Morning Joe - Morning Joe 1/3/23

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is in critical condition after suffering cardiac arrest during NFL game

This is about DeMar Hamlin. And it's about a young man at 24 years old that was living his dream that a few hours ago was getting ready to play the biggest game of his NFL career. And there's probably nowhere else in the world he wanted to be. And now he fights for his life. We forget that part of living this dream is putting your life at risk. And tonight, you know, we got to see a side of football that is extremely ugly. Shock and sadness during Monday night football. Buffalo Bills safety DeMar Hamlin is in critical condition this morning in a Cincinnati hospital.

He suffered cardiac arrest following a hit during last night's game. We're following the very latest on his condition this morning and also the outpouring of support. Also this morning, Kevin McCarthy has already moved into the speaker's office on Capitol Hill, despite an influential group of Republicans who have vowed to vote against him today. We'll tell you why we may see something on the Hill today that hasn't happened in 100 years. We're also digging into Donald Trump's latest excuse for leading his party to historic election defeat in the midterms. Quote, it wasn't my fault, he declared. We'll tell you who he is blaming now. Plus, Moscow says dozens of Russian soldiers have been killed during a massive missile strike in an occupied part of Ukraine. We'll take

a look at what that means for the ongoing war there. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, January 3rd. Willie, we're going to be getting to so many of those stories and more, but first we, of course, are shocked by what happened last night at a game that really I think a lot of people thought was going to be one of the highlights

of the season. So a lot of people were watching last night as this tragedy unfolded. And I've got to say, I don't really remember another NFL game that was brought to a halt and stopped and postponed after the NFL did exactly what it should have done. Yeah, without question, postponing that game. Yeah, this was the only game. It was a Monday night game, a highly anticipated game between the Bills and the Bengals. Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, a couple of teams that could

find themselves in the Super Bowl. All eyes of the sports world were on this game. And they watched in horror last night as Buffalo Bills safety DeMar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field during the game. The incident occurred during the first quarter after Hamlin made a tackle. He stood up and then fell over on his back and lay motionless on the ground. A 24-year-old player immediately was tended to by medical personnel and was administered CPR right there on the field for nearly 10 minutes. With reports, he also required a defibrillator. He was given oxygen as he was loaded into an ambulance, driven off the field and taken to a hospital.

Emotional players, coaches standing by. The Bills knelt to pray for their teammate in a statement posted on Twitter early this morning. The Bills said Hamlin's heartbeat was restored on the field and he was transferred to the University of Cincinnati's Level One Trauma Center, where he was sedated and listed in critical condition. About an hour after the play was initially suspended, after that game was suspended, the NFL officially postponed the game indefinitely. We're going to show the tackle that led to DeMar's collapse, but we're going to show it once, give viewers a chance to look away now if they don't want to see it. This is how things played out on the field. There you see Hanlon makes the tackle on the Bengals receiver T. Higgins there and then kind of gets wobbly and falls over backwards.

As we said, Joe, CPR administered to him for more than nine minutes right there on the field. Just a stunning spectacle as the two teams kneeled, praying, hoping for the best. Some players, Josh Allen, the star quarterback, just openly weeping on the field, knowing that this was something different than they'd seen before ever. And the only thing I can compare to Joe is Hank Gathers back in 1990. You'll remember that college basketball star who suffered cardiac arrest on the court and collapsed

their big star in college basketball at the time, 32 years ago. But nothing like this that I can remember. We're going to talk to Peter King in a second here on a football field. OK, well, let's bring him in. NBC Sports columnist Peter King. Peter, looking at the hit, you know, when I when I first saw the news break last night, I thought, oh, it's going to be another one of these horrific shots that we see every one. A Daryl Stingley type shot. The hit was the kind of hit that we see 100 times every weekend in the NFL. So there was nothing particularly different about that tackle that he made.

What can you tell us about the cause, what people are speculating as to the cause, doctors? Well, Joe, a lot of people last night and into the early morning hours today are basically understand exactly what happened. When someone's heart stops, it needs to be addressed immediately by medical professionals. At every NFL game on the sidelines, there are a total of about 25 medical professionals, both emergency medical professionals and orthopedic specialists and others. But there is a score of people at every game who understand when a heart stops exactly what they have to do. And that last night meant that that DeMar Hamlin got exceedingly good help and he got it very very quickly now i think what everyone kind of wonders now okay is this guy going to be all right and i think there is reason for optimism this morning and that reason for optimism is because his heart started again on the field, according to medical personnel who were there. He was put into an

ambulance and taken to a level one trauma center, the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. So there probably was absolutely as the medical attention he received was about as good as a person could get in that situation. And I think DeMar Hamlin clearly, what it appears as though happened, you're absolutely right. 100 times a weekend, I might say 500 times a weekend, there is a play almost exactly like that. A guy makes a hard tackle on a six foot four, 220 pound receiver T Higgins. And it is normal as anything you ever see in the NFL. And he apparently hit him at the exact perfect location that caused this event to happen. So, you know, luckily for him, he's in a level one trauma center and he's getting the best care possible. And look, I'm not going to speculate because I have no idea. I don't think any of us really have any idea, but there is optimism this

morning, whereas last night at nine o'clock, 9.30, when you saw the players crying on the field, and when you basically saw the two coaches get together, and look, I've not talked to either Zach Taylor of the Bengals or Sean McDermott of the Buffalo Bills, but it was very clear that after a certain point, that they probably were not going, not only were they not going to play, I don't think the Buffalo Bills players, in fact, or the Cincinnati Bengals players would have taken the field regardless of what they were asked to do. I should just say one thing. There's no indication other than, you know speculation that the nfl originally ordered uh this game to go on after a five minute period there was discussion on the field about that but i i don't

my information as of last night and this morning uh i do not have that understanding. And according to reports that I've read, there was talk on ESPN that the players would be given a five-minute break, and then they'd go back. The NFL came back later and said, we have absolutely no idea where that information came from, because we certainly never said anything to that point at all. I'm going to pass it to Willie has a question for you. But Willie, just to put this into perspective, this is for us, unfortunately. Well, I have two friends whose heart stopped. You had cardiac arrest. One was with a personal trainer at the time. They had a defibrillator, got his heart started again, and he was fine. I mean, I saw him this summer and he said if medical personnel wasn't there when he had the

cardiac arrest, he'd be dead. And sadly, tragically, our good friend Fred Hyatt at the Washington Post was visiting his family, walking in the streets of Brooklyn. He had a cardiac arrest and there there there there wasn't anybody around for quite some time to take care of him. And it made all the difference between life and death. In this case, as you know, as Peter said, the NFL has people on the sidelines. They started treating him immediately. We can only hope and pray for the best here because they had great medical help right there waiting for him. Yeah, no question about it. And it should be said that even an elite athlete, and if you're playing the NFL, by definition, you are an elite athlete, can have a pre-existing condition that he or she

doesn't know about beforehand and now will learn about only after a cardiac event like this. We're happy to hear a little bit of optimism in Peter King's voice today. We'll look to hear more from the hospital coming up a bit later. Peter, I was struck, too, just by the two teams gathering together. The two team owners were together in the Bills Hospital. There were images late last night of Zach Taylor, the Bengals head coach, pulling up to the hospital in his own car to go in and check in himself. This was clearly a moment where football was rendered completely meaningless last night. You know, Willie, you said this, that this, by many accounts, was the game of the year in the NFL. It was a game between two teams with a total of seven losses. And here we are in

week 17, both teams on long winning streaks, two of the franchise quarterbacks in the NFL getting ready to play each other for the first time ever. And so there was great, great anticipation for this game. The TV rating on this game would have been out of the out of this world. And I only say that because what you saw last night is what I would call sort of the brotherhood of what happens in the NFL between teammates, but between players on other teams, you see it all the time. If there is an injury on the field during the game where a player has to be taken off, let's say on a cart, you will see the majority of the players on the other team come over and touch his shoulder pads or basically do something to to indicate I'm with you, brother, because every player who plays this game understands as Bruce Smith,

the hall of fame defensive end of the bills once told me, he said, I am in 60 car crashes every Sunday. And you have to do that willingly, Willie. You can't be afraid to do that. And so this 200-pound safety always, very often, will take on guys who are bigger than him because that is this game. And I just think it's important to realize not only the physical demands of this game, but in some ways, you know, when you look at this sport, you see so many injuries happen. And I do think the one thing that is unique about this injury last night is that it brought players on both teams to tears and it caused both coaches to say, look, we know our team and look, we don't know precisely what they have said, but it's clear that both of these coaches were very much in favor of this game not continuing.

And so I think the one other point that really should be made, Willie, is that in football, I've covered football for 39 years. And in football, I have seen practices where a guy will go down with a significant injury, maybe a knee injury, a shoulder injury, he's laying on the field and the coach will simply move the practice 20 or 25 yards away and he will continue it because these players have been conditioned to understand that the show goes on. And last night, the show, thankfully, did not go on. Yeah, Booger McFarlane, the former NFL player who's an ESPN analyst, made the point you just made there, Peter, on the air last night where he said, we all understand injuries come with this game. We all know that things can happen on the field.

But the line is you get to go home to your family after the game. And that's why this was so jarring. So let's really hope and pray, continue to do that for the very best for DeMar Hamlin. Nobody's thinking about football, Peter, but as you said, this was a huge game. Had they even begun to think about or talking about rescheduling this game? Is it a no contest? What do they do with this? You know, it's going to be very difficult, Willie, because clearly the Bills are in no position to play this game. Their airplane with most of the players and team staff on board returned to Buffalo early this morning. Several players stayed in Buffalo to be with their fallen teammate. So I don't know what's going to happen.

The difficulty right now in thinking about playing this game is that this coming weekend is the final weekend of the regular season. And then the week after that, the playoffs begin. So this game had huge ramifications for the playoffs in the AFC. But I don't think many people are thinking about that right now. Yeah, absolutely. NBC's Peter King. So great to have you on. Bring us some perspective and reporting this morning. We appreciate it. Good to see you, Peter. Thank you. And Joe and Meek, obviously, that game doesn't mean much, doesn't mean anything, including, as you saw last night, to the players who came in expecting to have this showdown. And within just a few minutes, sadly, tragically, they were on the field in tears, praying for their teammate. And we're all doing the same for DeMar Hamlin as he's in a Cincinnati hospital this morning.

No doubt about it. I wanted to open this up to you and Jonathan for a minute. You know, Willie, we've been we've been critical of of safety in the NFL talking about. I always talk about what Jim Miklaszewski told me, former great NBC Pentagon reporter, when he was a radio guy in Dallas and went out to interview Tom Landry his final year. And Landry pointed at how big and how fast the players were. And Landry turned to Mick and said, this isn't the game I grew up in. They're too big. They're too fast. It's just not safe anymore. And we could look at Tua. We could look at

so many other things that happened this past year. So safety is an issue and they have to keep working. They've got to make this a safer sport. That said, last night's tragedy seems to be more of a freak, freak accident than anything else. Again, that the hit that that that we saw, that's a hit that happened at least 100 times on Sunday afternoon. Yeah, you and I have talked about this a lot over the years. And Peter King just quoted Bruce Smith as saying the same thing. I used to cover sports down in the field. And I remember watching somebody like Ray Lewis run full speed, plug a hole and hit a linebacker and think, I wouldn't survive that.

A normal person wouldn't survive that. It is a little car crash every time they hit each other. But as you said, it's hard to know what you would have done other than screening, cardiac screening for some of these guys who may not know that they have a condition. And we don't know that about DeMar Hamlin either, but maybe we'll find that out. This was a relatively routine play, routine tackle, you know, a completion over the middle. He makes the tackle, he goes down and goes into cardiac arrest. But Jonathan Lemire, these pictures, you and I watch a lot of sports.

We've watched a lot of sports for a long time. As I say, the only thing comparable that I can remember was Hank Gathers because he was such a star for Loyola Marymount as a college basketball player going down and just seeing that happen on the field. But my gosh, this was striking last night. Yeah, striking and terrible. One other note, and maybe a hopeful comparison, Christian Eriksson, the soccer player from Denmark who collapsed, had a heart attack on the field about a year ago.

He recovered. He was playing again a year later. Let's hope the same here for DeMar Hamlin. But it also speaks to football, of course. I mean, it's a game that we all love watching, but do so sometime with reservations. There are people around the league that I know that you guys have talked to who have been fearful of this very moment, something like this happening, whether it be a hit to the head or in this case, what was a routine tackle turning into something truly terrible.

And that's why so many parents across the country aren't sure they want their kids to play tackle football, because danger does lurk around every corner. And that's what these players know. As Peter King just said, Joe, the players, they step onto the field every day knowing this, something like this, some sort of terrible thing could happen. That's a deal they make. But usually that would mean like a knee injury. We certainly know about the CTE and we know the ramifications of head injuries too. You don't expect cardiac arrest, and this is truly terrible. And obviously, our thoughts and prayers are with DeMar Hamlin and his family.

They definitely are. And, you know, it is interesting you talk about parents. When I grew up, my family, I mean, our life centered around church on Sundays and football and Friday Night Lights, high school football. And I started playing football when I was nine years old and played it nonstop. My brother played it nonstop. Willie, I know you played it nonstop. And there just has been, again, and maybe it's just the knowledge of all the things that comes with football that we've learned belatedly. Maybe this is why I get hit in the head so many times as a quarterback through the years.

Mika, maybe that explains some of my problems. But it's just so dangerous now on so many levels that it really does. It really does take a kid just just absolutely dedicated doing it because most parents are going to say, hey, why? Why don't you play baseball? Why don't you play basketball? Why don't you play soccer? Yeah. Yeah. And that conversation, Mika, definitely has changed. And Joe and I were running around playing football when we didn't know about CTE. We learned all the proper techniques and they've changed equipment. They've changed the way they practice, no hitting in practice

and all those things. But there's nothing you can do about two huge guys, especially at the NFL level, running full speed at each other who both run four, four, four, five. That's going to be a problem. Again, we're talking about something that we believe anyway is a separate issue from what happened last night, but it all falls under the safety of football. It does. And we're going to be following this story throughout the morning. Any developments we'll bring to you right away. Still ahead on Morning Joe, it appears Kevin McCarthy's fate will be decided in real time on the House floor today. We'll have the very latest on his bid to become House Speaker. Plus, Congresswoman Catherine Clark will soon be the number two House Democrat. She'll join us as the 118th Congress kicks off today. Also ahead, Moscow

says a significant number of Russian soldiers were killed in a recent missile attack, we'll go live to Kyiv for a look at where the war stands this morning. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Understand what they're doing. They're not voting against Kevin McCarthy. They're voting against over 215 members of their own conference. Their conference voted overwhelmingly, 85%, for McCarthy to be speaker.

So this is a fight between a handful of people and the entire rest of the conference. And they're saying they have the right to screw up everything. Well, the precedent that sets is so do the moderates, so do the members from Florida. I mean, any five people can get up and say, I'm now going to screw up the conference too. The choice is Kevin McCarthy or chaos. I think the Republican Party right now is in the greatest danger of meltdown that it's been since 1964. I thought at least the House was going to be a sign of stability. And these five guys decided to go out as kamikazes and see if they can't sink the whole Republican Party.

And that's what they're doing. This is not about Kevin McCarthy. This is about the right of any five members to basically throw away the entire rest of the conference. And that's former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticizing Republican lawmakers who don't support Kevin McCarthy and his bid for speaker. And Willie, he knows of what he speaks because there were five, six of us back in 1998 that told Newt that we weren't going to support him. I think there are a lot of other people that also had a lot of concerns with him. So we were the five that were willing to go forward and say something. But Newt has a really good point here.

It's not like the Republican Party is coming off of a strong win. They underperformed badly. They're on their back hills. They're viewed as radicals, insurrectionist weirdos and freaks. It's why they lost race after race after race in swing districts and also in swing states for the Senate. So to have this chaos unfold on the floor today, when you have it coming, especially from, let's say, the five or six members who are the most extreme based on on political views of most Americans who decide elections. Well, Newt's got a great point.

The timing here could not be worse for the Republican Party. And it just sends a god awful message that Republicans just don't have their stuff together still. So they've got 222 Republicans in this 118th Congress. Kevin McCarthy needs 218 of them to vote for him to become speaker. That means he can only lose four votes. And you have these five who say they're never Kevins. So you do the math on that. He does not have the votes as we sit here this morning, may get there, but he has made concessions to them already. And when Marjorie Taylor Greene is the voice of reason coming out and saying to those five,

Hey guys, take a win. When you have one in front of you, let's make Kevin McCarthy, the speaker. He's given you a whole bunch of stuff that you asked for. Let's get this process moving and not start our Congress in absolute chaos, which is what it would be.

If he doesn't reach that 218th, they have to go to a second ballot. Other candidates come in. This could go on for days and days and days. Not the way most Republicans, anyway, want to start this Congress. Well, and I mean, what Kevin McCarthy should do, not that Kevin McCarthy would ever take my advice, but Kevin McCarthy should go to the floor like we're hearing he may do.

He should fight it out. He should call their bluff. And and I would have one Republican after another Republican after another Republican go to the floor and attack however few people there are and say, you are a minority. You are outvoted. Two hundred and whatever. Two hundred and5 to five, and you're destroying the Republican Party. And because he's never going to be able to negotiate with them. He's going to have to run them over. He's just and if he can't run it over and if these five people are going to hold him hostage, his speakership hostage for the next two years, it's not a speakership worth having.

Exactly. And by the way, they don't have anybody to replace McCarthy. So call their bluff. It's really his only good option at this point. Well, the vote on the next speaker of the House seems unlikely to be decided on the first ballot, something that hasn't happened in 100 years. In what could be a premature move, incoming majority leader Kevin McCarthy continued to move his belongings into the speaker's office yesterday in advance of today's vote. He's moving in. McCarthy, who has long been jockeying for the top job in the House, has spent the last several weeks trying to whip the 218 votes needed to take the gavel. The California Republican can afford just four defections from within his own party and still be elected Speaker. But as Willie mentioned, as of last night, five Republicans had publicly vowed

to vote against McCarthy's speakership bid. And another nine signed a letter on Sunday telling McCarthy he had not done enough to earn their support. NBC News briefly caught up with McCarthy yesterday. Do you have the votes for Speaker locked in tomorrow? I think we're going to have a good day tomorrow. Are you prepared to make more concessions in exchange for more support? I hope you all have a very nice New Year's.

Let's bring in the founder of the conservative website, The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes, and former White House press secretary, now an MSNBC host, Jen Psaki. Good to have you both. So, Charlie, this this job has been unmanageable for Republicans since people like me were in Washington for probably because of people like me in Washington. Yes. John Boehner job wasn't worth it for John. Yes. Paul Ryan. Paul put up with it for a while, but just wasn't worth it for Paul, a guy that you and I know very well. And now you have McCarthy trying to get this job.

And again, I mean, trying to get it at a low point for Republicans where where every swing voters, most swing voters think they're insurrectionists, weirdos and freaks. And these five, six, seven Republicans are doing their damnedest to prove that what they're saying about him is true. Yeah, and there are no good options for Kevin McCarthy. I mean, he has been trying to shrink himself and self-humiliate himself into this position now for months. And amazingly, it's not it is not working. So what you're going to see on display is an unruly, dysfunctional party that is uninterested in governing. And as you point out, Joe, though, this didn't just happen. I mean, this has been building for years. You have been creating this political environment with all of the incentives for nihilism, for bomb throwing. And, you know, many of these folks, you know, have been, I mean, this moment has been coming for a very long time. And it certainly reflects what's happened to the Republican Party that is no longer really interested in being a serious public policy party.

It doesn't have a detailed legislative agenda. And when you have a party that's turned itself over to a cult of personality, to bomb throwers, to grifters, we shouldn't be surprised to see that we are going to have on display this amazing clown car. And by the way, all the focus is on, of course, these of these five holdouts here. But think about Kevin McCarthy, whose speakership now rests on the vote of people like George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The closer you look, the worse this gets for the Republican Party on the day that should have been the big celebration of the red wave. So think about this alternative reality. Normally, when a political party takes power, this is a moment of celebration.

People are feeling good. They're celebrating. And you are not going to be seeing that over the next 12 hours in Washington, D.C. Well, as I keep trying to remind my former Republican brothers and sisters, it didn't have to be this way. They didn't have to follow Donald Trump down the rabbit hole. They didn't have to push QAnon conspiracy theories. They didn't have to push election denying. They didn't have to be the radical extremists that they were.

They made the choice. These are the consequences. This is a consequence. You lose the Senate and the House is is a dumpster fire. And so. So, Jonathan O'Meara, I mean, again, circling back to what Kevin McCarthy can do, just give him some insight. You know, 10 or 11 of us went after Newt in 97. We didn't think he was the right speaker to have. We thought he actually was too much of a bomb thrower. And we thought that, you know, we couldn't ever get our policies discussed or talked about because everybody was talking about what Newt said here or there. We went after him in 97. He survived that attempt. And then end of 98, we went after

him again, got him out. I say all this to say Newt could never negotiate with us. We were never going to accept Newt Gingrich as speaker. We were never going to accept Newt Gingrich as speaker. We were going to get him out whenever we could get him out. It wasn't personal. It was just we didn't think he was good for the party. And neither did Karl Rove or W. They were glad they weren't running for president in 2000 when Newt was speaker of the House because they'd have to run against Newt and Al Gore.

So here we are. We fast forward to 22 and 23. And Kevin McCarthy's trying to negotiate with these guys, these women. There's no negotiating with them. You got to win. You got politically, you got you're either going to run them over or you're not going to be the next speaker. Yeah, that's clear that McCarthy's going to have to do that. We are told there looks like they're going to that floor for a vote and he may not win that first one. It'll be 100 years since that's happened, but they're not going to give up. And there doesn't seem to be a credible alternative to McCarthy either. And his allies are banking on this, that if they just stay out there and put pressure on this, there could be a deal.

There could be pressure placed to eventually get the votes needed. The other thing he's doing, apparently, though, is prematurely moving into the speaker's office. Talk about literally measuring the drapes before you have the votes that that will be footage right there that we play a lot. If eventually McCarthy's effort to become a speaker goes down in failure. But Jen Psaki. So there are five never Kevins. And right now there are nine who seem like probably not Kevins. So that's a pretty tough hill to climb for McCarthy. So give us your analysis, though, just how weak not just this makes McCarthy, but the Republican Party and what sort of opportunity for perhaps mischief does this present for the Democrats?

Doesn't even have to be mischief, Jonathan. I mean, look, if we put this in perspective, it's been almost two months since the election. While it was a narrow majority, the Republicans won. They knew that they were going to be able to take over the speakership. Kevin McCarthy knew that. And we're going into this vote today without knowing. No one knows, even Kevin McCarthy, whether or not he has the votes. That's a basic rule of politics. Don't go into any vote not knowing whether you have the votes or not.

So for Democrats, I mean, no one would have predicted that at this point the Democrats are basically celebrating Hakeem Jeffries becoming the first, you know, African American to lead their caucus, right? That's a big, significant victory for them. It's exciting for them. Democrats are jazzed about it. And they're just going to wait and watch this happen, because right now, whether Kevin McCarthy has the votes, no one else seems to have the votes that we all know of. So it could

play out, as we've all been talking about this morning, with vote after vote after vote that fails. That is a potential outcome of today and the next couple of days. And Charlie, again, if you're just talking about power politics, I mean, Kevin McCarthy may not be capable of doing it, but I know a lot of politicians that would say to these five holdouts, hey, listen, I don't need your votes. I'll go get five Democratic votes. I'll strip you of your committees. I'll put them on your committees. I'll talk to the Democratic leadership and we'll figure out how to have a bipartisan two years. And yeah, maybe I won't get reelected speaker in two years. But guess what? You probably won't get reelected

either because you're going to deliver nothing to your district. And I will die a political death, a thousand political deaths before your district gets a dime. Again, I mean, I've heard tougher things said behind closed doors on Capitol Hill. I just I just wonder if McCarthy's limiting himself by just going after wackos, insurrectionists and freaks. Well, that's all he's got. That is his caucus. You have just defined the Republican House caucus in 2023. And there's no prospect that he's going to get be able to make a deal with Democrats. And so, I mean, what's interesting about this, and Brendan Buck made this point in The New York Times, you know, this is a majoritarian body. You don't get with 218 votes. You can get a lot done without 218 votes. You can't get anything done.

And Kevin McCarthy, one way or another right now, does not have those 218 votes. Nobody else does. And so, you know, you have to think about what is the end game here? What is the most positive outcome? And frankly, I cannot come up with anything that does not lead to an incredibly weakened speaker who essentially has allowed himself or herself to be held hostage to the most extreme elements of the caucus. I mean, over the weekend, Kevin McCarthy, you know, who's been willing to put his manhood in the lockbox for Donald Trump for some time now, made concessions to conservatives saying, you know, yeah, I will I will allow you to have a vote to oust me at any given time. Well, how is that going to work out in this particular caucus? Look, you got to get John Boehner on the phone and Paul Ryan on the phone and say,

guys, can you just remind me why I am doing all of this? Is it actually worth it? Yeah, I mean, Charlie, that's exactly right. Kevin McCarthy has already made these concessions to these five or 14, depending on the group, including what you just referenced, which is one member can raise his or her hand, say, I want to vote to oust Kevin McCarthy. He agreed to that. So what else could he possibly give them? I guess the question, Charlie, is if it's not Kevin McCarthy, what happens next? Steve Scalise is his number two. I'm sure he'd be reluctant to take it from him. Jim Jordan says, no, I want to be the chair of judiciary.

What happens next if it's not Kevin McCarthy? Yeah, nobody knows and there's no plan B. The one thing that's clear, though, is there's going to have to be a number of votes and you're not going to even talk about seriously about a plan B until Kevin McCarthy finally decides that he's never going to get there, that he's going to have to get on his cell phone and tell his folks to move his stuff out of the Speaker's office. This is not going to happen. Maybe return the drapes. And at that point, there's going to be a scramble, and we haven't seen anything like this in 100 years. I mean, that's what makes today so remarkable. We'll be watching.

Charlie Sykes. Thank you very much for being on this morning and coming up, we'll go live to Kiev for the latest in Ukraine's fight against Russia. Plus, Richard Haass will join us with his predictions for what in the world will happen in 2023. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. It's past the east. Russia has confirmed 63 fatalities due to that strike, while Ukraine says as many as 400 Russian soldiers were killed. Neither figure has been independently verified. A spokesman for the Russian-installed government in Donetsk called the strike a, quote, massive blow and hinted at errors committed by Russian commanders. Let's bring in NBC News foreign correspondent Matt Bradley live from Kiev. Matt?

Yeah, Mika, you mentioned those two figures, the 63 dead that the Russians claim and the nearly 400 or hundreds more that the Ukrainians claim. The fact is, no matter who you believe, this is considered to be the most deadly single attack in the last several months by either side, maybe even since the beginning of the war. And that's why we've seen a fresh round of criticism from everywhere within Russia, all the way up from the top ranks in Moscow, all the way down to those Russian backed officials in the Donbass region where this hit occurred. Because you mentioned, you know, those errors that it seemed like were committed by the soldiers who were there, by the senior officers who were instructing them to stay in those makeshift barracks. We heard from the Russians in a rare admission that it was probably the cell phones that the soldiers were using to call home on New Year's Eve that gave away their position.

That is just a rookie military error. And that's why we're hearing from everybody, as I mentioned, that they're calling for blood. They want to see the officers who were responsible for this, for putting those soldiers in such a vulnerable position, investigated and punished. But amidst all of this, I want to mention something, a little bit of a side point here. There has been a rise of the Wagner Group, and this is led by a man whose name I think you've probably heard before, Yevgeny Prigogin. And he is one of Putin's closest confidants. And all throughout this past week, he has really been raising in profile because it's the Wagner Group, that private military contractor financed by the Russians, financed by Prigogine himself, that has done the

bulk of the fighting, the most successful fighting on the front lines, not the Russian military. And this incident just goes to show once again that the Russian military is still battling with its own incompetence within the ranks. Meanwhile, Prigogine, while Vladimir Putin was giving his New Year's address from a base far beyond the front lines, Prigogine was on the front lines delivering a New Year's address to his private soldiers that a lot of people in the military and a lot of the bloggers and commentators, pro-Russian nationalists who have connections to the military, really applauded. So this man is rising up where Vladimir Putin and his military and his leaders are failing. But this also just goes to show another interesting dynamic here, one we didn't really need to see proof for, the effectiveness of U.S. and Western-provided

weapons all across the front lines and even on the home front. This attack was done by a HIMARS missile system. That's a surface-to-surface missile system, satellite-guided, provided just a couple of months ago by the U.S. And the Ukrainians have been using it to devastating effect. And this is just the latest example. Now, closer to home, they've been using NASAMs to shoot down the drones that have been flying over Pelton, Kiev, and the rest of the country. I spoke with a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, and he just told me that the NASAMs and other German weapons and Western weapons have been devastatingly effective.

But this begs the question, can Russia keep up the pace of these aerial bombardments far from the front line? Here's what he told me. Do you think that the Russians could run out of missiles, run out of drones? On the drones, it depends on how many Iran would be able to supply to Russia, and how strong Western sanctions would be in reducing that supply. On the missiles, we see from military intelligence data that now Russians are using their untouched SPAS,

and that they are also running out of ballistic missiles. We've seen recently they are now firing and striking Ukraine with quite fresh missiles that were produced in September and in the summer. We heard we heard from Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, last night. He said that Ukrainians should be prepared for an extended, prolonged attack by these Iranian made drones. Mika. NBC's Matt Bradley reporting for us live from Kiev. Thank you very much, Willie. Let's bring in the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass. He's out with his 10 predictions for the new year titled What in the World Will Happen in 2023? And first off, Richard, on your list

is the war in Ukraine will remain the dominant issue of 2022, albeit, you say, at a less intense level. We can talk big picture about the war, which next month, the end of next month, will reach its one year mark. What do you see in this attack using the HIMAR, American supplied HIMAR, so deep into Donetsk and killing those Russian soldiers. What does that tell you about the state of play in the war? Basically, Ukraine is winning the battle between the militaries. Russia is fighting a separate war against Ukrainian society. My sense, Willie, is this goes on.

If I were a betting man, I would think this is the pattern we see. I don't think either side could sustain a great intensity. And I don't see the diplomats having much to work with. I don't think either side at the moment is ready to make the sort of compromises that peace normally does. Ukraine basically sees no reason to compromise. They're doing better militarily. They don't see any reason to give up territory. Putin obviously would worry the compromise would make him weak at home. So I hate to say it, but my prediction is this war simply goes on. A lot of people, experts have said now because of the success of the Ukrainian

military, increasing desperation of Vladimir Putin, that they will get more violent, that Russia will use these Iranian drones and hit infrastructure as they've been doing, killing civilians as they've been doing. But to step that up even, do you think things get a little worse here before they get better? They could get worse before they get worse. That's, again, the only Russian tactic that we see. They don't want to have military on military. They've lost that now for 10 straight months. So yeah, but there's zero evidence that it's breaking the will of Ukrainian society. If anything, as we learned during World War II, those kinds of indiscriminate attacks tend to strengthen the cohesion of society. So I don't think the Russians have a winning

strategy here whatsoever. So so, Richard, help me out here. I don't again, I don't get it. I don't understand what what's in this for Vladimir Putin. He obviously made a terrible mistake going in. It's not going to get any better for him. He's got a GDP that is smaller than the state of Texas. State of Texas has about makes about GDP of about two trillion dollars. He's at one point six. And there's no reason to believe it's not going to go down even more. I mean, so economically, he's degraded. Militarily, he's degraded. Politically, he's degraded.

There is no upside to him continuing this battle. Is he not still in a position where he can declare victory and move on? I'd say two things, Joe. One is he's not persuaded yet that time is not his friend. He looks at some of the splits within Europe. He looks at what's happened here in the United States with Republicans taking the House. He's not persuaded yet the Ukraine has the strength

to withstand these attacks. So one is he still believes, he's banking. Whatever chips he's had, He's moved them into the box that says time is on our side. I can sustain this war better than the other side. I don't think that's right. But that right now is almost the only game he has to play. And again, I think he's worried that if he shows compromise, if he does what you suggest, that he basically sues for peace and compromises, that this will be taken as a sign of weakness. And exactly some of these forces, the Wagner Group and others,

the threat to Putin is not from the left in Russia. It's from the right. It's from the forces that he has empowered. And I think he's worried that any compromise on his war aims will invite domestic challenge to him as well. So, Richard, we know the war is being watched carefully in Beijing. And so as you look ahead to 2023, give us a little tour of Asia, what you see, the major storylines, China, but also Japan and North Korea. I'd say China has its hands full dealing with COVID, dealing with a much slower economy, dealing with drought and so forth. So if I were a betting man, I would think it's unlikely that in 2023, China is going to use military force against Taiwan. I wouldn't rule it out in two, three, four, five years. I still think China wants to bring Taiwan in. I still think China has not ruled out military force. I just don't believe they're ready for it as yet. They couldn't

take, for example, the risk of sanctions against where their economy is now. So that's my sense there. North Korea, I think the odds are we may well see a seventh nuclear test. They continue to do the missiles. I think at some point, that's the only thing they've got. It's almost station identification for North Korea. What I think, though, is the sleeper issue in Asia. The most interesting one is Japan. What we are seeing is the emergence of a real growing power, economically, politically, but also now militarily. Japan has one of the world's largest militaries. They're doubling defense spending. And politically,

they're more prepared to use it. Now they see Taiwan as central to Japanese defense. So I think you're going to see a much more forward-leaning Japan, much more willing to do things militarily with the United States in terms of worrying about what China's doing. That's a big, big change in geopolitics in the region and the world. Even with all that, Richard, you say the dominant issue of 2023 will be Iran because of the pressure we're seeing in the streets on the leadership. There's the two factions that you describe, one who say we need to compromise with the young people in the streets.

Others say we need to arrest them. How does this play out in 2023? Look, I think there's a growing split within the Iranian establishment about how to how to do just this. It's against the backdrop of an aging leadership, which tends to immobilize things. Plus, Willie, you got the nuclear program continuing to advance. I actually bet that there are people in Iran who wouldn't mind the Israelis or the Americans or someone attacking the nuclear program for hopes then that they could go to the protesters. You got to stop. It's unpatriotic. We're being attacked by outside forces. So my sense is they are getting a bit desperate there. The economy is a shambles in Iran. The currency is not even good for wallpaper

anymore. So I think for Iran, here we are, you know, what, 40, 43, what, three, do the math, 40, 43, 44 years after the revolution. Yeah. Yeah. In 2023. I think for the first time, the Islamic revolution is in doubt. I think it's shaky. I can't yet say there is at the point of regime change or systemic change. But I don't think it's crazy now to begin to have this conversation. I think these protests are not going away. And the day will come when one group of security forces won't kill protesters. And what happens then? What happens? Do they go over? Do other security forces take them on? That'll be the interesting day. And I bet that day comes sometime this year. A lot to watch in 2023. Richard Haass, thanks so much. We'll talk to you again very soon.