Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/7/23

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Haley takes fire, DeSantis dodges on Trump at GOP debate

You do this at every debate. You go out on the stump and you say something. All of us see it on video. We confront you on the debate stage. You say you didn't say it, and then you back away. And I want to say what? That's exactly what I said, Chris. I'm not done yet.

Now look. Hold on. Now hold on. This is not a spirit. This is not a spirit nonsense. Let me tell you something. This is the fourth debate. The fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America.

So shut up for a little while. We're now 25 minutes into this debate, and he has insulted Nikki Haley's basic intelligence. Not her positions, her basic intelligence. She doesn't know regions. She wouldn't be able to find something on a map that his three-year-old could find. Look, if you want to disagree on issues, that's fine. And Nikki and I disagree on some issues. But I'll tell you this, I've known her for 12 years,

which is longer than he's even started to vote in a Republican primary. And while we disagree about some issues and we disagree about who should be president United States, what we don't disagree on is this is a smart, accomplished woman. You should stop insulting. OK, Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie saying, I think what everyone's thinking, attacking one challenger while coming to the defense of another. We'll have more from the fourth GOP debate, the final one before the Iowa caucuses. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, December 7th. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have NBC News National Affairs Analyst John Heilman, special correspondent at Vanity Fair and host of the Fast Politics podcast, Molly Jong Fast, sending me dog pictures early in the morning.

President of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton. And the host of Way Too Early, White House Spirit Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. And Rogers Chair in the American Presidency at Vanderbbilt University historian John Meacham. What's that? What are you saying that about? We've got Meacham here. He brings the gravitas. He really does.

He's got the best title by far of everybody else. No doubt about it. Rogers professor. And on this December 7th. He's so important. 2023. We have him here, obviously, to talk about Vivek.

So listen, Willie, it was a very interesting moment there. Chris Christie did what I think everybody in the room wanted him to do. At the same time,

you had this very interesting dynamic where he was coming to the defense of a woman, which, again, you know, in the South, you know, and equated, that's what some of us have been taught to do. He's from Jersey, so he doesn't have that excuse. But I love what he did. At the same time did. It's kind of put Nikki in a weird position. You can see her discomfort, appreciating it, but at the same time, probably thinking I can take care of myself. And she can. It was this parallel universe last night where Nikki

Haley was the front runner in the primary race to be the Republican nominee. Ron DeSantis going after Vivek going after Christie, criticizing her a little bit, but then defending her in that moment. As Chris Christie, who will be our guest in our next hour, said time and again, we're living in this fantasy world where Donald Trump isn't beating all of us by 40 points. Why won't you, Governor DeSantis? Why won't you, Ambassador Haley? Why won't you, Vivek, talk about the guy we're all trying to defeat? Or maybe you're actually all playing for second place. You're running for 2028. Vivek, you're probably looking for a job in a new Trump administration. Or on a podcast. Or on a podcast. Why are we living in a fantasy world where Donald Trump is not the front runner? I would say in that fantasy world, Rev, Nikki Haley is a rising star.

I've heard from so many people who've never voted Republican before. And please don't tell me all of her positions. I know. I'm just saying when you have somebody connecting like that with people who may disagree with her political positions, but they still say, I like her. I got, she stands up for herself. She seems pretty sane and rational. I may not agree with her position on abortion, but you know what, if she's at 15 weeks and Rose at 22, 23 weeks, and she says, we can figure out a way to bring America together on one of the more contentious issues. I know, I know that doesn't sound good to the extremists on both sides. It's really refreshing to about 80 percent of Americans. So in an alternative reality where Donald Trump's not sitting at 60 percent and if for some reason something happened to Donald Trump

where I don't know, he couldn't run. She's I we've been around this for a while. She her star seems to be on the rise, doesn't it? It absolutely does. She has real political skills. And I think she showed that last night by not going to the kiddie table and fighting with Vivek and really staying on the stage where people can actually see her not only as someone likable, even if you disagree with her, as I probably disagree with her on everything, but that she's likable and she belongs at a certain level of respect. I remember when we were fighting the Confederate flag in South Carolina when she was governor and we would attack her. And then the

Charleston massacre happened where this racist killed these people in the church. And you were down. We did the show down there. And I remember I went to speak at one of the funerals and she was there. And I said, and Governor Haley, we're glad you're here. I've never met you. I've marched on you on the outside, but I never met you. And she got up behind me and says, if I knew you out there marching wherever and I had you come in for lemonade and give you a hug. And she walked over and hugged me at the funeral. Right. And I said, yeah, you got skills because it was a move that somebody understand. And that that gave me an appreciation for her that she now is demonstrating to the nation. All right. And, you know, it's it is interesting that Nikki Haley, again, is is is battling along with Rhonda Santus, Chris Christie for first place are for second place right now. There may be a

pathway for her to win New Hampshire. There may be a New Hampshire is interesting this year. You don't have a Democratic race. So you have a lot of independents that aren't going to be splitting between Republican voting and Democratic voting. But she has right now. And again, I know she's at seven percent of national polls. I also followed enough campaigns, as you all have, too, to see when people start talking about somebody, that's usually a leading indicator. You see the polls go up, but you look at the debate last night, the men screaming, you look at the, that's the latest national. If we can get the latest New Hampshire, that'd be great. You look at Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom shouting at each other with Sean Hannity shouting in the middle? Serious. There's a lot of men out there shouting, a lot of buffoonery, a lot of really loud voices.

And so if politics is about contrast, then what a contrast Nikki Haley has to every major politician they see on the air these days. Well, there's a lot of contrast. I would say, you know, that Nikki Haley's rise in this Republican race has not been a rise that's been based on her being particularly tactful or low-key. She's been someone who, you know, she attacked Ramaswamy in the last debate and called him scum. She's gotten somewhere by being tough, by having good debate moments. I think last night one of the questions people have is whether she's got every single debate so far, she's gotten a bump out of the debate. Will she get one out of last night or not?

I don't know the answer to that question, but there's no doubt that they are, whether you call it a fantasy world as Willie did, or whether you call it 2016, they're living in a world where they're all trying to figure out, they're playing bracket, NCAA bracketology. They all think that there's this one bracket that's them, and then there's Trump, and Trump's got to buy in the first round in their view, and they're eventually going to try to get him one-on-one. That did not work out well for anybody in 2016 is what we're talking about. They all thought that was the way to play it. Didn't work in 2016.

We'll see here. And I think the reason that Haley is so interesting is that if, is because South Carolina, where in, because it's, the Nevada caucuses are going to be a, are going to be a gimme for Trump. They're kind of rigged for him to win. If she were to win. If she were to win New Hampshire and the next big contest a month later is in her home state, that puts her in a different position than anybody else who ran against Trump in 2016.

Trump went down to South Carolina. You will recall, you will recall. And that was where he basically consolidated the nomination was off. He never looked back. If she can give him if she could take him on, really take him on. If she comes out of Iowa and New Hampshire in a good place, 1-2, 2-1, and then gets him on home turf, that's the scenario, right? That's the scenario that she's thinking about. The rest of them, it's not clear what scenario they're thinking about.

Right, and Willie, that is, you think about it, and again, it's a long shot now, but her pathway forward is to win New Hampshire. I know a lot of her people are saying, well, you know, if she comes in second in New Hampshire, no, it's over. If she can win New Hampshire and she's got a month to do it, and then there's, I think, a month between New Hampshire and South Carolina, then she has a month, we're all going to be circling that date because if she beats Donald Trump, New Hampshire, and then in her home state in South Carolina, she goes into Super Tuesday with with wins behind her. And then anything's possible. If she loses her home state, it's over. And she's trailing badly in her home state. It's right now. She's got time. And if she wins New Hampshire, things certainly

change. But even in her home state, the one she would have to count on to win, she's trailing badly to Donald Trump, who's popular there. Buried in all these polls, Molly, that we look at these head to head Trump Biden polls, a dirty little secret is actually Nikki Haley does better than any Republican against Joe Biden. If she could ever get there where he's neck and neck with Trump, Trump, Biden, everybody's sort of within the margin of error. If you look at some of these polls, she beats Biden actually by five, six, seven points to Joe's point about independents who are kind of fed up with both going, well, I could live with Nikki Haley. I mean, there are a lot of people I've been hearing from a lot of people, too. And I have a sort of more liberal friend group of people who are like, oh, if Nikki Haley could be the nominee. I mean, look, there's a long been thought this conventional wisdom that the only way that there's ever going to be a woman president

is if she's a Republican. And she reads in a much more in a much less threatening way than a Hillary Clinton. We can get into that. But I do think for me as someone who is like pretty woke as a feminist, so to speak, I really thought last night she she did really well. And I was actually kind of moved by Chris Christie. And I've been like the biggest Chris Christie critic. But I was actually kind of moved by him stopping the tape and being lovely. Mika, didn't you relate to that in a weird way? I did. And I'll tell you why, because, um, you know, I, I think that women can point out sexism and other things, ageism, whatever. Um, but when men do it

as well, it's even better. And, uh, I appreciated it and I thought, you know, it was generous, didn't have to do it. You could have left her standing alone to all of this, but he kind of pointed it out and put a full stop on it. And yes, she can do it for herself. She's already proven that she's taken down that Ramaswamy guy many times to massive applause in these debates. I think it's gotten to the point where everybody needs to sort of point out what they see. And I thought what Chris Christie did sort of reminded me about sort of what I tell women in my know your value community. We have to have a voice, but we also have to have a very open mind to men who step up for us because that's part of it, you know, and I, I think it was great. I think it was great. And Joe, you and I've talked a lot about this. I know it's sort of a Southern thing. What you're talking about is there as well. And I understand that,

but I, it meant a lot to me, uh, when he did that. Yeah, it really did. And, uh, one man who's always stood up for me, Jonathan Lemire, Jonathan chivalry is not dead. Chivalry is not dead. Even it wasn't chivalry. It was pointing out stupidity and the rougher parts of Boston proper. So. So, John Lemire, obviously, Nikki Haley does better against Biden than any of the other candidates. Is the White House looking at that? Are they just hoping that they get Donald Trump because he's obviously by far the weakest Republican candidate? Joe, you rarely need defense. Rarely. Oh, thank you so much.

The White House certainly believes and those in the Biden campaign operation believe that Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. They also have been pretty candid about it privately anyway for a year or more that that's the candidate they want to face. They think that Biden has the best chance of defeating Trump than he would any other Republican. And yes, there are Democrats to this conversation who get alarmed when they think about a possibility of a Nikki Haley nomination for the Republicans. But short of a black swan political event, that is very, very hard to see right now, despite the mini momentum she has to be that Trump alternative. But this is a campaign. And we heard from the president that was pretty telling this week about what the Biden operation has been saying about the 2024 election. And I've got some brand new reporting out this morning on it. It's a Biden team seizes on Trump's comments about wanting to be a dictator for a day.

And to them, this is affirmation. This is validation of how they see this fight. Yes, they understand that the economy will be big. Of course, abortion rights will be big. Of course, there are other issues that will sway voters next year. But they think that it's going to be fought about democracy again, much like 2020 was, much in many ways like 2022 was in some ways. And they feel like this is the campaign that Biden himself personally, people close to him have told me, this is what he wants to talk about. That Donald Trump remains, much like he was in 2020, a threat to the soul of the nation, to quote a phrase from someone else on this program right now. And that this is someone that this threat has only grown as Biden has told people that if Trump were to win again, he would likely have at least one Republican House of Congress to go with him. He's got a conservative Supreme Court. He's got a GOP that forgave him for January 6th and only

made him more powerful. He's got he will have the also the note of the belief that he will have survived again if he wins. He will have survived will have the also the note of the belief that he will have survived. Again, if he wins, he will have survived all these criminal indictments and is still emerged as president and has the power of the federal government at his fingertips. And they say that is the clearest and starkest argument they need to make going forward. And you can add in packing his administration with people hell bent on retribution, as they call it, against the deep state, the media and everybody else. So, John Meacham, the soul of the nation, was invoked. So let's go to you here. And Chris Christie in this race, this Republican race anyway, is the only one making the case that

Jonathan Lemire just talked about the Biden campaign making, which is that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. Here's what Chris Christie said last night. So do I think he was kidding when he said he was a dictator? All you have to do is look at Here's what Chris Christie said last night. You want to know why those poll numbers are where they are? Because folks like these three guys on the stage make it seem like his conduct is acceptable. Let me make it clear. His conduct is unacceptable. He's unfit. And be careful of what you're going to get. If you ever got another Donald Trump term, he's letting you know, I am your retribution.

He will only be, Elizabeth, he will only be his own retribution. He doesn't care for the American people. It's Donald Trump first. Thank you, Governor Christie. Governor DeSantis. Governor DeSantis. Thank you. Thank you. So, John, a mix of some applause that morphed into boos there in the arena in Tuscaloosa when he went after. And he actually Chris Christie actually became sort of moderator and turned to Governor DeSantis at one point. So do you think Donald Trump is fit for office? None of the people on that panel would answer the question.

Yeah, I think Christie is doing an extraordinary service to the country by standing in rooms that probably are not tuning in very carefully to everything Willie Geist thinks it does about I know about making this case that in many ways it's not that Trump's on trial. It's that the Republican Party's on trial. You know, there's nothing unclear about this at all. He wants to be an authoritarian figure. DeSantis, I think, last night made a case which is particularly unsettling, which is that, well, Trump's not very good at it. So therefore, it's OK, was the implication. Right. Well, he didn't do X and Y. He said he was going to do this and then he didn't.

Wow. Well, you know, that's that's a novel way of looking at it. I think what Governor Christie's doing is is important. There were sort of three different stories on that stage. It seemed to me Christie's telling the truth as as as he sees it. I happen to agree with him. So therefore, I think he's very wise in this case. Haley is threading a needle, but a recognizable Republican figure. DeSantis a little less so. And then then we're off on January 6th being an inside job, which was among the more irresponsible things said. So to me, look, what makes America work, what makes the Constitution work is a functional two party system. We can argue about whether that's a good idea or not, about whether the Electoral College is a mistake, all that.

But basically, this is what we have right now. And you need two parties that are basically conversant with reason. And the Republican Party, with the exception of Christie, is ambivalent at best and at worst hostile to reason. And that's what I have a feeling we're going to end up with a very stark choice next fall. John, there are days that forever change America. Of course, September 11th, 2001, November 22nd, 1963. You can draw a line straight through that date and write volumes of books about the America before and the America after Kennedy was assassinated. And of course, December 7th, 1941, perhaps the most momentous date in the 20th century, because I was looking at headlines just now to see what people were writing about this date. And I found a perfect one that explains what the Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor did, not just to our fleet and the Pacific, but to every single American. The headline comes from the Sheboygan Press this morning. Pearl Harbor attack thrust Sheboygan, Wisconsin into World War II. I'm thinking about my family in Dalton, Georgia, my 17-year-old uncle at the time, Uncle Bill, and thinking about my grandmother on her knees praying every night that he would return home safely four years later. It's amazing what this one attack did to every single American family and also, of course, to the direction of the Roosevelt said, the initial draft said that today will be a day that will live in world history. In one of the great edits, FDR wrote the date which will live in infamy. It's vital to, I think, the implications from this date elevated America to an unrivaled, unparalleled position of power. Imagine four years later, we had the capacity in our hands to destroy human life.

We had that much power because of the Manhattan Project. You had this remarkable, rapid rise to a dizzying pinnacle of power. But we were dragged into this. We were dragged into a fundamental conflict between democracy and dictatorship, between the enlightenment and fascism. We were dragged into it, not only by the Japanese attack today,

but five days later by Adolf Hitler's declaring war on the United States. we did not declare war on Nazi Germany until Nazi Germany declared war on us. So as Churchill once said, you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing once we've exhausted every other possibility. And I think that that's an important thing for us to remember, not to therefore lower our expectations of ourselves, but to remember that even the greatest generation, as our friend Tom Brokaw called it, talking about your family, my grandfathers were in the war. Even they were not early on this story. They weren't early converts to the defense of democratic values versus the horrors of dictatorship, particularly in Europe. But we got it right. And so what that tells us, it seems to me, is that if they got it right and they were fallen, frail, infallible people,

we as fallen, frail, infallible people can get our own time right. All right. John Meacham, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. And coming up in one minute on Morning Joe, we'll go live to Las Vegas for the latest in the aftermath of yesterday's deadly mass shooting on the campus of UNLV. Plus, we'll go over the new indictments tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Morning Joe is back in 60 seconds. December 7th, 1941. A date which will live in infamy. United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces

of the Empire of Japan. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire. Killed and another was injured in a mass shooting yesterday on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Law enforcement sources say the shooter was a man in his 60s. He was killed during a shootout with police. The shooting began around 1145 local time at the business school at UNLV. The gunman went to several floors before he was killed outside of the building. Joining us now live from Las Vegas, NBC News correspondent Jay Gray. Jay, what's the latest there? Yeah, Willie, it all happened just behind the student union, which is just over our shoulder here in a grassy area between the business school and that union, an area that, by the way, was hosting an event with a lot of students on the grounds there. We are told by witnesses that that man was armed with a pistol

when he opened fire just before noon and students scattered, moving into the union, moving back into the business school and other buildings on campus, barricading and waiting, some for hours, many hours. Many eventually escorted out by police officers here with their hands up and some walking past the three victims who were killed. We know that police arrived just minutes after the first shots were fired and engaged with the gunman. They say they were fired on first and returned that fire, killing the gunman. We don't know the names of the victims at this point, don't know the names of the suspect. We do know that much of the campus remains closed. Investigators searching there and at a residence in nearby Henderson for any evidence that may help them understand how and why the tragedy unfolded here. We should also point out that officials with UNLV have said classes obviously are canceled for the rest of this week. Now, next week was supposed to be finals week, and they haven't decided at this point how they are going to handle that.

They say they'll make that decision in the coming days. A lot of the faculty and staff have been told to stay home as well and to work from home if they have things that they must get done. But this is all really still in flux, as you might imagine. It hasn't even been 24 hours since the attack. One other thing we should mention, counselors will be on hand for students, faculty, staff, anyone who feels like they need someone to talk to after the attack here, Willie. All right. NBC's Jay Gray in Las Vegas for us this morning. Jay, thanks so much.

Meanwhile, in Texas, police have arrested a man after a shooting spree left six people dead in that state. NBC's Morgan Chesky has more there. In Texas, police pouring over five crime scenes spanning eight hours. They say are all connected to a single gunman. We strongly believe one suspect is responsible for all of the incidents. Authorities identifying the suspect as Shane James, a 34-year-old now charged with capital murder, who served in the Army as an infantry officer as recently as 2015. Investigators say his shooting spree began Tuesday morning at an Austin high school.

AISD officer apparently has been shot. James opening fire on a school resource officer wounding him. Inside the school, teacher Glenn Stewart knew this wasn't a drill. You hear lockdown over the intercom. What goes through your head? Keep the kids safe. Just take action, protect the kids mainly. No students were harmed, but nearby, less than an hour later. Thought I heard something like fireworks or something. A shooting in South Austin, leaving two dead. Followed just hours later by another shooting.

Police reporting a cyclist wounded near a highway. Finally, Tuesday evening, a crucial burglary call. Officer needs assistance. Officer needs assistance. Has shots fired on a burglary. Police arresting James after they say he shot an officer and killed two more people. San Antonio authorities connecting James to another homicide 60 miles away. A couple found dead inside their home. These are believed to be the parents of the suspect that's currently in custody in Travis County. Six alleged murders and still no known motive.

Wonderful people. Every time I talk about it, it hurts me. Wonderful people. Good man. That's NBC's Morgan Chesky with that report. I cannot help but think about, look at these stories and think about the quick response by the police officers. I talked about 9-11. I remember after the attacks of September 11th, the Army Corps responded within minutes, within minutes. The NYPD got the call, raced down there. Reporters even, Miko's first day at CBS, came over the radio. She ran 55 blocks, got down there and started reporting. Everybody within minutes got to the scene at 9-11.

There's a question that continues to hang out in the air uncomfortably about what happened in Israel. I still don't understand what happened on October the 7th. I'm looking at a timeline in the New York Times here. Think about this. The attacks in Israel started at 6.30 in the morning, 6.30 in the morning. Residents went into hiding then, shootings and bombings. 9.30, three hours into the attack, hostages were already being taken to Gaza. Hostages taken from the festival. The shootings had already taken place at the festival. This is three hours into the attack.

Three hours into the attack, still no response from Israel. Three hours into the attack. Still no response from Israel. Three hours into the attack, 1236 hours into the attack, hostages continue to be taken. Attackers continue to terrorize the street. Israelis now six hours in hiding in their homes, whatever children could escape and hide in their safe rooms, desperately trying to get away from the attacks of terror. Six hours in, again, let's wake up to this. Six hours in, Netanyahu's government had not responded to all the rapings, to all the killings, to all the shootings going on, rode his bike home, got a pistol, jumped in his car, grabbed a few people and started rescuing hostages on his own. And yet it took eight hours after the attack, eight and a half hours after the attack that you had evacuations, final evacuations of some of these places. When did the rescues come? More than 13 hours

into the attack. More than 13 hours into the attack for some of these areas. More than 20 hours after the attack in other areas. Where is the army? Amit Mann, 22, texted his family after hiding from Hamas attackers for five hours before she was shot and killed. A 22-year-old woman, five hours into this siege, into these terror attacks, five hours in a country no bigger than the size of what, Delaware? No bigger than the size. Come on, where are the answers? Don't tell me we have to wait until after Netanyahu decides it's time to tell us what happened. Five hours. And this poor woman, this dead woman now, this daughter. Texted her family after hiding from Hamas attackers for five hours.

Where is the army? She was shot and killed. Others in the woods barricaded themselves in safe rooms and waited for as long as 26 hours for the rescuers to come. Israeli officials declined to answer questions about the timing of the response to that. Yeah. Really? In what world? In what world, Willie, are they allowed to sit back and say, we don't have to tell you why it took us 26 hours to respond to women being raped, why it took us 13 hours to respond to babies being shot and burned, why it took us five hours, even didn't respond in five hours. young woman, 22 years old, hiding from rapists and murderers, begging her own country. Where was her own country? Where were the police? Where were the army? Where were they? And why don't we have a clear answer to this? And the only answer, as you said, has been there will

be a time to talk about that. Right now, we've got to root out Hamas. We have to defeat Hamas. That's Prime Minister Netanyahu's government response. Would Americans say that if it took 22 hours to respond to 9-11? No, I'm not saying trust that. I'm telling you, that's what that's what they want you to swallow and push it to the side. It's also, Joe, not like we're talking about some ragtag military. We're talking about the IDF and we're talking about one of the most sophisticated intelligence services on earth, which is the

New York Times reported out last week, may have known about this a year out. So it's an intelligence failure to start with. And then the response, there's no explaining that for a military that good, that sophisticated. I don't know the answer. And it's going to be one of the big questions. They knew this was coming for a year. They knew that they had the attack plan in hand. So when it started to happen, they knew exactly what was going on, including using rape as a weapon of war. And young women, you know, we're talking about these women who were raped, who were abused, who who who Hamas treated like animals, paraded them among cheering Palestinians. That's what makes it even more egregious. They knew about it.

Some are trying to say, well, we thought it was overblown. They could never do it. But if you had the plan there, at what point does it kick into you? Well, we were told this. Let's get the plan and stop it. They never went there. The fact of the matter is, when you look at the timeline that The New York Times laid out, people like me were calling Jonathan Greenblatt at the ADL before they were even reacting in Israel. I mean, the news in this country was already showing what they were not reacting to. So where is the is the disconnect of the Netanyahu government's reaction here,

where you can have the world media on this within a couple hours and 12 hours later, you're just starting to move when you already had intelligence that was telling you this was possible. There's something that is unexplainable about this problem. And we really need to stay on that. No one has stood up more than people around this table around what happened on October 7th was inexcusable and some of the behavior in Gaza. But also inexcusable is them not explaining the hour's delay and with not Netanyahu's behaviors, which is why some of the hostages are saying to

him, what are you doing and why are you risking us? The hostages themselves have said that to Netanyahu. Mika. Hostages that are being raped and tortured and being held in horrendous conditions. There is no reasonable explanation for this. And that's another part of this very complex problem. And we have to give that as much time and not give up on the questions. Coming up, a few of the nation's top universities are in damage control following a House hearing on anti-Semitism. We'll have the latest fallout from the presidents of those schools, sidestepping questions from lawmakers. Morning Joe will be right back. I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus.

But you've heard chants for Intifada. I've heard chants, which can be anti-Semitic depending on the context, when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people. So those would not be according to the MIT's code of conduct or rules? That would be investigated as harassment if pervasive and severe. If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment. So the answer is yes it is a context dependent decision Congresswoman it's a context

dependent decision that's your testimony today calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context that is not bullying or harassment this is the easiest question to answer yes miss McGill McGill. Anti-Semitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct and we do take action. So the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard Code of Conduct,

correct? Again, it depends on the context. It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes, and this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board. The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania are responding to the widespread backlash and calls to resign following their answers during a congressional hearing on rising anti-Semitism on their campuses. The president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, issued a statement implying people misunderstood her remarks. Gay's statement read, quote, reads, quote, There are some who have confused a right to free expression

with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear. Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community or any religious or ethnic group are vile. They have no place at Harvard. And those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account. And the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz McGill, posted a video on social media promising to review the school's code of conduct. There was a moment during yesterday's congressional hearing on anti-Semitism when I was asked if a call for the genocide of Jewish people on our campus would violate our policies. In that moment, I was focused on our university's longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution,

which say that speech alone is not punishable. I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate. It's evil, plain and simple. I want to be clear. A call for genocide of Jewish people is threatening, deeply so. It is intentionally meant to terrify a people who have been subjected to pogroms and hatred for centuries and were the victims of mass genocide in the Holocaust. In my view, it would be harassment or intimidation. For decades, under multiple Penn presidents and consistent with most universities, Penn's policies have been guided by the Constitution and the law.

In today's world, where we are seeing signs of hate proliferating across our campus and our world in a way not seen in years, these policies need to be clarified and evaluated. Penn must initiate a serious and careful look at our policies, and Provost Jackson and I will immediately convene a process to do so. As president, I'm committed to a safe, secure, and supportive environment so all members of our community can thrive. We can and we will get this right. Thank you. So, Willie, that's Penn's President Liz McGill. You know, we didn't I don't think any of us understood what they were saying in front of Congress the day before. We will say when you have somebody that comes on and says, I should have been better prepared to answer this question, said it's evil.

Something you don't usually hear from university presidents talking about revising the code of conduct, which Mika said yesterday. Well, if this doesn't violate your code of conduct, you need to revise it. She says they're willing to do that. It talks about how it's the it's threatening deeply so. And then at the end, she said the policies need to be revised and we need to get this right. That's the response you want to hear from somebody who's running a university that really didn't get it right the day before and caused obviously great concern among Jewish students and their families and also people like us who are disturbed by this. And then in contrast to that, you have the president of Harvard who said, oh, people were too stupid to understand what I was trying to say. No, we understood exactly what you were trying to say. What you're trying to say is you're fine with people talking about the genocide of Jews. You're totally fine with that. That doesn't violate your code of conduct. If people talk about killing Jews, they have to actually do something as if the act of calling for the genocide of Jews is not an act in and of itself that is evil, as the president of Penn said, and leads to violence. I just don't I don't get it.

I really don't get it. I really don't get it. If somebody called, I said, what, what, again, what if those same students were calling for the genocide of Native Americans? What if somebody calling for the genocide of Hispanics, the genocide of Catholics, the genocide of black Americans, the genocide of you name it, Southern Baptists,, anybody but Jews. But you call for the genocide of Jews. And suddenly the same people at Harvard that were saying speech, speech is like an action. Like it's like speech is threatening. Speech is this. Speech is that we've heard it for 10 years as these university administrators have bubble wrapped their students, as we say. And now the bubble wrap, weirdly enough, is taken off. If you're a Jew, just like if you're a Jew who was raped.

Hey, members of Congress say it happens. Yeah, they got raped and savage and they got shot in their genitals. And yeah, there was genital mutilation. But however, these things happen in war. It do they I'm just going to say, do they hate you so much? That they are this blind, that they're willing to look like fools publicly? Is their hatred for Jews so great that they're blind to their own double standards? Because we know the double standard is massive and it only applies to Jews. Or are they so weak that they can't stand up to a small group

of students who are very vocal and very loud and they fear their own students, even though they're the adults? By the way, in those other campus examples you listed, the students would be expelled. They shut down the school for a week and have a huge dialogue about what was going on on the campus. Not so much in this safe spaces would be created for all. There would be people coming in and they would have mindfulness retreats. Not that there's anything wrong with mindfulness retreats. And they would know if if this happened on campus, any of these campuses with any group other than Jews, there would be an explosion. And your other. Let me ask what what would happen if I'm sorry to interrupt.

I just have to ask you are the premier civil rights leader in the United States. What would happen? What would happen on Harvard at Harvard if a group, let's say a group of a thousand white students called for the genocide of all black Americans. I would let you know what time the buses were leaving for my march on Harvard. I mean, there would be no way we wouldn't react. And we don't even have to take a an imaginary example. Let's look at how we've gone after NFL owners and people on TV and radio broadcasts and all for saying almost that, not even that. Far less than that. And people have lost NBA and NFL teams that we've marched on. So if somebody's walking on a campus saying kill the Jews, all I say to my fellow civil rights

leaders that they said kill the blacks, we'd be marching. This is not hard. This is not difficult. It is not you reacting to the noise of a crowd. It's that you have no inner guts to stand up for everyone that you want to stand up for us. You can't have it both ways. Let's bring into the conversation Israel's special envoy for combating anti-Semitism, Mikhail Kotler. Great to have you with us this morning. Hanukkah starts tonight. We also should point out. I'm just curious about your reaction.

We're happy that President McGill maybe saw the light and came around and put out that statement. But to say I wasn't prepared, you're not prepared for the question about whether calling for the genocide of the Jewish people constitutes bullying on your campus is a little bit of a tough one to swallow. So I'll say that I actually went to brief the entire committee yesterday as a follow up to the hearing. And I think what Rev is saying is actually the most important. And in the introductory comments, what we have to realize is the nature of the double standard actually collapses the entire principle, right? These are universities that created diversity, equity, and inclusion infrastructure that applies to everybody, except for if you're a Jew slash Zionist slash supporter of Israel. That is a problem for everybody. If we collapse the infrastructure with double standard,

it cannot protect anybody, right? Today, it's the Jews slash Zionists slash supporter of Israel. Tomorrow, it's everybody else. And so I would say we should get those buses onto those campuses, no matter who they enable to attack. And there's one more piece. Look, the understanding that Zionism today on campuses is considered racism. And we have to sort of address this, right? UN resolution, 1975, Soviet propaganda, Zionism is racism, is alive and well in the name of progress on 2023 campuses. We're going to have to be able to unpack that because Zionist is the identity of the majority of Jews and many non-Jews. I cannot just shed that Zionist pound of my identity in order to fit in and be a good Jew or a good human

being. And that is a part of the longer process that has led us to this point so that there are leaders without more clarity or courage to call out what needs to be said, which is if all students deserve protection, so do David, who is a Jew, or Catherine, who is a Zionist. And if we can't say that using the DEI infrastructure, there's something inherently wrong with the way that it came about. And I would say this is also a moment of reckoning for academic institutions in general. This is not just about anti-Semitism or about Jews or the inability to call out genocide as a double standard, because against any other group, we would have called it out. It is about what is the intention and mission statement of universities? Is it to teach people how to think? Or is it what we've seen? Is it to teach people what to think? Which is actually a

very dangerous prospect. You know, Molly, this has been a problem on college campuses for some time. I go back into the dark ages of Scarborough country and yeah, no passport required, only common sense allowed. But I remember one disturbing anti-Semitic act on college campus after another. And it wasn't just a singular thing. It would be, let's say, and people will know what I'm talking about when I bring it up, a young woman who was kicked off USC's student government because she had the wrong political views regarding Israel at Columbia, just openly anti-Semitic statements being made by professors over and over and over again. But what I've found since October 7th is that most of us, from conservatives like me to progressives, liberals slash progressives like you, have stood together on this and just said we have got to protect just we have to protect Muslim Americans, Palestinian Americans. We have to protect Jews on college campuses.

And just sitting back while people are talking about genocide against Jews and saying that that's somehow acceptable speech on college campuses. It's just it's it's not right. It's just not right. We have to all speak out against it. As I mean, I'm Jewish and I grew up Jewish. And actually, it's funny. I mean, it's not funny. But since this has happened, I've gone back to synagogue much more than I ever did. So I do think and my my daughter, too, is like, let's go to synagogue tonight. So I definitely do think this has been a call to a lot of Jews to, you know, that there is anti-Semitism

is something that we live with. But and I would like us to not. But, you know, it is a reality. But and I was really disturbed that these college presidents couldn't say anti-Semitism, just like Islamophobia, is wrong. It is wrong. Like you don't need to couch it in anything else. You can just say it's appalling. It's not OK. And the the way they spoke all in unison, saying the same thing in this very kind of lawyered way, when they couldn't just say it's not OK to discriminate against anyone, even including Jews. We're talking about 18 year old kids going to class and having mobs scream about the genocide of Jews. And I mean, if I were a college administrator, well, you wouldn't want me to be in that position. You just wouldn't. It just would not be pretty. But how any college

administrator could hide behind legalisms and not say our first priority, just like those poor Palestinian men that were shot up in Burlington, Vermont. Our first priority is protecting our students from violence, from threats of violence. And again, you call for the killing of an entire race is far more than saying we support a two state solution. Netanyahu's position towards the West Bank has has been destructive to the peace process. That's an argument to make. Make that on college campuses. Debate it. But the genocide of a people and you still have the president of Harvard University still thinking that's OK on her college campus. And they're the grownups. That's what I keep

coming back to. This is supposed to be a lot of these are young kids. They're 18, 19. They're figuring out the world. They don't know the history of the conflict. Maybe they don't know that Israel left Gaza 16 years ago. There's a lot to say. And you can have the discussion like they did at Dartmouth. You guys were talking about that. 60 Minutes did an entire piece about that. They said, hang on, let's all get a room together, all different faiths. Let's talk about what's going on here instead of having these fights on campus. And I think it's important to point out, as Joe said, this isn't just some academic exercise. And we know Jewish kids who go to a lot of these schools who are afraid to be there right now. They walk out, they look over their shoulder, they're yelled at, they're harassed just for the

act of being Jewish and trying to go to school. I want to say, you know, we are marking two months to 10-7 today. 10-7 was the most atrocious massacre the Jewish people have experienced since the Holocaust. War crimes, crimes against humanity, and according to international law experts, the making of a genocide, the very word that's been thrown around on these campuses. Now, if we do not understand that anti-Semitism never died, it just mutated. And that's what I was referencing before. The current strain of an ever mutating virus that is permeating and festering and infecting societies and campuses, that strain of anti-Zionism. Let me let me just again let you continue. But let me just say it never really mutated because this has been the environment on college

elite colleges, campuses for more than 30 years. And what's happened is you have had people that have learned this in college. They've gone on to get their masters, their PhDs. They've gone in. They've taken those beliefs that they were told 30 years ago, 40 years ago. They have become professors. This has become, and this is one of the reasons we're sitting there, how could they, how could they be so blind? How could they be so blind? It's like water for them. They have been in this environment their entire adult life where being anti-Semitic is somehow okay. Calling for the genocide of Jews is okay. Calling for the destruction of Israel is OK. Talking about from the river to the sea, not only OK, that will make you a hit at any cocktail party at any elite

college campus. So that's the environment. You're 100 percent right. And actually, it has been festering for decades and developing over decades. I referenced before Zionism turning into racism, so to speak, Israel into an apartheid state. An apartheid state has no right to exist. And so if that's what you've sort of consumed for decades, then of course you would call for the dismantling from the river to the sea of that, what you allege to be an apartheid state. But I think something very important that we might be missing, and that is, whereas I'll call it traditional anti-Semitism that many experienced over time, demonized and delegitimized and applied double standards to the individual Jew.

What has happened in these decades, in the 75 years systematically of an indigenous people, Jews are an indigenous people, by the way, a prototypical indigenous people that speak the same language and read the same book and traverse the same land and worship the same God. After millennia of exon persecution, what has happened with that return to Israel is that the demonization, the delegitimization and the double standards, that didn't die. That mutated to actually from the river to the sea called to annihilate that proverbial Jew among the nations, the state of Israel, and boomeranging right back to the individual Jew. That is what the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition very clearly addresses.

When we talk about anti-Semitism, the first question to ask is, what is anti-Semitism? What are we committed to identifying and combating? And there is a definition. That's my conversation with everyone, by the way, of those university presidents included one by one on one. If you don't start by defining anti-Semitism and we have a definition incorporating it into your policies, including your DEI infrastructure and training, then you are not combating anti-Semitism. You're just throwing around a word which has no meaning. And Willie, again, you talked about it, but make no mistake, this is happening on college campuses all over America. I unfortunately I'm hearing about it every day. And again, you know, phrases like

from the river to the sea are actually, which is calling for the destruction of Israel, the genocide of Jews. That's actually very much in vogue. It's among students that is, there's far too much comfort. And that's actually a mainstream position on too many college campuses right now. There's something wrong with our educational system at some of these elite universities, and it needs to be corrected. Forgive the term in this context, but it's become fashionable almost. On TikTok, they hear River to the Sea. OK, I'm going to join something, maybe a part of what feels like a movement. I'm going to go march. And there have been people who've gone out, pollsters, reporters, and said,

do you know what river to the sea means to a 19-year-old? And they go, not really. When they explain, they go, oh, no, I don't want that. I don't want that. It's just they think they're a part of some movement. Israel's special envoy for combating anti-Semitism, Mikhail Kotler. Thank you so much for being here. We'll talk to you again soon.

Thank you. Thank you so much.