Morning Joe - Morning Joe 1/5/23

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

House Republicans quit for the day after McCarthy loses sixth speaker vote

It's embarrassing for the country. I mean, literally, I'm not making a part of this reality that, you know, to be able to have a Congress that can't function is just embarrassing. We're the greatest nation in the world. How can that be? And the Republican Party looks like an embarrassment. Why do you think that in the 20, the 20 that are doing this, they have done a good job. They need to keep talking and then they need to do what every single successful person does. You take your deal, you take your win, you take your victory lap and let's move on and let's get on with this.

Wow. Rare agreement between President Biden and Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, both labeling the mutiny among the House Republicans as embarrassing. This morning, there is still no speaker of the House. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, January 5th, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany, White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein, the founder of the conservative Web site, the bulwark, Charlie Sykes and the host of way too early White House beer chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. So still no speaker. I feel like what we saw yesterday and we'll talk more about this and show some of the members of Congress speaking on the floor. But we're beginning to really see Trump's irrelevance play out with even some of the staunchest Trumpers kind of blowing them off. But secondly, no speaker, no swearing ins, no House right now.

Is is it beyond embarrassing? Is there a danger to this? No. I mean, there's a danger for the Republican Party. And it really underlines what a lot of people already thought about the Republican Party, the most important voters in America, the swing voters, the independents, the Republicans, former Republicans in suburbs and places like Atlanta and around Philadelphia, people that were Republicans their whole life who said this party's whacked out. I can't vote for them anymore. They really are surrounded by, you know, insurrectionists, weirdos and freaks. And so this underlines it. So there's a great danger for Republicans. As far as the rest of the country goes, this too will pass. As my mother always said, you know, there have been some House, U.S. House sessions that have started, like, for instance, in the 70s and the 80s would start in the middle of January. There have been some even this decade that I think started in, you know, the 8th, the 9th, the 10th. It's early in January. That's not the problem. I will say I spoke

with a foreign leader yesterday who said, what in the world is going on? I said, baby, this is democracy. You don't have to worry about it where you are, but we worry about it. And this actually works. It's messy, but it's one of the reasons that we've survived for 230, 240 years. Sometimes it gets ugly, but we air our grievances in public and very transparent. And this is this is good. I think, Willie, I I think this is good for Americans to see. There's there's no there's no harm for Americans. There's no harm for American democracy. Now, let's be very clear about it. When you have the Wall Street Journal editorial page leading for a second day criticizing these Republicans, these insurrectionists and others,

saying who's crazy enough to be speaker, and they're writing, the problem with any GOP leader facing today is that too many Republicans don't really want to hold and keep political power. They're much more comfortable in opposition of the minority, which is easier because no hard decisions or compromises are necessary. You can rage against the swamp

without having to fix it. Now, that is an overgeneralization. There are some members that are interested in some pretty significant rule changes. We'll be talking to some of those throughout the day. But still, this is not bad for America in the long run, but certainly damaging to the Republican brand. Yeah. And a few things strike you. We are exactly this morning where we were when we sat here yesterday morning at 6 a.m., which is nowhere, which is three more votes, three more times. Kevin McCarthy didn't clear

the 218 hurdle. He's negotiating behind the scenes. It also strikes you now how spilling out into public is the disdain and the contempt that some members of the Republican caucus have for these 20 others and apparently have had for some time. You have someone like Congressman Dan Crenshaw of Texas calling them losers and enemies and clowns and everything else and saying they are making us look bad in public. And then, as Mika referred to earlier, the influence of Donald Trump is just not there. It's background noise at this point. Wow. He's putting out statements on his down market social media site, trying to exert some influence. You have people like Lauren Boebert going on and saying, yes, he's my favorite president, but I don't care what he says right now.

I'm not voting for Kevin McCarthy. So that there is a lot. There is a lot at play here right now. You know, Willie, it's interesting that yesterday when Jonathan Lemire gave us the information that and by the way, we're going to talk to Jonathan about the Devers signing a boss and finally something for he and Barnacle to smile about. Barnacle said he could finally sleep last night. But but yesterday when Jonathan gave us the breaking news that Donald Trump had just posted on Truth Social that that people should support McCarthy. Let's take the win. Let's move forward. I will say you're proving once again that I'm always wrong after I'm always wrong about Donald Trump, proving that once again, when Carville said, oh, it's not going to make any

difference at all. He done. He cooked a turkey. I was like, well, I'm not so sure about that. And sure enough, I mean, Lauren Boebert goes on the floor and basically says, no, I'm not going to listen to you. Other of the most MAGA members actually tweeting things that mock Donald Trump. This is, and again, and we'll talk to Charlie about this in a second, because Charlie knows this. This doesn't just happen in a vacuum. It's not like Lauren Boebert and these other Republicans said, well, today I am going to show courage and I'm going to separate myself from Donald Trump regardless of what my voters think. No, this is happening because the voters aren't calling saying like they did in the past.

You follow Donald Trump. Willie, those calls are not coming because Republican rank and file members at the end understand it is Donald Trump that has put them in this place. Yeah. And some of the members, like you just said, who have been the most loyal to Donald Trump, his foot soldiers pushing every conspiracy theory he wanted pushed, going along for the ride,

tweeting back at him and saying, sad was the quote from one member to Donald Trump about his lack of influence on this process. He has really been pushed to the wayside, Jonathan Lemire, in this instance anyway. It doesn't mean he doesn't have influence on the party, but they're just not listening to him. He has said now more clearly than he said a couple of days ago, Kevin McCarthy's the guy. Some of these other people you're talking about will have their day, but it's not now. Vote for Kevin. And now six times those 1920 members have gone out and said,

we're not doing it. Yeah, a couple Republicans I spoke to last night were really struck. They think this is the first time that the word loser is being attached to Trump. As Joe has details frequently, he's on a losing streak in terms of elections. But it's this one, the 2022 midterms, is the first time where he's really being blamed. Like, you cost us stuff because it was your candidates who have gone down to defeat the chaos you created. And his evolution here is interesting on McCarthy, where McCarthy begged for his forgiveness after January 6th. Trump kind of dangled the endorsement in front of him for a while, finally came in, but sort of, you know, lukewarm. But in recent weeks, picked it up, was on the phone saying McCarthy should be our guy. And then yesterday with that Truth Social post, very down market,

saying, look, he should be speaker. It's time to take the win, set aside the fighting. But even by last night, he posted again. He said to Republicans, look, we need to come to a deal. But he didn't talk about McCarthy. So, again, he seems to be backing off a little bit here, afraid perhaps of being associated with another failed effort, even as McCarthy's allies think they are making progress. It's been a debacle and Trump's contributed to it. And it shows, at least for the moment, his grip on the Republican Party, even among his most fervent acolytes, has weakened. And Charlie Sykes, talk about that, if you will. Again, it used to be that a call from Donald Trump, a tweet from Donald Trump would send Republican members scurrying, people that

were afraid of their own shadows, some who are now acting tough, tweeting back at him, put their, as Rush Limbaugh would say, manhood in a lockbox for six years for Donald Trump. Now they're puffing up their chests and tweeting back at him, which is, of course, very, very funny indeed. No, this is really extraordinary. When you listen to Lauren Boebert, look, Donald Trump is not irrelevant. He's but he's clearly and rather dramatically diminished. He still has the power to destroy, but apparently he did not have the power to save Kevin McCarthy. And I think that was on display yesterday. Look, what Lauren Boebert and the other insurrectionists understand is that with Donald Trump, there are red lines. You cannot

cross them. You can't say that he, you know, he lost the election. But apparently, despite this full-throated support for Kevin McCarthy, this is not a red line for Donald Trump and they feel free to go their own way. Now, look, Kevin McCarthy can still pull this out. Apparently, he's continuing his his surrender tour. He has put it, you know, virtually everything in a lock box right now. I mean, he's given up everything. He's basically said, look, you know, I will be a complete hostage to every crazy in my caucus. And there are a lot of crazies in the caucus on both sides of this particular issue. But the chaos is going to continue. This Congress will continue the way it began. Whoever becomes speaker will be the mayor of crazy town. Donald Trump will continue to throw his weight around. But this is a remarkable

moment. As Jonathan said, you know, the one thing that Donald Trump fears the most is to be considered a loser. And that label is sticking to him. And he also fears being irrelevant. And that was really on display yesterday. Well, and of course, he was the biggest loser during the 2022 election cycle. He tried to spin it as a win, but as only Trump can do, he then stepped on his own lead by then blaming pro-life Republicans for the loss. So, yeah, that's which, again, probably not the best move. And then follow that up with an endorsement of Kevin McCarthy, which, of course, is going to amount most likely to another loss.

Certainly he lost control over some of the most MAGA inspired members. And Sam Stein, you have some new polls out today that that suggest his support inside the Republican Party is slipping from pretty high heights. Yeah, I mean, it just, it's numerically underscores exactly what we're talking about. Morning Council poll looks at favorable opinions of Trump. You can see on the screen there, dipping significantly since December 28th, that's down eight points. This is just among Republican voters. The unfavorability up similarly by eight points. I mean, people might look at that and say, oh, 76-23, not so bad. When you're supposed to be the primary figure, the leader of the Republican Party,

having a quarter of your party have an unfavorable view of you is not so great, actually. It doesn't mean that Trump's powerless. He clearly still would have to be one of the favorites to win the Republican nomination. But what I'm struck by, and this word has been used a couple times now, is just the diminished element of his stature here. He's in Mar-a-Lago. He doesn't really do anything in public anymore. He launched a presidential campaign and then just kind of went quiet. I mean, the main thing that we know is he had dinner with the white nationalists and

Holocaust denier. He makes a few media appearances here and there. But the ubiquity of Trump was what was his power for some degree for a while, for many years. And that was both in the 2016 campaign and in the White House. Now that he doesn't have that ubiquity, I think a lot of these members don't feel any pressure to bow to his interests. Now, we did talk, I'll just be quick here. Our colleague Meredith McGraw at Politico did talk to people in his orbit about why he's not going in fuller for McCarthy. And to your point, I think he's a little gun shy. They don't want to come out too forceful for someone who may not end up winning the speakership and look like they've endorsed someone again who falls short. And they say, look, he could go further in.

He could start attacking the 20 who are not for McCarthy and really put his weight behind this. But he's playing it safe for now. And I think that says a lot about his current status in the party. Well, and also, Mika, I've been hearing for the past several days he made calls to these members trying to move them. And it became very clear to him, became apparent in those phone calls that they weren't going to be moved. They weren't even going to be moved by his personal phone calls, his personal pleas. He put out the statement and then by that time realized that he just wasn't going to be persuasive getting these these members off of the protest. It's so interesting. And Sam was talking about the ubiquity of Trump.

I mean, back in the first campaign, he was everywhere. He was always holding rallies. He was always on television. And now, as you can see, we barely see him. And there's, you know, perhaps a mounting sense that he is just dealing with a lot of legal problems. There may be four or five different legal angles headed his way from the Department of Justice on down. And what we're seeing here play out before our eyes in the House is what Trump has done to the Republican Party. And you see them sort of feeling it in real time. They seem so out of sync and their messages and their zings just go nowhere. One member on the House floor talked about Obama's JV team in the White House and kind

of tried to make fun of the Biden White House. Well, cut to what the Biden White House was doing that day at that time. Joe Biden was in Kentucky shaking hands on stage with Mitch McConnell in a bipartisan event with several other Republicans and Democrats celebrating infrastructure, celebrating a bridge, which is such symbolism. And see that bridge. I mean, the bridge doesn't look like it was falling apart. They just did something for the people of Kentucky and the people of Ohio. And, you know, and and that's what's happening. You have a Republican, Democrat, Republican, Republican, Democrat. You know, it's it's really fascinating.

I think if if it's a member I'm thinking of, she also accused the Democrats of drinking alcohol. Just it just just bizarre petty, which also, again, in the in the new era that we're in, seemed so petty and so discordant with everything that's going on. Can you imagine being a Republican talking about rules changes, talking about transparency, talking about 70 and then sort of this Trumpist type insult that again, the split screen could have been more important. You talk about the JV team are the people that the Wall Street Journal and other conservative outlets and Fox News have been attacking. Who's crazy enough to be speaker is the question the Wall Street Journal asks today. And the JV team is actually on the House floor right now. It absolutely is. Holding up everybody else.

So let's go to Capitol Hill. Jackie Alemania standing by and let's talk about what is going to happen today. Do we have any idea in terms of deals that are being made or votes that are going to be had? What's on tap, Jackie? Yeah, Mika, well, last night, as we were waiting outside of Congressman Tom Emmer's office, there was a meeting between these hardline Republicans who have been very much in the never Kevin Camp, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Chip Roy, Scott Perry, who were meeting with people like Brian Fitzpatrick and Patrick McHenry and a handful of moderates and allies of Kevin McCarthy,

along with McCarthy himself. And they were trying to hash out some sort of compromise to overcome this stalemate. Emerging from this meeting, Chip Roy and Scott Perry appeared to be more open to a deal and seemed to soften their approach to McCarthy and said that there was tremendous progress that was made. And while a vote did not happen last night, per se, and that McCarthy didn't make it over the finish line and might not make it over the finish line again today, that the talks were constructive. But there are still this handful of five members who are really dug in and are never Kevin forever. Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Bob Good. But it is notable that now you're seeing people like Scott Perry and Chip Roy who are trying to get there, who, you know,

have spent the last few days maybe making some some progress in these can get obtaining some of these concessions, which we've reported now that McCarthy is open to lowering the threshold to start a motion to vacate to one member. This means that it would only require one member to object to McCarthy's speakership to prompt a vote on the House floor so that this chaos that we've been seeing this week, we could see a lot more of it if Kevin McCarthy does ultimately become the speaker. These members also might now have more slots on the powerful House Rules Committee so they could dictate the processes and the way that some of what we're seeing happen in Congress actually happens. But I think today we could finally see the other side bite back a little bit from McCarthy.

These moderates have been vehemently against lowering the threshold for the motion to vacate. They know how chaotic it could be. So I'm very curious to see. I think we're going to have a couple of more iterations of these ballots with McCarthy failing. And I'm curious to see if moderates actually now are objecting because they do not want these rules to cause such dysfunction. You're right, Jackie. It appears McCarthy's given up even a little bit more overnight. NBC News has learned Kevin McCarthy has offered up a series of new conditions to the House rules package and organizing structure, hoping to win over some of those extreme right wing members who remain opposed to him becoming speaker,

even though they've said they would never vote for him. Specifically here, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of McCarthy's leading opponents, says McCarthy has agreed to one of the primary requests of that group. As Jackie mentioned, one is a provision that would allow any one member, a single member of the House, to call for a vote to remove the speaker at any time. That, of course, is a risky concession for McCarthy because it could lead to a scenario where he constantly would be thrown into a position where his leadership could be challenged. Congressman Gates said McCarthy also has agreed to place Freedom Caucus members

on key committees like the Rules Committee, which controls all traffic to the floor of the House. Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a McCarthy ally, has been part of these negotiations, and he confirms to NBC News McCarthy has offered a series of concessions to the group, but refused to comment on the specifics. But after all of that, Congressman Gates says, while he's happy with those concessions, it is still likely negotiate with these people. It's what we keep saying. You can't negotiate with them. Are they you turn the plane over to them, Willie?

They're flying the plane for the next two years. You don't let them in the door like you can't. You can negotiate with somebody like Chip Roy. He's talking about transparency. He's talking about give us the bills, those big fat bills where you're spending billions of dollars and you give us five minutes to vote yes or no. Give us those bills. Let us look at those bills for 72 hours. We get a chance. I mean, I've been in that position and and leadership just shoves stuff down your throat because there's a lot of junk in there that they know you'll vote against. That's reasonable and rational. But there are five people have said they're never going to vote for him. So why is Kevin making those concessions? And listen to what I just reported. Kevin McCarthy

has agreed to one member raising his or her hand and saying, we want you out of here. He's basically given up his position. And still, after all that, Matt Gaetz told NBC News, I don't trust him. So he doesn't have my vote. Talking about Kevin McCarthy, we asked for a comment from McCarthy. He didn't respond. But I don't know. What do you do with these guys? If you're Kevin McCarthy, I guess he said we're going to be here. We're going to vote again. We're going to vote again. We're going to negotiate a little bit. But if they're saying we're not going anywhere, if you've totally given up the store to them, given them everything you could possibly give them, what do you do with them?

What do you do? I run them. I run them over. And I say to the 201 people that are still with me, here's the deal. You have a fundamental choice to make. You can stay with me, whether it's one in the morning or one in the afternoon, whether it's nine in the morning or nine at night, whether it's one day, one week or one month. You need to stay with me because we're going to have to roll these five people. If we don't, they're going to control our caucus for the next two years. And they're going to fly this conference and the entire Republican Party into the side of a cliff. And in so doing, they're going to help elect Joe Biden again in 2024. That's Kevin McCarthy's argument.

Don't make it about Kevin. It's not about me. Well, and that's the thing. And Charlie, I'm so glad you said that because that's another mistake that kept one of many mistakes that Kevin McCarthy's made. He's operated from a position of weakness for too long. And I will say when I was in, well, you know, Paul Ryan helped us start eons ago, a group called the New Federalists. I'm not sure who came up with that goofy name. I think I'm going to blame that on Sam Brownback. But if somebody said to us, I will do anything in the world to be Speaker of the House, we would immediately say, well, you're not going to get our votes because if it means that much to you, if it's about power and it's not about balancing the budget,

it's not about cutting taxes, it's not about balancing the budget. It's not about cutting taxes. It's not about cutting regulations. It's not about strengthening the country. It's not about making this country better and stronger and moving power to the states and the local, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If you're saying it's about you, we're not going to vote for you. And Kevin McCarthy, he has been obsessed with this for too long. And I know I know a lot of people say, hey, Washington, D.C., it's all about power and gaining power. But if you want to understand the mind of these people that are voting against him right now. Yeah, there's some insurrectionists and weirdos and freaks in there.

There are a lot of other people in there who actually believe what they say and say what they believe. And Kevin McCarthy, to them, seems to be a vacant, vacant member of Congress. Well, that's because he is. Look, I mean, the train has already left here. I mean, how pathetic is it that Kevin McCarthy is surrendering to the people that that on the one hand he is he's telling people are the crazies. Look, Joe, this is not a choice at this point between the crazies and the normies, between the bomb throwers and the grownups, because there are no grownups anymore. You know, whatever happens here, these folks are going to be in control. They are going to be piloting the plane to shift the transportation metaphor because Kevin McCarthy has made it clear that he is the ultimate

hollow man, that he will give up anything, that he will make any concession. And so one of the things we need to understand here is that in this in this Congress, I mean, this chaos is going to simply ramp up as a result of this because Paul Gosar can demand, you know, a vote on the speakership. Marjorie Taylor Greene will be empowered. George Santos is going to be empowered. So, you know, for the people who are saying, you know, these these 20 are, you know, the crazies. Well, look who Kevin McCarthy is relying upon and empowering. And if in some alternative universe he manages

to cut some deal, those GOP no votes, they're going to be back into the circle and they're going to be running the crazy town. John Boehner warned about this. It destroyed Paul Ryan. And now Kevin McCarthy is coming in and basically saying, I'm surrendering everything. I am I am taking my manhood and I am I am putting it in a lockbox and I'm giving the key to Lauren Boebert

and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert and that whole group of people here. So how do how do people think that this is going to work out in a positive way? And by the way, as much schadenfreude as we're all enjoying here, the real danger is that this scenario will play out again when it comes to things like raising the debt limit, the fundamental business of governing, because these folks are not interested in that. And this is going to leave a lot of scars. And I think we've seen the pattern of for the next two years. So, Jackie, as you approach another day waiting to see what's going to happen here, we've

got McCarthy projecting confidence, at least trying to saying, hey, the Club for Growth came around. They support me now. We cut a deal with them. He's smiling through these votes as he sits on the floor and loses six times now. Is the Republican caucus, is some of the leadership there prepared for the possibility that they may have to move on from Kevin McCarthy and find someone else? Like, where is this headed? What changes the dynamic here? Yeah, Willie, I've got to say, I'm I still feel like and based on everything that we've seen this week, there is no alternative to McCarthy, no one who can actually win.

You know, even if Trump, for example, put out there another consensus candidate, I think that these hardliners are enjoying seeing McCarthy squirm and get as much out of this as they can. They also realize that if there is some sort of consensus candidate, they're not going to get these concessions. At the same time, a consensus candidate, I don't believe, can win this race. And so I think we're going to see this battle and just continue and see three more iterations of these failed ballots for McCarthy that potentially we saw yesterday. I mean, even members, people like Ken Buck and others, McCarthy allies, Pete Sessions, who have come out and said over the past few days, you know, McCarthy will get a few more tries, but then we need to try to pivot to someone else. They haven't suggested any alternatives. Not many people want this job. As you noted, there is going whoever gets this job at the end of the day is going to have a very difficult two years ahead of the road. They're

going to have a hard time legislating. And even if McCarthy gets it, there could potentially be, you know, attempts to oust him from this speakership every time the House comes to the floor for a vote. So we could have a breakthrough today, but we all this also could go through the weekend. And members, Democrats and Republicans, are very prepared for that scenario to happen. So I've heard Steve Scalise's name. And let me just say, from what I know of Steve Scalise, from what I've seen of Steve Scalise working, he's a guy that can work with Democrats, that is very personable with Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leaders is not it doesn't play the games of, oh, I have to be rude to actually get something done, at least in social settings, which, of course, is very important. I just got it, Charlie, one more time. I just got to go back to you, though. Just just let's just talk as two former Republicans. Let's just talk on just power politics, even if I and I see Ken Buck talking, going, well, maybe we need to move on.

I see other people, Pete Sessions, my good friend I worked with in a past life, Pete Sessions, say, well, maybe we need to move on. At this point, it's a matter of principle. Whether I like Kevin McCarthy or not, I can't let one tenth of the caucus win. I've got to stay with Kevin McCarthy through every vote. And then if I want to replace him after their run over, I'll replace. But they really are dealing with people. And forgive the analogy. I don't mean to be violent here. He's hijacking. And I'm going to say hostages. But there's no violence attached here. It's just it's just useful. We we've we use this, you know, when we're talking politics on the Hill or not.

But you can't let. Five people are 10 people hijack your caucus, because if you do, whether you like McCarthy or you can't just say, OK, well, they win. Let's move on to somebody else, because then they get their way. The 90 percent can't let the 10 percent get their way or else they're owned by them for the next two years. Well, they are owned by them. And the reality is this caucus already has been taken hostage. Look, I mean, keep in mind that, you know, one of the signature parts of a Kevin McCarthy speakership will be to empower Marjorie Taylor Greene and the QAnon caucus. So, you know, yeah, I agree with you. And obviously, this is the line that we're getting a lot of out of out of Washington. You know, you cannot allow, you know, the this this 10 percent to dictate what's going on here. But also you have the mathematical problem.

You know, they may say we have to stick with Kevin McCarthy. But if they but if there are those five no votes, what do you do? You can you can play this game for a very, very long time. But at some point you have to move on. Look, I mean, there are there are no good scenarios here. And I don't necessarily think that that having Kevin McCarthy on his knees making one surrender, one grovel after another to these folks is, you know, in order to get the speakership is somehow going to solve the problem. I mean, to a certain extent, we've already seen, you know, what this hostage situation looks like. And Kevin McCarthy may be one of the last people in Congress who is able to stand up against this hostage situation. And he has no interest in doing so. So I just I just again, I repeat myself to go back to to what John Boehner said. You know, this is the chaos caucus. He has he has empowered the chaos caucus. He's in bed with the chaos caucus. He's going to be the mayor of crazy town.

And, you know, Republicans are going to have to decide where they go. But again, they made this decision a long time ago. They decided that they were going to embrace these people. They were going to go along with these people. They were going to promote these people. And, you know, look, look, look where it got them. And the Wall Street Journal is like, well, where do these people come from? Well, where have you been the last seven years? Really? I mean, yeah. How did they not see this coming? And again, the lead editorial, who is crazy enough to be speaker? And it's a great question. And we'll see what happens.

Charlie Sykes, thank you for your analysis this morning in The Washington Post. Jackie Alimany, thank you as well for your reporting. We'll see you once again real soon. And still ahead on Morning Joe, much more on the speakership stalemate playing out on Capitol Hill. We'll be joined by two House Republicans who are united behind Kevin McCarthy. We'll also speak with a member of the Freedom Caucus who has voted against McCarthy during all six votes so far. We'll hear from him why. Also this morning, Buffalo Bills safety DeMar Hamlin is still in critical condition, but the team says he's showing signs of improvement.

We'll get an update on his health, and we'll be joined by a hockey Hall of Famer who went through a similar ordeal years ago. Chris Pronger suffered a cardiac event after getting hit in the chest with a puck. He'll be our guest later in the show. We'll be right back. There, the first thing he said was, I need to be at the hospital with Damar, and I shouldn't be coaching this game. And so that, to me, provides all the clarity, because there was no unprecedented is the word that gets thrown out a lot about this situation, because that's what it is. But in that moment, he really showed who he was, that all his focus

was just on Damar and being there for him, being there for his family at the hospital. And at that point, I think everybody, everything trended in the direction it needed to trend and the right decisions were made there. But again, just the way that I really felt Sean McDermott led in that moment for his players. He was there for his players. He processed the right way, which is incredibly difficult and really helped us get to the solution that we needed to get to. That is Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zach Taylor yesterday commending Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott for his actions Monday night after Bills safety DeMar Hamlin was taken off the field in an ambulance after suffering cardiac

arrest. Hamlin remains in critical condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center after his heart stopped during the game. There does appear to be some positive news regarding Hamlin's health. The Bills announced he showed signs of improvement Tuesday and overnight into yesterday, adding he's expected to remain under intensive care as his medical team continues to monitor and treat him.

Not a lot of specific there, but some hope at least. The team slowly returning to some normal football activity, holding meetings and a walkthrough yesterday, but did not hold any media availability. We haven't heard from the players yet. They are expected to resume regular practice today, ahead of this Sunday's scheduled matchup against the New England Patriots. The Bengals are scheduled to play Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens.

Meanwhile, the NFL is considering its options for rescheduling that Bills-Bengals game, though suspended Monday night. So far, no decision has been made, and this week's slate of games remain unchanged. Among the options is pushing back the start of the postseason by a week to complete the game, which would eliminate that bye week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. Other scenarios include playing the Bills-Bengals game and the NFC wildcard games on the same weekend and pushing the start of the AFC playoffs back by a week. Perhaps the simplest option, though, would be just not to finish the game at all, with playoff seating being determined by win percentage.

A lot of ways to go here, John. None of them are super easy. I mean, to push everything back by a week changes a lot. I mean, I don't think a lot of us would miss the bye week before the Super Bowl, but obviously focus completely on Hamlin here and his health. And again, we haven't heard a lot from the hospital. We haven't heard specifics from the Bills, just that he's improving steadily. And we hope that's echoed by his medical teams. Yeah. I mean, far less important, of course, is the schedule. I mean, they do have that flexibility.

Super Bowl is a fixed date. That's not going to move. But they have that bye week they could play with if needed. But there seem to be reports last night, momentum building, that they just probably wouldn't play this game. And they would hope that the week 18 slate would sort out the playoff picture. And this one would just be left aside unfinished. But of course, the real focus here is on Hamlin. That is good news. There's a lot of questions remaining about the blood and lack of oxygen perhaps his brain would have received during the moments after cardiac arrest while receiving CPR there on the field. We know that he received it a second time at the hospital when he arrived there at the medical center in Cincinnati, not too far from the field.

And then, of course, there's also, we haven't heard, Willie, as you said, we haven't heard from the Bills. And one still has to wonder, as their teammate and friend, their brother, still lies on a ventilator in the hospital, how are they going to be able to play a game this weekend? I mean, it's not just not finishing that Bengals game, but they have to play another one in just a few days on Sunday. And I would be at home and imagine that Buffalo crowd would be remarkable, but that would be still a very challenging moment. Yeah, absolutely. Sam Stein, I know you were watching this game very closely and as shocked as anyone was watching it all happen.

And we're seeing these scenes of the players kneeling here. It is hard to imagine a team being in a state of mind, even this Sunday, as John said, to go out and play a football game. While DeMar Hamlin lies in critical condition in Cincinnati. But that is the plan for now anyway. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't do it. It would be too much for me. Athletes have a way of compartmentalizing that I simply don't possess. But, you know, when the injury happened, my mind immediately went to Hank Gathers, the famous Loyola Marymount College basketball player, one of the best in the country, who collapsed on the court and died during his conference tournament. They canceled the rest of that tournament. Loyola Marymount went to the NCAA tournament as the top seed in their conference. They played in the NCAA tournament. They somehow managed to get it together and field their team and go out there

and play. They had an incredible run that year into the turning to the final eight, losing to UNLV, the eventual champion. So while I could never muster both the courage and the mental acuity to do something like that, it's not unprecedented. This is something that athletes have the ability to do. But I'm with you guys. It's just hard to see how you play a game knowing that someone who you've battled with week in and week out is still in an ICU with an uncertain future like that.

And Joe, I mean, you can imagine, of course, they're going to dedicate this game, the entire scene in Buffalo, I imagine, will be centered around DeMar Hamlin. And perhaps the guys, you've played sports, I've played sports. You kind of use this as a rallying cry. Let's go play for DeMar. Let's go win the game for DeMar. This is what he would want us to do. This is what we know how to do. Let's go do it. Yeah. Yeah. But no doubt a real heavy burden will be with not only members of the Bills, but also the Bengals, other people in the NFL. There's there's we we await news from the hospital and let's hope it's it's good news. But without that good news, there's no doubt there's just going to be a cloud hanging heavy over every player, over every coach, every every every member of every organization. As we move into a playoff, move into playoffs for a season,

that was an extraordinarily exciting season that a lot of fans were following. And this game itself was supposed to be one of the highlights of the season. Just like that, of course, everybody understands just how insignificant the game is itself. Absolutely. And coming up, Ron DeSantis launched his second term as Florida's governor this week, saying his state is a, quote, refuge from woke ideology and liberal positions on national issues. But is that really the reason we're seeing a substantial amount of wealthy New York residents moving south? Steve Ratner has charts to explain the migration.

Morning Joe, we'll be right back. For the last few years, as so many states in our country grinded their citizens down, we in Florida lifted our people up. When other states consigned their people's freedom to the dustbin, Florida stood strongly as freedom's linchpin. When the world lost its mind, when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue, Florida was a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom for our fellow Americans and even for people around the world. Well, you know, and really, of course, historians will remember over the past four years when the rest of the United States went the way of North Korea. But Iran DeSantis went the way of 17. What's he talking about? Freedom, the dust burn of his life. What's he talking about? Freedom, the dust, benefits.

Like, what's he talking? Like what? What idiots? Well, I won't ask what idiots actually believe that. But he's so in a little bubble. Like this is the Republicans problem. It's why they keep losing elections. They're in this little bubble. They're talking to each other. And for most Americans, when Ron DeSantis says, when the rest of the country consigned freedom to the dustbin of history, blah, blah, blah. What's he talking about? North Korea? Is he talking about Putin's Russia? Is he talking about Belarus? Oh, no, he's talking about California and Texas and Georgia and Kentucky. I mean, how weird. It's just again, it's just so bizarre. What an echo chamber these people live in. And it's it's it's mind boggling to me that they still haven't figured out. This is why they

keep losing elections. Let's go back to 2012. Mitt Romney's team. They only listened to Rush Limbaugh, watched Fox News and read the Drudge report and saw Gallup saying there were 11 points ahead and they believed it. They were in a bubble on election night. Everybody was running around Fox News and everybody in the Romney campaign going, well, this can't be right. I'm up by 11 points. No, you put yourself in a bubble. I sell like this. It just reinforced all of their preexisting notions. That's what's happened to this Republican Party since 2016. And so you have this speech. This is a guy that's got a chance to be next president of the United States. He doesn't have to act like a caricature of the Republican

Party, but he's still trying to own the libs when owning the libs ends up costing Republicans votes in election after election. Well, he received, Governor DeSantis received the ultimate reinforcement on election day with all these tactics when he won by almost 20 points. So he said, yeah, that worked for me in the state of Florida. I'm going to keep doing it. That was Governor DeSantis speaking at his second inaugural on Tuesday of this week. Good luck on taking that on the road. Well, that's right. It's just not going to work. It may not work outside of Florida. Joining us now, former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner.

Steve, good morning. It's good to see you. There is a connection here that people are fleeing the Northeast, places like New York, and moving south to places like Florida. Why are they doing it? Well, taxes are certainly up there. And we have some new tax data that's come out recently from the IRS. It takes us through 2020, but it'll give you a sense of what's been going on in terms of people who make over a million dollars and are filing tax returns across these various states.

And what you can see on the chart is that the blue line is New York. And you can see that New York share, our share, my share of millionaire filers has gone down over the last 10 years from roughly 13 percent to roughly 10 percent. And Florida's share, which is the red line, has gone up and has in fact met New York. So Florida now has as many people with a million dollars or more of income filing tax returns in their state, as New York has in theirs. The lines, in effect, have crossed. Those lighter lines are California. California has had a special benefit from the tech millionaires over this period. And then Texas, the lighter yellow line, has essentially mirrored Florida. But here's sort of what's really interesting on the right

side of the chart, which is what's happened to the average incomes of people who are filing in Florida versus in New York. And so you can see the blue line is New York. And these are our average incomes as a percent of the average in the country, which was roughly $3.1 million back in 2013, roughly $3.4 million now. And New York has always had millionaires who were wealthier than the average millionaire, roughly $3.9 million. But look at Florida. Look at that red line. Florida went from having average millionaires of $3.3 million a year of income back in 2013, all the way up to $4.4 million of income today.

So it shows you that the wealthiest people are moving to Florida, leaving New York and taking their high incomes with us. Why is this important? This is important because one percent of tax filers in New York, roughly 40,000 people in the city of New York, larger number in the state, pay 40 percent of New York's taxes. And if those people leave, that is a difficult situation for New York. So, Steve, let's go back. Can we put the chart back up again? And can you explain for me, Steve, what what what are we looking at on the left side again, the millionaire share? And is that top line California? The top line is California. They have the most millionaires of anybody in the country. This is simply what percent of millionaires in the country does each state have. And so so so let me ask you that. So California, which everybody calls a socialist paradise, they've got a lot of millionaires. What what what separates, let's say, California from New York, which now, by the these states that are struggling so badly and because they've all got high taxes.

My God, taxes in California are outrageous. If you're you know, you could be paying 55, 60 percent of your income to local, state, national taxes. So why is California remaining so high there? And how in the world do states like Illinois and New York and New Jersey that have such high taxes, how do they stop this money flight? So in California, again, it's really the tech millionaires. California does pretty much as much as New York or Illinois, the other states, to try to push people out by raising taxes. I'm going to show you that on the next slide. But they create so many millionaires that their share has remained high and indeed even growing somewhat. The solutions, and you can see that on this next chart. So let's look at the next chart. What you see on the left are the total tax burdens. Now,

people do pay, even in Florida, some kinds of taxes. They pay property taxes. They pay sales taxes. They pay some other taxes. So there is a tax burden in Florida and in Texas. And you can see over on the left that in Florida and Texas, that tax burden is around 8% of income. And it hasn't really moved over this period of time from 2019 to 2022. But you look over on the right and you see California and New York have both increased their taxes substantially

over this period. New York's tax burden has gone from 14% to 16% of average income. But look what happens on the right. Because of the nature of the taxes, because Florida's taxes are very regressive, everybody pays sales tax, everybody pays homeowners pay property tax. You can see in the red line that for the lowest income Floridians,

those are people in the bottom 20 percent, they pay about 12.7 percent of their income in these kinds of taxes. If you are in the top 1 percent in Florida, you pay 2.3 percent of your income in taxes. In contrast, if you look at the blue line, which is New York, you can see it's pretty stable. It's not progressive, but it's not regressive. New Yorkers pay about 11.3% of their income in taxes. So Florida, in effect, has a tax policy designed to reward millionaires for going there. And at the expense of, one could say, the people at the bottom who are paying higher shares of income than they are in New York. People in Florida at the bottom

pay a higher share of income than people in New York at the bottom. That's fascinating. Your final chart shows where people are going. You mentioned Florida and Texas. Also interesting. I wouldn't have guessed Idaho, Montana, places out west. So I can't answer all these questions, but I can I can tell you some things that are not going to be surprising given everything we just talked about. Now, this is 2020 to 2022. So we have population data for the last two years. We don't have income data yet. And what you can see, again, not surprisingly, California, Illinois, New York rank among the bottom five states in terms of outward migration, people leaving. Louisiana and West Virginia also in that category. I can't tell you exactly what's

going on in Louisiana. And then on the flip side, you have Florida and Texas ranking near the top in terms of picking up people. There's also and these are small numbers because they're small states. People seem to be going to places like Utah, Montana, South Dakota and so forth. But the big trend is obviously from those big three high tax states down to those lower tax states. And it is a very scary trend for those of us who live in New York. So the question is, Steve, what in Illinois has been an economic basket case for a year? Maybe it doesn't help that most of their governors get sent to jail. But what does Illinois do? What does New York do? Like conservatives like me, would you say, well, cut your taxes. You need to cut taxes. You need to be competitive with the other states. Of course, I say that understanding it's just not that simple because obviously you've got massive budgets in New York.

You have massive population in New York. We talk about a homeless problem in New York. We talk about the need for social programs for for a lot of people in need. So how does can that balance be struck? Or is New York doomed to continue losing residents to Florida and Texas and Idaho and Wyoming, et cetera, et cetera? In a theoretical world, sure, you could strike that balance. You could reform state and city government. Yes, we need to deal with the problems of the homeless and we and we do provide a much better social safety net than many of the other states. And

I'm proud of that as a New Yorker. But you also have to be realistic. We live in a competitive world and people are going to move around and live in places in part based on their taxes. And we have been increasing our taxes, whereas, as I said, states like Florida have not been. And so we spend in New York vastly more per resident than do almost any other state in the country. And it may well be that the time has come for a harsher, tougher look at where we spend our money. Unfortunately, it's moving against us right now. You have a veto proof majority in the state assembly and the state Senate, a very, very progressive Democrats. So even Governor Hochul, whatever her intentions might be, really can't do much about it. And what at some point it gets so bad that there has to be a fix. But right now we are still heading in the wrong direction.

Yeah. And just confirming, we really we showed Ron DeSantis at the beginning. This trend, it doesn't have anything to do with Ron DeSantis. This trend has been going for a very long time. It was expedited during covid, Steve, was it not? When people realized they didn't have to live in Manhattan and work in an office building in Manhattan? They could go to Texas or Florida or Idaho. And and for a lot of their jobs, they could work there, pay, pay less in taxes and live a better life, live a better life. Yeah. And I was only able to show you tax data through 2020, the one that just came out now. When we get the tax data for 2021 and 2022, I'll make this prediction on air so you can go find the tape if I'm wrong.

I think the data is going to be even worse. Oh, yeah. I totally agree. Steve Ratner, thank you very much.