Morning Joe - Morning Joe 1/9/24

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Trump says he hopes the stock market crashes under Biden

We have an economy that's incredible. We have an economy that's so fragile. And the only reason it's running now is it's running off the fumes of what we did, what the Trump administration. It's just running off the fumes. And when there's a crash, I hope it's going to be during this next 12 months, because I don't want to be Herbert Hoover. Oh, OK. So Donald Trump hopes millions of Americans lose their money from their 401ks and retirement savings within the next 12 months. So he doesn't look bad. We have a lot to get to

this morning, including a key hearing today for Trump's claim of presidential immunity in the federal election interference case. We're going to have expert legal analysis on that in just a moment. Plus, the very latest on two major developments in the Middle East. Israel says it has killed a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon. It comes as the Israeli military says it is shifting to a more targeted campaign inside Gaza. Retired four-star Navy Admiral James Stavridis will join us with more insight on both of those stories. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, January 9th. With us, we have former aide to the George W. Bush

White House and State Department's Elise Jordan, polled surprise winning columnist at The Washington Post. Eugene Robinson is with us here in Washington. Also here in Washington, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye, who will be with us in just a moment. And, Joe, you got to love the former president again, so worried about his image. He's hoping people lose their retirements now rather than later. There were so many things wrong with what he said. So many. Well, what you got to love is that he's once again exposed himself to show just how horrific of a public servant he would be. This is a guy that admitted on television because he's so focused on himself that he wants Americans to hurry up and lose their jobs.

He wants them to lose their savings. He wants them to lose their 401ks. Yes, he wants their retirement accounts to be shattered over the next 12 months. He's that desperate to be elected. Now, if you talk to economists from left to right, they will tell you this economy is stronger than it's been. It's more resilient than they ever expected it to be. That this economy, you even had conservatives.

You had Gerard Baker, a no fan of Joe Biden, saying one of the big winners of 2023 last year was the United States economy. And it is strong. Gene Robinson, I feel I must go to you on this question only because I just think you're going to be at the top of your game because your Wolverines won their first national championship this century. This century. It must be very exciting. It is very exciting.

It's terrific. It was amazing. Of course, I stayed up to watch the game, and then I stayed up to watch the presentation of the trophy. And I'm awake, right, because this does not happen every year. And it was a great team. It was a great game. And, you know, the better team won last night.

So it was it was it was quite quite a run. Katty Kay, just it's hard to imagine. Again, people in Britain, Britain has its own problems. But people across the world, they used to look at the United States before Donald Trump as as a really stable force. We now have in The New York Times an article comparing Brazil with the United States. And actually, the Brazilian people are condemning the riots at their capital. Katty, are you there? Are you there, Caddy? I am. Oh, yeah. She's been here the whole time. Yeah.

Magic. That was me. That was me calling for Caddy. So you have the New York Times article comparing Brazil with the United States. Now, the United States used to come out on top of that comparison, but now they're talking about

the reaction of the public to riots against the capital. And the Brazilians have all predictably come out and said, it's a bad thing. We don't want our Capitol overrun by rioters, by a guy who's trying to steal the election. And yet here we are, shockingly enough, three years later, and you have a large chunk of Donald Trump supporters actually supporting the riots, saying that they were over. You know, they weren't as bad as we were all saying they were, that many were peaceful protests. And that's just that's just a lie. And what are they willing to do for this guy who is hoping they lose their retirement accounts over the next 12 months and that the economy goes into a depression so he can get reelected.

Yeah. So he doesn't have to be Hoover and it all goes into a recession or have an economy crash just after he gets into office. That was a that was a weird comment. Wishing economic. There are so many. Catastrophe on the American people. But could they could it happen just before I'm elected rather than just after I'm elected? You're right. I mean, you know, Bolsonaro kind of copied the Trump playbook and the Brazilian people had a very different reaction. There's a certain amount of revisionism. It's so interesting looking at the polls here around January the 6th in the states at the moment, but not just amongst American voters who, you know, we all were there. We all and I think every time we play it, we probably do the country a service where we remind people of what it looked like on that day and how shocked by and large this country was and

how shocked members of Congress in the Republican Party were. And I think that's the critical thing is that it's not just the public that might be, you know, and Trump supporters that may now be saying, well, actually, January the 6th was a sort of nice walk in the park and it was fine. It's also those members of Congress who came out the day afterwards and said this was a terrible event, as Elisa Stefanik said, that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And what a different tune they're singing today. Well, and this past week we saw some some clips that came out of members of Congress that were shouting Republicans, shouting at the rioters, trying to get in and kill people inside the Capitol, saying that they were ashamed of them. And now what are they doing? Now they're on the side of the rioters. They're on the side of the rioters. But, you know, there was a big debate and you saw it across the papers, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times this past weekend over over how

how should the media react to Donald Trump? Well, the way the media should react to Donald Trump is to stop acting like when he says things that it's a throwaway line. It's normal. You know, there's nothing at least normal about yesterday as playing the clip. There's nothing normal about Donald Trump saying that Abraham Lincoln blew it, that Abraham Lincoln should have negotiated with with slave slaveholders and negotiated slavery away so he could have avoided the Civil War. We talked about Nikki Haley for a week or two when Nikki Haley said what Nikki Haley said. But notice, I look through the papers there. He attacked Abraham Lincoln.

He said Abraham Lincoln was a warmonger. I see nothing in the newspapers about that because it's normalized. There's nothing normal about it. J.V. Lass with the bulwark wrote a column that I I hope is proves to be true. And I think it just may be that Donald Trump is at his high watermark right now because he's waltzing through a primary, a coronation. He won't even debate. And when he gets out in the heat of the campaign, every time he opens his mouth, he says things like this. I hope the economy crashes. I hope Wall Street crashes. I hope people lose their 401ks. I hope the economy is destroyed so I can get elected president and it doesn't happen on my watch. And J.V. last said what a reporter for the National Review, a columnist for the National Review, a baseball crank said a couple of years ago, which is this. When Americans are talking about Joe Biden, Republicans win. When Americans are talking about Donald Trump, Democrats win.

And as Donald Trump goes into this election and he says crazier things every day and they're getting crazier, Donald Trump's numbers likely will go down again. Joe, you would hope so. You would hope that insane rantings that sound like someone should not be in power, whether they should be in a straitjacket and given some kind of injection, you would hope that that would not be just dismissed by a lot of voters. But unfortunately, as we've seen, there are plenty of Republican voters who are willing to look away and dismiss it just as theater, just as performance, because they are so again, the polarization is so strong and they're so against the other side. And all that matters is defeating the other side. And all that matters is defeating the other side. And you look at how

the electorate in this country has become so radicalized where two out of 10 Americans see the other side as the enemy, not just political opposition, but the enemy. And so I worry that Donald Trump is winning when attention is on him, no matter how insane or inane his comments are at a given moment. OK, we'll move to Donald Trump's legal. What's the news today, Mika Scarborough? What's she doing? You can do that. By the way, when you were talking to Kattydy she was listening to you from another studio sprinted in here jumped in her seat and answered perfectly i thought that was acrobatic very good thank you i think it's what we're impressive yes yeah she got it she's

just people call brzezinski and k do exactly there you go right. Let's move to Donald Trump. We need that podcast. Brzezinski and Kay. I like that. I like it. All right. Oral arguments will begin this morning. Former President Trump's appeals court hearing on presidential immunity. Trump is expected to attend as a three-judge appeals court panel decides if he can be charged with election interference. There will be no cameras in the courtroom, but audio of the hearing will be broadcast. The special counsel has charged Trump with illegally attempting to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. Trump's lawyers

argue any actions he took are protected by presidential immunity. They also claim any prosecution would be a form of double jeopardy since he was already impeached and acquitted by the Senate. Trump's legal team is arguing the 13 count indictment against him in the Fulton County, Georgia election interference RICO case should also be dismissed because Trump allegedly did not know that trying to overturn an election was illegal. The lawyers make that argument in a new court filing, quote, our country. Wait a second. No, hold on. This is one of those times where we don't just let you know what fly against the wall. When Donald Trump says, I did not know that calling the secretary of state of Georgia and telling him to throw out 11,000, however many votes. Why don't we play this where this is where Donald Trump is demanding that the Secretary of State of Georgia steal the election for him?

And listen to this. And this guy is claiming, this guy who wants you to lose your retirement savings and your 401k and wants the economy to crash so he can get elected president of the United States because he's that desperate to be elected president of the United States. That's the same guy who was so desperate to remain as president of the United States. That's the guy you're about to hear here where he calls the secretary of state of Georgia and said, steal this election for me. Take a listen. I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.

So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have because we want to say there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, votes, which is one more that we have, because we won the state. There's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated. There's nothing wrong, Donald Trump says, with lying through your teeth,

finding 11,780 votes. Listen, you know, I don't like to admit this, Gene, but I'm a simple country lawyer. All right. Just a simple country lawyer. I fell off a turnip truck and I landed in front of Congress and I served in Congress for a few years. And let me tell you, even as a simple country lawyer, me and the thousands and thousands of people who are elected every two years to serve in Congress. It seems like thousands. Everybody there would know that's stealing an election and that is illegal. Yeah. And, you know, I grew up in a town where there the turnip trucks, you know, the people who loaded the turnips and unloaded them, they all knew that stealing an election was illegal. Everybody knows that. ridiculous filing, again, in a series, in a blizzard of ridiculous, frivolous legal filings that the former president has made, within a hailstorm of ridiculous, offensive, and just

crazy comments that he's making. And you are right that we cannot become inured to any of this because it is not normal and it is it is completely out of bounds in terms of of the way our democracy or any democracy ought to work. Yeah, let's bring in right now former U.S. attorney and MSNBC contributor Chuck Rosenberg, a man who, trust me, did not just fall off a turnip truck yesterday and wind up inside the studios of 30 Rock like me. But Chuck, we're laughing about this defense and we're laughing about it, I think, for valid reasons. But why don't you take us through it legally? Any chance that Donald Trump's going to prevail on that point or any of these points that Mika read? You know, Joe, you're laughing about it because

it's laughable. I mean, defense attorneys can write what they want. They can file what they want. It doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, assuming this case goes to trial in Georgia, there's going to be 12 men and women in the jury box who are going to decide what they think of this defense. Now, you know, it's clear ignorance of the law is not a defense. But more than that, he tried to steal an election. He did it in a number of ways by submitting slates of fake electors, by putting pressure on local officials, by trying to get Vice President Pence on that awful day in January

to halt the vote and to substitute his electors for the genuine electors. A jury will see that. A jury will hear that. They'll see the evidence. They'll hear from the witnesses. And so it's laughable. We can laugh about it. At the end of the day, in a serious place, in a court of law, a jury will decide. And they're not going to buy it. They didn't, as you and Eugene have talked about, just fall off a turnip truck. Chuck, this seems pretty straightforward that today Donald Trump is going to go in and he's probably not going to get an outcome that is to his liking or his defense attorneys. Do you think that's probably what's going to happen?

Or what do you think is the best case scenario for Donald Trump today? I think that's right, Elise. So that's a different case. This is an oral argument in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Trump filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against him because he claimed two things. One, that he is immune from prosecution as a former president. The answer to that legally is no nonsense. You're not. And then the second claim that he brought is that double jeopardy precludes him being charged with these crimes. Again, the answer is no wrong. Double jeopardy does not. That's not double jeopardy and that's not going to work to his favor. So, you know, maybe I'm biased, at least maybe I come at this from a different vantage point because I was a former federal prosecutor.

But I think these arguments he's advanced in the D.C. circuit to dismiss the underlying indictment are frivolous. I think he loses. I think he loses unanimously. And I think he loses quickly. So. So, Chuck, if he loses the double jeopardy argument, he loses the sorry, I didn't know it was a crime argument. Is the biggest potential impact that it delays that March start date of the D.C. trial? Right. So that's a great question, Katty. The trial we're talking about, the federal case in Washington, D.C., is slated for trial on March 4th. And I think that that trial date is endangered. I'm not sure it's doomed. Let me explain that. If the Court of Appeals can quickly decide this case, finding that he is

indeed not immune from prosecution, finding indeed that double jeopardy does not preclude this prosecution. They issue their ruling. They issue the mandate quickly. And the Supreme Court refuses to hear the case. They don't have to, of course. There's a chance that this can get back on track rather quickly in the district court, in the trial court, in the District of Columbia. Will it be March 4th? Can it be that quickly? I don't know. I hope so. But if things break the way I think they're going to break, Katty, I believe this case can be tried before the election. In fact, well before the election. So but wait, Chuck, there's more. A federal appeals court has denied Donald Trump's request to consider his presidential immunity claim in the defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll. Carroll alleges the former president sexually abused her in a department store in the 90s.

Trump denies the allegation. But in May, a jury deemed him liable and awarded Carroll five million million in damages. It's important to point out the judge actually considered it rape. Now, a second trial is pending in which jurors will decide whether Carroll should be awarded more money for the comments Trump made after that verdict when he continued to defame her, as well as the statements he made shortly after she came forward with her allegation in 2019 when Trump was allegedly president, was president. A judge has already ruled Trump is liable for defamation. The former president's lawyers have been arguing he has legal protection from lawsuits pertaining to his actions while he was in office. An appeals court initially rejected that claim last month, and now so has the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump now has

the option to take the case to the Supreme Court. The defamation trial is scheduled to begin on January 16th. So, Chuck, what are the options here? And again, E. Jean Carroll had no choice when he defamed her again to sue again. That's right. She was right to sue the first time and she was right to sue the second time. And they were right to award her the damages, Mika. So what Mr. Trump's lawyers are arguing, in essence, is that he should be immune from civil liability for defaming Ms. Carroll. And they are sort of tethering that to a 1982 Supreme Court case, Nixon versus Fitzgerald. That case stands for the proposition that a president, if he is acting in his official capacity, really important distinction, is immune from civil lawsuits. But clearly,

defaming Ms. Carroll and all the other awful things he did to Ms. Carroll cannot possibly be within the definition of official conduct. Presidents don't get to do, presidents, anyone else for that matter, doesn't get to behave that way and hide behind immunity. And so it's simply that, Mika, it's not official conduct. Therefore, he's not immune from liability. Therefore, she can proceed against him and win her judgment and hopefully collect on it. Chuck Rosenberg, thank you so much for coming in this morning. We appreciate it. There's so much going on. We will see you again soon. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel this morning in his latest diplomatic push

to prevent a wider conflict in the Middle East. We'll have an update on the country's war against Hamas as the Israeli military announces a shift to a new, more targeted approach in Gaza. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Exactly. 26 past the hour. Welcome back to Morning Joe. A beautiful shot of the Capitol on this.

What is it? Tuesday? Tuesday. It's Tuesday. Okay. Israel is taking responsibility for a strike that killed a Hezbollah commander. The country's foreign minister took credit for the attack in southern Lebanon yesterday in a televised interview. The commander was a member of Hezbollah's governing board and was related by marriage to the militant group's leader. His death is the latest sign of mounting tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. Yesterday, Israeli officials warned they're prepared to escalate military

operations in Lebanon in order to contain the threat from across the border. The commander's death comes a week after a suspected Israeli airstrike killed a senior Hamas official in Beirut. Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate for that attack. Meanwhile, the secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, is now in Israel meeting with officials about the war in Gaza and efforts to prevent a wider conflict. His visit comes just a day after the Israeli military announced it is shifting to a new phase of combat. The IDF says it's moving away from a large scale ground and air campaign to a more targeted approach that includes fewer troops in Gaza. This is something the Biden administration has been pushing for. U.S. officials say they expect the Israeli military

to rely on smaller groups of elite forces who will focus on eliminating Hamas leaders and rescuing hostages. The IDF says it has already begun this new phase in northern Gaza. Officials tell the U.S. while they hope to complete the transition by the end of the month, that could change if they discover new threats

or encounter a stiffer Hamas resistance. Joe. Let's bring you right out. Former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four star Navy Admiral James Trevita. He's chief international analyst for NBC News. Admiral, always an honor to have you here with us. We look at the headlines today about the Hezbollah commander, senior commander, who's been killed. Also, the lead story here in The New York Times. We'll get back to the other lead story in The New York Times in a second about the new phase of the Israel war. But not to be too crude about this, but we seem to be over the past week or so at a phase where the hunters have become the hunted. You have a Hamas leader killed. You have a Hezbollah

leader killed. You have ISIS going after leaders in Iran. You have Houthis that are subject to more attacks. Now, I understand and I hear from from I guess they would be called neocons in the past. I'm not sure. But but I hear criticism of Biden that we should march. We should support the Ukrainians marching straight to Moscow and we should support the absolute annihilation of of of of every country in the Middle East. I mean, I exaggerate only slightly, but Biden has taken a measured approach. Most people not on the far right would say he's done a pretty extraordinary job of this. But there's no doubt there that there is now we're finally starting to see in a more targeted way the ramifications of what Hamas did. And they're starting to feel real pressure. Indeed. And I think, Joe, this all can be kind of confusing.

Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthis. And what we need to remember is there's kind of a one word summary, and that word would be Iran. All of these groups are trained, organized, equipped, directed from Tehran. And so it is a good thing to watch the Israelis, I think, in a relatively measured way. You know, they could have started dropping huge bombs on Beirut. This was a very targeted pair of strikes up north, took out one Hamas leader, one Hezbollah leader. It's measured in terms of the Houthis. These are the Iranian pirates you and I have talked about in the Red Sea.

I think the Biden administration is working their way up the ladder of escalation in a way that is sending a signal through the Houthi pirates to Tehran. And that's what has to continue here is a measured approach. Well, and Admiral, what you just said about that measured approach and sort of an increase of intensity of attacks, it's the same thing Joe Biden did in Ukraine, what he continues to do in Ukraine. You know, you have people on the sidelines saying, why doesn't he give him this? Why does he give him that? He has. He has. It's measured, though. It's step by step by step, because, again, I'm sorry when you're dealing with a country like Russia that has more nuclear weapons than anybody else. No sudden movements when you're dealing with what we're dealing with in the Middle East and Iran and the possibility of a massive regional war.

No sudden movements. Talk about how Joe Biden has. And again, criticizing many. We can we want to criticize. We'll talk about Afghanistan. But it seems to me in these cases, he's done what's required, what a conservative with a small C would be calling for. Indeed, here's the way to think about it. Life is never, almost never an on and off switch. Life so often is kind of a rheostat, you know, that dimmer on the wall in your dining room. You got to kind of dial it in.

And so I think in Ukraine, for example, they started with stingers and javelins. They kind of upped the ante to Patriot air defenses. They moved up that ladder with the ATACMS missiles, kept dialing. And I think that's the same process they're undertaking in the Middle East. Dial it up, encourage the Israelis to use less brute force, more specific, targeted special forces. So think of it as a rheostat. Now, we could argue back and forth about whether they should have spun that dial faster and gotten F-16s to Ukraine. But those are tactical decisions. The strategic way in which the administration has approached both Ukraine and the Middle East is balanced and sensible. Well, and and and it continues putting pressure. You know, I I love reading these stories about how Russia is so powerful and Russia's weathered this storm and Russia's this and that.

Because that end of the year, there are a lot of end of the year stories that Russia was. Oh, they've they've they've handled the sanctions wonderfully. Their economy's doing better than ever. They're this, they're that. You know, some of us that are older remember stories from 85, 86, 87 about the powerful Soviet empire. We remember a book. It's one of my favorite books. So I don't mean to be critical, but the rise and fall of the great empires, Paul, Paul Kennedy talking, Kennedy talking about the rise and fall of the United States. They were overextended and he missed the fact that the Soviet Union would collapse in two, three years.

And I when I when when I hear this now about Russia, I said, I've heard this before and it didn't end well for the Russians. Let's go to the lead story in The New York Times, Admiral. It talks about Israel entering a new phase of the war, finally doing what the Biden administration, what our secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, and so many other what Jake Sullivan, so many other members of Biden administration have been pushing Israel to do, and that is to take a more targeted approach to their campaign and their hunting down of Hamas terrorists and Israeli and American hostages. It's a good moment as follows. They've had the Israelis have had significant success in the north. Now they are ramping down from the big blockbuster bombs. They are using their special forces and they're using their engineers, Joe, to go after that tunnel complex. That's the center of gravity in the north.

That's a good phase in the campaign for the Israelis. In the south, different campaign. They're still fighting very hard, street to street, going after the leadership of Hamas. And in both areas, they are desperately searching for the hostages, hoping against hope they can conduct some kind of a rescue operation. The good news, such as it is, is that that two-pronged campaign in the north and the south plays into the strengths of the Israelis. They're very good at special forces, very good at the ability to do those kind of fine engineering tasks

to take out that center of gravity, that tunnel complex in the north. I think you're going to see them conversely slowing down. It'll appear to the outside world, but really moving effectively both north and south inside Gaza. Admiral, clearly there's so much going on in the world and there was no there's a break over the holidays, so to speak. But the news of General Lloyd Austin or Secretary Austin just being out of touch, how dangerous do you think that was for America's national security readiness? Well, let's let's start by simply saying I've known Lloyd Austin for decades. He's roughly a contemporary of mine, a couple years older, perhaps West Point graduate. I won't hold that against him, but a fine person. And we all

ought to be hoping for his quick recovery and back into the saddle. As Joe and I talked about a moment ago, he's been a very steady pair of hands for the department. In terms of that episode, you know, Lee's on a scale that kind of runs from, you know, we ought to be looking for his resignation. My view, absolutely not. But at the other end, that's no big deal. You know, the deputy took over. This one is kind of in the middle. I spent two years as the senior military assistant, effectively the military chief of staff to Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld. I just can't imagine a moment, let alone days, in which the White House didn't know where the Secretary of Defense was. As I was walking in here, Elise, the Pentagon announced a 30-day review of what happened. That needs to occur. And I'll close with this. Lloyd Austin's been very forthright, saying, I take responsibility

for this. Frankly, I'm looking at his senior staff, what happened there. Look, he had this procedure. He was in a great deal of pain. It's the job of his team to make sure the continuity exists. So kind of worrisome. Let's see what comes out of this study. Admiral, I want to take you back to Israel, Gaza for a second and ask you, when and how do you see some relief for civilians in Gaza? They've effectively been a couple of million people have been pushed kind of south of communists all the way to Rafa in appalling conditions. They're still under fire. When and how do you see that situation being relieved? Not in days, not in weeks, but I think we can measure it in months.

And that is an entirely unsatisfactory answer. The Israelis need to understand that their responsibilities under the laws of war are quite clear here to protect these civilian populations. I think their campaign has been insufficiently attentive to that. Gene, I think it's going to be at least two more months of hard combat in the South. At that point, we hit the discussion of what comes next. And that could be some combination of the Palestinian Authority, the Arab League, local groups, the Israelis themselves entirely unclear. As the old saw goes, it's easy to get into a war. It's hard to get out of one. All right.

Retired four star Admiral James Tavridis, thank you very much for your insight this morning. And up next on Morning Joe, former First Lady Michelle Obama says she is terrified about the potential outcome of the 2024 election. We'll play for you her new remarks, and we'll talk about what Democrats can do about it.

Plus, we'll let Gene bask in the glory of his Wolverine win. Morning Joe will be right back. They won't pull that down. He got out of there. He is unhandy at avoiding that. Quick like a cat. Can't get me. Can't get me.

Still dry. Got his arm a little bit. It's a polarizing figure. There are people out there that believe that whatever Michigan does is tainted. It's up to you to decide. But hail, hail Michigan. They are the champions of college football 2023. Health of the victors, the top-ranked University of Michigan

is college football's national champion after beating number two Washington in last night's title game. Let's bring in right now best-selling author and ESPN commentator Paul Feinbaum. Paul, we'll talk about the coach who was banned twice this season from being on the sidelines in a little bit. But first, I must say, I think it's a Southern thing. I don't have a great deal of respect for most Big Ten teams. Occasionally, Ohio State has a really good team that can compete with SEC teams.

This Michigan team, by the end, won me over. Last night, even more so than the Alabama game, which I will forever think we should have won. But this game last night showed this is a heck of a team top to bottom. Joe, I agree. And it's easy to joke about how until last night, Michigan had won one and a half national championships in the last 70 years. And it seems like Alabama and Georgia just went through a drive-through somewhere and picked up another one. But it was real. For all the criticism, and I've been at the tip of that spear for the last couple of months, it was a dominating performance.

This was not last year with TCU. Washington really was an excellent football team. Michael Penix, the quarterback, just had a rough night. Its defense kept them in the game. They probably shouldn't have been in the game as long as they were. But to Jim Harbaugh's credit, he withstood all types of criticism and whiplash. And at the end, he was the one smiling. And the questions today are not so much whether he will win another one. It's where he will go next.

And we'll get to that, I'm sure, in a second. Yeah, Gene Robinson, you know, the interesting thing, and, you know, my knock on Big Ten teams, and I think most SEC fans have looked at Big Ten teams as being these slow, hulking players. And, I mean, I've been to Big Ten games and said, my God, this is like high school football. That Michigan team last night blew away all of those preconceived notions over the past 30 years. The Michigan team last night looked like the Michigan teams I grew up with as a kid in the 70s when a guy named Bo was their head coach.

They looked like a powerful, fast, put-together, great football team. Yeah, and that's what they were. Remember, these are five-star recruits that Harbaugh brought to Michigan. He's been building this program for years. This is the third year in a row he made the college football playoff, the first year, of course, that he broke through. But this is a really, really balanced team with a powerful running game, a very good passing game, a clever and mobile quarterback in J.J. McCarthy. And they dominated the line of scrimmage. I mean, it's kind of old fashioned football, but that's what they did to Alabama, which a lot of people thought they could not do to

an SEC powerhouse like Alabama. And that's what they did against Washington. It's what they did all year. It's what they did against Ohio State. And so, in a sense, Michigan is a bit late to this game. Ohio State has been at that SEC level for a while. It took Michigan a while to catch back up. But now, of course, when you talk about Big Ten football starting next year, you'll be including Washington. You'll be including these West Coast teams. And so I think

we're going to have to expand the meaning of that term. But it was a great night for Wolverines and their fans. It was a great night, of course, Alabama forgot how to block in the first half of their game against Michigan. Still only three points behind at halftime and ahead seven points into the fourth quarter. But we're not going to go back and replay that game. It's too painful, Paul. Too painful. Paul, I do not want, and were I a Michigan fan, I'd want to focus on the kids. And I do want to focus on what a great team they are.

And I really do the morning after. I hate to bring this up, but I think we need to bring it up. You know, if there weren't so many cutaway shots to Harbaugh, I could focus on the kids on the field. But this is a guy that was suspended twice. And the cheating scandal was terrible. And not only was it terrible, he lied about it. There were, if you talk to other Big Ten coaches,

if you talk to other Big Ten coaches, if you talk to other Big Ten officials, they thought Michigan got away with just, well, got away with, I don't want to say, well, they should have been banned from bowl games or they should have had wins taken away from them. What they did was pretty deplorable. And then they got caught lying about it. So what is the legacy of Harbaugh, even with this extraordinary win last night? Joe, it's going to be mentioned, but here's the real issue. And everything you've said is accurate, and coaches have texted me and told me all these things that you have just regurgitated. But the problem with it sticking is they did what they had to do on the field. The scandal part, the sign stealing, that didn't help them last night or against Alabama.

And quite frankly, beating Alabama was very significant. Had they beaten someone else last week, it might not have had the same residents, but they beat the biggest and the baddest of all, the biggest name in college football and the greatest coach. And I think it will subside. I think the main reason it will subside, Joe, is because there's so much going on right now in college athletics. There's so much under the table. Players are getting $400,000 to sign, and it's not against the rules. So it's hard to look at anything being untoward and making it stick today. Yeah, yeah. Paul, it is insane, the chaos that is spreading across college football.

And we really saw it during the bowl games. I hope they need to get their act together and change some dates on when the kids transfer. They need to wait till February or so to get us through the bowl games, through all the bowl games. Finally, and this is just a point of personal privilege here. I'm sorry. We haven't talked about the Alabama game, the Alabama-Michigan game. Can I just really quickly, can I just, you know, Jack had never been to an Alabama game. What a horrible father I was. He reminded me of that at the beginning of the season.

So we got to go. We carved out time. We got to go to the championship in Atlanta. And I will tell you, at the SEC championship in Atlanta, even though it was in Georgia, Paul, the Alabama fans were louder. The team was more fired up. They wanted it more. You could just tell they wanted it more. There was a bizarre flatness of the Rose Bowl where Michigan fans were, as you know, you were there. They were cheering louder.

Michigan team seemed to want it more. We still should have won. We were ahead in the fourth quarter. But I'm telling you, it was like we were playing in Ann Arbor. It was a reverse of what happened at the SEC Championship. There was a strange flatness to that Alabama team. Can you give us some insights on what happened there? Joe, Alabama expected the win.

It's a combination of no respect for the Big Ten and no respect for Michigan. It happened nine years ago. I remember being in New Orleans for the Ohio State game, the first year of the playoffs. I couldn't find any Alabama fans. I finally found one in the quarter. I said, where is everybody? He said, they skipped this game. They're going on to Dallas for the championship. That's how Alabama rolls. I don't need to tell you. I texted a friend of mine on the Alabama staff after the game, just checking in. He said, we were better than them, just like you said. And that's just a mentality. And by the way, I realized Alabama

didn't win last night because they weren't there, but that's how Alabama has rolled for, I don't know, about 60 or 70 years, hasn't it? Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, they've got six national championships. They win those national championships, six under Saban. Hungary, this was a team. And I think I've got to admit, I've got to admit, I was sitting in the stands before the game and the week leading up to them going, how does Michigan beat us? I don't know how they beat us. And you could sense that the Alabama team in the first half was thinking the same thing.

They didn't wake up to the third quarter. So anyway. All right, Paul. Well, I guess I have to ask Nick Saban. Everybody says he's going to retire. He's going to hang out in Florida and golf. I don't know how Nick Saban does that. It doesn't seem like that's in his makeup. What do you think? A week ago, I thought if he beat Michigan and then won the national championship, he would walk away because it was such a perfect ending. But so much has changed in eight days, Joe. He was out recruiting this weekend. I think the rest of college football has stuck with Nick Saban for a while. And the early predictions are already out for next year.

Guess who the top two teams are in everybody's poll? Georgia and Alabama. Yeah, and I will say the schedule next year is extraordinary. And as Gene was saying, the conferences are moving together. But I know this will sound strange for Michigan fans. That was a particularly galling loss for Alabama last week. And yeah, you're exactly right. Nick Saban, if he had won, he'd probably be golfing and would be trying to figure out who the next coach was. He is not going to go out on that losing note, is he? I don't think so.

And I know a lot of people are watching and going, what's wrong with these Alabama people here? I didn't go there, but my wife's an Alabama fan, and Joe, we know what you are. But that's what really separates Alabama from the rest. And I think it also what makes Michigan winning so unique because Michigan has an air, too. They walked around for the last 30 years like college football revolves around them.

Last night, they finally had something to back it up. They really did. Paul Feinbaum, thank you so much. And, Gene, Alex is going to yell at me, but I've got to give you the last word because we've been talking about Alabama because, well, it's my show. But but that Michigan team, I want to I want to repeat this. I didn't think Michigan had a shot of winning. I thought it was ridiculous. And I think like 70 percent of the people who bet bet on Alabama.

That's what I was hearing. This was an extraordinary, they were a complete team. They were a beautiful football team to watch. Yeah, nothing lasts forever, even Alabama's dominance of college football. And Alabama is a great team. It's going to, Alabama will be back. But so will Michigan. Harbaugh has built a really good team there, a really good program. They're going to be competitive with the best of the SEC.

So when you're, you know, figuring out your rankings for next year, go ahead, put Georgia and Alabama up there. But, you know, mess around and find out. All right. Here we go. Here we go. As Gene said, as a Michigan fan, it's not enough that the dogs win, the cats have to lose. Exactly.

That was a New Yorker magazine article which he said explains how Michigan fans think, well, the dogs won last night and all the cats lost. So congratulations, Jane. There you go. A great team and a great season. And next year we have the expanded playoffs. So a lot to look forward to there. Exactly.

Yeah. Okay.