Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/10/25

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Federal judges block Trump executive orders

Some of your plays have raised some questions and had some pushbacks. Nineteen states attorneys general filed a lawsuit and early Saturday a judge agreed with them to restrict Elon Musk and his government efficiency team, Doge, from accessing Treasury Department payment and data systems. They said there was a risk of irreparable harm. What do you make of that and does that slow you down on what you want to do? I disagree with it 100%. I think it's crazy.

President Trump has never cared for judges who rule against him, whether it's in civil court, criminal trial, or now, in his attempts to gut the federal government, courtesy of Elon Musk. It comes as the vice president, J.D. Vance, says the quiet part out loud, suggesting federal courts aren't allowed to limit the White House's legitimate power. We're going to talk about the ruling that inspired the highly problematic position. And if you didn't stay up late to watch, the Philadelphia Eagles crushed Kansas City last night in Super Bowl 59, denying the Chiefs what would have

been an historic three-peat. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, February 10th. With us we have the co-host of our fourth hour, Jonathan Lemire. He's a contributing writer at the Atlantic covering the White House and national politics. U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Cady Kaye, the host of Way Too Early, Ali Vittali, managing editor at The Bull Works, Sam Stein, and Roger's chair in the American presidency at Vanderbilt University, historian John Meacham.

He's an MSNBC political analyst. And Joe, I was just telling Pablo here, my hex worked. Yes. It did. Yes, it did. I'm gonna do it every time now. I feel so powerful.

Mica Pablo. He knows, he was there. I know what she said on Friday, she wanted the Eagles to win, so she picked the Chiefs. Exactly. And we're gonna be talking to Pablo Friday she she wanted the Eagles to win so she picked the Chiefs exactly and and we're gonna we're gonna be talking to Pablo a good a good bit about the Super Bowl remarkable Super Bowl last night just gonna do a quick tea we're

gonna do a quick tease though with Pablo here because Pablo and then we'll get to you after we get to the news. That means keep it short. Yeah. Okay. About JD Vance saying that they don't have to listen to federal judges so maybe we'll we'll get to that at the top. But just really quickly last night what a remarkable Super Bowl in that you have a guy and of course Jonathan O'Meara is supposed to be off today but he came back on today simply to simply to say never ever say Patrick Mahomes is the goat again but I will tell you man he Mahomes turned in one of the worst performances by any quarterback since

the 2000 Super Bowl by some stats and And listen, I love JD Hertz. I'm glad he was the MVP. But how, I mean, how do you not also look at that defensive line that didn't have to blitz one time? And they dominated the game. They framed the game. They were as great man as the steel curtain back in the 1970s.

Yeah, physical dominance, Joe. I mean, this was the most shocking version of this game that I honestly had not imagined a blowout like this. And I heard from Lemire all night, obviously. I felt it was cosmic powers. Yes. Also, what we saw was a very funny thing, as shocking as it was.

It was the chiefs looking like the rest of us. It was the mythologically powerful Chiefs looking like the Jets. Frankly, in that first half, to your point, it was Patrick Mahomes as the old version of Sam Darnold. It was mortality. And at this scale, I mean that in terms of the audience, in terms of the way it happened, the beating up

of the golden child of Mahomes with Brady watching, which we can talk about also in a bit, with Tom Brady there calling the game, it felt kind of Shakespearean and hilarious and also surreal. I heard from Eagles fans who were yeah celebrating in my face because of my pick Friday actually. It was unbelievable and of course Jalen Hurts was the MVP and again I'm so glad glad for Jalen on so many levels I mean Jalen was a guy who kept a screenshot up of their Super Bowl loss two years ago

and you wondered whether that was effective or not is that Eagles last season had one of the greatest late season collapses after an 11-1 start that anybody can remember they you know people talking about them firing their coach talking and then Jonathan Lemire you know Barclay may not have had an incredible night last night but because he had such an incredible year and because the Chiefs were so focused on stopping Barkley last night, they opened everything up for Jalen Hurts and the rest of that Eagles offense. Oh, this is good. This is good. Here we go. You are. Boy, you are right. No, let's give credit. First of all, credit. Eagles defense did a great job stopping Saquon Barkley, who was arguably the best player

in the league all year. Didn't do much at all yesterday. Caught a few passes, but nowhere near his usual standards. But that's about all we can say that Chiefs did right. Jalen Hertz was terrific, came out throwing. He also made a bunch of plays with his legs to extend leads. And I think that the Eagles defensive line collectively should have been the MVP. As good as Hertz was.

They harassed the homes all night. They the Chiefs made no attempt to run the ball. They couldn't do it. They'd struggle going into the game anyway. And they forced the homes into some uncharacteristic terrible plays. We're seeing one right now. The pick six. He committed.

He threw two interceptions. One were back for touchdown. He threw a third that was called back for penalty correctly. He also fumbled that set up a chief's points late in the game and those turnovers were just backbreaking. And yes, I do have to say this, this is now a moment where a brilliant dismal home. Let's put the conversation aside at least conversation aside, at least for now. At least for now. Tom Brady in his three, he looked, he was one seven Super Bowls, lost three, but in the three that he lost,

were one score games, all of them. Mahomes' two losses were blowouts. Let's just put this away for the time being. That's awesome. Okay, we will do that. And we're gonna put the Super Bowl away for a moment and going to get to the news. But before we do, I just want to say because I actually care about newspapers and I love newspapers and I will say there have been years that have passed, many years ago where I've gone through a Sunday New York Times and just wondering what the

editors were thinking when they put it together. I will tell you yesterday, and things like this matter to people like John Meacham and myself, Mike Barnicle and others, I guess old guys, and to many others. Yesterday's Sunday New York Times was extraordinary. Nothing short of extraordinary. From beginning to back, we're gonna be reading from this and I'm gonna get John Meacham's opinion on the New York Times editorial. The New York Times Magazine had an extraordinary story, Mika,

on sex by generation and talking about the lack of it among younger, more isolated Americans and how Gen X actually is one generation that continues to think sex is okay. Sunday Business, just an absolutely fascinating profile on a young up and coming sort of quasi reporter that we're going to want to get into. Of course, their sports section, absolutely fantastic yesterday. Question that everybody asks in America, why hasn't the Golden Retriever ever won the Westminster Dog Show. And we could go on and on. Wonderful, wonderful essays, wonderful essays.

And of course, shocking news filling the front. But before we do all that, John Meacham, just as we would say in Congress, a point of personal privilege, because I did something this weekend that I just had not done in a while, and I went through emails of people who watched the show and went into the public email file deeply concerned and did my best to reassure them that what we need to do to get through moments like these, quoting everybody from writer Kipling to Martin Luther King to James Madison.

But the New York Times, it's just one of these moments, and you know this as a writer, where people come up to you and thank you for saying things, writing things that they have felt in their heart and that they have tried to express but haven't been able to do it as effectively as you have. I think all the things I've been trying to tell people about keeping calm, carrying on, and staying focused and staying informed, The New York Times handled it wonderfully. And if you'll give me the privilege of time to read the New York Times and what they say. What this moment calls for, don't get distracted.

Don't get overwhelmed. Don't get paralyzed and pulled into the chaos that President Trump and his allies are purposefully creating with the volume and speed of executive orders, the efforts to dismantle the federal government, the performative attacks on immigrants, transgender people and the very concept of diversity itself, the demands that other countries accept Americans as their new overlords, and the dizzying sense that the White House could do or say anything at any moment. All of this is intended to keep the country on its back heel so President Trump can blaze ahead and is dry for maximum executive power,

so no one can stop the audacious, ill-conceived, and frequently illegal agenda being advanced by his administration. For goodness sake, writes the Times, don't tune out. The actions of the presidency needs to be tracked and when they cross moral or legal lines, they need to be challenged boldly and thoughtfully. With the confidence that the nation's systems of checks and balances will prove up to the task. There are reasons for concerns on that front, of course. The Republican-led Congress has so far abdicated its role as a co-equal branch of government from allowing its laws and spending directives to systematically be cast aside to fearfully

assending to the president's stocking of his cabinet with erratic, unqualified loyalists. Much of civil society, from the business community to higher education to parts of the corporate media, has been disturbingly quiet, even acquiescent. But there are encouraging signs as well. The courts, the most important check on a president who aims to expand his legally authorized powers and remove any guardrails so far have held, blocking a number of Mr. Trump's initiatives. States have also taken action. They go on to say that none of this

is to say that Mr. Trump shouldn't have the opportunity to govern. 77 million Americans cast ballots to put Mr. Trump back in the White House, and the Republican Party, now fully remade in the service of, and the Republican Party, now fully remade in the service of the MAGA movement, holds majorities in both houses of Congress. Elections, as it is often noted, have consequences.

But is this unconstitutional overall of the American government what he campaigned on. And it goes on and on, John. But I find so much of that so important for Americans to understand that several things true at once. Donald Trump had 77 million people vote for him. The people have spoken. He is president of the United States. Republicans control the Senate. Republicans control the House. They have slim majorities in both, but they do control those. They have a right to move forward and try to pass legislation that that moves America in the direction where they want it to move. But they cannot redefine unilaterally the powers of the presidency.

And JD Vance's tweet yesterday that courts cannot stop a president's legitimate power. I mean, of course they can't. But it is the courts and not vice presidents. It is William Rehnquist and it is Warren Berger that determine the outlines of a president's authority and not Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon. That is, we saw that in Nixon v. US. I suspect we will see that again soon. But it is important. I love this editorial and I'm wondering what you took from it. Well, I think this is what, for instance, the Federalist Papers were drafted for. This is what the, if you look at the American founding, you see

in many ways an imperfect group of men, and they were men, trying to create the most perfect system they could, all the while knowing that they were going to fail at that. But they made the argument that because human nature is sinful and we are fallen and frail and we're fallible and we want power because, you know, since the third chapter of Genesis, we've been taking instead of giving. And the founders understood that. And as Madison said, ambition must be made to counteract ambition. So David French, my neighbor in middle Tennessee, wrote a really wonderful piece as well in

the New York Times in the last 24 hours or so, which I commend to you. And it's not just Mika, because he quotes the anti-federalist papers, but it was part of the charm. Right. What the founders understood, and this is by the way, isn't this what conservatives are supposed to be fascinated by, points like this, is that whenever you give one force, one party, one interest, one man, too much power, then the body politic, and they always use those terms, they barred from the ancient world, body politic, corruption, words that talked about how important politics were as important as our health, right?

I mean, that's where the metaphorical language comes from. You have to have the balance. And that's what Madison's insight was. He borrowed it. It was a theological insight as much as it was a political one. The head of what became Princeton, a man named John Witherspoon, who taught many of these figures, was a deep Calvinist and understood that most of what we would want to do would be wrong and selfish.

And so therefore, we were going, as Hamilton said, by reflection and choice to create a system where we would check our worst impulses. And the problem, of course, is everybody's against executive power until they have it. But this is an extreme version of that. And of all, and I believe in the keep calm and carry on. Absolutely. As we've talked about before, you know, as John Belushi, that great political scientist said,

we did not give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. That said, the thing that is the most troubling to me in the past X number of days was the vice president weighing in in that way. Because it felt to me, and I hope, I pray that I'm wrong, was the vice president weighing in in that way, because it felt to me, and I hope, I pray that I'm wrong, it felt to me as if it might be setting a predicate, a predicate for the kind of showdown

that would potentially, potentially, break apart this constitutional system of checks and balances. Well, and there also was a senator, a Republican senator, who talked about a, quote, judicial coup. We will, of course, to soothe that senators' tangled nerves later today be showing Mika all of the executive orders by Joe Biden that were overturned. And of course, when those executive orders were overturned, no Democratic senator came

forward talking about a, quote, judicial coup, just like when Kamala Harris lost the election, no Democratic senator talked about stolen elections. So, yes, yes, it seems that what applies to one side maybe isn't thought to apply to another, but that's the thing about the Constitution. It applies to everyone. All right. Well, we're going to get more on the administration's reaction to the judge's rulings. But first, let's just lay out what happened here.

A federal judge on Friday paused the Trump administration's midnight deadline to cut USAID's workforce by thousands of employees. Judge Carl Nichols, a 2019 Trump appointee, issued a restraining order, pausing the administrative leave of more than 2,000 agency employees, along with a plan to withdraw nearly all of its overseas workers within 30 days. He also ordered a temporary reinstatement of 500 agency employees already on leave. The decision came after federal employee unions filed a motion for a temporary pause on the plan, claiming it violates the Constitution. The development in the latest, is the latest, in a number of legal actions against President

Trump's executive orders. At least 10 lawsuits have been filed in response to President Trump's orders on immigration and citizenship. The majority of those are focused on the White House's push to end birthright citizenship. Multiple judges have stopped this order from taking effect, including a Washington state district judge who was appointed by Ronald Reagan. He slammed Trump's order last week, writing, quote, It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals.

The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain. Then there are the issues related to January 6th. Two different groups of FBI agents and employees have sued to stop the Trump administration from releasing the names of those who worked on the investigations into the insurrection. On Friday, the government agreed to withhold the names while the case is ongoing. President Trump's attempts to freeze trillions of dollars

in federal funding was stopped after both a group of nonprofit organizations and a group of nearly two dozen state attorneys general sued. And most recently, on Saturday, a judge ruled that political appointees and special government employees like Elon Musk and Doge should not have access to the Treasury Department's systems until a lawsuit on the issue is resolved. As the New York Times reports, the situation could pose a fundamental test of America's

rule of law. If the administration fails to comply with the emergency order, it is unclear how it might be enforced. The Constitution says that a president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. But courts have rarely been tested by a chief executive who has ignored their orders, and

therein lies the rub. Joining us now, legal affairs correspondent for the New York Times, Mattataya Schwartz. And you guys have a quick guide to the lawsuits against the Trump orders. You've written this piece, I guess it's four categories, immigration, budget freezes and firings, transgender rights, January 6th investigators. Is there a way to put this in order of, I guess, most dangerous? Well, I think the big picture here, Mika, and thank you for having me this morning, is that the federal courts appear to be the final or last bulwark for this offensive where Donald Trump is trying to take as much

executive powers as he can for himself. And the number of lawsuits, there are more than 40 so far, is going to continue to increase as the president continues to move forward with his agenda. Now, so far, we have seen, I think, more than half a dozen lawsuits on the birthright citizenship executive order alone. That executive order seeks to restrict the 14th Amendment's guarantee to birthright citizenship to take it away from the children of undocumented immigrants, to also take it away from the children of some legal immigrants. So that's very important. I think when you look at the docket,

that's a case that it's very easy to imagine going up to the Supreme Court. And then, there are many others. You said earlier, the judges have ordered a variety of President Trump's actions to be stopped, but that doesn't really answer the question of whether they're actually going to stop.

Right. We're already seeing some early indications, as of now already, that the administration is not complying with orders from federal judges. We are seeing that in a Rhode Island case about the $3 trillion budget freeze, and I can give you a couple other examples as well. USAID, for example, that agency has been completely gutted. So a judge says, give the people back their jobs, open the office back up. Is the, for example, that agency has been completely gutted. So a judge says, give the people back their jobs, open the office back up. Is the administration going to do

that? How long is it going to take? Are they going to drag their heels? Are we going to see contempt orders from judges? That would be a real Rubicon. So yeah, it's a pretty unprecedented situation, not completely unprecedented. We have seen presidents ignore orders from courts before, but usually it's in a far more limited way and during wartime. Cady. So, Magistrate, is this the assumption that Donald Trump is deliberately setting up some kind of situation where one of these cases ends up in the Supreme Court and he is counting on the fact that he has a court that is friendly to him and he would

win in that court, or is there then a counterargument that actually the court is going to look at the very number of things that Donald Trump is trying to do and say, well, actually, because he's trying to do so many, it's clear that what he's trying to do is expand the executive's power rather than try and get each one of these individual cases through. So how do we have a sense of how the court would respond, I guess? It's a great question. I can't predict what the Supreme Court's going to do. I can't speak to President Trump's intent. I will say that we saw with Trumpy USA that the court does show a lot of deference to executive power, this court in particular. I think if I had to guess, it's a total guess,

President Trump would probably get this court to overturn some big precedents. We saw their willingness to do this with daubs, but he would not get everything he wanted. And I think there's a bigger question here. If he received a judicial order from Chief Justice John Roberts calling one of his White House's actions unconstitutional, would he obey that order?

Because when I read JD Vance's tweet yesterday, Vice President Vance's tweet yesterday, saying that only the executive has the authority, only the judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power, that seems to hint at the possibility that he might not. And that would be a far, far graver and more dangerous scenario to our constitutional order than simply the Supreme Court overturning some big precedents expanding executive power,

which itself in normal times would be a very big deal. But there's an even larger worry looming on the horizon, and it's in that tweet. Yeah, it is. Legal affairs correspondent for The New York Times, Medataya Swartz. Thank you so much for this piece and for coming on the show this morning. So we mentioned the reaction from the right to the ruling against Elon Musk and Doge. Musk slammed the judge, calling him corrupt and writing on social media that he needs to be impeached. He even floated a new idea that the, quote,

worst 1% of appointed judges should be fired every year. That post has received almost 300,000 likes. Vice President JD Vance also chimed in on social media. The Yale Law School graduate argued, quote, judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. And Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who also went to law school, posted about the decision multiple times from his personal account. He wrote that he agreed with the vice president's position, calling it 100% accurate. He also called the ruling a judicial coup.

So, Joe, there does seem to be kind of a lead-up to something majorly unprecedented, and that will require a lot of questions as to what the next step is. But let's keep it right here for now. The tweet, though, was circular. Oh, no. It made no sense. And it made no sense because the legitimate powers of the president of the United States

is not determined by the president of the United States or the vice powers of the president of the United States is not determined by the president of the United States or the vice president of the—take that down. Well, I think— Vice president of the United States. No, no, no. No, listen to me. Listen, listen. You need to understand.

Everybody needs to understand in reading this. It is the Supreme Court of the United States who determines what the legitimate power of the president is, of the vice president is, of what Congress is. That is the way it has been since John Marshall was the first Supreme Court Justice. This is trolling. And I will say, and we will give examples for Mike Lee, who

also went to law school, to say this is a quote, judicial, this is all planned. They decided they were going to do these things that push the boundary of the law, that went over the line. This is all planned. Because let me tell you something. Again, we're going to show you a list of presidential actions that were enjoined, stopped, overturned during the Biden administration. And we can go back and do the same thing during the Bush administration, during the Clinton administration. This is how things are. So when you say a court cannot stop a president from doing what it's in its legitimate power to do, well, yes, of course that's true. But it is the court that determines the contours of that power.

It's that simple. Let's bring it around. Conservative attorney George Conway. George, remarkable that these people went to law school. I want you to just talk just in general, and we're going to go through, again, just show all the times Joe Biden's executive orders were either enjoined or overturned. But this happens, right? Presidents do executive orders at the beginning of the term, not to this degree, not pushing the boundaries as much perhaps as President Trump has done.

But this happens. There are challenges. Some things get through, some things don't. But you don't have a vice president. I guess Spiro Agnew probably did. But you don't have a vice president going out there going, oh, the court can't do this. They can't stop our legitimate power. When of course, again, the Supreme Court determines what the executive branch's legitimate powers are and what they are not.

And it has been that way for 240 years, has it not? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, J.D. Vance is an embarrassment to the law school that I attended. But the fact of the matter is he's telling us something that we should have already known. And last week I said it. They are not going to obey court orders. They have decided that they are going to push the boundaries on executive power by basically infringing on the Article One power of Congress. And they are violating statutory, they're writing the Constitution, the text of the Constitution in the birthright citizenship issue. They are violating the text of statutes by having Doge run around and do all the things

that have been doing the executive orders. There's no reason that this government that has decided not to obey the laws and the constitution of the United States is going to obey a court order. And as you know, Joe, having practiced law, there's only there's really only one way that courts can enforce their orders when somebody is being condemnation. So refusing to obey an order and that's to send the U.S. Marshals out to take somebody in and to hold them into contempt or to otherwise enforce court orders. Well, who does the U.S. Marshals Service work for? The U.S. Marshals Service is part of the United States Department of Justice.

It reports to Donald J. Trump. And what's going to happen here, mark my words, is that at some point, they are going to basically tell the United States Marshals Service, do not enforce any of these orders. We will not obey them, and you are not to enforce them. And once that happens, I mean, I hope it doesn't happen, but I know in my heart

that it will. Our 236-year experiment in the federal rule of law, in democratic self-governance for the United States of America, in American constitutionalism is essentially over. Yeah. Let's just take a look to Joe's point here. President Biden signed 162 executive orders during his term in office, several of which were also blocked by federal judges. One of his first orders created a 100-day deportation ban, but that was suspended by a judge in Texas who claimed the order could cause the state imminent and irreparable harm. Six months later, a federal judge in Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration's suspension of new oil and gas leases on federal land.

Biden's vaccine mandate for federal contractors was blocked by a U.S. district judge in Georgia. In 2022, a Louisiana judge stopped the Biden administration from lifting Title 42, a public health order aimed at stopping the spread of communicable diseases, but was used to expel migrants at the southern border. The judge ruled the order violated administrative law. Two months later, President Biden was told he could not enforce his executive order protecting the LGBTQ community from discrimination in schools and the workplace. Then in August of 2022, a Texas court ruled against the White House's requirement for hospitals to provide emergency

abortions regardless of a state's ban on the procedure. This past fall, a federal judge in Missouri temporarily blocked the White House's student debt forgiveness plan. Biden's executive order shielding undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens from deportation was struck down by a federal judge in Texas. And at the very end of last year, a judge ruled the Biden administration has to stop selling unused border wall materials. So Sam Stein, to Joe and George Conway's point, I mean, you know, the Biden administration

accepted when the courts pushed back, but we're in a situation here where one can surmise very carefully that there may not be a similar situation. Right. My favorite one of those actually took place in November of 2021 when a relatively obscure judge stopped the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. That judge was Aline Cannon. She ended up being canonized, pardon the word, for her act and she's now a judicial star in conservative ranks.

So it does happen regularly. The Biden administration respected it. It was part of our systems of checks and balances. And JD Vance's tweet suggesting otherwise is plainly reckless. Now, I'm not gonna go to the levels that George is, although I respect where he says it, it's very well possible that they end up doing this.

My mind is in this place where they are using this as sort of an effort to move the Overton window. And in fact, overnight, we did have some process or progress, I should say, in this case involving the Treasury Department and whether, and who has access to those payment systems. And they are in a negotiated settlement to try to figure out if they can figure out

a more diplomatic solution to this than just disregarding the Republic, right? And hopefully that is the case. I mean, hopefully we end up in a place where we do this by the book. I do think George is right though to warn that we are dealing with a set of characters who frankly don't have that much respect for the book

and are fine disregarding it if it suits their ends. So it's a scary time. And I think the other thing that we have to note is that it's just the blizzard, the dizzying, I think is the word that the Times used, amount of legal activity here, which does make it so that if you stop 90% of it in the courts, 10% does go through.

And I think that's part of what the Trump administration is trying to do is just throw everything they can. And if they get 10%, that's still a lot. Yeah, to Sam's point, flooding the zone is a deliberate strategy here from the Trump administration. Their advisors, I wrote about this last week. They know not everything's gonna get through, but if enough of it does,

that will still be fundamental change. But I'm told there is growing frustration in the ranks of Trump world about some of these judges. Elon Musk has been tweeting all night about judges and suggesting that the Congress should impeach some of them. So that is something he is really seizing upon right now. George Conway talked to us about how that process would work, if you can.

But also, to your point, I'm told that there is some, and it has not been embraced by the Oval Office yet, but there is some in Trump land who want to indeed have a test case to defy a court order, to see what they can get away with, to dare the judiciary and the rest to try to stop them, and talk to us about how that would play out, what recourse could Democrats, the courts, the public have? The only recourse is to go out on the streets and march.

That is the only recourse. The courts have no mechanism to enforce their orders other than through the United States Martial Service and thus through the Department of Justice, thus through the executive branch. The reason why we obey court orders is because the executive branch complies with court orders. If the executive branch does not comply with court orders and makes a point of saying that we will not comply with court orders, the rule of law, as far as the federal government is concerned, is over.

And that is something we need to start focusing on and discussing because that's where these people will go. There is no logical stopping point for them. And this is, you know, the only recourse will be for people to get out and say we want the rule of law we want a government that obeys the law and that's going to require people to go out on the streets because that is there is no other alternative. George Conway thank you so much for being with us. John Meacham, final thoughts there have obviously been times throughout American history where presidents have been frustrated.

It matters great and small at the United States Supreme Court. Of course, Richard Nixon, even Richard Nixon, immediately followed the court's decision and turning over the tapes, one wonders, will the White House actually be so reckless as to throw away 240 years of constitutional republics, democracy, Madisonian democracy over an executive order. You know, the rule of law depends not simply on force but on a spirit, a spirit that you respect, that in fact you, the executive, are not the center of the world. And what President Nixon did, when he faced an 8-0 decision that he knew at some level

would end his presidency, the first thing he said was, is there any air in it? So, you know, these are human beings. You know, was there any place to move? I think it was Alexander Haig who told him no. And that set in motion the last, the final days. But it was because Richard Nixon had a sense of shame. He had a respect for the institutions.

He had broken the law, he had smashed up some norms. But in the end, he followed it. Because when he lost George Wallace in Alabama, when the great, the famous meeting of the senators comes down and Goldwater says, Mr. President, I think you have, you'll only have about 30 votes and I'm not sure I'm one of them. He said, okay. And he left because he respected that institution. That's an amorphous, almost spiritual connection to the American experiment as we've understood it. Without that, no rule, there is no mechanism.

This is about us. And the final thing I'd say, Joe, and you and I know a lot of these folks, is President Trump is president in many ways because of about 14 to 15% of folks who are Republicans before MAGA, and they were the ones who, for a variety of reasons, decided that this was worth this risk. And it may just be that that's the 15%. That's the Chamber of Commerce, folks. That's the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

It may be Rupert Murdoch. That may be where this has to be adjudicated informally, but it may be where it has to be decided. And I don't think we're being hyperbolic here. I really don't. I think that it would be intellectually irresponsible and almost a dereliction of citizenship to sort of pretend that, oh, you know, Andrew Jackson did X, so we're going to be fine. I'm not saying that.

This is an immense test of American citizenship. Historian John Meacham, thank you very much for coming on this morning. We appreciate it. And still ahead on Morning Joe, we're going to dig into the concerns some lawmakers are voicing about the potential security threat Elon Musk could pose as his influence in the Trump administration continues to grow. Plus Pablo Torre has been sitting here patiently. We'll get back to him with more on the Eagles blowout Super Bowl win over the Chiefs.

You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. ["Ride of the Valkyries"] Get it back, we're going to run some clock or maybe throw the dagger. Hurts going deep for it all. Devontae Smith. He has got it. Touchdown. That's Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts with a perfect 46 yard touchdown pass

to Devontae Smith. They made it 34 to nothing late in the third quarter. The Chiefs still had not crossed the midfield point at that point as the Eagles defense mothered quarterback Patrick Moams, sacking him for a career high six times and forcing him to commit three turnovers, including this 38 yard pick six in the second quarter.

including this 38-yard pick six in the second quarter. Meanwhile, Philly QB Jalen Hurts threw for two touchdowns and ran for a score to earn this game's MVP honors. As the Eagles denied the Chiefs their historic Super Bowl three-peat with a dominating 40-22 victory. Let's bring in Pablo Torres back with us. Mike Barnicle here as well. And a gloating Jonathan Lemire and Ali Vitale, who's a New York Giants fan who lives in Washington

and doesn't know exactly what she thinks about the outcome of this game. So Pablo, so many stats here that are so shocking. I've got to say, though, the one that we highlighted at the top of the segment for me is the one most stunning, which is the Eagles were ahead 34 to nothing before the Chiefs even crossed midfield. Yeah, the score that you'll see in the paper this morning, speaking of print media, not reflective of what this was actually like

for those of us who sat there and watched all of it. And Joe, look, I got this one wrong. I think that on this day in particular, it's important to point out transparently where you got something wrong. I did not see the Eagles getting whatever they wanted, however they wanted against the Chiefs. And in part, in part, I want to talk about the quarterbacks here because

Jalen Hertz is not, he was not supposed to be the guy who looked this confident under pressure. That's my homes. And so to me, like, what do we take away from this game? What's different about how we talk about these teams going forward? We talk about the NFL more than anything else in our culture. Now we can say that Patrick Mahomes has choked. You know, we can say one of the harshest things we can say about a player, which is that he collapsed under pressure, literally figuratively. No, no, no, no, no, no.

It's kind of hard, Pablo. I mean, Mike, it's hard to say that somebody chokes when they don't even have time to set their feet. You know, it's interesting Tom Brady said. You can tell how uncomfortable Patrick Mahomes is because look at his footwork. Look at his footwork. He had three or four linemen at all times that weigh over 300 pounds crashing in on him. He never had time to really get set in the pocket. Well, I mean, that's the story, I think, of what happened yesterday. It happened early on and it happened consistently throughout the game. Patrick Holmes' offensive line could not protect him.

They could not keep people away from him. He was getting crushed from two minutes into that game. By the way, Mike, even that interception by the goal line, that happened because the defensive lineman, even that interception, even that interception by the goal line, that happened because the defensive lineman pushed an offensive lineman, look at this, into Mahomes, threw it off. So he didn't throw a bad pass there. He was, he had a lineman pushed into him.

It was that way for him all night, which I've got to say, just remarkable. I didn't see this coming. And certainly, you know, Jalen Hurts's performance, you have to also put that in part on Barkley because you can tell they focused on stopping Barkley. And in doing that, they left a lot of people open. Yeah, Spags, defensive coach for the Chiefs, clearly concentrated on that stopping Barkley and he stopped Barkley because they stopped giving the ball to Barkley but if you do a forensic autopsy on the Chiefs season they had a very good record but it was a hard-earned record. They won a lot of games in the last

minute because of Patrick Mahomes and the big difference again we reflect back on it looking we know what happened they could not protect Patrick Mahomes. And the big difference again, we reflect back on it looking, we know what happened. They could not protect Patrick Mahomes yesterday, and they were going to lose. And they did. Hey, Pablo, this game reminded me of my youth. The Super Bowls of the early 90s or late 80s,

where it was just blowout after blowout, and people got accustomed to good Super Bowls. But I grew up in the era of bad Super Bowls Yeah, I also want to ask you know we're so focused on the Chiefs and what it meant for them But I do think and this pains me to say because I like I'm a Giants fan But the Eagles team this Eagles team was so maligned and confusing because they seemed to hate each other They were always arguing on the sidelines. A.J. Brown was reading books, weirdly. And they seemed like they weren't having fun.

But if you look at the record, I mean, I forget what it was. Since the bye week, they've only had one loss. This was dominant. And I don't want to say they're in the pantheon of great teams, but I am curious where you would put them, because they still don't think they're getting respect, right? Like, they just destroyed the Chiefs, and we're just sort of focused on Mahomes.

But what about the Eagles? Yeah, look, I will say, I'll move my analysis from absolutely trying to psychoanalyze Patrick Mahomes and his lack of clutch gene to why the Eagles look this way. And Sam, you raise a great point. The Eagles defense is the best defense in the league this year. This is a team that has been to two Super Bowls now in less than a decade. This is a team also to your larger observation that seemed to want to fire the guy who just

won them the Super Bowl. So Nick Sirianni being this unlikable character who came in unlikable, his press conference, famously, infamously, uncharismatic. During the season, he was arguing with the fan base, which is a dangerous fan base to argue with. We all saw that on Broad Street last night, watched the police scanner tape, listened to it as well. It was a team that was eating itself from the inside. A.J. Brown didn't appreciate Jalen Hurts' passing. That's true. A.J. Brown was reading a book on leadership in the most unsubtle display of academic scholarship,

maybe in recent sports history. But what that defense did, and this is where I credit Joe your observation, they only needed to rush for upfront. They didn't need to blitz. It was just an enormous series of bodies pushing a very, by the way, the chiefs, right? The chiefs O-line, they had gotten away with some stuff all year.

15 straight one score games to barnacles statistic. That's how many they won. And so when it collapses like this, you get texts like you got from Jonathan Lemire saying, I was telling you this all year. It was sorcery and officiating and corruption all the way to the top. I have to say, I wonder Pablo,

if Lemire was sending you this tweet from Nick Foles where he talks about the fact that Brady was able to see two Eagles wins here wondering openly if he's some kind of a good luck charm. I mean, Lameer, did you steal Foles's account here? I mean, it feels like this is perfect for you right now. I had nothing to do with that. That's still not over any of those football losses. But no, let's give credit also, I want to

go back to Saquon Barkley for a second, who was their best player all year long. Yes, his running rushing stats were modest last night. He did catch some balls out of the backfield. The Chiefs are known to blitz, Steve Spagnola, that's his whole MO. And Barkley, staying in the backfield, picked up a number of run blitzes. He was, as a running back, picked up these blitzes coming in, allowing Hertz to have time to make the read. Let's remember, Hertz was great in the Super Bowl two years ago when they lost the Chiefs. That wasn't his fault. He played really well, and he played extremely well last night as well. But, Pablo, I think the MVP, it would be nice if they could just recognize a unit, because it would be just the Eagles defense.

As Joe just said, I heard him chime in the background there, the Eagles did not blitz once. They didn't have to. Their four-man defensive front just outmuscled the Eagles offensive line all year long. The Homes did make some bad reads. Some of this was on him, but other moments, he didn't have any time whatsoever. They were by far the best unit on the field. And it does feel like for the Chiefs, there's a lot of questions about Travis Kelsey's future. Maybe, just maybe, not saying it's an end of an era. The Homes and Reed are still there, but a bit of a reset for that franchise. But you do get now what you didn't have before, you have now heading into next season, which is the possibility of a Chiefs team, which has now

been to again, a zillion AFC title games and Super Bowls, feeling like they get to be the underdog again. That's the kind of game we saw. We saw them being bullied. We saw them being bullied. And by the way, if you wanna know what Jonathan Lemire was thinking, you could have just listened to Tom Brady stifle

his true feelings calling this game. It's just a surreal thing, okay? When you have the worst game of your life, as Patrick Wilhom's did, that first half was truly, when I say they were like the Jets, it's like I was watching the New York Jets for at least that first half. And to have that, I'm just saying,

when you have that called by the greatest to ever do it, as Lemire will tell you, who was quietly, quietly just enjoying all of this, watching the bigger picture contest be settled in his favor, it's just a surreal kind of a thing. The Chiefs were not bullied. They were beat, Mike. Let's get back to reality, OK?

OK. Pictures and catches reported. Oh, boy. OK. Most of Publatory finds out on Metalwork Media. Poblatori, thank you very much. Good to see you. Come back soon.