Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/6/23

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Evidence suggests dozens of Israeli women were raped or mutilated by Hamas

Tomorrow Time magazine is going to name the person of the year. Vladimir Putin is one of the nine finalists, and so is Barbie, the doll. Just insulting the humans, kind of. But Putin and Barbie actually have a lot more in common than you would think. They both live in mansions. They both love horses. They both dabble in the martial arts. They love to play dress-up.

You can see they wear many of the same outfits. I mean, Putin is basically ruthless dictator Barbie. All right. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Wednesday, December 6th. We've got a lot to get to this morning, including Donald Trump's response to questions about his promise to use a possible second term to seek revenge and retribution. We'll show you what he said. Plus, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville finally drops his hold on hundreds of military promotions. But he's trying to spin it as both sides not getting what they want. Let that breathe.

Also ahead, the partisan fight over the Senate's foreign aid package. One contentious issue is threatening to sink the bill. We'll have the very latest from Capitol Hill. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. And White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein. Good to have you all with us this morning. Our top story this hour, the Israeli military has now entered southern Gaza's largest city. Israeli forces clashed with Hamas terrorists in fierce gun battles yesterday. Officials described

the fighting as the, quote, most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation. Israel's widening air and ground defenses has displaced even more Palestinians. The United Nations estimates more than 80 percent of Gaza's population has now been driven out of their homes since the start of the war. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no plans to stop the assault amid his vow to destroy Hamas. Yesterday, Netanyahu said Israel must retain open-ended security control over Gaza after the war ends in order to ensure the territory remains demilitarized. He said, quote, no international force can be responsible for this. I'm not ready to close my eyes and accept any other arrangement.

Willie. Meanwhile, President Biden is blaming Hamas for the end of the seven day truce. During a campaign event yesterday in Boston, the president said the female survivors and witnesses to the October 7th attacks are now sharing accounts of, quote, unimaginable cruelty. He added, quote, The world cannot just look away from what's going on. It's on all of us to forcefully condemn the sexual violence. Biden then spoke about the hostages, saying, quote, These are civilian women, mostly between the ages of 20 and 39. Let me be crystal clear. Hamas's refusal to release the remaining young women is what broke this deal and ended the pause in the fighting. So,

Joe, that's what the president of a campaign event up in Boston, among many things he said that we'll get into yesterday up there. But this is an issue, the sexual violence that has been pushed and it has to have been pushed because so many international organizations have ignored it. This is a central issue now as the president pushes and talks about what Hamas is doing have not wanted to talk about. And yet the the video evidence of unspeakable sexual abuse to torture, torture, sexual torture to Israeli women verified by NBC News. on the pale and obviously very shocking that more international organizations are not coming out speaking clearly and strongly against it and unequivocally as well as as well as some people on Capitol Hill. It is extremely confounding, especially to see, as you just noted, these progressive lawmakers over the weekend, just Pramila Jayapal, twist themselves into not to avoid speaking unequivocally on the issue, condemning something that is very clearly, you know, should be considered a war crime and and again, unequivocally condemned. It's it's hard to imagine how we've gotten to this sort of situation and

environment where even saying that that raping women as a tool of war is a controversial thing to say. Yeah. And Sam Stein, the raping of women so much so that their their their pelvic bones were broken and killed. Genital mutilation in the most unspeakable terms that I can't even we can't even talk about here on television this morning. It's so unspeakable. And then to the horror of the families after these just poor Jewish women were just savaged in the most unimaginable way, then paraded through the streets with cheering Palestinians, cheering on them being dragged

through the streets like meat, like cadavers. and their family members and and Jews worldwide seeing people celebrating the absolute savaging of Jewish women is unspeakable. And that's what international organizations and some some progressives on Capitol Hill just can't see clear to speak out against in unequivocal terms. It's always, yes, but well, this happens in war. No, it really it doesn't. It doesn't happen. Doesn't happen in in all wars. And this is again, this is next level violence against women.

Yeah, you know, when I initially heard Sheryl Sandberg speak out about it in a fairly viral video, calling for people to just sort of condemn the act of rape as a tool of war, I got to be honest, my initial thought was, why does she need to say this? Of course, everyone's going to condemn it, right? I mean, it just didn't make sense to me or compute that there was a need to tell people to condemn it. And then, of course, Joe, to your point, you look around and, in fact, it hasn't been universally condemned. Or at least people have been equivocating when asked about it. And it's confounding. It should be the easiest thing in the world to say this is morally repugnant and has no place in society and is against the or should be against the rules of war. But, you know, it's hard for me to actually explain what is happening here because it is so confounding.

And I do and I do understand what you're saying. You know, when you talk to people, they want to say, well, it happens on both sides. And, you know, this is a modern tool of warfare. And the truth of the matter is you don't need to say that. You can just say this is wrong. This is wrong. It should be condemned and move on with your life and feel good about it. Well, it doesn't happen on both sides, actually. This was a systematic strategy to go in and terrorize and traumatize. And this was used as part of their goal to go

in there and not just decimate people and kidnap people, but also to rape women in front of their husbands, fathers and kids and to have gang rapes happening and to rape them to death. And one woman was shot while she was being raped. This is not just something that sort of happens along the way. This was, I mean, they juiced themselves up with drugs and ran in there with the intent of doing that to women. And not only did that, it was a plan that they were going to savage these women and mutilate them, rape them to death. So it felt a little ignored along the way. They were then going to videotape it so the whole world could see it and videotape these women being paraded around again through Gaza while Palestinians cheered wildly and again treated these savaged women who were raped to death like again, like trophies and and animals.

Yeah. The fact is, again, with all due respect to the congresswoman, this doesn't happen in all wars. Maybe that's some moral equivocation that makes her sleep better at night. Doesn't happen to wars. Israelis aren't doing that to Palestinian women. They are trying to kill terrorists that hide behind civilians. Hospitals, schools, in basements, under a hospital. If American troops, and we actually had Elise Jordan talk about what in World War Two, what happened, American troops, you'd be executed. If you did something like this, you would be executed. You'd be tried and most likely put to death. As Elise was saying, the World War II, it doesn't happen all over the place. But that's what they're saying.

But when they do, it's atrocities. I mean, there were definite atrocities in Ukraine. We're not saying that we've never seen this before, but what we saw in this attack on October 7th was a systematic effort to do this to women. And then for weeks to have women's organizations, the U.N. and others, you know, finally recognize it. That was the issue. The system. We'll talk about this more. Willie, it was systematic.

It was planned. It was filmed. And it was distributed so the whole world could see this absolute barbaric behavior toward women. And there are still people who want to equivocate. Yeah, not only is it explicitly in their planning documents, so we know that this was part of a strategy, but it's also on GoPro. So if you want to be a truther and pretend these things didn't happen on October 7th, shame on you. But we are hearing that equivocation. I think, Joe, it probably amounts to a lot of people who think Israel is bad generally and wrong here. And so everything that happens in this war, they have

to lump themselves on the other side. As we've said many times, you can want a good life for the Palestinian people. You want to respect their their humanity, the civilians. You can think that Israel is prosecuting the war wrong, if that's your opinion. But my God, if you can't say what happened on October 7th is inhumane and grotesque and wrong and bad, there's just something wrong with you. So we'll come back to this war in just a moment. But let's also turn to Ukraine, because the aid that the United States has been providing for the last almost two years now is into question. Republicans, Republicans so far saying a foreign aid is part of a national security bill. The bill also must include money

for the southern border. Yesterday, Senate Democrats unveiled a one hundred eleven billion dollar national security package, which includes foreign aid and measures targeting the border. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would give Republicans a vote on a Republican-written border policy amendment if they vote today in favor of opening debate on the foreign aid package, so do it separately. The offer was rejected by his counterpart in the Senate, Republican Mitch McConnell. Yesterday, Schumer warned his Republican colleagues what is expected of them and what the Republican Party of old would think about it. If Republicans want to bring up immigration right now,

right in the middle of trying to pass aid to Ukraine and other issues, the onus is on them to present serious bipartisan proposals that can get broad support from Democrats, Ronald Reagan would be rolling in his grave, rolling in his grave, if he saw his own party let Vladimir Putin roll through Europe. So once again, I urge my Republican colleagues to think carefully about what's at stake with this week's vote. What we do now will reverberate across the world for years and decades to come.

So, Jackie, take us inside the dynamics in the Senate. The House is one thing, obviously, but the Senate, this briefing yesterday, a bipartisan briefing where the Department of Defense, Department of State tried to prevail upon Republicans to get the Ukraine funding passed. They say if we don't fund them, they're going to lose the war that Putin's going to roll through Ukraine. But they want to attach to it, to this legislation, border protections, border security money. Schumer, as we heard there, says we will do that, but let's do it separately. How is this going to play out? That is the fundamental issue here, that Democrats

ultimately do not want to appropriate this money with border funding. And Republicans don't trust Democrats enough. They don't trust what Senator Schumer just proposed there to do this separately because they don't think that it will ultimately get pushed through. And this is life with such slim majorities in both the Senate and the House, where, you know, these two to three vote majorities, it makes it all but impossible to get things through this highly contentious and polarized environment, especially on these issues, immigration and foreign aid, especially when the Republican Party, the tides have clearly turned towards this more isolationist posture. And overall, foreign spending in general is becoming increasingly popular. And the more and more the administration and Democratic lawmakers on the Hill try to make the case that we should be dedicating more money towards Ukraine, Israel, et cetera, you know, even foreign funding for climate projects and really, you know, spending across the board, the more Republicans are doubling down on their desire to withhold that money and then sort of redirect the attention to

the lack of funding that the Biden administration is throwing their weight behind when it comes to the border, which if you talk to any progressive Hispanic congressional caucus groups, they they simply don't believe that that money will make any sort of difference on the border, that there is an inherent policy problem when it comes to immigration and that just throwing resources, more border patrol, et cetera, is not going to make any kind of difference and is really just sort of a performative throwing some some red meat at an issue to rile up the base ahead of a big election year. So, Jonathan O'Meara, that may be what progressive lobbying groups think on Capitol Hill. That is not what independent voters, that is not what swing voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada think. It's not even close to what they think. Immigration is a massive issue and will be a massive issue in 2024 for these groups. Maybe not the general electorate at large, but for these groups, this is going to be

a significant issue. You go through any polling, you look, you look through polls with independent voters in New Hampshire and independent voters in all of these places. The border actually is because there's chaos there. And we have said Barack Obama and Joe Biden's administration, when they left, had the lowest number of illegal border crossings from Mexico in 50 years. Things have gotten worse through the last two administrations. So I guess I don't understand. Tell me what the thinking is of Democrats. I don't understand why Democrats don't trade Ukraine funding for strong border security. We've said it here before.

If I were Democrats, I would say, OK, Republicans, I see your border security bill and I raise you some. They have to go into this election showing independent swing voters, disaffected Republicans. Let me say the states again in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada. Let me add New Hampshire to that. Voters who want to see this White House and this Democratic Party doing something significant on border security. And those in the White House will say privately they recognize that border security and immigration writ large is a real political weakness for this president heading into his election year. I think there is a willingness to deal, but it's a question of how much and what they want to be seen as doing.

But now the Republicans are some Republican senators still want to make this happen, but it's they seem to be at a real impasse right now. And Jackie, people I talked to on the Hill last day or so, they feel like the votes just aren't there, that they're just really not sure how this package is going to get done, that we're going to barrel into the winter holidays, that recess, unable to provide aid to Israel or Ukraine to come up with border security, none of it. And I'm curious as to, A, what you think in terms of your own whip count, if you will, but also to talk to us about the role Mitch McConnell is playing in this, who for so long was a champion, a real champion among Republicans for Ukraine aid, but now seems to be somewhat diminished in his ability to get a deal done.

McConnell's totally seen the writing on the wall and actually advised his members to vote against the package because he thinks that they need to take a stand and sort of take this show vote to show that they're not going to budge on border security. But the conversations that my colleagues and I have been having all week and actually really since last week is that we need to reckon with the fact that Ukraine funding is probably not going to get done. Even Israel funding, which every single person in the U.S. Congress is mostly behind. There are some discrepancies on how many conditions or assurances some people want. Bernie Sanders came out with that letter yesterday that called for the U.S. to take, for Biden to at least enforce currently existing U.S. laws when it comes to

giving appropriating that aid to Israel and the way that they're spending that, making sure that they're not bombing civilians with U.S. bombs as they continue their attack on Gaza. But I doubt, and you heard GOP members say this last week that any of this is going to get done if anything does get done before Christmas. You had Max Miller, one of the only Jewish members in the House GOP conference, say last week that he was infuriated by this, that that, you know, even in the case that something did ultimately come to the House floor in this very little time left before the Christmas holiday and Christmas recess, that Speaker Johnson has still said that there needs to be offsets when it comes to Israel funding. That's not going to go through in the Senate. So it is, you know, McConnell and Johnson are at odds with each other. And it's it's it's reflective of the entire system and the way things are working in Congress right now.

What an absolute shock that the new speaker is once again a raging hypocrite. Once again, on just about everything. He said, I can't believe, again, read the Bible. What, hypocrisy, lying? It is constant. Offsets. Did he talk about offsets with Donald Trump when Johnson? You should hear him talk about January 6th? Oh,

I know. That's what I'm saying. He lies about it through his teeth. I don't know. I haven't I haven't read that in the Gospels. I haven't read it that you can lie if you want to gain power. You can lie. You know, it's like Liz Cheney talking about her conversations with Mike Johnson. You know, this is wrong. Your're constitutional. He goes, yeah, I know it's wrong. I know there's no basis for what I'm doing. Basically, I know I'm lying, but I want to get close to Donald Trump. Like the pursuit of power, he's actually become, he's just like a televangelist. He really is. It's Jim and Tammy Baker, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, 2023.

And he's lying to Republicans. He's lying to evangelicals. He's lying through his teeth. And now, even on something as small as offsets, we have to have offsets. We have to have, despite the fact that Donald Trump and I raised the deficit and raised the national debt more in four years than any president did for the first 220 years in American history. Now he wants offsets. It's so hypocritical. Sam Stein, though, I've got a question I asked about. And this is why I think this makes such this deal makes so

much sense. I asked about the Biden administration. Why don't they do the deal on border security, be strong and tough? Right. Well, I'm wondering, do the Republicans really want to go into 2024 being the party that allowed Vladimir Putin to complete his invasion of a sovereign country in Europe first time since Hitler and like 1941? Does he really want to be, do Republicans really want to be that party? And do they want to be the party that won't find Israel against Hamas? That's how it's lining up. Yeah, I mean, it really comes down to what each party thinks is the potency of each issue, right?

Democrats recognize, if you talk to them, that they have a vulnerability when it comes to migration at the southern border, border reform policies. In fact, our reporting indicates that the Biden administration in particular is pressing Hill Democrats to get a deal. They both recognize that it is a logistical nightmare at the border. They're hearing from tons of Democrats in municipalities, as well as governors who say, we are getting inundated with migrants being shipped up to us

or making their way to us. And they also know that Republicans will use this as an issue. On the flip side, to your point, Joe, you got to wonder, are there some Republicans out there saying to themselves, do we want to go into 2024 being the ones who voted down a package for Ukraine and Israeli aid? Could that be used against us? I think it can.

I mean, you would have to imagine in prior times that would be a vulnerability politically, all of which suggests that there might be opening for some sort of deal or pared down deal. But, of course, everything is sort of like it's all about the details, right? You know, if you go into the details of the immigration policy reforms, each side agrees that there should be reforms to the asylum system. But they have disagreements over whether there should be an end to humanitarian parole, for instance. And so it's like the nitty gritty details that this thing's going to live or die. And right now, it looks like it's not on a path to salvation, honestly. All right. Coming up in just one

minute, the Atlantic's Frank Four will join us with his piece for the special issue of the magazine outlining the threats of a potential second term for Donald Trump. Plus, the former president gave voice to some of those warnings in an interview last night on Fox News. We'll show you those comments in 60 seconds. And Tommy Tuberville, he folds, he folds after wrecking the lives of military men and women for a year. I hope it was worth it. Do you see running for president Trump? What's his running? I expect so. But look, he is running and I just I have to run.

Did you drop out of Congress now? No, not now. All right. President Biden yesterday when asked to clarify comments, he made a fundraiser earlier in the day. There's a problem. So he says earlier in the day, I probably wouldn't be running if Trump wasn't running, right? He's just talking to donors. You just say things, right?

Like, you just make up stuff like FSU deserves to be in the college football championship. You just say things that you don't mean. Because they're ridiculous. But, you know, that's a problem. We've got a culture that's got like TV shows, Willie, that like talk problem. We've got a culture that's got, like, TV shows, really,

that, like, talk about politics for four hours. That's not good for America. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? I can't. It's a disaster. No, I can't. Can you imagine waking up at 4.30 and talking for four hours?

You don't have to be certifiable. You have to be crazy for 16 years. Not well. Crazy. But Willie, so he says, you know, I probably wouldn't even be running if Trump were here. Right? Just offhanded comment. So there's the biggest story of all time.

No, not really. I could name quite a few more. Yeah. Including FSU, apparently. Top of mind for you. I think we'll get to that in just a little while. Viewed the comment, Jonathan Lemire, obviously set off some alarm bells. Right. But what he was talking about through that entire event was what a danger Donald Trump was, what a danger Donald

Trump is and would be if he were elected again. And I've got to stand in the doorway of democracy. And that's effectively why I'm running against him. Clarified a little bit there. Yeah. I mean, why it raised eyebrows is what President Biden said aloud is what most people have said privately. And frankly, people close to him have indicated that he is running again because he views Donald Trump as a as a fundamental threat to our nation's democracy and that that's why he has to be defeated. And there are questions, of course, we we know when Biden ran the first time he considered he said he might be a transitional candidate. Some read into that like, oh, he's only going to serve one term. He'll hand off to the next generation. He, of course, never actually pledged to do that.

And he has made very clear that he is running. He is running again. It comes at a moment where there are some Democrats very nervous about the president's poll numbers. But you are right that this is a moment where it's really, Joe, that the biggest the reason why he said it and the reason why it's in the ether right now is because there is so much conversation rightly about what a second Trump term would look like. There's been great media coverage about it. And a number of Trump's former officials, including Mark Esper on this very network yesterday, warned that our democracy would be in danger were Trump to win. That's what Biden was trying to get at. And his and his and his people that are democracy would be in danger were Trump to win. That's what Biden was trying to get at. And his people that are going to be around him are saying, we're coming for you. We're going to go after, we're going to prosecute people. Again, yeah,

we're going after everybody. So they're saying it. I got to say, though, Jonathan, there's a debate, I know there's been a debate for some time time how hard Joe Biden should go against Donald Trump. And which is ridiculous, I think, because Donald Trump goes after Joe Biden every day. And the reason Joe Biden's running is because of the danger Donald Trump poses to America. And now you got the governors. I saw the New York Times article. The governors are out. I shouldn't talk about Donald Trump.

He should talk about, you know, wind turbines or whatever they were talking about. There are a lot of it. It's so stupid. But it's so stupid. It's like, you know, cut your cut, cut your ribbons and go visit your water management districts, governors, and you do your thing and let the president run the campaign he needs to run. But there is this pressure for some reason for him to not talk about a man who is promising to terminate the Constitution, execute disloyal generals, take news networks off the air, continue to take rights away from women, take health care away from working class Americans, personal valets in the administration instead of experts. Yeah. And and again, to to prosecute, to go after, to execute people like and to do it on his first day in office like he's

promising to do this. So, again, why is that debate going on whether he should go after Donald Trump or not? Steve Bannon and Kash Patel, two influential Trump advisers, reiterated yesterday that among their first targets would be the news networks that Donald Trump opposes, that they're making clear they're coming. They said we're coming for you if Trump were to win again. And there had been some debate within the Biden world as to the best approach. Joe, you and I have talked about this a lot this year, about how over the summer they really tried to focus on more of a pro-Biden, Bidenomics positive message. Doesn't work. That shifted. And I first reported, and we've talked about it right around the election day, about a

month or so back, this campaign pivoted. And they are now drawing contrast after contrast after contrast with Trump. They've gone on the attack. They have basically every day highlighted something Trump has said and said, look, this is what he did before in his first term. This is what he's promised again in the second term. We won't be the same country on the other side. We're going to be president again. Right. And I guess Willie, the New York Times piece talking to the governor saying, oh, you know, you should just stay away from Donald Trump. That worked really well for Rand Paul. That worked well for Marco Rubio. That worked well. It's working well for Republicans. You know, we're going to just talk about how green the pastures will be and how daffodils

will sprout throughout America if we're allowed to be. No, they're running against a guy that wants to destroy democracy. If you want to beat him, you have to destroy him politically, politically, day in and day out and go after him day in and day out. But again, all these candidates keep thinking we can win if we just ignore Donald Trump. The Republicans. The Republicans. All the Republicans think that we can just win if we just ignore Donald Trump. It doesn't work.

It's not working in the Republican primary, that's for sure. And what if, as the White House and the Biden campaign would argue, you could do both things, which is go after Donald Trump and brag about the economy and brag about the infrastructure bill and the achievements you think you've had over the last four years. That's how you run a campaign. So they're starting to do that, definitely putting their foot on the gas against Donald Trump, perhaps because of moments like this. Last night in a Fox News town hall, Sean Hannity asked Donald Trump twice, coaching him along, as he often does in these interviews, if Trump planned to abuse his power if elected to a second term. Trump told the Iowa

audience he would not be a dictator except for on his first day in office. I want to be very, very clear on this. To be clear, do you in any way have any plans whatsoever, if reelected president, to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people? You mean like they're using right now? So in the history of our country, what's happened to us, again, has never happened before. Over nonsense, over nothing, made up charges. I often say Al Capone, he was one of the greatest of all time, if you like criminals. He was a mob boss, the likes of which Scarface, they call him. And he got indicted once. I got indicted four times. I want to go back to this one issue, though, because the media has been focused on this and attacking you under no circumstances. You are promising America tonight.

You would never abuse power as retribution against anybody. Except for day one. Except for? He's going crazy. Except for day one. Meaning? I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill. That's not retribution. I'm going to be. and I want to drill. That's not a drill. That's not. That's not retribution.

I got I'm going to be I'm going to be, you know, he keeps. We love this guy. He says, you're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no. Other than day one. It's kind of like that. Believe him. We talked about this.

We talked about this. Remember the answer we talked about? And Donald Trump doesn't do it. He had previous interview members said you didn't take all those documents back to your beach club. I did. And I had the right to do it. And Hannity kind of droops his head. But the point is, again, he's saying now just explicitly, I'm going to do a bunch of stuff on day one. And if anybody believes it's going to end in day one, I've got a bridge to sell you across the river here. So this is what we're hearing from Donald Trump more and more. And it's the reason

we're hearing more and more from Joe Biden about the dangers of a potential second term. Well, I mean, Willie, think about it. If any other politician in American history were asked the question, are you going to be a dictator? No, Donald Trump never answered it. He never answered it. And when he said, and I just want, there's a sickness. There is a sickness among, unfortunately, some of our fellow Americans regarding authoritarianism and totalitarianism. They want it. Because Willie, when he promised that he would be a dictator on day one, he got applause. Well, and that's on Fox News.

Even before he a lot of people watching, even before he talked, even before he talked about the border, which a majority of Americans would support closing the border today, probably an overwhelming majority are drilling. By the way, what a stupid thing to say. Drill, drill, drill. What a stupid thing to say. You can tell he doesn't even read the newspapers and the people applauding that don't even read the newspapers. U.S. oil production. Yep. Record highs. We are drilling more and producing more oil, whether you like it or not. We are we are drilling more oil now than the Saudis, getting more oil out of the ground than the

Saudis, getting more oil out of the ground than Russia. What are you going to drill your teeth? We're already doing it. But that just shows really how stupid he is. And I've got to say, people who applaud drill, drill, drill, how stupid they are, because that's what we're doing right now. In fact, record like Biden's administration. I know a lot of people on the left aren't going to like this. They're like their their presidency is seeing more oil production than any other presidency in U.S. history. And yet they applaud drill, drill, drill. They also could be victims of a cult like personality. Well, listen, this is this is this is the way it's not good.

There's a personality called it's very bad for America. And make no mistake of it. A large chunk of those people in that audience cheering when Donald Trump said, I'll be a dictator on day one. Well, they want that. Yeah, there's I mean, look at the polling. This race is going to be close right down to the end because of the applause that you heard in that room last night. Let's talk more about this with staff writer at The Atlantic, Frank Forr. Frank is one of the contributors to the magazine's special issue on the threats a second Trump term would pose.

His piece is titled Corruption Unbound. So yesterday, Frank, we were talking about some of the foreign policy stuff with David Frum about a potential withdrawal from NATO and the implications of that. What are you writing about this morning? Which corruption specifically? Right. If you go back and you look at the first Trump term, there was a great deal of corruption. You had cabinet secretaries traveling on private jets. You had paid for by people who they were administering. You had all sorts of people who wanted to change policy, paying the Trump resorts and hotels enormous sums of money with the hopes that that, too, would change policy. We also saw the way in the first Trump term that Trump tried to

use the regulatory state to punish enemies. Well, that was all just a dry run. Everybody figured out the way that the system works. So if the first Trump term was what Paul Krugman described as malevolence tempered by incompetence, the second Trump term would be tempered by all of the experience that was gleaned. There is no how now. And there's a term that the Hungarians have to describe what emerged there under Viktor Orban, which was that a mafia state emerged. So if the Trump officials come in, clear out the deep state, install their cronies in power, those cronies have no allegiance to higher norms or higher values. They will all be susceptible to corruption.

And the way the system works is that you start to have this corruption that emerges at the center and is protected by all of these foot soldiers who are also profiting along the way. Frank, I want to start with highlighting another line from President Biden at one of the fundraisers in Boston last night talking about Trump, saying he didn't show up at my inauguration, which I can't say was a disappointment. And then he added, my guess is he won't show up at my next inauguration either. So certainly a very confident Joe Biden there. One, the Democrats, of course, cheer. But polls suggest this is a very tight race to Willie's to Willie's point. So on the idea of political corruption, were Trump to get that second term?

Talk to us also about how he could enrich himself even further, family members, staffers, loyalists, and doing so at the expense of civil servants, of career professionals, and the American taxpayer. Well, we saw the way in which his family clearly enriched themselves along the way. And on the way out the door, got paid billions of dollars by foreign governments. You saw the way in the first Trump term where foreign governments that wanted to manipulate Trump were able to spend money on his properties. The government of Qatar bought a building, bought a unit in a Trump building for six million dollars. Trump never disentangled himself from his vast network of business interests. And so that vast network of business interests becomes this ripe target that governments around the world, that interests in the United States all know

that they can spend money on, invest in, with the hopes of changing policy here. That is the very definition of corruption. Hey, Frank, it's Sam Stein here. You paint such a pleasant picture of civil society for us. I really appreciate it. I guess my question is, why don't people—I mean, you look at these polls and really just mention it's going to be a close race regardless, but at this juncture, it's fair to say Trump is probably the favorite to win. I guess, why do people not find these issues?

Why do they not find them persuasive? Why do they not see political silence in these issues? Why do people seem drawn to a degree to what Trump is overtly talking about, you know, day one dictatorships? Well, first of all, one of the things that happened during the first Trump term was that at the beginning, it wasn't very clear how much corruption his own party would tolerate. But over time, it became clear that the norms had shifted, that his party was willing to forgive whatever corruption happened on his side. Corruption simply was a bludgeon that you could use to wield against Democrats, but never against your own team. Your own team was never corrupt.

So you have the way in which it's become a polarized sort of issue. But I do think in the end, the democracy questions will be the most powerful quiver in Joe Biden's bow, that in 2022, he framed that election as a binary choice between himself and Trump style authoritarianism, with abortion being one of the primary illustrations of that. And it worked. Yeah, it did work. And this is what's so interesting, though, about Donald Trump. You know, Orwell, I've used this quote quite a few times, but George Orwell in one essay talking about the difference between fascists and communists said fascists are unusually successful at propaganda, turning things around, confuse, confusing the electorate, confusing the American people. You look at Donald Trump now saying, wait a second,

Joe Biden's using that democracy threat as, you know, as a cudgel to say I'm a threat to democracy. So what I'm going to say is Donald or Joe Biden is a threat to democracy, right? So that's exactly what he's doing. I think it was The Times that said it's a playground equivalent of no, I'm not. You are. Look at corruption. Not just what Donald Trump has done, but look what all of the right wing media has done. They have gotten a son that had problems with crack.

They have chased down every lead they could chase down. They make fools of themselves time and time again. But it has worked. They're lying about the corrupt Biden family, like like Clarence Thomas's wife, talking about the Biden crime family should be on barges outside of Gitmo, repeating this lie, this fascist attempt, this fascist lie over and over and over again. You look at the polls, it's worked.

So now half of Americans see Joe Biden is corrupt as Donald Trump. When, of course, it's such a we could list it for four hours. It is such a preposterous argument. And yet, because fascists are so good at propaganda, it's actually working. Right. Ginny Thomas flew on Leonard Leo's private jet on her way to making that accusation against Joe Biden. It's true. I mean, you look at there was clearly this nub of a narrative where Hunter Biden did a lot of shady things. by the Fox News Republican propaganda machine into the Biden crime family, which is then

portrayed as a historic anomaly, one of the worst in history, one of the worst cases of corruption. And, you know, I think that a lot of us would like to believe that that type of misinformation, that type of spun up narrative is something that would only exist within the minds of the people who watched Fox News all day long. But when you have the power of the congressional bully pulpit and you look at the ways in which media has miscovered this issue along the way, you could see that that narrative has traveled into the mainstream, that there are a lot of independent voters, there are a lot of Democrats who also seem to believe that Joe Biden is corrupt. And so the

issue becomes much more muddy than it should be. Frank Foer, thank you very much. His piece for The Atlantic special issue is online now. And his book, The Last Politician, Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future, is available right now. Frank, thank you very much. And coming up, former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Ganel is our guest to discuss his new book, American Shield, the Imm sergeant who defended democracy. Morning Joe is coming right back. What transparency we should demand that the American people do. We trust House Republicans trust the American people to draw their own conclusions.

We should not. They should not be dictated by some narrative and accept that as fact. So they can review the tapes themselves. We're going through a methodical process of releasing them as quickly as we can. As you know, we have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don't want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ and to have other, you know, concerns and problems. OK, so lie after lie after lie again. I would love to see his Bible. I really would. What Bible is he reading? Look at my Bible. That's how I live. Lie after lie after lie. He's lying about transparency.

Liz Cheney was saying yesterday, release all the tapes. But he's not going to release all the tapes. He'll release selected portions of it. And as far as the blurring of the faces, Willie, the FBI has all of the footage. They've got all of the footage. They're people in jail. So who is he lying to? Because the press is not stupid enough to believe him.

Is he insulting Republicans? Why would he lie like that? The FBI has all the footage. So the DOJ has all the footage. Who's he lying to, Willie? Maybe he's just lying to himself. I don't know. But again, it's an interesting Bible he has there.

It's important to understand the narrative in the MAGA echo chamber, which is that the story we've all been told and seen with our own eyes about what happened on January 6th is made up by the deep state, I guess, by the media. Somebody, in fact, there were FBI agents there and it was a plot by the government, et cetera, et cetera. By the way, as these videos have come out and people in the MAGA media have said, look, see, there's an FBI agent. Reporters calmly and meticulously have said, nope, here's who that is. He's actually in jail right now. He's a civilian who stormed the Capitol, beat up a cop, whatever it is. So I don't know why Mike Johnson is doing this other than to curry favor with the base, with Donald Trump, keep his job, I guess.

That was Mike Johnson, the speaker yesterday, talking about blurring footage from the Capitol attack before releasing it public publicly because doesn't want January 6th riders to be charged with crimes. Johnson's deputy chief of staff later tried to clarify those remarks, posting on social media. The House would be blurring the faces to protect those who participated from forms of retaliation by nongovernmental actors. He added the Department of Justice already has access to the unblurred footage. As we said, the speaker said he's releasing the footage to counter the January 6th committee's presentation of the attack on the Capitol. Jackie, how are they trying to explain their way out of this? He was pretty explicit about the DOJ there. Yeah, I wasn't on the Hill yesterday, so I wasn't able to follow up with Johnson in person and press him about this. But, you know, it's it's I think it's as simple as you've said, Willie. This is Johnson trying to curry favor with a growing pocket of the House GOP conference

that, you know, is has been campaigning on on vying for freedoms for these insurrectionists, 400 of whom have already been charged by the Department of Justice, who already have access to all of this footage. Johnson, I think, is realizing that his his honeymoon is coming to an end as hardliners, especially those in the House Freedom Caucus, the same people who have been advocating for the insurrectionists, for what they have said, have claimed without evidence is mistreatment behind bars. And this is Johnson just trying to show, even though it really it's it doesn't make all that much sense that he is behind them and he sees them beyond the lies that they're telling. It remains politically confounding that they want to go back to this issue.

Let's talk about January 6th again as we turn the corner to a presidential election. Most Americans believe January 6th was a terrible day and the people who beat up police officers and deface the Capitol deserve what they get and deserve what may be coming to them. And yet Donald Trump still wants to talk about January 6th, the 2020 election. He's going to issue pardons. The Speaker of the House still talking about the videos of the people trying to change the story. Politically, it's wild. Yeah. First on the tactics of it, to Jackie's point, there's some school of thought that Johnson's trying to throw olive branches to the hard right on this, the January 6th footage, as well as the impeachment inquiry, because he's trying to cut some sort of deal to give himself cover to get some sort of spending deal done, something done that might make some of the

hardliners have to make a vote they don't want. But beyond that, the larger point, this is still part of the ongoing effort, Mike, of the Republicans trying to downplay what happened on January 6th. I have to say, they've been very successful, at least with their own base. Republicans do not think what happened on January 6th was all that bad. It was a protest that got out of hand. And that's part of a larger effort to normalize what happened to help Donald Trump overcome that as he seeks a second term. You're 100% correct. They have succeeded in doing all of that. The interesting thing about the speaker's comments yesterday, the irony of his comments yesterday, where they're going to fuzz up the faces of the potential people in the crowd in order to protect them from future retribution or retaliation.

And yet you had Liz Cheney on this air and other programs saying that she knew personally many members of Congress who would have voted to impeach Trump, but they were afraid for their families because of the retribution that would be impacted upon their families. That's what we're dealing with. So let's talk to somebody who was there on the front lines that day, as we continue to learn more about the emotional and physical toll the day had on the members of law enforcement who bravely defended the Capitol on January 6th. Former Capitol Police Sergeant Aguilino-Ganel will be our guest in a moment, but first, a bit of what he recounted

in a hearing a few months after the attack. To be honest, I did not recognize my fellow citizens who stormed the Capitol on January 6th or the United States that they claimed to represent. The rioters called me a traitor, a disgrace, and shouted that I, I, an Army veteran and a police officer, should be executed. For most people, January 6th happened for a few hours. But for those of us who were in the thick of it, it has not ended. That day continued to be a constant trauma for us literally every day, whether because our physical or emotional injuries or both. And former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Connell joins us now. He's out with a new memoir titled

American Shield, the immigrant sergeant who defended democracy. Sergeant, thank you for being with us this morning. It's great to have you back on the show. I'm just curious before we dive in a little bit to the book, your reaction as you hear leadership in the Republican Party and loud voices in the media try to rewrite the story of what happened on January 6th. Good morning. Thanks for having me back. In respect of the new Speaker of the House conflating some of the events and trying to rewrite history is amazing. This is the same person who probably is a material witness to the events of January 6th. And if I were in his position, now, of course, I would also want to blur out some of the

images. But then again, this is coming from a party that claims to be in support of law and order and the rule of law. When he says in the same sentence yesterday, he said, we support the we are the party of law and order. We want to blur out some of the faces so these people cannot be arrested and prosecuted, and also, you know, to our dismay, also saying that he wants to be transparent. How can you be transparent when you can't even separate those things in the same sentence? In relation to what we are experiencing, and since January 6th, they keep telling us that we need to move on from that day,

the officers and those of us who have spoken out. But yet the former president is running just on January 6th alone by calling those insurrectionists hostages. And if they are hostages and political prisoners, what does that make us a police officer? We defended the Capitol. We kept our oath and we did what we were signed up for. Sergeant Gunnell, you came to the United States of America when you were 12 years of age from the Dominican. Within a decade, you were going to Iraq wearing the uniform of the United States of America as a United States Army member. Then you became a member of the Capitol Police Force,

and you wore the uniform of the United States Capitol Police. We know what happened to you. We know what happened on January 6th. What do you think today of the United States of America? I mean, we're going through a tremendous times. It's amazing that a lot of, as I speak in my book, American Shield, you have a lot of people that claim to be conservative, claiming to be supportive of the Constitution, our democracy. And we have even gone to war for it. That's one of the main reasons why we ended up in Iraq in the first place.

And as a soldier and also as a police officer, I devoted half of my life to defend and protect this country. January 6th was no different for me. of these people, the very same people who I protected and ran for their lives with the time that we allowed them to go and hide in their safe house or evacuate the building, saying that first it was Antifa, then the FBI, then these are innocent people, then these are political prisoners, then these are hostages. Then they desecrate our national anthem with creating a January 6th anthem, and the former president also used that as a badge of honor. So this is desensitizing and condoning that behavior for future use. And it's amazing that they have abandoned and betrayed those principles and values, as I speak in my book.

So, Sergeant, on the topic of your book, American Shield, which is available now, tell us a little bit more about your long road to recovery after the injuries you suffered there on January 6th and what you think about your own future. I have made a lot of strides, both physical, mental, and also morally. You know, it's been, you know, from the image that you show me testifying in front of Congress, it's almost three years. It's not in date for me. A lot of the physical injury has healed. However, the moral and the mental are the ones that play a big part in my life. Because how can I, if I were to be, if I were a police officer still, how can I do my job impartially when some of the very same people who I protected now say that nothing happened, and if something else were to happen, an insurrection part two happen, would they help me secure the door of the Capitol, or would they restrain me to prevent me from doing my job. And so that's a constant fear I think some of the officers who still work at the Capitol

may have. You know, we are protecting. Yes, we're supposed to be neutral in terms of those things, but how can you not when some of the very same people who we protect are calling for threats, amplifying those threats and desecrating the sacrifices that officers like Signy paid the price for as a result of his doing and action that he took on that day. And, you know, he didn't die perhaps out of a hit, but he died as a result of that horrific day on January 6th. And many people need to realize that it was not a peaceful protest getting out of hand.

It was a deliberate attack, as I mentioned in my book, American Shield. And people need to learn. My story, my book, is not just about January 6th. It's about sacrifices that I have made throughout my life since arriving here in the United States at age 12, learning the language, assimilating, overcoming a lot of obstacles and adversities, and also devoting half of my life, both in the military and as a Capitol Police, to defend this country for the opportunity that I gave it. The ultimate American story. So, Sergeant, this is like, let me just say,

I am so grateful for you and your service to America, an immigrant who came to this country, who learned the English language, who not only assimilated and succeeded, but chose to wear the uniform to serve our country in combat and then to become a police officer. It is an extraordinary story. An American shield. What a book. I would guess that Fox News is calling you nonstop to have this incredible patriotic American success story on. When are you going to go on Fox News and Newsmax and the Joe Rogan show? We're very excited.

I want to know because I want to VCR it. I want to tune in. We want to tune in because this is patriotism personified in one man. And I'm so grateful for your service to this country. Do you have any plans to go on Fox News or Newsmax or any of those shows? Well, they have not reached out to me. If they do, I'll let you know so you can tune in and record it. But I'm willing to speak to them.

I mean, these are the same people that claim to be wanting immigrants like me, somebody who assimilates, somebody who comes here legally, somebody who gets an education, somebody who pays for their taxes, somebody who joined the military, somebody who is a police officer or was a police officer, somebody who protected our democracy. These are the check marks that they claim to want from immigrants when they talk about reform. And yet, as I speak in my book, American Shield, these are the ideals and principles that they don't want to talk to me because I don't fit their narrative of it was another entity other than Trump's supporter who attacked the Capitol. And it's a great disservice to people like me and people around the country, because

they are clearly lying to the American people when they say nothing happened on January 6th. What I would like to have is the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, to release the tapes of them themselves running for their lives with the time that when they were being evacuated by the Capitol Police while I was fighting in the tunnel, those are the tapes that he should be releasing, not the walk-around peaceful protests he claimed to the people were doing. Well, unfortunately, he's lying to the American people when he says he wants transparency. He wants the opposite. He doesn't want people to see what happened to you, what happened to other officers,

what happened when he when when members of Congress were running as quickly as they could to escape. But I just want to get back to you and just thank you for your service to America. I want you to know that here, here at least, I don't know why other networks wouldn't want to have you on. Here, at least, we salute your patriotism. We salute your service to this country. We salute you going into combat. We salute you for all of your service in Iraq. We salute you for wearing the uniform as a police officer. We thank you. And we're very grateful you came here. The new book is entitled American Shield, the immigrant sergeant who defended democracy. What a great American story, Mika. It makes me proud to be an American. Well, it does. I mean, at least I know I'm free. Exactly. I mean, seriously, his networks.