Morning Joe - Morning Joe 1/9/23

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

400 arrested as supporters of ex-President Bolsonaro storm Brazil government buildings

I want to provide an update on our ongoing efforts to expose the tremendous voter fraud and irregularities which took place. There is really strong evidence that something happened, that something was changed in the transmission or inside. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It's all converging. And now we're on, as they say, the point of attack. Right. The point of attack tomorrow. It's all converging. And now we're on, as they say, the point of attack, right? The point of attack tomorrow. Look in the streets of Brazil. Look at the great patriots in Brazil that had a lot of danger to themselves have come forward in the streets of Brazil. A corrupt president, the forces of fascism and the mobs that believe the lies. This morning, we're following fast moving developments out of Brazil, where police have arrested hundreds who attacked the presidential palace and Congress.

We'll have the latest on the unrest there and how these riots were inspired by the January 6th insurrection. And in Washington, D.C., Kevin McCarthy starts his term as Speaker of the House after a week of chaos and failed votes on the House floor. We'll take a look at the concessions he made to finally secure the position he has sought for years. Also had the latest from President Joe Biden's first visit to the border since taking office as he faces more pressure to address the humanitarian crisis there. Plus, we will break down the NFL playoff matchups following a wild final week in the regular season, including the emotional and thrilling game in Buffalo with the Bills returning to the field for the first time since DeMar

Hamlin's collapse. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, January 9th. Good to have you with us. Also with us, we have former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye, the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, and former CIA officer Mark Polymeropoulos. He's an NBC News security and intelligence analyst. And Jonathan Lemire, we're going to get to the NFL in a little bit. We're going to talk about the Patriots not making the playoffs. Didn't really deserve it, though. They looked good for a while. Mac looked good for a little while.

But we'll also talk about perhaps the worst game ever played in the history of the NFL. We speak, of course, of the Dolphins and the Jets. It was a truly miserable, horrible game. And it is shocking. It shocks the conscience of America that a team from that game could actually make it into the NFL playoffs. But they did. Yeah, it's another constitutional crisis that we have to deal with today, Joe, that a team could win 11 to 6 with their third string quarterback being unable to do anything on offense and yet still get a playoff berth.

And I know we'll spend more time on it later, but those scenes out of Buffalo yesterday, Joe, were so spectacular. Look, as a Patriots fan, even I got goosebumps when the Bills ran back that opening kickoff in tribute to DeMar Hamlin, who's doing so much better after a seemingly near death, not even a week ago. Really inspiring stuff. And I know we'll spend more time on it later. Well, you hear a lot of people say at times if they'd written this script. In Hollywood, nobody would have believed it. You can say that safely.

Nobody would have believed it after the hellacious ups and downs the Bills went through this past week to get great news from their teammate and then run the opening kickoff back for a touchdown. Yeah, pretty unbelievable. It was amazing. And we'll have more on all of that ahead. But first, we start with the developing news this morning out of Brazil, where yesterday, thousands of supporters of the nation's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, breached multiple government buildings. Video shows the moment's rioters stormed Brazil's presidential office building, the nation's Congress and Supreme Court in the capital of Brasilia. The chaos comes one week after the inauguration of President Lula da Silva,

but falling on a day where there was no official proceeding taking place. The presidential election had already been certified and neither the nation's Congress nor its Supreme Court were in session at the time of the riots. By 5 p.m. yesterday, riot police and security were able to retake the Supreme Court and the presidential palace was retaken about an hour later. The Washington Post reports a visibly angered Lula addressed the nation yesterday evening, condemning the invaders as fascists and blamed Bolsonaro for encouraging the attacks by repeatedly questioning the integrity of the electoral process. The region's governor says more than 400 of the rioters have already been arrested.

Video shows those detained being loaded into buses and driven away by police. So you notice some similarities? Yeah. I mean, you look at the similarities in the riots in Brazil and the January 6th attacks. Yeah. Not a coincidence. Not a coincidence. Not at all. Throughout his campaign, Bolsonaro pushed misinformation about election security to his supporters. He repeatedly claimed that Brazil's electronic voting machines were prone to fraud. Where did he get that from? No evidence to support his unfounded claims. Where did he get that from? The strategy mirrors what Donald Trump and his allies did following the 2020 election. Some of Trump's allies were also involved in spreading lies about the election in Brazil

and have been advising Bolsonaro and his son. Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo, who is a congressman in Brazil and was in Washington during the January 6th attack on the Capitol, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago after his father lost October's election. The Washington Post reported he was also strategizing with Steve Bannon

and former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller. In late November, Eduardo Bolsonaro tweeted this video of Bannon speaking at CPAC Mexico. Look in the streets of Brazil. Look at the great patriots in Brazil that had a lot of danger to themselves, have come forward in the streets of Brazil. And quite frankly, as much as I love the Bolsonaros, and Eduardo, I think, is going to speak tomorrow, there's no better man on this globe than Eduardo Bolsonaro or his father. In Brazil, it's gone beyond the Bolsonaros. This is the people saying, no, you didn't follow the Constitution. You use these machines,

use the judiciary to shut us down in the media, and we're not gonna tolerate it. It's gonna be very interesting to see how that plays out. Same in the United States. The people like Kerry Lake are not gonna give up. And I use as a warning in the great fight that you guys have in front of you both for the cultural issues for the political issues and the economic issues once they start taking and digitizing the elections once they start going to machines where you can't get paper ballot you don't have proof of id you take it away from the precincts and they start to centralize it in collection centers that's all done for one reason. That's to consistently steal elections because they know they don't

have the backing of the people. Last night, Bannon posted on social media, quote, Lula stole the elections. Brazilians know this. He's been talking about Brazil for months, pushing conspiracies and calling for Bolsonaro and his supporters to not accept the results of the election. You got to start in Brazil with the Bolsonaros and the fight for freedom and the fight for sovereignty. The criminal Lula, the international criminal Lula, the partner of the Chinese Communist Party, is on the cusp with the aid and assistance of the United States government and national security apparatus who brag about, you know, CIA going down there in the summer, warning the Bolsonaro's.

All right. Enough, enough. We get the idea. We get the point. Trump's not comment on the riots in Brazil, but he expressed his support for this thug several times. He took credit for helping him reach the runoff in the presidential election. Jimmy Raskin of Maryland made a direct comparison between what's happening in Brazil and Donald Trump supporters tweeting apart these fascists modeling themselves after Trump's January 6th writers must end up in the same place, prison. And Michael Steele, this is this is well, first of all, if you're if you're in Brazil and you see fascists trying to undermine democracy in Brazil, you could be forgiven for asking, wait, how does this guy keep getting arrested? How does this guy keep getting convicted? How does this guy keep getting sentenced?

And how does this guy keep like out of jail to to export fascism and the undermining of democracy? That's that's part one of it. But part two is and I know I know you'll share my feelings as, for me, a former Republican, but we used to be the people that praised Ronald Reagan for talking about exporting democracy, for calling the Soviet Union an evil empire. And while everybody freaked out in the West while he was saying that, we heard after the Iron Curtain fell that people were whispering, you know, from prison cell to prison cell in the gulags. There is hope. There is a president who understands what what's going on. And we have a chance to be liberated. That's where we used to be. Now we actually, after 240 years of exporting democracy from this country, Jeffersonian democracy from this country around the world, we're now, through Donald Trump, we've got people exporting fascism, election denialism, hatred of the press, hatred of the courts, all the things that Bannon was saying

right there and that that the people of Brazil picked up on. Yeah, what you heard there was a lot of projection about the processes of election from from a guy who was very much a part of fomenting insurrection here. Look, they're packaging this stuff. We've seen it. We've seen it extended to organizations like CPAC, where they're now going out globally, holding these big events to further instigate and install this mindset. In fact, to be honest, Joe, I was surprised that what we're witnessing now in Brazil did not happen last fall after the election. I thought that there was a coordination that would lead up to when that election was called, this type of rioting, very similar to what we saw on January 6th. But you see now the pattern. You see now

laying down the predicate that elections, democracy, the process cannot be trusted. And you feed this into a very narrow funnel of thinking to people who, in large measure, aren't connected in. I'd be very curious how many of those folks actually participated and thought that, oh, gee, I'm going to be going to jail today for this cause. Folks get riled up. These folks sit back and know it. And you're now beginning to see this and look forward to metastasize elsewhere, which, to Jamie Raskin's point, is important that global democracies

and governments come together and nip this in the bud because this can get progressively worse fast. Well, and let's be very clear about what you say CPAC and other pro-Trump organizations are promoting. This is fascism. This is the use of violence to undermine democratic outcomes.

That's why CPAC goes to Mexico and has Steve Bannon give instructions to the fascists in Brazil about how to overturn a democratic election, how to overturn a democratic government. It's why they go to Hungary, where you have Orban in Hungary bragging about the fact that they hate liberal democracy, that they've moved away from liberal democracy, from Western style democracy. This is there are a group of fascists in America. And I mean, if you're if you feel like your job is to overthrow Democratic elections through the use of violence and I can't call you a fascist, then just redefine the term fascist and we'll get a better term for you, whatever it is. It's anti-democratic. And they're trying to they tried it in the United States and they failed. And now they've tried it in Brazil.

And this was predicted for months. This was not a surprise. People said that Trump's, people around Trump and Team Trump were promoting a fascist overthrow of the government down there. Violent insurrections against a democratic election. And it happened. Quite a message the Trump presidency is sending to the world. Katie Kay, your thoughts on what we are witnessing now in Brazil and reaction from around the world? Yeah, I mean, there has been obviously widespread condemnation, including from people like Georgia Maloney, who was elected on a kind

of quasi-fascist platform, neo-Nazi platform in Italy. So, you know, that is good news. There's been a lot of global response and an outrage at what is happening in Brazil. But I do think you're right. The story is January the 6th here in Washington, D.C. and Brazil and the meddling of people like Steve Bannon, who chooses those countries very carefully. He chooses to go after Viktor Orban in Hungary, a country with a not very long history of democracy after the Cold War. He chooses to go to somewhere like Brazil and speaks it. He's almost become kind of obsessed with Brazil on his talk show recently, a country that also had a military dictatorship for 20 years. I'm old

enough to remember when that ended in the mid 1980s. It is not that long ago and could slip back into that. And the people, the supporters of Bolsonaro look to that time of military dictatorship when thousands of Brazilians were tortured and killed, when there was no rule of law, when there was no democracy. And they say that is the golden age. That is specifically what they want. And it's tied directly to Donald Trump and the Stop the Steal movement here, too. You had Ali Alexander, one of the spokespeople of the Stop the Steal movement, saying that in October, Joe Biden stole the election in Brazil. I mean, it's bonkers.

Joe Biden, of course, did not steal the election in Brazil, but tying what is happening in Brazil directly to American politics. And, you know, the message has to be that Donald Trump himself may be waning as a political force here in the United States, but the anti-democratic populism and Trumpism that he brought into the United States is certainly not waning around the world. Eyes between Trump and Bolsonaro are deep. In fact, we should mention that Bolsonaro left Brazil before his successor was inaugurated and fled to Florida, not far from Mar-a-Lago, is where he has been camped out since leaving the country. So, Mark, there are some key differences here. We should also note that thankfully, there were no lawmakers inside these buildings. So, unlike what we had on January

6th, there weren't people running for their lives who could have been killed by the mobs. Also, Lula, of course, his victory had already been certified. So, they weren't able to stop that. They just seemed to want to really break things. But you cover the world. When you were in the intelligence business, you'd look at dangerous situations. You'd look for seeds of problems, of violence, of fascism. So now Brazil had its own January 6th on January 8th. How concerned are you about how this could happen somewhere else? Well, Jonathan, I'm really concerned. And a good friend of mine just came back from just from a personal trip to Brazil.

And what he told me before the events yesterday is that the parallels there, just the political differences, it was stark and it really reminded him of the United States. And and I've said on this show many times, I really do believe in American exceptionalism. You know, America, in my view, still is that bright, shining city on the hill. And, you know, for my career, you know, what we exported was this notion of political and economic freedoms. But here, unfortunately, and I think it's actually quite embarrassing for the U.S., we're exporting insurrection. And I think something that hasn't been mentioned enough is until we, you know, find somehow in our judicial system accountability for what happened on January 6th, this is going to continue. You know, the foot soldiers from January 6th are being prosecuted by DOJ. We still don't have accountability from the ringleaders. And until that happens,

I think there is danger that this kind of export of fascism will will will occur. And again, I think this is deeply embarrassing to the U.S. when, you know, the Brazilians will do a forensic kind of review of what happened. But I think you're going to see a lot of ties to the Trump orbit. And this is not what we want to be doing as a country that for so long has stood for so much good in the world. All right. We have much more on this ahead, but we'll turn to politics here in America for a moment. After 14 failed votes and a dramatic Friday night on Capitol Hill, Kevin McCarthy is House Speaker this morning. The California Republican won the gavel late last week on his 15th try after finally reaching a deal with the detractors from his own party that involved several major concessions to the far right Freedom Caucus. Those concessions include

promised spending cuts, a package of changes to the rules that water down the speaker's power and giving Freedom Caucus members seats on key committees like the powerful appropriations and rules committees. McCarthy also agreed to a rule giving a single lawmaker the power to force a vote to oust the sitting speaker in the middle of the term. Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mesa of South Carolina was asked yesterday on Face the Nation about whether the caucus can work together after what took place last week. The speaker has reportedly given the Freedom Caucus, that ultra conservative faction, a third of the seats on the Power for Rules Committee, which controls which bills make it to the floor. You've called Matt Gaetz, one of its members, a political D-lister and a fraud.

You've sparred with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I'll show our viewers part of that and let them interpret your meaning. How are you going to work with these folks to get anything done for the American people? It's going to be very difficult. Matt Gaetz is a fraud. Every time he voted against Kevin McCarthy last week, he sent out a fundraising email. What you saw last week was a constitutional process diminished by those kinds of political actions. Yeah. And it was a mess. I mean, it was really like a bunch of children fighting fistfights. I mean, are you kidding me? big deal as far as, you know, whatever happens, happens. They'll get a speaker at the end of the day. And at the end of the day, what do you call a speaker who doesn't get elected to the 15th vote?

You call him Mr. Speaker. Yeah. So McCarthy's speaker, he's accomplished his lifelong goal. My problem, though, right now and my great concern, and I know there are a lot of people who are actually conservatives, unlike what the people you saw on the floor the other night that that were positioning for whatever they were positioning for. Real conservatives like me are concerned about attacks on the military coming from this small Republican caucus, attacks on the Intel community coming from this small congressional caucus.

I talked about Ronald Reagan and what Reagan stood for in exporting freedom, exporting democracy, what we believed during the Cold War we were doing. You go back to those Cold War times, and Mark, let me go back to you as a former CIA guy. I will be honest with you. I am very nervous about these radicals who are not conservatives. They are isolationists. They're insurrectionists. A lot of them are weirdos. A lot of them are freaks. They have bizarre views of government, nothing conservative about them. And this is from the Wall Street Journal editorial page considered by, you know, I think everybody to be

one of the most conservative editorial pages in America. It says defense is now a GOP target. This is from their editorial this morning. As we reported Saturday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy's deal with GOP dissenters puts defense spending on the chopping block. No less than Jim Jordan, a spiritual leader of the House caucus, Freedom Caucus, confirmed this in response to a question on Fox News. The reality is that Wall Street Journal editorial page says that is if defense is cut, what will go first is spending for operations and maintenance to sustain military readiness, as well as money for the weapons to deter China. It is worrisome that some Republicans now are joining the progressive calls to shrink the military as the world grows more dangerous. We have Vladimir Putin, Mark, threatening nuclear war.

We have China threatening Taiwan. We have North Korea openly saying they are going to continue nuclear tests with the hopes of being able to target the United States of America. And their missile program and nuclear program goes closer and closer to doing that. And a lot of these people that put McCarthy over the top at the very end, they want to cut military and they want to go to war on our intelligence communities that keep us safe. Right, Joe, and I share your concern. And so and let me tell you something, this is this is something that's happening today. The rules package is going to be voted on today. So this is not some time where we have, you know, kind of days and weeks to discuss this.

And and the things that concern me are as follows, exactly what you talked about, that there's going to be a plan to slash the defense budget by as much as $75 billion. There's this notion of a new subcommittee under judiciary, a church-like commission, as kind of the right wing of the GOP is calling it, to look at the weaponization of the federal government. I mean, this is performative theater. And at a time where, you know, we need FBI agents to be out in the streets, you know, looking at looking for Chinese espionage activity or for both foreign and domestic terrorism, you know, they're going to be caught up in this kind of in this theater. And that really does concern me. But here's the piece right now. And again, time is of the essence. There are smart, responsible, conservative Republicans out there who care about national

security. And the question that I have today is, as this vote comes today, is do they have the moral courage to step up? You have Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent. You have Don Bacon, who's a former brigadier general in the Air Force. Mike McCaul from the chairman of Foreign Affairs. Tony Gonzalez down in Texas, who has actually expressed reservations and said he's going to vote against rules. Are they going to step up and say, hold on a second,

there's a national security issue with some of these proposed rules changes. And I think today is going to be really telling to see the direction of the Republican Party. There are responsible Republicans out there. The question is, will they speak up today? Will they speak up? They need to speak up. I mean, this is so extraordinarily dangerous. As you said, they're going to actually, these people want to target America's intel community. While we should be trying to target Chinese spies that are trying to infiltrate Washington, that are trying to infiltrate Silicon Valley, that are trying to infiltrate boardrooms of our biggest, most influential corporations, our Russian spies. It's it's just complete madness that it's happening.

And Michael Steele, again, you go back to the Cold War and my God, I campaigned and most conservatives I know campaigned about the excesses of what we thought were the excesses of the church commission, having a committee that went after our intel community. And now they're going after the intel community, not for past abuses. They're going after the intel community because they dared to stand up to Donald Trump, because they dared to investigate Donald Trump's wrongdoing. But think about it. They want to slash, as the Wall Street Journal editorial page says, they want to slash the defense budget. One of the most dangerous times of our lives. I've heard time and again, most dangerous time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. But they want to slash the defense budget and these rules. And then they want a church style commission to attack our intel community, who's again every day fighting to protect America. today and going forward is the retributive politics that Donald Trump has declared

and that they, under Kevin McCarthy's leadership, will implement. Going after our intel community, going after the FBI, going after, you know, the Department of Justice, investigation after investigation is their way of appeasing what Donald Trump, his hurt feelings or the slights that he— But Mike, let me interrupt you for a second really quickly. Didn't this already happen? Isn't this what Barr did before he left? He put Durham in charge, gave him all the power, all the power of the Department of Justice and said, go out and find wrongdoing by the FBI. And all he did is strike out time and time again.

He made a fool of himself. Right. Yeah. No, exactly. I mean, this has all been done. But Donald Trump wasn't satisfied with what what Barr did. And so now you're going to have the power and the agency of and Mark were both making about what the other member, the other 200 members who stood with Kevin McCarthy for 15 ballots and whether or not they're going to push back on this. Well, were they pushing back on this when this was all being put together? I mean, here you are. What do we think is going to happen with this package today?

What do you think on the list that you put up is going to get peeled off and not passed? That's all negotiated. Kevin McCarthy is in the seat because he told people that's what he was going to do. You think he is now, what, three days later going to come back and go, well, no, I'm sorry. We're not we're not doing spending cuts and seats for the Freedom Caucus instead of having three or 30 or whatever. It's going to be two. That's not happening. Well, if it does, there'll be a motion to vacate. Exactly. Thank you, Mika. Follow the bouncing ball here. There's a reason why that what that last bullet is the most important bullet, because all those other things, if none of them happens, guess who's standing up on the floor saying, I'd like to propose a motion to vacate the chair.

And that's a problem. I'm just going to say that. And they definitely would. You know, Joe, you were in the room, but this is a very different room than the one you were in. You know, the thing is, this is such colossally bad politics. So these these kooks are going to slash the defense budget and they're going to allow the Democrats in the Senate and Joe Biden to be the protectors of America's defense. Like these kooks don't understand. They are walking right in to another another loss in 2024. These kooks are going to war with the intelligence community.

They're attacking the FBI. They're attacking the CIA. Now, listen, in the fevered swamps of Trumpism, they're like, all right, yeah, let's let's they go. Let's crush the intel community. Let's crush the deep state. You know what? Like people in suburban Atlanta think and like the suburbs of Philly and up in Wisconsin and Michigan, they're thinking those guys are they're professionals. They're on our side and they protect us from terrorists, radical terrorists from across the globe. They protect us from terrorists, domestic terrorists inside the United States. They they they protect us from from like drug syndicates across the United. I think these are the people. These are the people that protect Americans. So this Republican Party now supports the slashing of the defense budget. Wall Street Journal editorial page.

And they support a full scale war. On the men and women who are the professionals in our intel communities. Good luck selling that in 24. You have just made Joe Biden's day. Can you really get any dumber politically? No, they really can't. I'm sure you'll prove me wrong over the next two years. It's truly possible it could happen. That could happen this week. Anything's possible.

Former CIA officer Mark Polimoropoulos, thank you very much for being on this morning. I want to bring in congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. So, Jackie, how's this going to play out this week? And talk a little bit more, if you could, about just how much power Kevin McCarthy gave up in his bid for the speakership. Yeah. Good morning, Mika. We are bracing today for a potential repeat of what we saw last week as House lawmakers will return to the House chamber, the House floor this evening to vote on this rules package, where McCarthy did give up a handful of concessions to essentially diffuse his power as speaker. I think the popular name that's been circulating is speaker in name only. And that is because this framework that these hardline

defectors, detractors last week agreed to with McCarthy, which they have made clear is going to be their enforcement mechanism, you know, will lowers the threshold for the motion to vacate to one member, which means that it only requires one House GOP lawmaker to potentially oust the speaker if he brings something to the House floor that they don't agree with or if there's some sort of policy that he brings up, along with this or a handful of other concessions that actually have not been made public yet, despite people like Chip Roy, Jim Jordan, Congressman Dan Bishop, people who have said that this process was all a part of bringing transparency to, you know, an opaque billmaking process on Capitol Hill. So there are a handful of lawmakers who already say that they're going to be voting

against this rules package. And all McCarthy needs is four members to come out against this this evening for it to be tanked. So I think we could we're we're likely in for a long week with some more backdoor negotiating on some of these concessions he gave up, which also includes these House Freedom Caucus members having more positions on powerful House committees like the Rules Committee, the Steering Committee. I just hope he has Boehner and Paul Ryan on speed dial so that he can call them up for advice whenever he needs to, because he's going to need to be speaking to them every day. You know, who knows why he wanted it this much,

but it looks like he's given away the farm to get it. And it's impossible not to ignore the contrast, Jackie, between what's happening on the Republican side and what's happening on the Democratic side, which at the moment, after all of those years when the Democrats looked like they were the party of disunity, they look like the party of kind of, you know, kumbaya and family and hugging each other by comparison. Oh, absolutely.

It was remarkable to watch that contrast on the House floor in real time, where I said last week, you know, Nancy Pelosi looked like she was having the time of her life. But you already have some moderate Republicans talking publicly, some of these people who were actually involved in the negotiations this week with these ultra-conservative members, about maybe joining up with Democrats in order to stop some of these potentially devastating policies that could muck up the way U.S. government works, you know, potentially defaulting if Republicans can't agree to a debt limit, maybe major cuts to defense spending that a handful of Republicans have already come out against. So, you know, it's going to be worth watching these next few weeks and these next two years.

And again, I'm just going to be surprised to see how the votes go, Mika. I mean, is every Republican really going to vote to slash defense spending and leave it to Joe Biden and the Democrats to save the defense of this country, to save the United States military. Is every Republican today and tomorrow, are they really going to vote to go to war against the premier law enforcement agency in America that keeps Americans safe? Or to attack the CIA who's hunting down everyday Chinese spies, hunting down Russian spies, hunting down the next attack from terrorists across the globe? You know, if they do, they have just played right into the Democrats' hand and they've made America weaker. The Washington Post's Jackie Alimany, thank you very much for your reporting.

I have a feeling we'll see you a lot this week. And still ahead on Morning Joe, much more on the GOP infighting that we saw play out on Capitol Hill. One of our next guests says the real winner of the House speaker fight is Hakeem Jeffries. We're going to read from that new piece ahead. Also this morning, President Biden visits the southern border amid new restrictions on asylum seekers. We'll take a look at why he's facing new criticism from both sides of the aisle. Plus, Prince Harry sits down for an interview on 60 Minutes. What he had to say about his relationship with his brother and an update on DeMar Hamlin's

remarkable recovery so far. One week after collapsing on the field during Monday Night Football, Peter King of NBC Sports joins us with a look at the playoff picture that's now set. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Coming down is the hardest thing with good old days. As New England decided to defer after winning the toss. And here's Hines on the run back. Breaking a tackle and taking it past midfield. And down the sideline he goes. This is storybook.

An opening kickoff return for tamar hamlin and this place is absolutely going wild come on no way unbelievable on a day dedicated to buffalo bill safety to mar hamlin his teammate naheem hines took the opening kickoff against new england 96 yards to the end zone he'd do it again in the third quarter, scoring a 101-yard return. He'd become the first Bills player to have two of the same game. The Bills wrapped up an emotional 35-23 win over the Pats, and it was a good thing he ran both of those back. They were the difference maker in the game. They locked up the number two seed in the AFC and knocked out New England out of playoff contention. It was a shock,

actually, after this year that the Patriots were even still in playoff contention. Meanwhile, Hamlin's number, number three, was on display everywhere across the league, outlined in 30-yard lines, worn on special patches and Bills uniforms, and featured on jackets and sweatshirts. Hamlin watched the action the final day of the regular season from his hospital bed in Cincinnati, where he remains in critical condition after his heart stopped on the field during last Monday's game against the Bengals. But what an extraordinary recovery. Let's bring in NBC Sports columnist Peter King. We, of course, talk about the great news. It's amazing news. It's wonderful. Peter, I also want to talk about some absolutely dreadful play yesterday.

I've been commenting to my 14-year-old son as we watch Red Zone every week. I say, you know, these players are so much better than they were even 20 years ago. It's amazing how much better the players are now. I mean, they're just great. Yesterday, one horrible performance after another. I've got to ask you, have you ever seen an uglier game for playoff contention than the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins? I mean, I just saw the highlights of it.

Or should I say lowlights, Joe? You know, there were no highlights. And look, it just goes to show you that all the teams in the NFL that are stumbling and bumbling at quarterback right now are the ones like both of those teams yesterday, the Jets and the Dolphins. The Dolphins obviously have their quarterback hurt, but they both played third string quarterbacks in that game. They combined for 17 points, a terrible football game. And you look all over the map on Sunday and you saw teams that had no quarterbacks, you know, no starting quarterbacks playing all played poorly. And so, I mean, look, I was at the Buffalo game.

I'm still there. And, you know, fortunately to some degree, you know, there was pretty good quarterback play in this game, but still across the league yesterday, it's one of the reasons why I rail against a 17 game schedule and why I wrote my column today. I, you know, I'm going to rail even more if they try to make an 18 game schedule. Peter, they were wiped out yesterday. Yeah, they were fumbling. So many interceptions. They were they were exhausted.

You could see it. You looked at the Cincinnati Ravens game, which would have been a highlight of the season, you know, a couple of months ago without Lamar there and with all the injuries. That was a miserable game. It was an ugly, ugly, terrible game. And the Cowboys, I promise I'm going to get positive soon, but I'm going to get positive about the Detroit Lions. There was so much screaming over the weekend.

But first, let's talk about the Cowboys. What is wrong with that? They've got their quarterback. They just, they are stumbling into the playoffs. What's wrong with the Cowboys? I think Dak Prescott, you know, first of all, he's running around a lot, running for his life. He has not gotten protected the way he has in past years. That's number one.

And I think number two, you know, they went into a game yesterday. They weren't even sure what they were going to play for. And that's what I think one of the problems here, Joe, is the mixed motivations of players in week 18 of the NFL season. Because really, if you're the Dallas Cowboys, you've got a 5% chance of winning home field advantage through the playoffs and overtaking, you know, and moving up in the pecking order so you get a better seed.

And, you know, players are saying, what are we doing? Why are we, you know, players are saying, what, what are we doing? Why are we, why are we, uh, you know, extending ourselves, you know, if we really don't have a good chance of moving up, uh, in the, you know, in the standings. And I think you just can't ask players to give their all, uh, at a time when, uh, you know, they start the playoffs next weekend. Yeah. And right now there's no value really to giving your all. But Peter, I think we have to,

through all the negativity of this last week that I'm talking about, other than the miracle in Buffalo, I mean, let's give an award. Let's give a participation trophy to a team that gave their all. The Texans, I kept saying because I've loved how the Texans have looked over the last three or four weeks. They pushed the Cowboys. They pushed the Niners. They were pushing great teams.

And yesterday, all they had to do was step out of bounds. All they had to do is come up just a little short and then have the number one pick. This team fought like they were in the Super Bowl. And then they went for two at the end to give up their first round draft pick. It was the least cynical thing I've seen in football. I thought that was actually beautiful. And the reward for Lovie Smith, their head coach, is to get fired four hours later when the team arrives back in Houston. So look, the Houston Texans have now fired their coach

after one year in two consecutive seasons. Who's going to want to coach Houston? What kind of backing are you going to get from your ownership in front office now? I mean, the Texans, there's a reason that they were in contention for the first pick in the draft. They don't run their franchise well. So, and finally, Peter, I've got to talk about a team that I found to be the most compelling, even though they started 1-6.

I was talking about how Jack and I were watching Red Sun every week, and when the Lions were 1-6, we turned to each other and were like, I swear, this is a good team. This is an exciting team. And the Lions, what a finish. I know they're not going to the playoffs, but these Detroit fans have suffered so much. The team's never even made it to the Super Bowl. But man, if you could, you know, there are a lot of people in Seattle whining, oh, oh, because they changed this to a night game. If Seattle wins, then the Lions won't have anything to play for. Yeah. Those people have

never seen the rivalry between Detroit and Green Bay. I mean, it was such a great thing to see with the Lions for a lot of reasons. But I want to single out Jared Goff. The quarterback of the Lions in the last nine games this year has 15 touchdowns and zero interceptions. And the Rams basically kicked him off a Super Bowl team a couple of years ago. And so to me, golf has really proven he belongs. And he's taken this little engine that could franchise, put it on his back, along with head coach Dan Campbell. And they are going to be a team to be reckoned with in 2023. Yeah, who's the team to watch going into the playoffs? I think San Francisco and Cincinnati. Those are the two

teams I think who are playing the best. And look, San Francisco has got a quarterback who's the last pick in the draft, Brock Purdy, who's only playing because of two major injuries. And what's he done in his six games? He's 6-0, and he's got a quarterback rating in that time of over 110. So to me, this is about great coaching with Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco, Zach Taylor in Cincinnati. And if you don't have a quarterback, you have no chance. And, of course, the last draft pick, of course, called Mr. Irrelevant. He's been anything but in San Francisco. Pretty incredible.

Peter King, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it. Hey, guys. All right. Jonathan O'Meara, sorry that your Patriots didn't make it. Hey, guys. All right. Hey, Jonathan O'Meara, sorry that your Patriots didn't make it. I do have to say I always cheer for Mac Jones, a Bama guy. He had a rough start the past year or so. He looked really good yesterday.

He finished strong. That gives a Patriot something, really, I think, to look forward to. He's really growing into that position. I'm curious what you think? I agree with Peter, the 49ers, man, they just look really, I mean, they're hard to beat. 49ers, the Chiefs looking pretty great. You look at the Bills also, of course, they're going to be in contention. And of course, Philadelphia. I mean, there's some not-so-good teams in the playoffs, but we've got four really good teams there.

Yeah, and as Peter said, the theme, even more than usual right now, is quarterback play. First on Mac Jones, yes, he had a promising rookie year. This year was up and down. He finished strong, but he needs an actual offensive coordinator next year, as well as some improved weapons around him. But as we go into the playoffs, I'm struck. In the NFC, your quarterbacks,

it's the Philadelphia Eagles. They got Jalen Hurts back from injury. He didn't look that great yesterday. We'll have to see. He gets another week off to heal, though. They got a bye. That's huge. The Brock Purdy story is remarkable. Mr. Irrelevant. 49ers are probably the best team in football right now. The issue is, is Purdy, is the Cinderella story going to end at the wrong time? You know who's not going to the playoffs this year? Aaron Rodgers. But in the NFC, Tom Brady is there as always, although that Buccaneers team's pretty flawed. And then in the AFC, you have three all-star, all-pro QBs. It's Mahomes, it's Allen, and it's Burrow. And it's hard to imagine it's not one of those three teams coming out of it. So it's been, you know, sort of a lackluster finish to the season, Joe, as discussed. I think next week's slate of games is only OK.

But once we get through next week, it should be really good. And I think that it's going to be whatever QB, you know, whether it's one of the all stars or a Cinderella story, steps up at the right time. I think it's important, though, to take note what Peter King said. 17 games. These guys are brutalized. And you could see it yesterday. So many mistakes. I think they were mentally, emotionally, and physically just battered. They can't go to 18 games.

It would be horrible. Well, speaking of football, the college football playoff national championship is going to be decided tonight at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. The top rated Georgia Bulldogs are going to try to go back to back against the third seeded TCU Horned Frogs. Kickoff tonight at 730. I would say there's no way that TCU could win, but I've been saying that all year. So I won't say anything and expect a great game. All right. Coming up, we'll have a look at exclusive video from NBC News of what appears to be Border Patrol agents violating orders from Homeland Security. Plus, we'll have the major

takeaways from President Biden's first visit to the southern border since taking office. And speaking of borders, China's are open this morning for the first time in nearly three years. We'll get a live report from Shanghai. That's all ahead on Morning Joe. All right, we're approaching the top of the hour right here on Morning Joe. Live look at New York City. The sun has yet to come up. Looks like a cloudy morning, everybody.

Prince Harry's tell-all memoir is set to be released tomorrow after it leaked on Thursday. to a phrase that Harry writes King Charles used to refer to Harry, his second son, as his spare or backup heir, since he'd already secured an heir in Harry's older brother. A physical altercation between Harry and his brother, Harry's admission that he killed 25 people in Afghanistan, and to claim William and Catherine, then William's girlfriend, encouraged him to dress as a Nazi at a costume party are all revelations included in that memoir. Both Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the allegations in the book ahead of tomorrow's release. Prince Harry sat down with 60 Minutes to discuss some of the explosive details. Here's what he had to say about his relationship with his brother.

I don't see it as cutting at all. You know, my brother and I love each other. I love him deeply. There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years. None of anything that I've written, anything I've included, is ever intended to hurt my family. But it does give a full picture of the situation as we were growing up, and also squashes this idea that somehow my wife was the one that destroyed the relationship between these two brothers. Prince Harry also spoke about the death of his mother. I was in shock. You know, you're 12 years old, sort of 7, 7.30 in the morning, early. Your father comes in, sits on your bed, puts his hand on your knee and tells you there's been an accident um i i couldn't believe once my mother's coffin actually went into the ground that was the first

time that i actually cried yeah there was never another time all three are teenagers you didn't cry about it no you you didn't believe she was dead for a long for a long time i just refused to accept that she was gone. Part of, you know, she would never do this to us, but also part of maybe this is all part of a plan. I mean, you really believe that maybe she had just decided

to disappear for a time? For a time, and then that she would call us and we would go and join her. How long did you believe that? Years. Many, many years. And William and I talked about it as well. He had similar thoughts. You write in the book, you say, I'd often say to myself first thing in the morning, maybe this is the day.

Maybe this is the day that she's going to reappear. Yeah. Hope. I had huge amounts of hope. So, Cathy Kaye, obviously, very, very sad recounting of that chapter of his life. There there obviously, though, a lot in this interview, a lot with the interview in Britain. And while Harry says that he didn't do anything or say anything that should hurt his family, I'm sure they would take exception with a lot that he's saying. I'm curious what people in Britain are saying. What's the reaction

to these interviews and to the upcoming book? Yeah, he was also doing an interview on British television, and it was a lot more contentious than the one he did for 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper, which is probably a reflection of where the British public is. I can't find anyone in Britain who really has any sympathy for Harry and for the way that he's telling this story, either for the fact that he's making a lot of money out of it or the fact that he's spilling the beans in public. He seems to be, according to Brits that I have spoken to in the last couple of days, you know, on a mission to kind of damage the monarchy.

And that is not going down well at all in the UK, particularly over this issue of racism and whether he's kind of rode back in the issue in the interview that he did for the UK on whether he was accusing the British family of being racist over the birth of his child and whether and who and whether there were questions about what color Archie might be. And then he was saying, no, it wasn't racism that he was accusing him of. It was unconscious bias. But that just isn't really washing in Britain. I mean, I think, you know, this is terribly sad. I mean, this is some that interview is sad and his pain is sad. And the way this is all playing out in public is sad. And I keep thinking back, you know, Joe, to when we were back in the UK for the Queen's funeral and this enormous outpouring of sympathy and empathy and, you know, positivity for this woman who kept her thoughts to herself. And that was the role of the British queen. That was what Queen Elizabeth was so good at. And Prince Harry has gone in 180 degrees the opposite direction.

And perhaps it's no surprise that the British public is going from one and then looking at the other and thinking, hold on a second, there was the queen who we felt did us so well and did her duty to the countries for so long. And now Prince Harry, who is spilling all these beans in public and it just isn't sitting well. So in a guest essay for the New York Times entitled Prince Harry and the Value of Silence, Patti Davis, daughter of President Ronald Reagan, tells of what she learned after writing a tell-all autobiography. She writes in part, my justification in writing a book I now wish I hadn't written was very similar to what I understand to be Harry's reasoning. I wanted to tell the truth.

I wanted to set the record straight. Naively, I thought if I put my own feelings and my own truth out there for the world to read, my family might also come to understand me better. In the ensuing years, I've learned something about truth. It's way more complicated than it seems when we're young. There isn't just one truth. Our truth, the other people who inhabit our story have their truths as well. Years ago, someone asked me what I would say to my younger self if I could. Without hesitating, I answered, that's easy. I would said, be quiet, not forever. But until I could stand back and look at things through a wider lens, until I understood that words have consequences and they last a really long time.

And of course, Patty Davis had at times been seen as a tormentor of her parents, writing tell-all books and columns and grabbing headlines. So she knows of what she speaks. And I think, my gosh, I would have loved to have followed that advice myself. You know, if you could tell your younger self, be quiet, sit back, think, wait, say less. And I will say, you know, we're Americans. We don't know Prince William. We don't know. I mean, we know none of the characters, but just from a distance, I've always liked him and I've always saluted his service, always hated all that he had to go through in public. It was so heartbreaking. I will say it again. This may just be my complete and total ignorance because I know I know the firm does not play nicely and I know they have very sharp elbows, but I do worry about him.

And I think, oh, my God, he's so young. This is going to be following him for decades. How does he get around this? I think that's my biggest concern right now. He's so young for an old man like me. And I hate to see this happening between any brothers, between any brother and father, between any families. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. I think that's true. I mean, the other I mean, the other thing I would say is that that what Patty Davis says about perspective is very smart because he is right in the thick of this. This breakup with his family is very new.

The queen has only just died. These wounds are ripped wide open and give it some time, give it some time and then see and perhaps some time for reconciling in private. I mean, he says he wants to reconcile. He wants it to be in private, but he's writing all about it in the book. And, you know, Cady, isn't it interesting that for all that people have commented through the years about, oh, the character of the British public, it's changed. Maybe they don't want a queen that's so quiet.

Maybe they they want sort of more confessional type monarchs who share more. No, they don't. I mean, this is a perfect example. Like you said, the reaction in America is so different than the reaction in Britain. In America, we're far more confessional. In Britain, you again see they still want a monarch and leaders who, again, have discretion. Yeah. And he's broken those rules, and it hasn't won him any favors. His poll ratings are very low, and he says he's doing it to protect Meghan. But I don't think that anything that he's written, I mean, what Patti Davis again says is true. Just because you write it in a book, you're not going to change people's minds.

And he might think that he can protect his wife and change the public's mind about his wife. I don't think this is going to do anything to help either of them in terms of their standing in the UK. Katty Kay, thank you very much. You can certainly understand why he's doing it. I mean, he was I mean, the way he was paraded behind his mother's coffin at that extraordinarily horrible time. Then he sees the same thing happening to his wife that he saw happening to his mother. You certainly can. You certainly can understand. There's responsibility to go around for the situation.

You get a real sense that the press is a huge problem, and yet the firm is definitely entwined with the press. And it's very difficult for a child to process.