Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/13/25

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Trump talks to Putin about ending war in Ukraine

President Trump said that he had a nice phone call with Vladimir Putin. Putin was like, I told you I wouldn't forget Valentine's Day. I knew it. The only awkward part of the call was when Putin said, is the President there? And both Trump and Elon said, yes.

Yeah. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, February 13th. A reminder, Lemir, tomorrow. We're on it. Ratner, tomorrow. Tomorrow. OK.

We've got a lot to get to this morning, including that call between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. President Trump is predicting a ceasefire in the conflict, but his comments yesterday seemed to favor Putin's interests for ending the war. It comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hexhatt laid out hardline stances on the future of Ukraine and U.S. relations with NATO members. We'll go through all of that straight ahead. Plus, Attorney General Pam Bondi made a statement yesterday taking action against the state

of New York over its immigration policies. But her news conference was a little bit misleading. We'll explain that. And new economic data shows inflation is getting worse. And that's before Trump's tariffs. We'll look at the latest projections for the future U.S. economy. Also ahead, an NFL superstar is defending Taylor Swift. After she was booed by some fans at the

big game, we'll play for you his comments. With us we have the co-host of the fourth hour and contributing writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius. The host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitale is with us and former Treasury official and Morning Joe Economic analyst Steve Ratner. Steve, you have charts on the tariffs. We'll get to that.

We have a lot of other things to talk about. We're going to start this morning with a new development in the Middle East where moments ago Hamas confirmed its commitment to continuing the ceasefire deal in Gaza, including the hostage exchange. That is according to a statement from the militant group, which now resolves a major dispute that threatened the ceasefire deal. We're learning that three more Israeli hostages are set to be freed as initially planned. This comes after President Trump had warned Hamas all hell would break loose if the hostages were

not released by noon on Saturday. And Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said military operations would have resumed in this. So, David Ignatius, your take on this breaking news and Trump's involvement in it. So, Mika, I think there's no question that Hamas was basically intimidated into resuming the process that had begun. Hamas had complained about Israeli military operations and had said it wanted to call off the next stage. There was a series of threats. I think the point that I take away from the events of the last week in Gaza is that this

war, despite the ceasefire and the release of hostages, is not over. Israel is more committed than ever to destroying Hamas, not simply to taking away its military power, but to destroying the organization and any political role it has in the future. Certainly, the future of the enclave there remains front and center. President Trump earlier this week still insisting upon his plan for perhaps U.S. control of Gaza, which of course has not been well received by others in the region, including the King of Jordan, just minutes after leaving the Oval Office. Where in the Oval Office?

He was polite with Trump, but later put out a statement, made clear that his nation does not support that. But while that is in the background, certainly the officials I've talked to at the White House believe that Trump's sort of bellicose rhetoric on this in the last few days helped push Hamas to continue to uphold his end of the deal. He has suggested there would be violence repercussions perhaps in the region, if that were not to be the case. Of course, this is just breaking news.

We will stay on it all morning long. Meanwhile, another big story from yesterday, President Trump speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine. It has been almost three years since Russian troops invaded their neighbor, starting a conflict that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of soldiers. The call between President Trump and Putin is their first confirmed conversation since Trump's return to the White House. President Trump says that he's agreed to visit Russia and Putin has agreed to come to the

United States, but that the two leaders would likely first meet somewhere else, a neutral site. Trump floated Saudi Arabia as a possibility. Yesterday at the White House, reporters pressed Trump on peace talks without the Ukrainian president. Are you freezing out President Zelensky of this process a bit? Isn't there a danger of that? No, I don't think so, as long as he's there.

But you know, at some point you're going to have to have elections too. You're going to have to have an election. Do you view Ukraine as an equal member of this peace process? It's an interesting question. I think they have to make peace. Their people are being killed and I think they have to make peace. What was NATO membership for Ukraine? I don't think it's practical to have it personally.

Sir, just to be clear, do you see any future in which Ukraine returns to its pre-2014 borders? Well I think Pete said today that that's unlikely, right? It certainly would seem to be unlikely. Ultimately, these are both demands that Russia has made in the past. Is there not a danger of handing Russia a kind of win on this? Well, well, I think that if you look at the war, the way the war is going, you'll have to make your own determination. I'm just here to try and get peace.

I don't care so much about anything other than I want to stop having millions of people killed. President Trump did speak with President Zelensky yesterday, writing on social media that the conversation went very well. Trump says Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are set to meet with Zelensky tomorrow in Munich. Ahead of that meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson met with President Zelensky yesterday in Kiev to discuss an agreement that would trade access to Ukrainian natural resources for continued military support. Zelensky described it as a detailed plan on a strategic partnership between the two countries

that would include opportunities for American businesses and said that Ukraine wanted investment in its resources. Meanwhile, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, made his first appearance at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels yesterday, where he overhauled the U.S. stance on Europe's largest conflict since World War II. The group was formed by former Secretary Lloyd Austin as a coalition in support of Ukraine. Hegseth called for an end to the war, but said any goal of returning Ukraine to its pre-2014 borders is unrealistic and ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine.

We are at, as you said, Mr. Secretary, a critical moment. As the war approaches its third anniversary, our message is clear. The bloodshed must stop, and this war must end. We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war

and cause more suffering. That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission and they should not be covered under Article 5. There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact. To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine. Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of NATO.

As part of this, Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine. Joining us live from NATO headquarters in Brussels, NBC News international correspondent Raf Sanchez. Raf, where does this leave Ukraine in terms of support from the US and NATO? Well, Mika, Ukraine really suffering a one-two punch at the hands of the Trump administration. As you said, President Trump speaking to Vladimir Putin of Russia before Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine inviting Putin to the White House and not Zelensky.

And this is exactly what the Ukrainians did not want. The Russians in the ear of the president shaping this conversation before these negotiations have even begun. And then Pete Hegseth, the new Secretary of Defense, delivering that second blow here at NATO headquarters in Brussels. He did not give a forceful statement in support of Ukraine. Instead, he made a list of things the United States expects Ukraine to give up. As you heard in that sound bite you played, he said it is not realistic for Ukraine to continue trying to recover all of the territory that it has lost to Russia.

So that is both territory lost since the full-scale invasion began back in February 2022, but also areas lost since 2014, including Crimea. He also said that Ukraine needs to abandon its goal of NATO membership as part of these peace negotiations. And I can tell you, Mika, there is deep frustration here among the NATO allies. You heard the German defense minister saying very bluntly that in his assessment, the Trump administration is making concessions to Putin before these negotiations have even begun. Now, Secretary Hegseth was asked this morning,

is the United States betraying Ukraine? He denied that. As you can imagine, he pointed to the billions of dollars in support that the US has given Ukraine. We should say that is support that came under the Biden administration. And it is very unclear whether that support

is going to continue at this level. In his statement yesterday, Hegseth said that going forward, it is the European allies who will be expected to provide the bulk of military support to Ukraine. He said the United States is focusing on China and the Indo-Pacific and on its own borders and that it is downgrading European security as a priority. So big questions today, Mika, especially about some of the specifics of defense programs that Ukraine depends on the United States for, those F-16s, those Patriot missile defense systems. A lot of those questions unanswered right now. NBC's Raph Sanchez, thank you very much.

And we'll be gauging all the reaction to this, Jonathan Amir, including from our NATO allies. Yeah, in many ways, this phone call yesterday was the beginning of the end of this war. And it ends, certainly, a period of isolation for Vladimir Putin, who had been made a global pariah in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine. In fact, he had not spoken to a US president since the war began.

President Biden had isolated him, had stopped taking his calls. So this in itself a win for Putin, so is a potential invitation to the United States, maybe even the White House in the years ahead. A summit, we remember of course what happened in the other Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki some years ago. Looks like we may have a few on the horizon here.

This was certainly a significant day here. And asaff said one not well received in Keeve their main goal of achieving NATO membership the U.S. very dismissive of that that's something of course the Putin really opposes. Trump is not ruled out entirely continuing to send some aid to Keeve you know he said that in the Oval Office yesterday but we said we saw the Treasury secretary is there to much more conditional now negotiated as part of a deal. As Secretary of Defense Hegseth said, the US has made clear they're going to be focusing

a lot less on Europe going forward. David Ignatius, it was also so striking, first of all, that Trump spoke to Putin before he spoke to Zelensky. In his Truth Social post about that call, he said he would quote, inform Zelensky about what he talked about with Putin and that their country's negotiators, meaning Russia and the United States,

would begin talking about a peace would look like, seemingly putting Ukraine on the sidelines of its own war. Now, we heard from Zelensky later in the day saying that his conversation with Trump was meaningful. A lot of that was spin. But certainly you've written about what a new what a peace could look like. A negotiated settlement could occur later this year. Certainly Moscow now thinks it's going to be more along the lines of what Putin wanted than perhaps Zelensky. So, Jonathan, the negotiations began yesterday, really, and the question is whether President Trump is going to sell out Ukraine, which has been valiant in fighting off Russian aggression,

whether this peace deal will be made over the heads of the Ukrainians. There certainly were some signs that the United States is moving away from Ukraine. Heksep, the secretary of defense, was blunt in saying what everybody's understood, but people have rarely said out loud, which is that Ukraine will have to make territorial concessions as part of a deal. And he was specific about NATO membership not being an outcome of this negotiation. Again, that's been pretty widely understood. There were some things in Hegson's speech

that I thought were significant positive elements if you're Vladimir Zelensky sitting in Kiev. There was discussion about a security guarantee from, yes, a European force, but a fairly robust one with troops from Britain, France, the Baltic states. A range of powerful European armies would be placed there as a tripwire to prevent further Russian aggression.

There would be a force to monitor a line of control. It would be, from what I could read, something like the armistice that ended the Korean War, where there was an armistice in place. I think the key question as this goes forward is whether President Trump, as he seeks to be the peacemaker on Ukraine, will make a peace that is a just settlement, that Ukrainians can say protects their basic interests and allows them to be part of Europe or whether it will be a sellout. It's too early for me, based on the evidence yesterday, to make a judgment as to which

it is. You use that word just both in the headline of your piece and even here with us now. I think there are concerns that I have heard from many that the goal of peace is admirable, and yet it could be done at the cost of selling out a key U.S. ally. We're going to see what we hear from Trump in the next 24 or so hours on this, but we'll definitely get another overture of this story from Munich on Friday as Secretary of State Rubio and Vice President Vance are set to meet with Zelensky. What do you imagine that conversation could sound like? So Ali, I'm leaving for Munich today, and I hope to at least listen in on the public

part of the conversation. I think that observers like us have to be very careful in measuring what is offered to Ukraine in terms of protecting it in the future against continued Russian aggression and what is given to Putin to satisfy his... He thinks Ukraine doesn't exist as a real country. Is he gonna get that fantasy of total Russian dominance of Ukraine satisfied in these negotiations? If so, it's an outrageous betrayal of a friend. But it may be that there's something more in the middle.

This is a terrible conflict. The cost to both sides has been just hideous. And as Trump says, it is time for this conflict to go into a negotiation phase. But I think we all need to watch very carefully, look at each of the terms, and then make a judgment. So, with that as the backdrop, Steve Ratner, what do you make of the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, to meeting with Zelensky, and there's this talk now

about access to what they have in exchange for military support. Yeah, look, there's two pieces to this. I think more traditionally, a Treasury Secretary would go in there to talk about how do we rebuild this place, how do we get it back to be able to function as a normal country in a small way like what we did in Europe after World War II. In this administration, Trump is also talking about like, how do I get my money back?

I got a lot of money over there, so what do I want back? And Ukraine has a lot of natural resources. Ukraine could be a buyer of things from us. And so they're trying to do an economic deal that not only helps Ukraine but also helps the U.S. and a fairly classic Trump kind of move. So I'll go ahead. And certainly we also should note just yesterday the Kremlin rejected an idea floated by Kiev in terms of swapping some territories. Zelensky had said, hey we'll give you back the land in Kursk across the border Russia

that we have seized in exchange for some of the territory that Russia has taken from Ukraine. Moscow said no to that. And also we should just take a moment again to dwell on the optics of this, the importance of this phone call. If Trump were to go to Russia, it would be the first time a US president

had been there since 2013. Putin's last visit to the United States was 2015. And also yesterday, as Trump took some questions about his call with Putin, what was the setting of that? In the Oval Office. For the swearing in of Tulsi Gabbard as DNI, Gabbard, of course, accused by many as one who has regurgitated Kremlin propaganda talking points. She tweeted right after the invasion began in 2022

that it was Ukraine and NATO had pushed Russia to invade Ukraine. So certainly yesterday was the best day that Moscow's had in this war in a long time. Yeah. NBC News has also learned that the Trump administration has agreed to send a convicted money launderer back to Russia in exchange for the release of American teacher Mark Fogel. Officials say Alexander Vinik is in American custody and will be transported to Russia by the end of the week. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering last year. And to your point, Steve, as part of the swap has agreed to leave $100 million in digital

assets behind in the United States. Additionally, the White House says Belarus has freed three prisoners, including an American and an employee of a US-funded radio station. We'll follow that. We also have breaking news out of Germany, where police say a vehicle drove into a crowd and injured at least 20 people.

The incident happened in Munich right now that the driver is in police custody. We still don't know a motive, but we learned that a union rally was happening during that time. This comes ahead of the Munich Security Conference, which is set to take place tomorrow. We'll bring you more details as they come. And it was just a few weeks ago, right before Christmas, where a car plowed into a Christmas market in a German city later deemed a terror attack.

Obviously we have no idea of the details. We'll stay on it, but that'll be front of mind for investigators. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll have the latest on President Trump's cabinet nominees as Tulsi Gabbard is sworn in as National Intelligence Director and Trump's cabinet nominees as Tulsi Gabbard is sworn in as national intelligence director. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to be confirmed as HHS secretary later this morning.

Plus, a member of the Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, joins us ahead of the panel's vote on Cash Patel's nomination to lead the FBI. But first, disappointing inflation data is raising concerns about the future of interest rates. Steve Radner has charts on that and more. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. That's the hour, Steve. The latest inflation data shows consumer prices rose more than anticipated last month, raising

questions about the future direction of interest rates. You have charts on this. Take it away. Yeah, Mika, we've been expecting inflation to continue to kind of moderate, ease down, provide more room for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates and give relief, of course, to consumers as well from rising prices. But last month we didn't quite get that. It wasn't a disaster, but it wasn't what we hoped for.

Consumer prices actually rose. And we look at consumer prices as you know, two ways, one, all of them, and the other when you take out food and energy, what we call core, which is this blue line right here. And core is running now at about 3.3%. It's gone up for four months in a row. It is the highest it's been in over a year. And so the moderating trend that we've seen for so long seems to have abated for now. And this is not lost on consumers.

And this is very important because what consumers expect actually plays a meaningful role in what actually happens in inflation. And you can see here consumers were expecting that when they look ahead a year they expected higher inflation and then they expected inflation to come down, down, down, down, down. And look what's happened here. Consumer expectations for inflation have shot up, and consumers now expect inflation could be as high as 4.3% over the coming year. And again, that has a self-reinforcing quality, and so that makes it tougher as well for the Fed to bring down inflation.

So, Steve, another thing that impacts consumers is interest rates. What's the market saying? Yeah. So, when you have more inflation, it pushes up interest rates because people expect to get a return on their money. The Federal Reserve controls what we call shorter term interest rates. This is the Federal Reserve's interest rate. And you can see they've cut it a couple of times.

But what's also happened is the 10-year Treasury, the yield on the 10-year Treasury has gone up and up and up here since, really since the election. There are really three things in the Trump policies that are worrisome for inflation. Number one, of course, are tariffs. We've talked a lot about tariffs and how they affect prices and can paid for by consumers. That hasn't taken effect yet, but that's a drag on inflation, a bad thing for inflation. The second thing is immigration. We've benefited from a lot of workers coming into the workforce which has kept wage increases down a little bit lower than

they might have been and helped provide economic growth. That may be coming to an end. And the third thing is that yesterday the House Republicans unveiled their budget plan. They want to have massive tax cuts, they want to increase the spending, defense spending. And they have some vague ideas about cutting other spending, which they didn't detail. But on present course and speed, we're going to get a substantial increase in the deficit out of what's going on in Washington. And that's inflationary because it makes the economy grow faster.

And the faster it grows above its potential, the more inflation you get. So all of that has led the market to predict interest rates to remain higher for longer. If you go back to even before the election, we thought the Federal Reserve would have the interest, its interest rate down to 3.7%. We're now looking at basically no more interest cuts this year, maybe one cut in December, and so interest rates stalling out is not a good thing for the economy, and especially for mortgage holders, because the 30-year mortgage is stuck up here close to 7%. Whoa, okay. And finally, I guess the penny is not so lucky, costly to make the penny. A penny for your thoughts?

Well, it could be lucky to hold, because maybe there won't be so many anymore. So interestingly the cost of making coins has shot up over the years. Inflation, the cost of the metals that go into them and so forth. And one of the ones that's gone up the most is the penny and it now costs 3.7 cents to make every penny. So the Treasury loses money on every penny it makes. It actually also loses money on the nickel, which costs 13.8 cents, and it makes some amount of money on the quarter and the dime. And so they've announced, and this is long overdue, I mean, you have to give credit where credit's due. The Trump administration has

actually made a good policy decision, maybe it's the only one, but they've made one, which to eliminate the penny, save some money, and also consumers don't really use pennies that much. As you can see over here, they really don't use coins at all anymore, as much anymore. We've all gone electronic. And so usage of all these coins,

production of all these coins has been going down, down, down. And yeah, when you eliminate the penny, the fear is that stores will round the prices up instead of down a little bit of extra cost but you know Australia Canada all those other places that we think of as behind us are actually way ahead of us when it comes to eliminating the penny because they did it years ago. Alright let's pull back to the big picture about the economy

Steve I want to get your take on a few editorials. The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes this morning about Trumponomics and rising inflation. It reads in part this, does President Trump understand money, not money as in cash, but the supply of money, the price of money as measured by interest rates and their impact on inflation? The answer would appear to be no. After Mr. Trump called for lower interest rates on Wednesday, the same day the Labor Department reported

an increase in inflation for the third straight month. Perhaps the president wants the public to look elsewhere when assigning blame for rising prices. As a political matter, an inflation revival may be the biggest threat to the Trump presidency. Mr. Trump was elected as voters reacted due inflation and falling incomes under Joe Biden. Real average earnings are flat over the last three months

as inflation has bounced up. If this persists, Mr. Trump won't have a 53% job approval rating for long. And then this from Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. He is appeased this morning for the Courier. Courier Journal entitled, Kentuckyans can't afford the high cost of Trump's tariffs. The former majority leader writes in part this, quote, no matter our best intentions, tariffs are bad policy. Blanket tariffs make it more expensive to do business in America,

driving up costs for consumers across the board. These aren't just abstract concerns. Broad-based tariffs could have long-term consequences right in our backyard. In Kentucky, local store owners are already hearing about their suppliers prices going up. One estimate suggests the president's tariffs could cost the average Kentuckian up to $1,200 each year. Preserving the long-term prosperity of American industry and workers requires working with

our allies, not against them. Trade wars with our partners hurt working people most. And the president has better tools to protect American workers without forcing our families and businesses to absorb higher costs. Steve Ratner, I'd love for you to respond to those two editorials. And I think it's safe to say that Joe Biden left an economy that was moving in the right direction, was it not?

Yeah, and this is the interesting thing for Trump. Joe Biden did leave an economy moving in the right direction, but there was still work to do. The deficit is high. Inflation is high. Real incomes are rising a bit, contrary to what Mitch McConnell said, but nonetheless not at a rate that we want. And so unlike when Trump came in 2016, when we had very, very low inflation, he's got

work to do. And the work, as I said, is in conflict with the policies he's espoused so far, particularly the tariffs. You know, I need to put a new roof on my house, and the guy said to me, you better order these right now, because when those tariffs go into effect, the cost is going to go up 25% of those materials, because those shingles all come from Canada. So that's what we're looking at. But there are a couple of interesting conundrums here, because first, Trump is an easy money guy. Real estate guys are easy money guys.

They like and they need low interest rates to finance their buildings. That's a large part of how they make money. And Trump doesn't really understand economic policy and monetary policy, and so he thinks the Fed should keep interest rates lower. He jawbone the Fed back during his first term. He has threatened to fire Jay Powell on many occasions and so forth. And you have that in conflict with what's going on in the Hill, where they're talking about larger budget deficit. Well, not talking about them.

They're talking about cutting the budget deficit, but everything they're saying is pointing to larger budget deficits rather than smaller ones. And then, as I said earlier, the impact of less immigration on our labor force and what that's going to do to prices. So the Journal is right, Mitch McConnell is right. The Trump administration keeps talking about bringing down prices. He promised during the campaign to bring them down on day one. And now they've got a set of policies that actually are certainly not going to make it

better and arguably could make it worse. Morning, Joe. Economic analyst Steve Ratner, thank you. And we didn't get to eggs. Jonathan Lemire, which bird flu and other reasons happening with the eggs in the Bronx, $25 at this point. That's an egg. Egg prices skyrocketing in some places.

My local market, hard to find. Can't even get them. There aren't many on the shelves. So Ali Vittali, two thoughts for you. First, just as again, this is Mitch McConnell unchained, I suppose. You know, he has now, just as, again, this is Mitch McConnell unchained, I suppose. He has now, once again, he wrote this op-ed

attacking Trump's tariffs. He also voted against Tulsi Gabbard for DNI, the only Republican to do so. We also know he opposed the Pete Hegseth nomination. But he's hit on something here. And as Steve just mentioned, prices are high. They're not going down. And this was Donald Trump's signature campaign pledge.

He promised to bring prices down to do it quickly. Well, it's only been a few weeks. We're not judging him just yet. But if this persists, if prices stay high or continue to go higher, this does seem to be a bit of a thorny political problem for him, no matter how much bluster he provides and blame he casts. Absolutely. Especially because we saw voter after voter when I was out in the fields in September, October, and of course in the early days of November, covering what mattered to voters,

it was the dollars and cents, pocketbook issues, the kitchen table issues that were really motivating them at that point, or at least that's one of the things that was leading them to the ballot box. Many Democrats trying to do the autopsy saying that maybe Kamala Harris didn't talk the right way about the economy. Of course, it was a central part of many of her TV messages, but we can even just put that aside. McConnell has two things here that I think are super interesting. The first, of course, is the way that everything he's doing on Capitol Hill, from Hegseth

to Tulsi Gabbard, even this latest op-ed, all goes through the lens of America on the world stage and keeping an eye on the way the global community would be reacting to American decisions, whether it's tariffs, which of course will have the impact here at home, but then of course the way that these members of the cabinet would ultimately be reflected

as emissaries of America on the world stage. And the second thing is, he knows how to win elections. And so he knows the salience of these economic issues. But for you, David Ignatius, as a master of the world stage yourself, when you look at the way that McConnell is trying to carve his legacy through these actions in the early weeks of the Trump administration, what do you make of how he's doing this? So it's painful to say, but now that he's not

going to run for election again, he's being much more courageous and straightforward, saying things that we believed he felt, taking positions that would have brought him political risk had he still been in the position of majority leader. I think the larger question, Ali, is whether there are other McConnells out there in the Republican Party.

There are a lot of things that Donald Trump is doing in this whirlwind first hundred days that worry Republicans, but they've lost their voice, they're frightened. And if they stay frightened, you know, we have a danger, I think, of policies that will be harmful. Steve Ratner just ran through a very detailed account of why this economic policy could go sideways or worse. A Republican's gonna speak out about that.

But I think, you know, I don't think of McConnell as the canary in the coal mine exactly, but maybe in this case he is. I know. All right. The Washington Post, David Ignatius, thank you very much for coming on this morning. Always good to see you. And coming up, the acting DOJ official leading with a potential witch hunt against prosecutors

and FBI agents who investigated the Capitol riot, worked on January 6 cases himself. We'll have that new reporting straight ahead on Morning Joe. 20 top of the hour time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning according to U.S. intelligence Israel is likely to attempt a strike on Iran's nuclear program in the coming months. The Washington Post reports the preemptive attack would set back Tehran's program by weeks or perhaps months. The potential escalation would inflame tensions across the Middle East in a new test for President Trump who campaigned on restoring peace in the region.

We'll be following that. A new study suggests medications to treat obesity may also help people drink less alcohol. That's according to government-funded research. The data suggests drugs like Ozempic manage cravings, not just for food, but also tobacco and alcohol. Scientists are studying these drugs in smokers, people with opioid addiction and cocaine users. And officials in Los Angeles are putting in place evacuation

warnings amid a forecast of heavy rain. Downpours are expected throughout tomorrow in some of the same areas that were scorched by the recent wildfires there. The burn zones are now at a high risk of mudslides and dangerous debris flow. We'll follow that. And we certainly hope everyone out there stays safe. On a lighter note, the city of Philadelphia will celebrate the Eagles Super Bowl Championship and a victory parade tomorrow. But ahead of that, star running back Saquon Barkley is defending pop star Taylor Swift after she was booed at Sunday's big game in New Orleans.

Here's what Barkley told Howard Stern yesterday about Sunday's scene at the Superdome. They showed her on the Dumbletron and she got booed. I don't get it. I don't get why she was getting hate there. I didn't like that either. Yeah, she was just there supporting our significant other and she's made the game bigger. We're all about how can we expand the game and make it more internationally and we're traveling to Brazil and we're traveling to Mexico and her being a part of it is only helping us.

So I don't get the dislike that she's getting. Allie Vitale, you're our resident Swifty, so we want you to weigh in on this. I think some of this is not- Put the car on up. Is the resident Swifty. Is not necessarily about Taylor Swift personally. I think there is that general sense of chief's fatigue

that has set in, but also let's remember, she was booed by Eagles fans who once booed Santa Claus. They'll boo anybody, because frankly, Taylor Swift about as popular as Santa Claus. They'll boo anybody but she's also a Pennsylvania girl has songs where they mentioned her Philadelphia Eagles t-shirt on the door so this was also a conflict of interest in some ways for her. Ultimately we saw the way that she went and you really can't blame her. I mean Ryan Ryan's here as my co-Swifty for the day. But look, I just wanna remind people

that it's not cool to hate Taylor Swift. Like, you don't get extra points for this, and if you don't like her, not mandatory to be a Swifty. That's totally fine. I'm not looking to recruit people to the cause, but it's pretty great over here, I will say. If you don't like her, you don't have to say anything. So props to Saquon Barkley.

I'm into that. It's really, hate gets rewarded on the internet, though. That's the thing. But I agree with you, Ali. All right. Moving on. Todd Blanch, president Trump's nominee to be deputy attorney general, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing yesterday.

Blanch was the president's criminal defense lawyer in his New York hush money case, as well as the two criminal cases brought by the Justice Department, Blanche used his opening statement to push the narrative that the prosecutions against Trump were political, including those launched by the very department he wants to help lead. Representative President Trump was the greatest job I've ever had. I think if I'm confirmed, my new job will surpass it, but it was the greatest job I ever had.

It was an honor and I learned a ton. It opened my eyes for sure to what happens when politics takes the place of justice. And both you and the ranking member talked about this. And I couldn't agree more that politics should never play a part in the Department of Justice. And I saw with my own eyes in Manhattan, with the Manhattan case, I saw it in the Georgia case, I saw it in both Jack Smith's prosecutions, I saw it in elected officials trying to keep President Trump off the ballot. It opened my eyes to something that I hadn't seen when I was just a prosecutor in New York trying to put gang members in jail.

All right. Meanwhile, Democrats on the committee grilled Blanche about the potential conflict of interest that could arise in light of his former job representing the president. Take a look. Take a look. Would you agree that it would be a blatant conflict of interest as his criminal defense lawyer, as someone who has a continuing legal obligation to him as a former client, for you to participate in any of the work of that group as it pertains to the January 6th case that you represented him, or the Mar-a-Lago case where you represented him, or Alvin Bragg's office where you represented him, you would agree that that would be a very blatant conflict of interest?

I don't know. I don't necessarily agree with that. There will be a conflict of interest potentially, but I quibble with the word blatant. I find it remarkable that you feel there's any world in which you could somehow participate in an investigation of people where you represented the president in that same investigation. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle also questioned Blanche on recent changes at the DOJ, including the string of firings at the FBI and President Trump's blanket pardon of January 6 rioters. It would never hold it against a public defender that they were defending in the court of law

a person who was accused of a serious crime, right? I would not. Right. And my view on the FBI is it's the same thing. If an FBI agent, I'm a worker there and I get assigned to a case by my boss, is there any reason in the world that I should pay a price because I did my job as assigned? No, and I don't think that that's what's happening. As a future member of the DOJ, what would be your position on anybody who does violence

against police officers in the past or in the future? They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And do you agree with me that anybody who was convicted or pled guilty, pleaded guilty to violence against a police officer owes a formal written apology to whoever they hurt in the process? That is something I would think they should certainly consider doing. A vote on Blanche's nomination has not been scheduled, but could come as soon as next week.

Meanwhile, as President Trump's Department of Justice works to identify all FBI agents and employees who worked on the sprawling investigation into the January 6th attack on the Capitol, new reporting reveals the DOJ official behind that order, acting Deputy Attorney General Amal Bové, once helped track down rioters himself. Back in 2021, the months following the insurrection, Bovet assisted in the search for rioters as a Manhattan federal prosecutor. Joining us now with more on that reporting, Ryan Riley, he covers the Justice Department

and federal law enforcement for NBC News. Ryan, what more do you know about this and what do you make of this change of heart he might be having? Yeah, you know, I mean, you know, even for someone who worked in the Southern District of New York, which is sort of a notoriously hard charging district, sometimes jokingly referred to as the sovereign district of New York for its independence from the Justice Department, the suggestion that SDNY should have taken over the investigation of an attack on the U.S. Capitol in D Capitol in DC was a pretty bold move.

But that's what he was proposing here. Some of the criticism that we've seen in the years since is that the notion that essentially prosecutors in these cases saw this as a way to sort of build their career. They saw this, I've heard the line use that of the equivalent of their 9-11, right? That these were, they knew this was going to be this major national security case, but this was this major attack on the Capitol that resulted in multiple deaths, that resulted in severe injuries to police officers. It was an act of domestic terrorism as adjudicated in these certain cases. That's a high bar in a lot of these and often it's on the

back end in sentencing, but this is what, you know, you saw prosecutors going for is sentencing enhancements for domestic terrorism. And so his involvement here is fascinating. It's angered a lot of people within the Justice Department who worked these cases, or career officials who were assigned these cases. And I think the divide that you've seen within the FBI, there's been a lot of backlash from within the FBI, which once again, I'll say it for the millionth time, is a conservative leaning law enforcement organization about this targeting of FBI employees

as well as probationary employees. If they end up going after these individuals at the FBI who are on probation, which means they've been there for less than two years and they have fewer civil service protections than FBI agents who have been there for longer, that is going to destroy the pipeline of FBI employees for years. And that will make it much more difficult for the FBI to recruit. We talked on our show about that pipeline concern. And then in your story about Bovi, sort of sums it up as the calls coming from inside the house when it comes to him.

But I want to stay on this idea of prosecutors across the country, U.S. attorneys, because you reported overnight that some of them got their walking papers, and that's not abnormal for a new administration to come in and sort of tell the U.S. attorneys that exist. All right, time to go. But what's not normal about the way that this one went down? That it's coming from the White House.

I mean, the origin of this is different, right? Because if you look back to Trump 1.0, the first term, what you had is then Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who we all know that story ends. But he wrote these letters to the Biden appoint, or rather the Obama appointed U.S. attorneys and just that narrow category saying, hey, requesting a resignation. So that was sort of how they did it first term. Then when Biden took office, he sent letter, it was rather his administration, within the Justice Department, asked people to resign by a certain point.

It was a three week lead time. So there was a natural transition. So it was sort of wind down. It wasn't pack up your desk, you're out today. This was sort of this natural wind down transition of those Trump appointed US attorneys. So this is a major departure. And also I think the rubber is going to hit the road here on some of the court-appointed U.S. attorneys.

Because, of course, people who are appointed by Obama knew they were going to be out at some point. But when you're talking about court-appointed U.S. attorneys, that's a whole different thing. And especially immediate termination notices coming from the White House is the oddity here. NBC's Ryan Reilly, thank you so much. His book, Sedition Hunters, How January 6th broke the justice system, it's out now. Still ahead, amid all that is going on in Washington, Congress needs to figure out how

to avoid a shutdown. We'll speak with Republican Congressman Tim Moore and ranking member of the House Budget Committee, Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle, on the negotiations. Also ahead, we'll speak with the new republic senator, Michael Tomaski, on his new piece about the important lessons Democrats need to learn in order to win big in the next election. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. Three minutes before the top of the hour, a rainy day here in New York City.

Egg prices are soaring to record highs this morning as farmers are forced to take new measures to protect their chickens from rapidly spreading cases of bird flu NBC News correspondent Aaron mclaughlin has the latest. And wagon will farm in upstate New York. Farmer Jason tow knows his eggs are expensive. I never thought I'd see the day where a dozen eggs cost more than a bale of hay. The five and a half dollars he charged for a dozen back in May became seven dollars

in October and now it's eight dollars a dozen. Tau says he has no choice but to pass along the cost of protecting his flock of 500 chickens. Across the country more than 21 million chickens died due to bird flu since December just weeks ago was found on a chicken farm a county away from wagon wheel and so how is ramping up security sanitizing footwear sporting gloves and installing roofs over his Coupes. We're always watching for so far so good so far so good

there's the goal to protect his farm from wild birds, known carriers of the virus. There's any wild birds that land on top. They're not going to cross contaminate with any droppings down into the chicken runs. He spent thousands on biosecurity. The cost passed along to his consumers. Tao says the main price pusher for his eggs replacing older hens that no longer lay profitably. Those costs have skyrocketed and for Americans struggling with inflation fatigue, the doubling of egg

prices is an added shock. And I can't afford it. So I eat a lot less and pay a little more. And that's when people can even find eggs. Retailers Trader Joe's in Costco now limiting how many eggs a customer can buy. Meanwhile, back at Wagon Wheel Farm, do you worry you're gonna have to charge even more if this keeps going? That's already on the horizon. Chicken farms across the U. S. They're scrambling to keep the bird flu at bay,

while bracing for the cost of eggs to climb even higher. Alright, that was NBC's Erin McLaughlin reporting.