Morning Joe - Morning Joe 1/26/24

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Trump threatens to blow up border talks to blame Biden

Donald Trump is out there trying to win over the voters that matter most, his juries. He showed up to speak on his own behalf and everything went smoothly until the judge asked him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and everybody busted out laughing. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Friday, January 26th. We have a lot to get to this morning. Donald Trump's latest temper tantrum. This one was in court. We'll go through his very brief testimony and get legal analysis ahead of today's closing arguments

in the defamation damages trial, how much he should pay. Meanwhile, Trump continues to work behind the scenes and on social media to tank a deal on border security and foreign aid in the capital. We'll show you his latest post aimed at Republicans and play for you the handful of GOP lawmakers standing up to the former president. Also ahead, President Biden hits the road following a surprisingly strong economic report. The data is so good that even a former Trump advisor had to admit the president should be bragging about it.

Plus, we'll go through a significant development in the hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas as the CIA director is now set to travel abroad in hopes of closing a deal. So, Willie, you know, in Washington, of course, the big question is whether the Republicans are going to stab. You keep stabbing Ukraine in the back, stabbing Israel in the back, and calling for open borders until Donald Trump is the president of the United States.

The lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal talks about a GOP border reckoning where it says, says giving up on the border, a security bill would be a self-inflicted GOP wound. President Biden would claim with cause that Republicans want border chaos as an election issue rather than solving the problem. The House punted negotiations before Christmas on the theory that Ukraine could hang on until February without a fresh weapons infusion. Now another month has passed. The U.S. is careening into a moment of growing dangers around the world. Both a tighter border and a vote for a stable Europe are in American interest. Better to act now than fail and live with the consequences. You know, they're just saying outright what a lot of Republicans were saying on the Hill yesterday, which is

this is reckless. You've got Donald Trump saying, let fentanyl flood across the border and kill Americans over the next year. Let illegal immigrants keep flooding over the border. Let's not have a solution. I mean, this this whole Donald Trump idea that keeping the border open is a winner for Republicans strikes the Wall Street Journal and most sane Americans is just out, you know, just crazy. It is. And it's such a revealing moment about this moment in time for the Republican Party, which is to say they have in front of them, Senate and House Republicans, a deal that if you handed it to them a couple of years ago or before Donald Trump was ever around, they would have been thrilled with.

This is what they've been talking about for several years now, that this border is a problem, the border is a crisis, and now they've got something to do with it. And why are they not doing it? To protect Donald Trump. I mean, there are a few moments along the way, and this is really one of them, that just really clarify and tell you the whole story, which is, are you working on behalf of the country?

Are you working on behalf of people who want to see the border crisis resolved, that they don't want drugs flooding in, that they think there should be an orderly and legal immigration system in this country. That's what you've said you've wanted for generations. And now here it is. And you won't take it because Donald Trump is calling your office and telling you not to do it. And now yesterday he said publicly on his true social, don't do a deal until I get there and then I'll fix everything.

Yeah. And then you have the Speaker of the House talking about how horrible the border is yesterday, how they want to impeach Mayorkas. You've got other people like Tommy Tuberville talking about fentanyl and illegal immigrants flooding across the, quote, open border. And they have a chance to close the border. They have a chance for the biggest border security bill ever, and they're the ones who are killing it. Make no mistake, Mike Johnson is killing our best chance to have a border security bill that actually works. All these Republicans doing the same, Mika,

and as the Wall Street Journal said, you know, if they want to run with with with on the platform of we hope the economy is destroyed and let's keep the border open, let them do it. They're going to lose the House. We'll lose the Senate. We'll lose the White House. Well, add, you know, the overturning of Roe to that. They're just going to lose. I mean, America is trying to get solutions to guns, to women's rights and to things like this. Border security. I mean, it's important to both sides. It's definitely important to the Republican side, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the host of way too early White House beer chief at Politico, Jonathan

Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist at The Washington Post. Eugene Robinson is with us this morning. We are lucky to have such a great group with us this morning. Willie, why don't you take our top story? So Donald Trump back in court yesterday, this time testifying, though briefly, in the defamation damages trial involving writer E. Jean Carroll. He's expected to be in court again today for closing arguments. Trump was scolded by Judge Lewis Kaplan before he took the stand for an outburst he had while his attorney Alina Haba was talking to the judge about the limits of Trump's testimony. Before the jury was

brought inside the courtroom, Judge Kaplan reiterated the verdict of the previous trial found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse, restricting what Trump could say on the stand yesterday. When Trump finally did take the stand, his testimony lasted only about three minutes, and he defied the limits placed on his testimony twice in three minutes, calling the abuse accusations false and prompting the judge to order the jury to disregard Trump's statements. Last year, a jury found Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll. This trial is to determine the amount of damages Carroll will now receive. Let's bring in former litigator and MSNBC legal

analyst Lisa Rubin, who was inside the courtroom yesterday. Lisa, good morning. So only about three minutes on the stand for Donald Trump. What was it like in the courtroom? It was extraordinarily tense and intense, Willie, when Donald Trump took the stand. I think it was a day that I and many other legal analysts on this network told you was never going to happen. And it sort of didn't happen, right? Because he was only on the stand in his direct for about three minutes. And all of the questions that he answered are ones that voters and jurors have heard him answer multiple times before.

There was nothing new added by Donald Trump taking the stand other than the assuaging of his ego and perhaps the opportunity for him to say very loudly when he left the courtroom, this is not America, this is not America, this is not America, because he doesn't understand that litigation is essentially a well-regulated game and it has rules. And he and his lawyers have repeatedly not played by those rules and those have consequences. They certainly do. And the judge made sure that the jury knew exactly what Donald Trump had found liable of. Right. I mean, in the most graphic terms, after he was lying and saying that it was, you know, all this was just, you know, a witch hunt. Talk about that. Well, Joe, that's going to happen again today at much greater length

when after closing arguments and each side has told Judge Kaplan they only expect to take about one hour each. Judge Kaplan will then deliver a much longer set of jury instructions. And part of those jury instructions will be to say to the jury in greater exposition what he said to the parties yesterday. Mr. Trump has already been found liable for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll by forcibly inserting his fingers into her vagina. That is the fact. That is a fact found by a jury of nine of his peers last May, six men, three women. And he will also tell them that that same jury found Donald Trump

liable for defaming Ms. Carroll by denying the truth of those allegations. Again, today's jury, the decision for them turns on not whether Donald Trump defamed E. Jean Carroll, but how much damage he did to her, not only by making his initial statements in June of 2019 when he was still president, but then continuing to double down on those statements for years thereafter, starting after the verdict last May when he went on CNN and denied it on stage with Caitlin Collins and then has continued to do it almost daily since. We obviously have seen footage of him doing it last week in New Hampshire. We have numerous and copious truth social posts in which he's doing it

again and again and again. And the plaintiff's lawyers here were very successful in introducing some of the worst of those statements to this jury. So Lisa, Trump is expected to be back in courtroom again today as closing arguments begin. Give us a sense as to what we might hear in the respect of closing arguments and just what's the timeline going forward? When do we think the jury will get this? And when could they reach a decision? Well, let me start with what I think we'll hear today. I think from E. Jean Carroll's lawyers,

we will hear them go through the evidence that they adduced about the damage done to her. And I want to make sure, John, that you and our viewers understand it's not just about the damage done to her reputationally. They had an expert come on and say, reputationally, the damage to E.J. Carroll would cost between $7 and $12 million to repair. But she's also experienced severe emotional pain

and suffering from the sort of death threats and rape threats that have come into her, as she testified, almost daily since his defamation began four years ago, roughly four plus years ago. So we'll hear that from her lawyers, asking the jury to really put a dollar amount on that, the emotional harm in addition to the reputation, and then ask the jury the most consequential question of all. What will it take to make Donald Trump stop? How much money will it take impunitive damages to punish him for his

ongoing misconduct? On Trump's side, what they will say is E. Jean Carroll wanted to be famous. She publicized this story. Going forward was her choice. She assumed some of that risk. And Donald Trump can't be solely responsible for it. In the same way, her reputation was enhanced in certain circles. They have argued that E. Jean Carroll has become a celebrity, a liberal cause, a Hollywood partygoer, in part because she has brought these allegations against Donald Trump. They're going to say, you jury should offset those damages against the way in which this woman has been enhanced in our community. I know that sounds farcical, but the way in which she's been elevated in our community by these allegations. And then in terms of the timing, I think we'll see the jury start to deliberate this afternoon. Jurors notoriously,

as our colleague Danny Savalos told you last hour, hate to come back after a weekend. Judge Kaplan has made provisions for them to have meals late into the night tonight. I think if it takes them staying after hours tonight to reach a verdict and they believe that they're deliberating in good faith and getting toward one, we could see a verdict later on tonight. If not, we'll come back Monday and we'll see what they do then. Yeah, and Lisa, in the first trial, they did come back within hours. So we know that juries can do that. They can come back quickly and they may well do that in this case.

Put some kind of numbers on this of what would look like a victory for E. Jean Carroll and her lawyers and what would look like more of a victory for Donald Trump. What's what's the kind of scale of compensation of damages that we're looking at here? Well, first of all, Katie, we're looking at something far more than what she was awarded last time, where the award was $5 million based on her sexual assault and defamation claims solely stemming from one incident in October of 2022. But you and I both know the first time you tell a lie, it's far more damaging, right? So I think what we're looking at here is E. Jean Carroll's lawyers asking for somewhere in the range of $20- million dollars to compensate her for her injuries. And then somewhere in the range of four or five, six times that even with respect to

punitive damages. It's not clear to me that they will actually ask for a specific amount or even multiplier of the compensatory damages. Rather they may say to the jury, think about what this guy told you in his own words in the deposition clips we showed you. He told you he was worth billions and billions of dollars in his brand alone. He told you he has more than 400 million dollars of cash on hand. Make it hurt. Cloudy skies over all of my sports teams.

I told you yesterday that Big Al had entered the transfer portal because it seemed everybody in Alabama did. We've sort of done triage, and now players have looked at this coach who was like, I don't know, 35-3 at Washington, and said, you know, maybe we can stay here. So, but, you know, people are like, oh, Joe, like Alabama, front runner. No. I went 30 years as an Alabama fan, had one national championship before Nick Saban came, right?

Liverpool hadn't won the Premier League in 30 years until Jurgen Klopp came. And this morning, John Oliver and a lot of Liverpool fans across the world, Jonathan Lemire, you're one of them, getting the very bad news that, like Nick Saban, Jürgen Klopp is exhausted and he is retiring at the end of the year. Yeah, devastating news here for Liverpool fans. Jürgen Klopp, one of the very best coaches in the world, put out an announcement just a few minutes ago on the team website suggesting that

he is burned out, that he just doesn't feel like he can give it his all anymore he's going to stay through the end of the season which is a promising year for liverpool right they're at the top of the table right now um you know in the premier league but this is an end of an era he's a beloved coach his players love him he has brought in top top talent and improved the team it is a marvelous team and he's a great guy and a great coach but he is moving on and adding to the list of legends, Nick Saban, Bill Belichick, now Jorgen Klopp, all moving on, coaches across sports and across continents. But a sad day for Liverpool, for sure. Yeah, Joe, you and John Oliver, as I said yesterday, are my point of reference on Liverpool. And John Oliver, a couple of days ago, as we sat in that pub,

McHale's on 51st Street and watched Liverpool, spoke in truly reverential tones about Klopp, the man we're discussing here. So put it for our viewers, put into perspective who he is. Is he Nick Saban to Alabama fans? Is he Belichick to Patriots fans? Well, I mean, I don't I mean, for Liverpool fans, he certainly is. Because this is a team that was really the greatest English team ever. And then they just, they went on a just absolute 30-year tear. Horrid, horrid collapse.

Jurgen Klopp came in, built them back to front. It was an extraordinary job. Won them, yeah, they won the Premier League for the first time in history, and then they won the Champions League, Champions of Europe, and other trophies. So, yeah, no, he's massive. And so yet another loss for the good guys. I think, Mika, I'm going to start following the Williams-Eafs

and Australian rules football. That's what my future holds for me. All right. Whatever gets us to politics. Negotiators for a bipartisan Senate bill. Is that what they do at William Australian rules football? Is it that? What they score?

Is it that? I love that. The refs step up when they kick it through the uprights and they do that little pull them out of their holsters and nail their six shooters. It's great. So that's what I'm going to be following now. I'm so glad I know that. Negotiators for a bipartisan

Senate bill. They do that on Capitol Hill too after a scrum, Alex. Well, if they get a deal, they all do that, but no one's been doing that for a long time. The Republicans, at least. So negotiators looking for this bipartisan bill to address the southern border and foreign aid say talks are still on. After minority leader Mitch McConnell appeared to throw cold water on the deal, the Kentucky Republican reportedly told colleagues in a closed door meeting on Wednesday they may not want to undermine Donald Trump on the issue since he wants to run on it. Last night, Trump encouraged lawmakers to do nothing on the border.

To keep the border open, Trump encouraged them to let fentanyl continue to fly down and let illegal immigrants continue to stream across the border. That's what Donald Trump said, and Republicans are so weak, they're going to do it. They're going to side with fentanyl and illegal immigrants instead of a bipartisan, tough border security bill. So then he went on social media and wrote incorrectly, we are better off not making a deal,

even if that pushes our country temporarily close to temporary close up for a while. But a handful of Republican senators are pushing back on letting Trump sink the deal. Take a listen. I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling. The American people are suffering as a result of what's happening at the border. And someone running for president ought to try and get the problem solved as opposed to saying, hey, save that problem.

Don't solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later. I just reject the idea that we should reserve a crisis for a better time to solve it. What's interesting to me is there are a lot of angry people out there, and that's why the border crisis is the number one issue for voters. I don't see how we have a better story to tell when we miss the one opportunity we have to fix it and we go and say, you know, we'd love to have fixed it, but it was election season so I thought I'd wait.

From my point of view, we need relief today, and what we're trying to do will help him if he gets to be president. I will say to President Trump, if we can put this package together the way I hope it falls into place, that you'll have more tools to secure America than you've ever had. And it's not about one president. It's about a system. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Well, I register my opinion to my colleagues. I've registered it to our leadership that I don't believe we should take this off the table, certainly not to clear the way for a clean campaign debate season.

Let's get something consequential done for the American people. That's how you instill trust in government and your elected representatives rather than paying fealty to short-term considerations. They don't know how a bill becomes law. Go back to Schoolhouse Rock. If we don't take the opportunity now, there will be zero Democrat votes for exactly the

same policy beginning next year. It is immoral for me to think you look the other way because you think this is the linchpin for President Trump to win. I do not want to be a part of history that fails, fails democracy. And that's a failure if we don't find a way to fund Ukraine and Israel. Good for Tom Tillis. It's immoral. And he's right. And it's a failure for Republicans. And it's immoral, he says, for Republicans to fail Ukraine in their fight for freedom and to fail Israel and their fight to defend themselves against terrorists. And, of course, the United States, right, to secure its border. We finally have the deal. I've been going to Capitol Hill and asking for the past couple

of years, why can't we get a deal done? Republicans say, well, Democrats want this. Democrats say, well, Republicans will. You know, they were talking past each other. Now they're talking to each other. And James Langford, one of the most conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill from Oklahoma, says this is the best bill we can get. John Thune, one of the most conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill, says, this is the best border security bill we can get. It's the strongest in a generation. They all agree with that, and I agree with Tom Tillis.

This is pathetic. But Gene Robinson, you now have Donald Trump, who's admitted in the past two weeks that his goals are, number one, and he said this to Lou Dobbs, number one, he wants the economy to crash. He knows it's going well. He wants Joe Biden, he said this, he wants Joe Biden to be Herbert Hoover managing a depression, which means he wants the stock market to crash. He wants people's retirement funds to burn up. He wants millions of people to lose jobs. That's what he said.

I wanted oppression. I want Biden to be Herbert Hoover. And then the second thing, and the Wall Street Journal talking about it right now, they're passing up a chance to secure the border. People, as Mitt Romney said, are suffering right now. Fentanyl flooding across the border. Illegal immigrants streaming across the border. Democrats and Republicans in the Senate know how to stop it. Yeah.

And House Republicans and Donald Trump won't do it. It is immoral, is it not? It is immoral. It is insane. And it shows what has happened to the Republican Party. It really does. I mean, this is not a serious political party anymore. It is a cult.

It is a cult of personality around dear leader Donald Trump, full stop. House Republicans are already against this deal that they have been braying for for years and years and years. And good on those Senate Republicans that we just showed, who came out and said, look, this is nuts. We have to pass it. We'll never get a deal like this. But let's see how they actually vote. Let's see how Lindsey Graham actually votes

when it comes down to it. Let's see if Mitch McConnell can actually get this across the finish line. We will see. I just I kind of have my doubts right now, given what Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday about there not being a path forward. And it is such an illustration of why we have to destroy the Republican Party in November in order to save it, really. I mean, because look at what has happened to this party. They're offered a deal that they will never get again, a deal that provides tough border security without the perpetual Democratic demands,

and something Democrats really want, is a path to citizenship for the undocumented migrants who are already in the country, for the DREAMers. There's nothing about that that we know of in this package. They will never get this again. And yet they are about to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in a way that is just deeply unserious and deeply disturbing and bad for the country. And as long as Donald Trump is the cult leader of the Republican Party, this is where we're going to be.

Caddy, to Gene's point, it strikes you that this is for all the T-shirts and the hats and the chants, the opposite of America first. They have a moment and a chance here to put America first, to do something about the border, and they're putting Donald Trump first in this case. But as some of those senators we just heard made very clear, this actually politically shouldn't be that hard. I understand there are moments they don't want to cross Donald Trump on dicey issues because they think their voters will turn on them.

Their voters want border security. So Tom Tillis can cross Donald Trump on dicey issues because they think their voters will turn on them. Their voters want border security. So Tom Tillis can cross Donald Trump here and vote for border security and not pay a political price for it. It doesn't even make sense to a lot of people watching this politically. On the policy, it certainly doesn't make sense because this is what they've been asking for for generations. But even politically, this should be an easy one. You can say, this time I disagree with Donald Trump. I think he was a great president, but we're going to fix the border right now and we've got a chance to do it. Very strange, but I guess not surprising anymore.

Except that's not what Donald Trump wants them to do because he wants them throughout this year to carry on talking about immigration. I mean, he can see the numbers, too. If consumer confidence in this country is improving, if interest rates come down and the economy starts to do better, gas prices are now down at about three dollars a barrel, three dollars a gallon. Then some of those economic issues might be off the table. Donald Trump needs another issue on the table. He needs another issue in order to whip up his base into a fury against Joe Biden. And if this is solved by this deal, then potentially the immigration crisis is solved. And that goes away. You can't blame the American public for only having a 15 percent approval rating of Congress when it's

this blatantly cynical and ineffective. I'm reminded again of something that Bob Gates, the former defense secretary, once said to me, America's three biggest problems are Russia, China and its own politics. And this is a clear case of America's own politics getting in the way of doing something that would actually help the country. We're in this kind of unusual situation of Democrats actually wanting border security and Republicans perhaps not so much wanting border security, at least for the course of this political campaign. Even for Donald Trump, this was shamelessly cynical, just a naked appeal to keep an issue alive politically rather than doing something for the country. We should note, though, Mitch McConnell's comments

earlier this week that caused such a stir where it seemed as if he was giving in on the deal. His team really pushed back against that. In fact, McConnell held another meeting with some of his Republican colleagues yesterday and made it clear he still does want this. He wants the Ukraine deal in exchange for border security. They're saying he was simply acknowledging that Trump was playing a role. He was he was simply being honest about the quandary he and his party were in. But this was not McConnell himself shifting positions, which I think came as a relief to some Republicans that started to learn this late last night, that the Senate minority leader, though power clearly diminished in recent months, still does want to push this forward.

So now the question is whether he can get enough votes. We certainly, Tillis, Romney, others have said they want this to happen, that they're putting a responsibility to country over party. But we know, we know the House already stands in opposition, at least a large portion of it does, the Republicans. Will there be enough senators who also make that decision to defy McConnell in favor of Trump? Well, you have McConnell, Todd Young, Tom Tillis, Mitt Romney, Kramer, Langford, Lindsey. If the people that spoke out for it yesterday vote for it in the Senate, you're up to seven.

Seven Republicans right there. They need three more to get to 60. What I'm sure they're thinking about, but I wonder about House Republicans, because not only does this make the Republican Party look so bad in so many ways, and yet another like we needed more proof that Trump sort of has this hold on them. But what are our allies and enemies thinking, especially with two hot wars going on, that a former president can impact what gets passed in Congress? It what it underlines is the fear that people like Richard Haass and David Ignatius, bringing to this table over the past year, which is when you go overseas,

they go, yeah, America's back for now. But what happens when Donald Trump's president, you know, people in Davos have already decided Trump's going to win, which is great news because people in Davos are always wrong. So great news that Trump may not win. But don't tell that to our allies across the world, because right now that's what they fear. Let's bring in right now columnist associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. David, I would

like to feel free to comment on what we were just talking about, our allies and enemies expecting a Trump return, even though it's not going to happen, in my opinion. But I want to read you from the lead editorial of The Wall Street Journal. It's GOP border reckoning. And this is what the editors write. Then there's Ukraine, the U.S. friend in Europe now running out of ammunition to fight Vladimir Putin. The political alternatives are worse to what Mr. Trump is going to do. They fear a few voices these days are willing to stand up and say so because they fear Mr. Trump will trash them for it. A border Ukraine deal offers some cover for a hard Ukraine vote and a political and policy victory to tout at home. The House. Do Republicans want to sponsor the 2024 equivalent

of Saigon 1975? What a line. Do Republicans want to sponsor the 2024 equivalent of Saigon 1975. Mr. Trump may think a Ukraine defeat will help him, but don't be so sure. As president, he would inherit and embolden Mr. Putin with NATO allies in panic and adversaries around the world who think the U.S. is really in retreat. David Ignatius, your thoughts. So, Joe, first, I do hear European leaders, ambassadors here in Washington saying that their governments are beginning to hedge against the possibility that Donald Trump could be reelected president. It's a very difficult and painful problem for them to think about. One thing I think people are beginning to focus on is how do you sustain Ukraine against

the Russian invasion if the United States begins to pull back from the coalition of support? It's crucial for Europe that Vladimir Putin not win this battle. Europe's future over the next several decades will be different, entirely different, if Putin rolls on to victory and I think would mount another invasion toward Kiev to try to take the whole country. So that's the first thing. I hear people talking more and more about how Ukraine can defend what it has. The idea that Ukraine is going to be able to expel the Russians entirely from its borders looks much more difficult now than it did, but it can hold the territory that

it has more decisively. It can build the kind of defenses that Russia built in the South. It can develop its own domestic arms industry so it has enough ammunition to keep firing. It can develop the anti-aircraft weapons to keep Russian drones and missiles from destroying its cities. So I think there's that kind of hedging and protection discussion that's beginning. If this effort to provide continuing US aid to Ukraine fails, Joe, I think of the people who fought to build up

American credibility in the world. I think of my dad's generation that fought in World War II, the sacrifices they made. I think of the decades of struggle in the Cold War to build the reliability of America's name and commitment to its allies. That was hard work year by year. And it's just shocking to me. It's shameful that people are on the verge of throwing that away by walking away from a country that has defended itself courageously, that has never asked for a single American soldier to do its fighting, is just asking for help. And when you think of all that would be lost in terms of America's reputation if we don't stand by this ally, it's just it's shocking. It's something that will last in terms

of our national reputation for much longer than people think. Well, it really will. And when you talk about freedom in Europe, you go over all, you know, all the years since the war. And, yeah, we can talk about what the presidents have done. But as David said, so many people have fought for this and given their entire lives to a Europe that is free of Russian tyranny. And, you know, you go back to Dean Acheson, go back to General Marshall. You can move forward to, you know, cold warriors like your father, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, Secretary Gates. for a free Europe, a free West, an expanded NATO that can protect countries like Ukraine from Russian aggression. And House Republicans agree with what I'm saying. House Democrats agree with what I'm saying. The White House agrees with what I'm saying.

But Donald Trump and Mike Johnson, Mike Johnson, who's voted pro-Putin on every single Ukraine bill, voted to kill funding to defend against a Russian invasion, is now killing this bill. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has it right. You are looking right there, right there, not Chairman McCaul, because he's fought like hell for Ukraine. But you're looking right there at a speaker who is going to be responsible for a Saigon-like collapse of Ukraine if other party members don't save him from himself. And to David's point, I mean, this is the big accomplishment of the decade

for our partners and allies in Europe, for peace in Europe. And to just stop now. And we knew it would get hard. Everyone talked about, especially in the beginning months of this war, that it was not going to be easy, quick. You know, it was going to take a long time. I mean, who would have guessed it would have come from the party of Reagan? And David, we also have in the Middle East, we have Bill Burns, the president's closer going in,

trying to make a deal between Israel and Hamas are actually cutter when it comes to hostages. What what's going on there? So, Joe, I'm glad you used the term President Biden's closer to describe Bill Burns, the man who titled his own memoir, The Back Channel, because he is the master of the back channel. He has been dispatched by President Biden to negotiate with Egypt and Qatar, which are the two emissaries on behalf of Hamas and with Israel, to try to see if there can be a new deal to free in stages the 136 remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. That's a lot of people. They've got the details of how this would work pretty much preset. There'd be an initial release of 10 women and children who were supposed to go out in the last deal

that fell apart at the beginning of December. Then another 40 elderly, sick, ailing people who will be released for humanitarian reasons, along with women who were some of the women soldiers. And then a final group that is large, maybe 80 plus people that would include men and also the bodies of those who've died either on October 7 or since in captivity. It's impossible to know how large that number is. This would be accompanied by a ceasefire of at least a month, maybe longer,

in which there could be a real effort to alleviate the terrible suffering. I just want to underline that. I quoted somebody this week calling it unspeakable suffering of the Palestinian civilians in Gaza who are facing now the verge of famine. There isn't enough food. We're facing pandemic disease as it spreads through these terribly crowded, dirty camps. There'd be an opportunity during the ceasefire to finally get real humanitarian relief in for people. And there'd be an opportunity to do to address the issue that anguishes Israelis, I think, in their hearts more than any other, which is the fate of these hostages, the people

who were stolen away from them on October 7th. So this is an opportunity for de-escalation. The U.S. has been working very hard you know say what you like about about joe biden's team but on this issue trying to work to de-escalate this war i think they've they've done an extraordinarily good job and i hope bill burns in the next day or two can succeed because that would I think, an inflection point in this war after three months of, let's be honest, of nightmare. We sure hope so for the sake of those families and the hostages. David, I want to ask you about a fascinating story that broke yesterday. Even as Iranian-backed groups are attacking American interests and ships in the Red Sea,

the Wall Street Journal broke the news that the United States privately warned Iran in advance of the terrorist attack this month that killed more than 80 people. That happened in a central city on January 3rd, targeting a crowd commemorating the anniversary of the death of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. Citing American officials, the journal reports the information given to Iran was specific

enough to be helpful to the Iranian government in either mitigating casualties or thwarting the attack altogether. This is American intelligence. Several officials told the journal it is unclear why Iran failed to stop or to mitigate that attack. Is this unusual, David, that the United States is sharing intelligence with Iran, especially in the midst of what's happening in the Middle East right now? So obviously, it doesn't happen often. But I think this is an illustration, Willie, of what intelligence services actually do. If you had normal, straightforward information, it could be passed by the State Department.

When you have secrets like this, you sometimes have an interest in sharing them even with your enemies to build up the kind of liaison that exists. We don't hear about it, but even in the times of worst crisis, there always is continuing discussion. There is continuing discussion between the U.S. and Iran through back channels quite apart from this. It's a shame that the Iranians weren't able to use the information and save the 80-plus people who were killed. It was a terrible bombing. But the idea that the United States would try to help Iranians save lives against these terrible ISIS terrorists, even given our relationship, I thought was an illustration of what the CIA should be doing. The Washington Post's David Ignatius, thank you

very much for coming on this morning. So National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is currently in Thailand, where he's set to meet today or tomorrow with China's foreign minister. The two will discuss the recent attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on shipping operations in the Red Sea. That's according to U.S. officials. Biden administration officials say the United States has asked China to convey messages to Iran throughout the conflict aimed at avoiding escalation. Another area of cooperation between China and the U.S. is action on the fentanyl crisis. Senior officials in China have agreed to form a joint task force aimed at limiting the flow of precursors from the

Chinese chemical companies that are used to make synthetic fentanyl. In an exclusive interview, NBC News foreign correspondent Janice Mackey-Frayer spoke to one of China's top narcotics control officials about the task force. And Janice joins us now from Beijing with more. Janice, what can you tell us? The U.S. has long criticized Chinese authorities for not doing enough to crack down on chemical supply chains here. The flow of certain chemical precursors that are used in everyday things in industry and agriculture, but also used to produce the illicit fentanyl that's killing more Americans than any time in history.

China's position has long been this is a demand problem and that global supply chains are too complex to control. This meeting that's set to happen here in Beijing next week marks a significant step. This is the first direct collaboration at such a high level on this issue in years. U.S. officials from Homeland Security, the DEA, they are traveling to China for the launch of what Chinese officials describe as a joint task force. I sat down with Yu Haibin. He is the deputy director general of the Narcotics Control Bureau for China's Ministry of Public Security. And I asked him what we can expect from China and whether they will go after Chinese companies and individuals that have already been indicted by the U.S.中國並不管制,聯合國也未管制美方也沒有提供給中方這些人違反中國法律的證據

那有沒有意願去追求美國被控告的這些公司? 不是沒有意願,是要依據中國法律 違反了中國法律,中國會予以嚴厲打擊 There hasn't been counter-narcotics cooperation since August of 2022. That's when China broke off talks as retaliation for Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. But there hadn't been real meaningful progress since 2020 when the U.S. sanctioned the Institute for Forensic Science and the National Narcotics Lab, both under the Ministry of Public Security, for alleged links to human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Both of them were removed from that entity list in October, right after President Biden met with China's President Xi Jinping in San Francisco. It was a direct tradeoff to get a revival of the cooperation that we are going to see here next week.

Some Republicans have criticized it as a weak move, but it is widely seen as one that's painfully necessary. When a bipartisan trip came here last October, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, six senators sat with Xi Jinping for 80 minutes and appealed to him directly by telling him stories about how fentanyl in the opioid crisis had ravaged their constituencies. And they believed that they got through to him. They talked to him about the reputational benefit that could come to China by helping the United States. But at this point, U.S. officials are resisting, commenting on the meeting or their expectations. There's reason to be skeptical, given that talks in the past have been easily derailed by politics and political tension between the U.S. and China.

Wow. NBC's Janice McEfrayer live in Beijing. Thank you very much for that report. For this week, we reported New Hampshire Attorney General's office is investigating reports of an apparent robocall that used artificial intelligence to mimic President Biden's voice in an effort to urge voters to skip Tuesday's Democratic primary. Take a listen to audio obtained by NBC News, where fake recordings told voters, quote, their vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday. What a bunch of malarkey.

We know the value of voting Democratic when our votes count. It's important that you save your vote for the November election. We'll need your help in electing Democrats up and down the ticket. Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday. So that was not the actual voice, of course, of President Biden. Joining us now, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs. He's president of the

Cybersecurity Strategic Advisory Company, Pinnacle One. Chris, good morning. So this is the first of, I guess, what could be many in this age of artificial intelligence where it's very easy to mimic someone's voice. We've seen the deep fakes from a video point of view. This was an audio that to a lot of people is probably difficult to distinguish. The question is, who do we suspect is behind this? How do they pull it off and how easy it is to track them down? Well, just to start, it's quite easy to generate this sort of content. There's something known as the 20 second rule, where it really only takes about 20 seconds of a person's voice print to be able to generate content like this. And it's almost even easier to then get it out into the public using spoofing tools, spoofing apps and websites, and then to track them down, particularly if they're

located in foreign countries. Law enforcement has a bit of a challenge because of some of the obfuscation and cloaking techniques that can be used. So I think that law enforcement, FBI, and the attorney general's office are going to have a bit of a challenge in front of them, just like they're having right now with some of the swatting attacks that are going against public officials and folks in the media all across the country. So this is this is quite a challenge. I think this is unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we're going to see in this election season. So is this going to be the deepfake election? Is that what we're in for? And is there a way to make this stuff watermarked or some way that we can tell when it is a deepfake? Because that was pretty convincing. I mean, not that Biden would ever say that.

If you know anything about politics, you would say, OK, this can't be real. But people don't follow politics that closely. And it really sounded like Joe Biden's voice. Yeah, it sure did. And, you know, I think what surprised me the most is that people were answering their phones in this day and age, which I don't think happens all that much. But, you know, still you have voicemails. The Brookings Institute released a paper earlier this week that talked about there are kind of two schools of thought right now. One is that, yes, this is

the AI election or this is the AI period. It's going to be a big deal. The other is that maybe we're over-rotating a little bit, that maybe it's not going to be that much of an impact. And I'm somewhere in between. I am gravely concerned, but I also think that we do have a bit of a diffusion of the media industry, social media particularly, where these sorts of trends are going to pop up and they're going to burn out pretty quickly. But more than anything, everyone's going to try it. Foreign actors, domestic actors, dark money groups, we're going to see a lot of it. The question is, is it going to make an impact? Is it going to burn out and get ridiculed pretty quickly? Like I think what we've seen as we get closer to the election, and I'm

talking day of election day, the night before, that's probably when the biggest risk window opens, that people are paying most attention, people are really concerned, and that there are some folks that are going to be highly susceptible to influence campaigns. Chris, we saw the Russian activity in 2016. We know that when it comes to AI, the Chinese seem to be dominating the space. Can you talkPT and those by OpenAI, Microsoft, and others. But there are open source models that are readily available out there. And once they're out on the Internet, they're forever.

And so we have criminal groups that are using AI right now for fraud and phishing techniques. And really the way to stop that is better security controls and using AI-enabled cybersecurity defenses. But we also know that security services in China, in Russia, in Iran, and elsewhere are using it and studying AI on how they can increase their information operations effectiveness. And if we've seen anything over the last five, six, seven, eight years, is that attacks on elections are not just about the technical attacks that we thought about in 2016 going after voter registration databases, but it's really about information warfare and going after the hearts and minds of election workers and the broader public. And that's, I think, really going to be the high volume space. And unfortunately, we're entering a time when perhaps we're in a post-truth world.

And this is where the bad actors really benefit. And this is what Bobby Chesney from Texas Law School, University of Texas Law School, is called the liar's dividend, where they really do benefit. Former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, thank you very much for being on this morning. And The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, thank you as well, as always.