or simply a desire for something new. The results were largely

consistent. The shift away from the Democrats occurred despite President Joe Biden presiding over an economy that was and is the envy of much of the world. What hurt Democrats was a perception held by many Americans that the country's economy was not working for them. Persistent inflation played a role in Trump's victory, but the election turned on more than the economy, stupid. In this case, it was an out-of-control border that allowed some 8 million people to enter the country illegally and out-of-control wokeness. And a president in obvious decline who should have declared his intention not to run after

the 2022 midterm elections, but hung on for far too long, dropping out only after he had no choice following an epically bad debate performance and leaving insufficient time for his vice president to have any real chance at winning. So Richard, you're trying to sum up 2024 for us. A certainly a consequential year and one that will will its aftershocks will will still be feeling for years, maybe decades to come.

Absolutely one of the reasons the one you just focused on, which is the defeat of many incumbents, almost regardless of ideology. So we saw the conservatives be ousted after, what, 14 years in Britain. And we saw people on the other side of the spectrum, the left side of the spectrum, dramatically weakened in other countries. So the only pattern, Jonathan, seems to be it's been a bad time to have been an incumbent

given economic pressures, given immigration, and so forth. All that said, my guess is, Jonathan, when history is written about 2024, a big part of the focus is going to be on the Middle East. Let's just be honest here. I don't think any of us had what's happened on our bingo cards, the devastation of Hezbollah, the ouster of the regime in Syria, the weakening of Iran, the weakening of Hamas. This is really, in many ways, a reshaped Middle East. My guess is, again, when history is written, that's probably the biggest and certainly

most surprising set of developments of what has been a consequential year. Yeah, and developing by the day there in that region. of what has been a consequential year. And developing by the day there in that region. Richard Haas, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Happy New Year to you. Coming up, we'll shift to sports for a moment and talk about how the NFL Playoff picture's coming into focus. Pablo Torre will join us with his takeaways from week 17,

including the big win that still felt like a loss for New York Giants fans. Morning Joe will be right back with Pablo. Third and three, Blitz coming, picked up, Russ gets intercepted. Breaking in front of that is CJ Gardner Johnson. And a house call. Pick six to open the day. O'Connell seeking, serving, and searching. Lunge has got a man! It is Tucker! It is held onto for the touchdown! Mayfield rifles it. Open. McMillan touchdown Tampa Bay.

Second and 14. Heaves it to the end zone. Oh what a catch. Very good getting in and out of his breaks. New set of downs for the Giants. Catch made by Nabris. He breaks three. Nabris down the sideline. He's going to take this all the way Second down has time this time loads going to Third and goal from the two And it's JG Daniels in the zone. It is time for the touchdown. Zach Gertz takes Washington into the playoffs. Those were just some of the biggest touchdowns from across the NFL yesterday.

And to help us understand it all, let's bring in the host, Pablo Torre finds out on Metal Arch Media MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre. Pablo good to see you this morning. Let's start with the Vikings Packers game. Certainly the marquee matchup of the day. These are two teams we've talked all season long about just what a juggernaut the NFC North is and the Cinderella story of Sam Darnold continues with the Vikings defeating the Packers yesterday and now playing the Lions next week with the champ the winner of that game top seed in the NFC. Yeah this is the strongest division in the NFL the strongest

division in recent memory I've told you that all season long John and this game against a team that is probably the best third place finisher in division history in the Packers. The decisive win for Sam Darnold, who again was this reclamation project from the New York Chats, who went from a guy who was a stop gap, sort of like, okay, I guess we got to go with this guy,

kind of quote unquote solution to a person who the Vikings not have to decide, is he the quarterback of our future, even though we just drafted JJ McCarthy out of Michigan in the top 10 in the last draft but in the present tense the Vikings are just incredible. Their only two losses this season are to the Lions. The Lions as you aforementioned playing hosting the Vikings next Sunday to decide the division and that guy with the purple cap on his head is Kevin O'Connell, the coach of the Vikings, also the prohibitive favorite for coach of the year. An incredible,

incredible job he's done with that defense, but especially Sam Darnold in that offense. Yeah, so it's just really incredible. And there's Vikings are going to have a decision to make after the season as to whether Sam Darnold's the future. A lot of money going to turn it over to their first round pick, JJ McCarthy, or maybe they look to chop the young QB. We saw Jaden Daniels there, hitting a touchdown. Commanders come back, they win, playoff bound. It is one of the better stories this year in the NFL.

The way this rookie, the number two overall pick, has just revitalized not just the team, but like that entire franchise and region, which has been starved for a winner for so long. Right, right. And the recent history of the commanders is as bleak as any team in professional sports. And Jayden Daniels in this matchup specifically, we have just not seen a matchup of rookie quarterbacks like this. So to give you a bit of the tale of the tape here, Jaden Daniels, there he is throwing

the winning pass to Zachary. It's his tight end in overtime to beat the Falcons. The Falcons who were starting Michael Pennex Jr., a rookie quarterback, a first round pick, a top 10 pick himself in a rare matchup. Typically when you get two rookie quarterbacks starting for two different teams, it is bad news for both teams They are struggling. They got nothing else to play for let's throw them out there That is not the case here. The Falcons are still on life support because Michael Pennings

In fact is giving them the spark of life. He did try to lead a Game-winning drive at the end some clock mismanagement I would argue on the part of Falcons coach, Ricky Morris helped undo that as well as the play of Jane and Daniels, who again is just wise beyond his years. It's hard not to sound like a cliche spouting football coach, John, but Jane and Daniels also ran for a hundred some odd yards, you know, to, to win this game on the ground.

So it's just a remarkable thing for a team and the commander is that, yes, is now officially, we can say it, a playoff team, which is an incredible, incredible turnaround. So we're talking about triumphs, Pablo. Now let's talk about tragedies on the football field. And the worst in the league, and beginning with, let's talk about the New York Giants, who, yes yes they won yesterday

and that very fact is what has angered so much of their fan base because they won they beat the Colts yesterday Colts team that was playing for the still had a shot at the postseason yes the Giants win and by doing so move out of the number one overall draft pick position they're no longer picking number one they've slid back the New England Patriots who were embarrassed on Saturday by the Chargers. They have a quarterback and nothing else. Suddenly they're in the pole position and now we look to week 18 where frankly a lot of these teams are going to try their best to lose without looking overtly like they're doing so. But talk to us about this bizarre dynamic and scene yesterday at the medal lands. It is so difficult to be the worst run team

in the New York area right now. The Jets, of course, we talk about them, laugh at them every single week and we should. But the Giants, all they had to do was lose. They had the pole position as you said. They had no reason to win. For those who are not familiar with pro sports and the NFL draft in particular, it is a funny bit of socialism where the worst get the best.

The worst ranked team gets the number one overall pick. That would have been the Giants. Instead, you wake up as a Giants fan and here is the headline by the way. I go with the daily news on this one. It's just yay exclamation point, which is just a sarcasm, which I appreciated, understated sarcasm, because you don't get anything for what is truly a moral defeat, a literal victory, but a moral defeat. It's rare that you get that in sports, but here you have a team against its own best interests, losing the ability by all probability to take should do her

Sanders out of Colorado, the quarterback or cam ward out of Miami, another star quarterback because they want to do stuff like this. And it's amazing john that your new england Patriots, they happen to have now the inside track on a number one pick in a season in which the Giants just gave it to them for no in a season in which the Giants just gave it to them for no rational reason. And now the Patriots, they do play a bill scene next week that has nothing to play for. So the stakes in that game will be deeply low.

But one thing about next week, can I jump ahead to this briefly, John? Cause I think you're gonna go there. Go for it. The Giants play the Eagles, okay? And the Eagles just clinched, that is true. They have no ostensible reason to win, and maybe it doesn't even matter at this point,

but we know who's playing running back for those Eagles. And it's Saquon Barkley, the guy who just cracked two, there it is, thank you. Sorry for jumping ahead of you. 2,000 yards, okay? He's 101 yards away from breaking Eric Dickerson's all-time rushing record. If you've not been following the soap opera that John and I have been laughing about also here, it's the fact that the Giants had Saquon Barkley and they went on hard knocks on television.

John, you remember this? They were on television actively letting Saquon go. They let him go. And now, in the ultimate symmetry of all of this, the Giants may watch Saquon Barkley rush for the all-time record against a Giants team next week that cannot possibly have anything to celebrate on any level, even if they win that game. It's just insane to me how the Giants took pole position and also just the psychological tortured chamber

that is the tri-state area and its football teams. Yeah, and as bad as things are for the Giants, at least they don't have Aaron Rodgers. MSNBC, Kachirio Pablo, Torrey Pablo, thank you so much. We will speak to you again soon.