Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/10/23

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

House committee on ‘weaponization’ of government kicks off with airing of grievances

Dear colleagues, your subcommittee could conceivably become part of a proud history of serious bipartisan oversight stretching from the Teapot Dome investigation to the Boeing investigation to the Watergate hearings to the tobacco hearings to the select committee on the January 6th attack. oversight down a very dark alley filled with conspiracy theories and disinformation, a place where facts are the enemy and partisan destruction is the overriding goal. Well, it appears House Republicans are going to go with the dark alley path. The first hearing for the subcommittee to investigate the, quote, weaponization of the federal government was nothing but grievance politics. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying to distance the party from a fellow Republican senator. Who could that be? It comes as President Joe Biden takes his post State of the Union message to Florida, keeping the focus on the fate of Social Security and Medicare. And his administration is receiving support from a prominent Republican over its handling of the Chinese surveillance

balloon. We'll have that and new details about the balloon from the State Department. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, Friday, finally, Willie. February 10th. Joe is on assignment this morning. Willie, your pick for this Sunday. Sunday today or Super Bowl? Well, my pick for Sunday today is Paul Rudd. More on that in a minute. Oh, really good. I've been thinking about it a lot. I think I'm going to stick with what I said last week, which I'm going to ride with the Chiefs. I'm a Giants fan, so I have a little bit of an anti-Eagles bias. But on the other hand, I root for the team in my division. But my head is telling me Mahomes, who won the MVP again last night, the Chiefs do it.

I think I'm with the Eagles. I've been taking in a lot of information from Joe and his son, Jack. So I'll be watching Sunday today. Paul Rudd. Amazing. How great. We'll look forward to hearing more about that later. Along with Willie and me, we have the host of way too early. White House Bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. He just keeps on going. We do four hours. Lemire does five hours. Think about that. He's not well, Mike. Is he well? Oh, no, there's something wrong with him. Calm down and go home. What's that? A little needy, actually. Yeah, go home, man. He just keeps going. This took a real turn. I didn't. This is not at all in the scripts whatsoever.

I got Chiefs 27-23, by the way. Oh, good. Okay. Glad to hear. Glad to hear. By the way, I haze our youngest participants in the Morning Joe family, and I say needy with love. Lumiere. But it is amazing.

It's such a word that usually connotes such affection. So, yes, thank you, Mia. We are lucky to have you. Former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department's Elise Jordan is here. She's an MSNBC political analyst and the host of MSNBC's Politics Nation and president of the National Action Network. Reverend Al Sharpton is with us this morning. Thank you all for joining us today. So the newly created Republican led House subcommittee created to investigate the alleged, quote, weaponization of the federal government held its first hearing

yesterday. Republicans on the panel claim the government has been unfairly used to target conservatives, while Democrats argued the committee itself is kind of an example of improper use of the government. Chairman of the subcommittee, Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio, laid out his plans for the panel in his opening statement, while delegate Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who serves as the panel's top Democrat, expressed her concerns about what Republicans on the subcommittee are actually doing? Americans have concerns about the double standard at the Department of Justice. Americans have concerns about the disinformation governance board that the Department of Homeland Security tried to form. Over the course of our work in this committee, we expect to hear from government officials and experts like we have here today.

We expect to hear from Americans who've been targeted by their government. But there is a difference, my colleagues, between legitimate oversight and weaponization of Congress and our processes, particularly our committee work, as a political tool. I'm deeply concerned about the use of this select subcommittee as a place to settle scores, showcase conspiracy theories, and advance an extreme agenda that risks undermining Americans' faith in our democracy. Members of that committee heard from two panels. The first included Republican Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.

You'll remember she left the Democratic Party to become an independent. Each of them slammed the Justice Department, social media companies and Democrats in Congress. For the sake of time, we have boiled this hearing down to its essence. Here's what it looked like. Hunter Biden's laptop. Hunter Biden's laptop. Hunter Biden's laptop. Hunter Biden's business arrangements. Hunter Biden laptop story.

The Hunter Biden laptop. The Hunter Biden laptop. Hunter Biden laptop. Secretary Clinton regarding her use of a private email server for official business. So, Jonathan Lambert, you get the idea. A lot of Hunter Biden's laptop. A lot of talking about Hillary Clinton, what, seven years ago now during the presidential campaign. Again, as it was yesterday, as we showed the committee with the Twitter executives, this is precisely what Republicans promised in the fall.

If you elect us, if you bring us into power, which they did in the House, we will go after the FBI. We'll go after the military. We'll go after the Justice Department and we'll go after social media committees, companies. And here we are. Yeah, at least they can't be accused of flip flopping. They have made good on this campaign promised to be sure. It was extraordinarily predictable yesterday, an airing of grievances and conspiracy theories and making a bet that the American people cares at all about Hunter Biden and his theories and making a bet that the American people cares at all about Hunter Biden and his laptop and business dealings. And look, if there was some wrongdoing, it'll be investigated by the proper authorities. And that remains to be seen whether

or not that will happen. But this is something that they have talked themselves into a corner that that this these conspiracy theories off what used to be in the fringes of the Internet became more mainstream. Thanks, Republican talking points. They live on in primetime Fox News shows. And for an element of the Republican base, they want to see this happen. And Republicans have told me they feel like they'd be punished by voters if they didn't see through here. But there are a lot of Republicans, at least, Jordan. There are a lot of Republicans who are nervous about this, who see President Biden talking about things like Social Security and Medicare, talking about big jobs numbers. And at least an element, a loud element of their party

is obsessed about stuff that only plays to the smallest part of their base. Well, and Jonathan, they come into a little bit of power, a teensy bit of power because the margin is so narrow. But is the House just going to look like all they're doing is a consistent grievance train and not any actual legislating, not bringing anything to the floor and voting? And you've got on the Senate side, you've got Rick Scott going completely off message on Social Security. Ron Johnson, too, which, you know, even Mitch McConnell is taking. And, you know, oh, this is not where we are.

But giving Biden and Democrats more to punch back at them with. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to add to that description of yours, Elise, grievance train. I mean, they're adding to their grievance trains for sure that the hunt, the obsession with Hunter for whatever they might find is I think that's going to backfire as well. This is President Biden, who is extremely well liked, you know, many believe has accomplished something in his first two years of office, and they're going after him with such vigor. I'm not sure that's a good look for them. While their former president, they literally closed their eyes, put blinders on to an insurrection. I just don't know how that will translate. And I think we learned in the midterms

that the American people are clued into democracy matters. They don't like insurrections where people get tortured and killed. And they kind of like Joe Biden. They kind of like him. They don't like someone who's cruel. They don't like someone who will just go after people for the sake of going after them. And the Hunter thing for whatever whatever might have gone wrong there. That's not President Biden. Meanwhile, their former president just skates by in their minds, having done criminal act after criminal act. Potentially, he has multiple, I think, six, seven legal investigations, potential indictments, potential arrests looming over him. But they have blinders on. I just don't know how that pans out in the long run.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, took his economic economic message to Florida yesterday in Tampa. The president directly called out Florida Senator Rick Scott for his plan to put Medicare and Social Security up for congressional approval every five years. The very idea the senator from Florida wants to put Social Security and Medicare in the chopping block every five years, I find to be somewhat outrageous, so outrageous that you might not even believe it. I guarantee you it will not happen. I will veto it. I know that a lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security, Medicare. Well, let me say this. If that's your dream, I'm your nightmare. Scott, meanwhile, continues to double down on his plan while simultaneously accusing the president of lying about his position.

The Florida senator also challenged President Biden to a debate. Oh, please do that. The White House has not responded. That would be fabulous. And as Elise mentioned, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is looking to distance the party from Rick Scott's plan to sunset Social Security and Medicare. Well, unfortunately, that was the Scott plan. That's not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott plan. The Republican plan, as I pointed out last fall, if we were to become the majority, there were no plans to raise taxes on half the American people or to sunset Medicare or Social Security. So it's clearly the Rick Scott plan.

It is not the Republican plan. And that's the view of the Speaker of the House as well. I think we're in a more authoritative position to state what the position of the party is than any single senator. So Rick Scott's really not back in the fold yet after he ran against you for leadership? Well, this doesn't have anything to do with that. I mean, this is a bad idea. I think it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own re-election in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any other state in America. I mean, what what else does Mitch McConnell really have to say? It is a bad idea. And Biden is completely owning, owning Mike Barnicle, the Republicans on their attempt to own the libs

on so many ways. But in this case, he's calling them out by name. He's very joyfully getting in the debate. And the bottom line is Rick Scott has a plan that does that. He's lying about it. And so, too, is Mike Lee when he says he never spoke loudly about getting rid of these programs. The president's calling them out and he's doing something very simple. He's sticking to facts and owning them on their own facts. Yeah, and it's one thing for the president of the United States to be doing what he's doing, which is understandable and predictable. It's quite another thing for us to just hear Mitch McConnell kill another Republican senator.

Kill him. Indicating that, you know, he's going to have a tough time getting reelected, carrying his own baggage. That's an amazing statement from Mitch McConnell. That's a problem. Who knows what he's doing every single second of his professional political life. He knows what he's doing. And Reverend Al, it leads to the spectacle that we saw part of earlier this hour of the Republicans living in their own cocoon. Jim Jordan, who apparently can't afford a blazer, sits there at the committee

in his white shirt, trying to pretend, giving the image of a working guy. I came to work. I don't wear a coat. I'm too busy and stuff like that. But talking about issues that mean nothing to the average citizen, to people you know, people who I know, they're not talking about, did you get your Social Security check on time? Did it come on time? Do your taxes? We're going to fix your taxes. We're going to have a fairer tax system. Things that actually matter to people. Where are they going? I really don't think that they know when it is. You know, it reminds me of the dog chasing the milk truck. And when they when he catches it, he can't drive it. Not only are they talking about things that the average person, you know, I know would care less about the things they care about.

They haven't been able to deliver. When I look at their whole committee hearing on what goes on Twitter and they couldn't call a credible candidate or one to testify that could say, well, I worked in government, I worked in Twitter, and this is what we did. It's like, OK, you got your committee now. You don't even have witnesses to call to back up your crazy. I mean, at least give me a crazy witness. I guess John George Santos was busy because they couldn't even get anyone to fabricate evidence. You know, to the point you just raised, let me ask you a question. Have you ever been walking down, you know, Second Avenue or Broadway on the West Side

and have someone come up to you in the street and say, hey, did you see this tweet? Right. No, never. Never? Never. Oh, my God. No. In fact, the people I tweet to don't even say that I see that they see my tweet. I mean, I think it's a little overindulgence. But my real point is they really have no message beyond grievance, beyond anger, beyond conspiracies. There's no message. There's no there there. And I think that the

very, very significant thing President Biden's been able to do is put a message out. I'm for this. I'm for that. This will mean this to you. They've not been able to counter that. They've been just barking at the moon while he's been methodically doing what he's done. And I think the other unsaid thing that he's done is the according to polling, the concern about his age. He's showing vigor. This man is doing 20 cities. Just three weeks ago, he did our Martin Luther King breakfast for National Action Network. I had to leave to come back, rush back to Harlem for afternoon session. When I got to the airport and called back to our people that run the Washington office and said, did everything end all right? They said, the president's still in the ballroom

shaking hands. So here's a man showing energy, showing the exact opposite of what they're trying to project. Jonathan Lemire, you and I both know Barnacle stands at the corner of 67th and Broadway right outside the movie theater there and says, hey, you want to see my tweet? And it's very disturbing. Usually the NYPD is called in, but we don't need to go deeper into that. So, John, clearly the president in this White House feels it has found something. I mean, he's going to carry that Rick Scott brochure with him probably for the next year and a half on the campaign trail if he, in fact, as we expect, decides to run for reelection. Mitch McConnell wants nothing to do with it.

He doesn't like Rick Scott to begin with. Remember, Rick Scott tried to briefly run to become the majority leader. He failed in that attempt. Mitch McConnell just kicked him off the Commerce Committee, kicked Rick Scott off the Commerce Committee. There's no love lost there. But Republicans, by and large, want nothing to do with Rick Scott. But President Biden will have that brochure with him for a long time here. McConnell in that interview denied that Rick Scott was kicked off that

committee because of this, his bid to oust him as leader. Sure, we can fact check that. This is another another moment of if you come at the king, you best not miss to quote The Wire, one of the best TV shows we've ever seen. But there's no question here, though, Mitch McConnell is good at politics, like him or not. He knows how to do this and he knows this is a terrible idea and it is being hung around the necks of the Republicans. And the White House is gleeful to do it. I was in Wisconsin on Wednesday when the president, when he held up that brochure and made sure he read aloud to it and showed the audience yesterday in Florida, a copy of that brochure was left in every seat in that venue for every elected official.

But more importantly, every Florida senior who attended it to read. This is going to be, even as we heard the State of the Union the other night, Republicans, a lot of them shouted, no, no, we won't touch Social Security. We won't touch Medicare. President Biden's argument is going to be, OK, do you believe them? I have it right here in black and white that that's what they want to do. And they feel like this is a fantastic issue for them. And right now, before the Republicans get to the point where they have a front runner, a presidential nominee, Rick Scott and Jim Jordan types in the House, the Democrats in the White House, they're going to paint them. This is your Republican Party right now.

Rick Scott, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, that's who we're running against. And they feel very good about that contrast. OK, I just want to point out. So Wednesday, you do five hours of morning, Joe, and then you got on a plane to Wisconsin. I'm just curious. Well, I am early on Wednesday. I did duck out early on Wednesday in order to make the plane. But yes, this is what and then this is the on the ground reporting that I bring to this show and to our grateful viewers.

True. You're certifiable. OK, still ahead on Morning Joe. The latest from Ukraine as Russia launches a new series of attacks in the eastern and southern regions of the war-torn country. Plus, China called it a weather balloon. But U.S. officials are disclosing new details about what that alleged spying equipment was actually capable of. We'll dig into that and the reaction from Capitol Hill. Also ahead, what's next for former Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney? Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to have an idea. And Steve Ratner says there's been a string of recent data showing a strong U.S. economy.

He joins us next with charts. Somebody on the plane yesterday was talking about Steve's charts. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Up on the side of this mountain of night. charts. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Nearly a week now after that massive earthquake destroyed entire parts of Turkey and Syria, survivors still are being pulled from the rubble. This is the death toll now times past 20,000 people. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez has more from Turkey. Incredibly, the rescues are not over. Nearly 100 hours after this week's devastating earthquakes, this young girl is pulled out alive.

A moment so overpowering, one of her rescuers collapses in tears. We witnessed a 57-year-old woman pulled out on a stretcher. And this boy smiles after he and his family are hoisted to safety. People rejoicing against all odds, even as the death toll tops the staggering 20,000. Including American Barack Farik, who sent his family this photo after the first quake, saying he was okay, but his building later collapsed. He and his family were on the fifth floor. They died together, the children being held in the parents' arms. The World Health Organization is now warning of a second disaster for quake

survivors enduring brutal conditions. In Kahaman, Maras, Turkey, the quake's epicenter, a massive tent camp has sprung up inside a stadium. Among the most sought-after items here are coats and blankets for another miserably cold night. This couple's grandson is among the missing, believed to be trapped when his home collapsed. What are you most praying for today? We pray for patience, he says. For others, their patience is wearing thin. This woman just learned her son was killed. Logistical problems, blocked roads and poor communication have complicated rescue efforts.

So has the sheer size of the disaster. Logistical problems, blocked roads, and poor communication have complicated rescue efforts. So has the sheer size of the disaster. Among some bystanders here, there is frustration that a professional, specialized rescue team didn't arrive to this location in a busy city center until four days after the earthquakes. As the window is closing for finding survivors, more international search teams are on the ground, including two from the U.S. NBC's Matt Bradley is with them. So this American search and rescue team is from Fairfax County in Virginia. They just got here, and there's talk that there might be someone living inside this rubble still.

People are really trying to help. They're doing amazing things. But it is chaotic. In northwestern Syria, the situation may be even more dire. The UN says only 5% of damaged areas are being covered by search and rescue operations. So many across the region are struggling to hold on, like this heartbreaking image, a father clutching the hand of his 15-year-old daughter killed in the quake never wanting to let go oh my gosh that is just gut wrenching gabe gutierrez reporting for us from turkey so mika as devastating as that number is more than 20 000 dead you heard gabe said they've only reached about five percent of these

areas so that number expected widely to go up from here no this, this is just truly epic, epic. And we move now to Ukraine, a country that has reached out to help the victims of the earthquake and declared in all of Ukraine, urging all residents to take shelter. Explosions have been heard in the capital of Kiev and the surrounding area as Russia unleashed a new wave of missile strikes on critical infrastructure in southern and eastern Ukraine. Overnight attacks knocked out power supplies to parts of Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine. This morning, at least 17 missiles hit the city of Zaporizhia, home of Europe's largest nuclear power plant. Officials say the barrage marks the most intense period of attacks in the area since the war began. And coming up, what we're learning about the Chinese spy balloon recovered in the Atlantic

Ocean after it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina last weekend. Plus, new reporting on efforts to restrict China's access to advanced weapons that could be used in war. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. No man has fallen under pressure. The price of fear and doubt splits the family in two. But speak for the streets. Beautiful picture. The United States Capitol at 632 on a Friday morning.

Former Congressman and former chairman of the DCCC, Sean Patrick Maloney, may be headed back to Washington. NBC News reports Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has been making calls pushing to have the White House name Maloney as the next Secretary of Labor. That is according to two sources familiar with the calls. Maloney lost his seat in a close race in the midterm election. Current Labor Secretary Marty Walsh expected to step down in the near future for a job with the NHL Players Association. Not all House Democrats, though, are thrilled about Maloney's potential return to the Capitol. Fellow New York lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted yesterday she, quote, couldn't think of a more divisive candidate

for the job. Wow. In a statement, the White House said it had no personnel announcements to make about Secretary Walsh just yet. But sources familiar say his number two in the department, Julie Hsu, is the heavy favorite for that job. Maloney declined to comment to NBC News. A spokesperson for Pelosi said she would love to see Maloney continue in public service, perhaps even in this administration. So clearly, Jonathan Lemire, this is not a unanimous idea from Democrats, as we heard

from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. And it appears maybe there is an internal favorite there inside the White House who is not Sean Patrick Maloney. Yeah, and a lot of Asian-American lawmakers would like to see Walsh's deputy, Julie Hsu, take over in that position, a high-profile position in the cabinet. Certainly, though, Sean Patrick Maloney, though, has critics, including AOC defenders. And Speaker Pelosi, former Speaker Pelosi, still carries a lot of influence in Washington, a lot of influence with the administration. And Sean Patrick Maloney, though he lost, many think that he deserves credit for a better than expected showing by House Democrats this fall. Though it was his home state of New York that many point to as potentially costing the Dems the majority.

Let's recall they are expected to lose by 30, 40 seats or more. And instead, the Republicans margin there in the House, only a handful. So there is some groundswell to give Maloney some sort of job. Mika, whether it's this one or not, remains to be seen. So interesting. Well, he's very talented. And joining us now, someone who's also very talented, former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner, who somehow branded his charts. He's known across America. I was at a dinner party. I never do that, Steve. And your charts came up like everyone at the table said, oh, my God, Steve Ratner is the

star with the charts. And you've got charts on the state of the economy. Is it good news or bad news? Well, I'm happy to report good news today. I often come with not such great news, but the economy really is in quite an amazing sweet spot at the moment. It was great timing for Joe Biden and his State of the Union. But you'll recall we created 517,000 new jobs last month. That brings the total of the Biden administration to 12.1 million jobs. That is more than in two years. That is more than any president has created in four years. And what you can see on this chart which is also amazing is how fast we've recovered the jobs that we lost during the covid uh shutdown and these this charts the covid uh recovery against various other recoveries we've had the

great financial crisis the dot com and so forth and we've recovered jobs faster from this from this uh turn down than we did either from the great financial crisis or the dot com or even the one before that. So it's really quite an extraordinary record on jobs. So the record on jobs is looking really, and especially the unemployment number, Steve. Despite inflation, though, where are we headed in terms of inflation? I feel like there are two weak spots in the economy, and that's obviously the cost of things for people, but also housing. It is for people looking for an apartment or trying to get that first house. It still feels like an impossible uphill battle.

Well, on the first point, inflation certainly is a problem. It affects everyday Americans. It's affected food prices in particular, which lower income Americans have to bear. But what's surprising is actually how well, if you look at, again, the COVID period, the three years of COVID that we've lived through and recovery, surprising how well the average American has done up 2.6 percent in real wages. That's after adjusting for inflation, still a little bit ahead. But what this chart does is it breaks people down into four buckets by income, top to bottom, and completely the opposite of what we've seen

during much of the decade before. You can see that on the right side, the bottom quarter of Americans have actually done the best. Their incomes after inflation are up about 12.5%. And those on the other end, the wealthy people, they're up 2.6% about average. The people in the upper middle class, so to speak, that second bar from the left, are the only ones really who've lagged. But the real news about this is how much of the gains in income over the last three years have gone to people at the bottom and really raised their real wages by a very material amount. So, Steve, what do you say to people who, as you just pointed out, the real wages have gone up, especially people at the bottom, as you just phrased it. You know, they come out of a grocery store and they say, I'm not feeling this progress. You know, interest rates

are up. Inflation continues to, you know, bump along and everything like that. What do you say to these people to make them to believe, hey, you're doing really well, better than you think? Well, you know, really well, I don't I'm not sure I promised them really well at two point six percent on average, but better than better than they think. And, you know, the problem is that a lot of the sticker prices they see eggs famously at the moment because of the avian flu. They're coming down. We had an episode of gas prices obviously going up enormously. Those kinds of things are hard to explain. I mean, you can see on this chart here that inflation really did run at a very high level coming out of COVID. After the shutdown, we had supply shortages, which made price of goods higher. We had labor shortages, which made wages go up, which is good, but it also made prices go

up. But what you can see on this chart is how fast inflation has been coming down. It's averaged only 1.9 percent over the last three months. Actually, when prices actually went down in December, I wouldn't promise that or advertise that as where we're headed. But for the moment, inflation is moving in the right direction. Now, what you have to watch, and Jay Powell, the chairman of the Fed, talked about that this week, is you have to watch wages, which is the right side of this. We all want wages to go up, but if wages go up too fast, it makes inflation go up. So wages need to continue. Wage increases need to moderate, unfortunately, to get inflation down and make real wages go up. And it's been happening, but they're still in the four to five percent

range. They need to get down closer to three for inflation to get down closer to two, which is the Fed's target. Steve, we heard a lot of economists talk about the recession, and we kept waiting for the bottom to fall out with the recession. And now we're hearing because of the better economic forecast that we may avoid a recession. What does that mean to the average person that becomes concerned about the price of eggs and the price of gas or the fact that there may not be the recession that we were afraid of? But what does that mean to me at home? Well, to the average person, not having a recession is good news because recessions mean layoffs. They mean job cuts. They mean incomes going down. And it's bad for the economy

as a whole. We've had two quarters the last six months of last year. We had very substantial growth. There is a chance we might avoid recession. It's not a foregone conclusion. I think the odds have simply gone down a bit. But the Fed still has work to do. And as it raises interest rates, it raises house prices, as Mike was speaking about. And that affects the average American. So recessions are bad for the average American. It just makes them less well off. It makes the economy less well off. The flip side is if we avoid a recession, the jobs machine continues. Hopefully wage increases continue. And it's not perfect, but life is decent for the average American. Willie, given your level of affluence, which is considerable.

Mike, be very careful there, my friend. What are your critical thoughts on the economy and the charts? Well, I love, like Mika's dinner guests, I too love the charts. I think people do look forward to the charts. And I like that we're getting them a couple of times a week now, too. We wanted Steve to stick around to talk about China here. We're learning more about the surveillance balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday. According to a senior State Department official, the balloon was fitted with multiple antennas capable of collecting signals intelligence.

The balloon was described by the official as carrying equipment designed to collect communications. China has insisted it was a weather balloon, while the equipment was described as inconsistent with what is typically found aboard a weather balloon. Yesterday, the House unanimously approved a resolution condemning China's use of that balloon, calling it a, quote, brazen violation of United States sovereignty. That vote, following briefings given to both the full House and Senate earlier in the day during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on the balloon. Senator John Tester of Montana was frustrated during his questioning of witnesses. Do we have a plan for the next time it happens and how we're going to deal with it? Because quite frankly, I'll just tell you, I don't want a damn balloon going across the United States when we potentially could have taken it down over the Aleutian Islands. No offense to Alaska. Following the briefing in

the morning, Republican lawmakers also expressed their concerns. China sent a spy balloon to fly all across America. The Biden administration had a chance to shoot it down over Alaska, and they chose to let it spy all across America. End of story. What my feeling is right now is that this should have been shot down over Alaska. No nation state, particularly an adversary, should be able to fly any platform over the airspace of the United States without it being confronted and stopped. In this particular case, they had opportunities to do so.

Well, they knew that it do so well. They knew that it was headed towards the continental U.S. before it actually entered. I believe they had the I believe that they had the ability to bring it down and chose not to. Those experts disagreeing with the Department of Defense, which said they should wait till it was over water. Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah telling reporters yesterday after the briefings, though, quote, my questions were satisfactorily answered. And I believe the administration, the president, our military and our intelligence agencies acted skillfully and with care. Mika, that's from Senator Romney.

Yeah. Let's bring in New York Times reporter Anna Swanson, who writes about trade and international economics. She has new reporting this morning on the Biden administration preparing new rules that would restrict U.S. dollars from flowing to China amid growing concerns about the communist nation's military and economic ambitions. There's so many ways we are connected with China. What are what are you looking at here? Yeah, that's right. So the Biden administration has mostly finalized an executive order that would ban U.S. firms from investing in Chinese companies that are developing certain advanced technologies. And the United States already bans the sale to China of these advanced technologies, things like parts for supercomputers that can test advanced missile systems or crack U.S. codes.

And the United States is already reviewing Chinese investment that comes into the U.S. for security threats. But there's basically no oversight now of money going in the other direction, from the United States to China. And critics are arguing that this is a major loophole because U.S. dollars could be going to China to fund their own development of homegrown versions of these technologies that the U.S. doesn't want China to have. All right. And what's the level of interdependence that we have here financially? And also, does this balloon incident change the dynamic at all? Yeah. So the economies are really interdependent. China is one of our largest trading partners, but it's also, you know, becoming one of our most prominent geopolitical rivals. And that makes this relationship really tricky to have. And the

balloon situation has, I think, highlighted for a lot of people the national security risks that China poses. You know, obviously some of this is politics people, the national security risks that China poses. You know, obviously, some of this is politics, but the national security threat is also real. Advanced technology is really key to America's military prowess. And U.S. technology has already gone to help China develop some, you know, missile systems or its surveillance technology, for example, that it uses to follow dissidents within China. Steve, Anna's piece in Today's Times is really interesting in a number of different levels, given the fact that so much of corporate America or a lot of corporate America is interwoven with the Chinese economy. How do we unwind this, given the technological and espionage aspects of

what's going on? It's hard, Mike, because the world has become very intertwined and certainly our relationship, economic relationship with China has become intertwined. Capital flows all over the world. Many Chinese companies are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Many U.S. investment firms invest in Chinese stocks, both in New York and Hong Kong and Shanghai. It's very interdependent. What we can do, and I'm certainly not opposed to it, I think it may have some merit, is what Anna is talking about, which is to restrict U.S. investment from certain companies, to essentially put them on a prohibited list. Now, let's be realistic. The Chinese have

trillions of dollars of both dollars and RMB, their local currency, in the bank. They are not short of capital. And taking away our capital may or may not have any meaningful effect on them. The flip side of what we've been doing, of course, is to restrict export of technology, to not allow them to have our technology. We can be more effective there because we have a lot of technology that they are years and years away from developing. And I'm certainly all in favor of trying to curtail things that lead to espionage and other actions that are counter. They're not our friends. They are our biggest strategic rival, and we have to recognize that. Yeah, we need to talk about TikTok. Steve Ratner, thank you very much. And Anna Swanson of The New York Times, thank you for your reporting. Please come back. We appreciate it. And still ahead on Morning Joe, the 2024 Republican presidential field continues to take shape. We'll talk to New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu about whether or not he intends to jump in the race. Plus, there are currently 12 women governors across the country.

That is a record. And I recently spoke with half of them. That important conversation is straight ahead on Morning Joe. We're back in just a moment. This week, civil rights leaders led by Reverend Al Sharpton will gather in Florida to protest Governor Ron DeSantis' attempts to remove portions of the curriculum in the new Advanced Placement African American Studies course. Governor DeSantis' office rejected the class over lesson topics like Black Que studies and black feminist literary thought. The AP course is voluntary for students and is meant to be taught at the college level. Students who place high enough in an end-of-the-year exam receive college credit for the course. The college board, the nonprofit group that runs AP

courses and the SATs reportedly discussed the curriculum with Florida officials and removed several of the lessons in question. Critics of the move accused the college board of bending to political pressure. Reverend Al, I mean, I don't know where to begin on this, but I do think this is sort of DeSantis's playbook. And the question, two questions. Number one, what do you think of this? But number two, how really will this play on the big stage if and when he decides to run for president? Well, first of all, I think that it is clearly a bigoted and biased way that the governor has tried to go after African-American studies, women, LGBTQ. He has this whole thing of us against them. but to poison it in an educational program, an educational curriculum where you deny knowledge to students is why we're going to do this march and rally next Wednesday.

Reverend R.B. Holmes that leads National Action Network in Tallahassee and pastors one of the churches and Bishop McKissick, Rudy McKissick, who's on our national board and one of the big Florida leaders have called this march. I'm going down to help lead it because we are saying, how do you educate students without them knowing the history of the country? And you're going to take out parts of the country, parts of the culture. Yet you're telling them they're rounded students in these advanced programs. Where it plays on the big stage, Mika,

is that DeSantis is playing a more polished version of Donald Trump. He's having a divisive, us-against-them kind of politics that he's trying to emerge. And if he can become a more manicured version of the heavy fisted Donald Trump, he thinks he can win the nomination. I think that he may be right there, but I think he will not be able to win in a general election if he becomes the nominee. I think America is tired of the divisiveness and they're tired of the even subtle kind of bias and bigotry. Well, and at least, Jordan, it's, again, these sort of grievance issues, hatred issues. And there's there are issues that across the board, Americans are worried about what Joe Biden's talking about. I think they're, you know, Ron DeSantis is doing something that may work in Tallahassee, may work in his bubble.

But when you were talking about what the future looks like and who's going to lead this country, I think there's a growing exhaustion for these grievance issues and this just particular politics. Ron DeSantis tasted a little success with the base over his Disney culture war, and he's just trying to go for the next issue. And honestly, Mika, I think that it's probably introducing a generation of young readers to a lot of great mind-blowing literature, because I know that when I was a teenager, anything that I was told not to read, I went directly and found. It just is the way that it works. And so the irony of this is that by speaking out against any of these great books, you know, I think Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut was banned. Native Son by Richard Wright. That's just going to draw teenagers to these great books like Moths to a Flame. All right. Reverend Al Sharpton, we'll be watching. Thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. We really appreciate it.