Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/14/24

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

Democrat Tom Suozzi wins N.Y. special election to replace George Santos

Trump has endorsed his daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, to co-chair the RNC. Well, hey, you know what? His son-in-law totally fixed the Middle East. Why not let his daughter-in-law fix the Republican Party? Trump issued a strong statement of support for Laura. He said, my very talented daughter-in-law has agreed to run as the RNC co-chair. Laura is an extremely talented communicator and is dedicated to all that MAGA stands for. She's told me she wants to accept this challenge and would be great. Oh, man, poor Eric. His wife got more compliments in that one post than his father gave him in his entire life so far.

While Donald Trump is busy meddling with RNC leadership, President Biden is pushing the Republican-controlled House to pass a foreign aid package and calling out Trump for his latest un-American comments. But on Capitol Hill, Speaker Mike Johnson and the GOP tackled the not-so-pressing issue of impeaching the Homeland Security Secretary, a move that's being called a waste of time by both sides of the aisle. That's because it is. It does literally nothing. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe.

Well, it hurts them. Makes them look dumber. Right. If that's possible. Yeah. Oh, it's Valentine's Day and I have a present for you. Oh, do you really? Should we get it?

Yeah. On-air presentation. Let's do it. I'm going to do it on air. Should we right now? No. Sorry. Along with Mika, Willie and me. get it? Yeah. On air presentation. I'm going to do it on air. Should we right now? No. Sorry. Along with Mika, Willie and me. Pass it to me. It wouldn't be your choice, Alex. A host of way too. What do we have here? He doesn't think I'm Alex. This better be like. Just pass it to me. This better be mainstream. OK, this better be like in between the guardrails.

If we're doing. We'll just put it right here. You know, she is. She's remember when she brought the cat. Yeah. Out of her purse, as I recall. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't want any of that. Yeah. Well, then you might not want to open this. So, Willie, we'll see. We'll get to this in a second. Is it shaking? Is it meowing? Is there anything coming out of the box?

Nothing. Nothing meowing yet. But I'm very, very concerned. I'm very concerned about that. It's never good. It's never good. Um, so anyway, Willie, we're all nervous. It's so good. Okay. We'll put this aside. We'll do this. So Willie, uh, the big news, though, coming out yesterday in the political world, sure to shake up the Republicans. Yet another loss in an off-year election. I mean, the Republicans just continue to lose. They continue to underperform. This continues to happen in the age of Trump.

If you're running in a special election in the age of Trump, you're most likely going to lose. I mean, Democrats just over. I mean, Donald Trump has turned the Democratic Party into the Kansas City chiefs of special elections. Just it's always there's always a reaction. And there was again last night. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Republicans should have won again. Exactly. In a district that Donald Trump just won in 2020, a district that George Santos took in 2022. And now it goes back to the Democrats. They're celebrating this morning after former Congressman Tom Suozzi's special election win in New York's third district. The victory against Nassau County legislator Mazie Pillip flips that district from red to blue,

cutting now Republicans' razor-th thin majority in the House even closer. Swazi replaces disgraced former Congressman George Santos, who was ousted from Congress last year. The race seen as a bellwether for November, as Swazi noted the national implications in his victory in New York last night. This race was fought amidst a closely divided electorate, much like our whole country. This race was centered on immigration and the economy, much like the issues all across our country. We won this race. We, you, won this race. Because we addressed the issues and we found a way to bind our divisions. But the people of Long Island and Queens are sick and tired of the political bickering. They've had it. They want us to come together and solve problems.

So now we have to carry the message of this campaign to the United States Congress and across our entire country. Let's send a message to our friends running the Congress these days. Stop running around for Trump and start running the country. It's time to find common ground and start delivering for the people of the United States of America. After Swazi's win last night in New York, the Biden campaign wrote in a statement, Donald Trump lost again tonight. When Republicans run on Trump's extreme agenda, even a Republican held seat, voters reject them.

Trump and the MAGA extremists in the House are already paying the political price for derailing a bipartisan deal to secure our borders and to fix our broken immigration system. Nikki Haley's campaign also reacted to last night's Democratic victory in New York, writing, let's just say the quiet part out loud. Donald Trump continues to be a huge weight against Republican candidates. Until Republicans wake up, we will continue to lose. Time for a new generation of conservative leadership that doesn't turn off the American people. And, quote, Donald Trump, as you can imagine, blamed anyone but himself for the loss, calling Pillip, the Republican candidate, a, quote, very foolish woman and saying his MAGA supporters stayed home again yesterday. So, Joe, I think I misspoke. I said Trump won in 2020.

I meant Joe Biden won by eight points in 2020. Then it flips to Santos, a Republican, by eight points in 2022. And now this is looking like another eight point win or so for the Democrat Tom Swasey, a known entity there, a guy people trust. The issues were immigration, which he leaned into and said, yes, we have a crisis. Yes, we have to do something about the border and leaning into the issue of abortion as well. Yeah. And and here's the thing that we've been talking about every day over the last week or two that has real world implications. And that is that there was a resolution to the southern border that would have stopped illegal immigrants from streaming across the southern border. That would have stopped fentanyl that's killing American kids from streaming across the American border.

Crime along the American border and now in New York City, we're hearing all of this could have been stopped by a deal that Republican James Langford put forward. But Donald Trump told the Republicans not to do it. And so there's going to be chaos at the border for the next year because of Donald Trump. And it had an impact in this race. Tom Swazi was on the defensive on the issue of immigration until that happened. And when that happened, when Donald Trump killed the bill, the reporters up there say the entire issue turned on its head. Swazi leaned into it and he won on the issue of immigration. Stop for a second, everybody.

Listen to what I just said. A Democrat won on the issue of immigration. I was so surprised when I was there, so surprised now, that there are politicians that think they can do whatever they can do in Congress and it won't catch up to them. Always shocked there because it always caught up with them. And I'm still shocked that these MAGA extreme Republicans and the Speaker of the House are stupid enough to believe that you can openly say we're going to let fentanyl come across our border for the next year. We're going to let illegal immigrants come across our border for the next year because Donald Trump says, blame me. And we're going to do

it. And it has real world implications. Republicans lose again, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, last night. And they aren't just losing because the stars are aligned against them. They're losing because of one self-inflicted Trump wound after another. This is just the latest chapter and verse of that, Willie. And voters are smart. They see through the nonsense, which is that Pilip, the Republican candidate here, opposed that bill and said, we've got to do something about immigration. We've got to do something at the border, to which Tom Suozzi says,

I support the bill that was just put in front of us, a bipartisan bill led by a conservative Republican. And by the way, we'll talk about this in a minute. Republicans in the House continue down this path now without supporting foreign aid because they say they want something done on the border, which was just done over in the Senate. Let's go over to the big board. NBC News political correspondent Steve Kornacki is standing by for us. Steve, so how did Tom Suozzi do it? Yeah, I mean, basically he reversed what went wrong for Democrats in 2022. Take a look here. You see just about all the vote counted here.

A few more to trickle in. But Swazi essentially with an eight point advantage here. Remembering that this district is mostly on Long Island. What you see right here is Nassau County, enormous county, New York suburbs on Long Island. And there's also a touch of the district here that's actually in New York City. It's the far edges of Queens. It's a part of Queens that is kind of a little bit more suburban in nature. This really is a classic suburban district. And again, the vast majority of the vote coming out of the Nassau County portion of

the district. And here it's significant because Tom Suozzi, you could see one Nassau by a five point margin last night when Republicans won this seat, when George Santos won this seat in 2022, Santos won Nassau County by 10 points. In Nassau County also, there's been a lot of red waves happening in Nassau County over the last couple of years. Republicans locally won the county executive's office back in 2021. They won control of the county legislature. You know, a lot of counties around the country have boards of commissioners. Long Island, they've got a county legislature. You know, a lot of counties around the country have boards of commissioners. Long Island, they've got a county legislature. Republicans have control of that.

You know, Nassau County and really Long Island itself and the suburbs to the east in New York City in 2022. That's where the red wave actually hit. It missed in a lot of places of the country. That was the headline story from the 2022 midterms. Democrats had a good night. But one reason the Democrats didn't have an even better night in 2022 and actually retain control of the House was the third district of New York and Long Island itself. So you could see Swazi in what has become pretty hostile political terrain in the last couple of years for a Democratic Party actually took a major county here.

He used to be the county executive, used to be the congressman, and he took it from a Republican double digit win two years ago. And he won this portion of the district, the lion's share of the vote by five points last night. And again, it adds up to about an eight point win district wide for Swazi. And when I mentioned this red wave that hit Long Island in 2022, I think that's one of the sort of significances of this of this special election in the national context last night, because let me just take you around some of the districts in the area. These are the 2022 results. As we say, George Santos won this district by seven and a half points. The third district go south to the South Shore, Long Island, the fourth

district. How about this one? This is a district that was won by a Republican in 2022. Anthony D'Esposito. This district voted for Joe Biden in 2020 by 14 points. This was one of the biggest shockers of the night in 2022 for Republicans and Democrats. The fact that a Republican came in and won the seat that Biden had won by 14 points. These two districts in the eastern end of Long Island, Democrats thought they had a chance of picking off from Republicans. Republicans won them both. Remember this one in 2022. This was Sean Patrick Maloney, the 17th district, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, ran the entire Democrat strategy for the House in 2022, lost his own district in New York.

That was a gain for Republicans. And then you go up to the Syracuse area. This was a district where a Republican retired. Democrats thought it was a golden pickup opportunity. They fell short here. It's all a long way of saying I have just shown you six districts in New York in 2022. The Democrats believe they had a shot at. They went 0 for 6 in them. If they'd won five of them in 2022, they actually would have retained control of the House of Representatives. You can argue Democrats lost the House because of New York and because of districts like the third in New York last night. And so I think that makes it extra significant that in one of those districts where the red wave actually hit in 2022, New York's third congressional district, Democrats went from losing by eight in 22, a 16 point swing to winning by eight last night.

Steve, are you surprised by the margin at all? Polling had it neck and neck for the most part. There was a huge snowstorm, of course, yesterday, which may have affected turnout to some effect. But eight points is a pretty big spread. Yeah, I think so. It was probably on the higher end of what folks were expecting. As we say, it was a five point win. This is 2022 result. I'm wondering where's Zimmerman on there. It was a five point win for Swazi in the Nassau part of the district. He really got a big margin in the Queens portion of the district here. He won it by about 23 points. Democrats had only won the Queens portion of the district by four

back in 2022. But I do think there's a turnout story here as well. It kind of meshes with the national history we've been telling for a few years because there are some pretty big demographic differences between the Queens portion of this district and the Nassau County portion of this district. When you're talking about Nassau County, as I say, obviously, it's quintessential suburbia, the north shore of Long Island, which is in this district right here. A lot of really wealthy towns there, a lot of towns with very high concentrations of college degrees. And we have been talking for a number of years now. This is really a generation long story in American politics about the Democrats really running up margins,

massive margins, bigger and bigger each election among college educated voters. And this Nassau County portion of the district is just a wash in that type of voter. And I think when you're talking and Joe's talking about the success Democrats have had in special elections the last number of years, one of the things that's powered that is that that type of voter, that college educated Democratic voter has become more and more activated and engaged politically and seems incredibly energized to vote in any kind of election that takes place. And I think has given Democrats these special elections a real turnout advantage. So I think it was significant last night. Right now, the number may go up, but right now, 85 percent of the vote last night came out of Nassau County and 15 percent came out of Queens. And how is that different? But in 2020 presidential election.

Right. That was 80 percent from Nassau County and 20 percent from from Queens. So it was a five point jump here in the share of the vote that came out of Nassau County, which, again, I think it speaks to those suburbs, especially those suburbs that are densely packed with voters with college degrees who've been trending Democratic. I think they were probably on fire in Nassau County yesterday, maybe not as much on the queen's side of the border here. But that would be consistent with a story we've been seeing nationally for a while now. Right. And you look at these numbers, Jonathan O'Meara, look at those numbers that we have up right now on the big board that now 85 percent of the vote came out of this area. And these are the type of people just like rural America has been breaking

more for Trump. These sort of areas have been breaking more for Democrats and for Biden. And when people ask, well, what's the difference between the polls and Election Day? Why do you think that Biden's going to outperform when they ask me? I tell them this. I said, when when it is time to go vote, people who want to send a message to Donald Trump, who want to keep Donald Trump out of office, they will. They'll they'll weather snowstorms. They'll weather sleet. They'll thunderstorms, lightning. No problem. They're going to go out and they're going to vote against Donald Trump. And this is, again, what I keep saying to my former Republican friends, my former members of the Republican Party.

They're still my friends, but members of the Republican Party. It's like, you don't understand. Still, it's taken you seven years of losing, and you still don't understand. That going all the way back to 2017, when he talked about those women that were standing in long lines in the rain in Virginia just to send a message in 2017. They won the governorship and also they shocked the political world by what happened in the assembly seats. They still don't understand.

Let's look at those numbers again, if we can put them up. 85% of the vote came from this part of the district. They even outperformed what happened in 2020 because they are that energized and that engaged to send a message to Donald Trump. And that's going to happen across the country again this year. Jonathan Lemire. Yeah, Donald Trump is such a turnout driver. We know for his base, but just as much people turning out to vote against him who will break snowstorms on Election Day, but also importantly, are so excited to vote against them. They vote early.

They vote by mail. And that was a huge advantage for Democrats in this race. And we know that Trump has railed against that in previous elections, that these college educated voters are just so repulsed by what they see from Trump and so turned off by what they see as the Republicans refusing to actually govern. And that has been on full display this week in Washington, where they're standing against the border bill, standing against the Ukraine bill, but yet proceeding with the impeachment of the Homeland Secretary Mayorkas. A few other things at play here in this particular race, Swazi leaning into the migration issue, saying, look, Republicans killed that bill. And it seems like voters

responded to that. The Republican candidate, sort of a flawed one, didn't do much media, sort of mysterious background, had the IDF background, the Israeli military, that I think probably played a little better a few months ago before sentiment about the war started to change in recent weeks. Abortion, less of an issue perhaps in this race than others. But we know that's going to loom large come November. And it's going to be about the suburbs. We know that this is, as Steve said, a quintessential suburban county. It's Nassau County, the birth of the suburbs, basically. And that's going to be replicated in the suburbs of Philadelphia, of Atlanta, of Phoenix, of Milwaukee, of Detroit. And that's what's probably going to decide this election

in November as well. And by the way, we may see a replay of this election in a few months. This is a special election, of course. Tom Suarez will head to Washington immediately, and then they may run it back again in the fall. NBC's Steve Kornacki, thank you so much. As always, let's bring in former White House director of communications for President Obama, Jennifer Palmieri. She's co-host of the MSNBC podcast, How to Win 2024. Jen, an appropriate title for our conversation here, How to Win in 2024, which is Tom Suarez leaning in, perhaps providing a roadmap, leaning in to immigration. It is an issue that voters across the country say is at or near the top of their concerns, saying, yes, we have a problem. And that's why I support this bipartisan deal that was out there talking some about abortion, talking about the economy.

What do you take away from a pretty convincing win? As I said earlier, effectively a 16 point swing. George Santos won by eight two years ago or less, actually. Now an eight point win for Tom Suozzi. I mean, the amazing thing about this is that what we're talking about is we're used to special elections where we say, well, a Democrat won big because of abortion and a Democrat won big because of immigration. Immigration. Immigration because of the Democrats biggest vulnerability, you know, supposedly biggest vulnerability. And I mean, if you live in this area, it is it was nonstop, constant ads about immigration.

Swazi went on the offense. He did. He, you know, because she attacked him on immigration. He came back. He didn't have to defend himself. He didn't have to go on offense and say that we need to we need to do more. I'm going to do that. And I mean, there is it's one thing to have a roadmap to win by use, but because people are concerned about abortion rights, but to have a roadmap to win over immigration on the day this happens, the day that they go back and impeach Ali Mayorkas for no reason and not pass and don't do anything to pass a border security bill. It's like it was pretty fitting. And for that day in the House Republicans. Jen, moving forward, I mean, it seems the Biden campaign and Democrats have two key issues that Americans can feel right now. They can they can comprehend completely as it pertains to their own lives

right now, immigration and abortion. There's also foreign policy where Joe Biden has a lot of accomplishments, but those for a lot of Americans might be a little bit out of the realm of what they're thinking about day to day. Same with the bipartisan legislation, job creation, things like that, that seem more nebulous, doesn't seem to maybe touch the American voter psyche. But now we have two. And I think one of them will drive women out there like like there's no tomorrow. Well, yeah, I mean, abortion rights, it's it wasn't, you know, Lemire said this, it wasn't as big of an issue here. I just think in New York, even though she was that that even though Pillip was not pro-choice, people just don't have a sense that in New York, the New York state legislature, Governor New York is going to get rid of abortion rights.

It's just it's just it's just not as prevalent. There was a third party group that ran or a super PAC that ran ads about it. But it's just not as prevalent as it is in other parts of the country. So when you add Democrats being able to win a race where immigration is the number one issue, and, you know, partly that's because it's close to New York City. Migrants are a big issue in New York City right now. I don't know that it will be as prevalent an issue in other places with the advantage that Democrats have on abortion rights. This, you know, it seems like Swazi really cracked a code

that Democrats could, that they can model elsewhere. And that this stuff, I mean, Joe said this earlier, like this stuff breaks through. One thing that I saw one of the NBC reports from yesterday and talking to voters, people want, they don't like that the fact that Republicans haven't gotten anything done. They don't like the fact,

they see that Republicans are just playing games in D.C. and focus on doing things like impeaching Ali Mayorkas and not passing a bipartisan border bill. That stuff is catching up with people. And it's been a do nothing Congress from the beginning. If you just if you look at the numbers, just data, if you just look at the data, they passed less legislation. They've done less than any other house this session in a generation. And not only are they doing nothing, they're going out of their way to actually kill compromise.

So I loved hearing about how voters and Steve talked about this and and Swazi talked about this. Voters wanted to get things done. They want to elect people that get along with other members of Congress that can actually be constructive. And instead of getting things done for Donald Trump or trying to get things done for their constituents and for America right now, these House Republicans and man, if you're a House Republican this morning, you've got to be freaked out. You're not going to retain the majority unless things start changing radically soon and you start actually working to get things done. But what a message Vodra sent last night. Again, on the night that the House impeached Mayorkas, the same house that refused to close the border, refused to stop fentanyl from streaming across the border, refuse to stop illegal immigrants from streaming across the border. Yes, that House, they're the ones who are now one step closer to a Democratic majority

because of what happened last night. All right. Coming up in one minute, President Biden denounces Donald Trump's comments on Russia and NATO as un-American. We'll play for you those new remarks. Plus, it's still unclear whether the Republican-controlled House will take up the bipartisan foreign aid package passed this week by the Senate, instead focusing yesterday on capping months of work to impeach Homeland

Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. We'll go over where things stand this morning on Capitol Hill. Morning Joe is back in 60 seconds. One of the big countries stood up, said, well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said, you didn't pay. You're delinquent. He said, yes, let's say that happened. No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills. He said if an ally didn't spend enough money on defense, he would encourage Russia to, quote, do whatever the hell they want, end of quote. Can you imagine a former president of the United States saying that? The whole world heard it. The worst thing is he means it. No other president in our history

has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator. Let me say this as clearly as I can. I never will. For God's sake, it's dumb. It's shameful. It's dangerous. It's un-American. Donald Trump looks at this as if it's a burden. When he looks at NATO, he doesn't see the alliance that protects America and the world. He sees a protection racket. I know this. I will not walk away.

I can't imagine any other president walking away. For as long as I'm president, if Putin attacks a NATO ally, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory. Well, you know, Joe Biden and most intelligent people, when they see NATO, they see the alliance that took down the Soviet Union. And that's why Vladimir Putin hates it. And that's why Donald Trump hates it, because he wants to, you know, he wants to stay in Vladimir Putin's good graces.

But here again, you have to go back to not just what Donald Trump said, not just the un-American drivel that sputtered out of his fat Elvis's mouth. You have to look at the fact of how he set this up. He felt the need to make up a story, just completely make up a story. A leader of a big country said, sir, first of all, there's so many things wrong with that. So many things really wrong with that leader of a big country, please. And then would say, sir, please, not how it works at any of these places. And nobody would ask the question, what if we don't pay our dues? Because that's not how it works. And everybody in foreign policy of the world, everybody in NATO knows that's not how it works. It's not, quote, dues.

It's not what I made them pay. That's just so ridiculously stupid. And by the way, if you look at the contributions Europe has made since the beginning of the Ukraine war, Donald Trump, he can shut his mouth. He's got nothing to say on this point because it's the Europeans that just threw in fifty four billion dollars to keep Ukraine afloat. And it's it's it's idiots like, well, I'll just say like some certain Republican senators and members, members of the House. I do want to say this really quickly, and I would ask Alex, don't yell at me, please. Why?

It just shakes me up when Alex yells at me in my ear. You get upset? I'm a gentle soul. Yeah, well, I have a present for you. No, that scares me. Valentine's Day. I'm a gentle soul. Let me see if I can find this.

Okay. You're going to love it. So let's talk about the honor roll here, Willie, and I'm a Valentine's Day. I'm a gentle soul. Let me see if I can find this. OK, I love it. So so let's talk about the honor roll here, Willie. And I'm dead serious. The Republican senators who stepped up to support America, to support America's allies, to support Israel and to support Ukraine. I'm so grateful for Senators Boozman, Capito, Cassidy, Collins, Cornyn, Kramer, Crapo, Joni Ernst, Thune, Tillis, Wicker, Young, and yes, Senator Mitch McConnell. So obviously there have been a lot of Republicans, Willie, who have done Vladimir Putin's bidding. Very grateful for those Republicans who stood up and, you know, said what John Thune said.

And I won't say exactly what John Thune said in a closed door meeting, but just stood up and basically told everybody to stop being wimps, to stand up, defend our allies and do the right thing. And these Republican senators, we should all be very grateful that they did just that. They did. And there's a group of them that did not quiver under threats from Donald Trump, of course, and have said with straight faces, I'm not going to do anything for Ukraine until we can do something about the damn border.

They serve in the United States Senate that just came up with a deal for the border. I know we're a broken record, but this is their entire argument. Last week, there was a bipartisan deal led by James Lankford, a conservative Republican from Oklahoma, among those who voted against it. And, Joe, it's taking now, I have to say, a strange turn. We heard Ron Johnson yesterday offering praise for Vladimir Putin. Yeah. Now Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville blaming they're praising Vladimir Putin, praising Putin and blaming the United States, the United States for Russia's war against Ukraine. In a radio interview yesterday, Tuberville pointed the finger at America and expressed sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin. We forced this issue. We kept forcing NATO all the way to Eastern Europe, and Putin just got

tired of it. He said, listen, I do not want missiles on my border from the United States of America. It'd be like Russia coming to Mexico and putting missiles in Mexico. I understand what he's talking about. You can tell Putin's on top of his game. One thing he said that it really rung a bell is the propaganda media machine over here. They sell anything they possibly can to go after Russia. They can't win. It's not going to happen. Somebody needs to negotiate. Donald Trump will have it over with in a matter of weeks. Putin is on top of his game, says United States Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, talking about the murderous dictator who launched an unprovoked war against Ukraine, killing civilians for two years now. Committing atrocities across

Ukraine, recently just killed an entire family in their home. What is he talking about? What do you do with that? What do you do with that? You've got a senator from the state of Alabama that is parroting Russian state media talking points, attacking the United States, blaming the United States. For Russia's invasion, Russia's invasion of a sovereign country who was not a member of NATO, and we had deliberately not made them a member of NATO. And then you go on, Jonathan Lemire, and you hear Tuberville talking about Vladimir Putin being at the top of his game, attacking American media as propaganda and not hearing. I mean, that that he and Tucker Carlson are lined up. And again, I don't I don't know. When being pro Russia, being pro KGB, being pro invasion for a guy who is a war criminal. Do they love that in Demopolis? Are they all about, do they have Putin fan clubs down in Fairhope? I know Alabama pretty well.

And the Alabama that I knew were all, gee, they're kind of Reagan Republicans. They believed in a strong America. They didn't love Russian dictators. But here Tommy Tuberville is parroting, parroting Russian propaganda talking points, just flat out parroting them. And this is the same guy that all of our military leaders said was undermining the readiness of the United States Armed Forces for about a year. This guy is bad for America's military. This guy is bad for America's strength. I mean, all you have to do, I mean, just to ask people who were serving in uniform and they'll tell you. Yeah, the Kremlin couldn't have scripted those remarks any better in that

radio interview. And let's recall, it was to be said again, Russia, this is an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. After coming in the last decade or so, Putin also invaded Crimea, Georgia. This is someone who has tried to expand Russian territory and power, not because of his response to NATO, but just because he wants to rebuild the former Soviet Union. And there is this sort of weird Putin praise, this cult that now exists, not among all Republicans, but this sort of extreme MAGA. There is a small segment that views Putin for the masculinity, the hyper-Christianity, the, frankly, homophobia, things about Putin that appeal to them. And it's all because they're taking their cues from Donald Trump, that Donald Trump has set the tone from his time in his first campaign when he defended Putin killing people, because the United States did it too, to, of course, his time in office.

Jonathan, you were talking about hyper-masculinity. I was brought back to our interview with Donald Trump in December of 2015 when he was praising Putin and said how great Putin was. Like, does Tommy Tuberville and do these other Republicans, they also praise the fact that he assassinates political opponents? Do they also praise the fact that you have a Wall Street Journal reporter who is still being captured and still living in gulags? What does Tommy Tuberville say about that? What does Tucker Carlson say? What do any of them say about the fact that Evan is still in a Russian gulag, a Wall Street Journal reporter still in a gulag.

And you have Tommy Tuberville and you have Donald Trump carrying Vladimir Putin's water. I mean, and, you know, and by the way, after he put a hold on military promotions here in the U.S. Exactly. And how remarkable, Jonathan, and we're showing these pathetic, sad, weak pictures of Donald Trump from Helsinki, which you ought to retell that story as well. had to say in response to a senator blaming the United States of America for Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, you had to say, well, of course, we all know it was not the United States fault for Russia invading Ukraine. And I mean, the fact that you had to clean up a Republican United States senator's words who was blaming the United States for Putin invading Ukraine shows just how sick this ultra MAGA brand of Republican Republican Republicanism is. We already showed the 17 patriotic Republicans who still believe that we support our allies, who still believe we support NATO, who still believe

we support Israel, who still believe that they belong to a party that still has as as as one of its former leaders, Ronald Reagan, that they haven't forgotten who they are. They haven't forgotten what they believe. Because of Donald Trump, they actually voted for freedom and they actually voted for Western democracy with that vote. Yeah, they did. And that vote likely gets them nowhere because the House seems pretty clearly not to take it up because Speaker Johnson taking his orders from Donald Trump. Tuberville weakened American military preparedness. Everyone you speak to the Pentagon says that. And Donald Trump is weakening the United States and its allies ability to stand up to Russia by what he said over the weekend, saying, go ahead, Russia, go ahead and invade these NATO countries. If they don't pay, I won't do anything about it,

which President Biden deemed yesterday as un-American and rightly so. And yes, you just showed the footage there of Trump's Helsinki summit in 2018 with Vladimir Putin. I asked Donald Trump who he believed, who he believed, the U.S. intelligence agencies, all of whom concluded that Putin and Russia interfered with the 2016 American election, or did he believe Putin? And he made it very clear he sided with Putin and Russia interfered with the 2016 American election? Or did he believe Putin? And he made it very clear he sided with Putin and everything he has said, including praising Putin as smart, praising his decision to invade Ukraine, has only continued that thread. And that's what we'd be looking at were Trump to take office again. All right. Joining us now,

congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. Amid all of this, Jackie, where does the aid package stand? Yeah, Mika, that is the question that most House GOP Republicans are asking themselves and House GOP leadership at the moment, as Speaker Johnson has given little indication as to what he's going to do in the next few days. He said that he's not going to bring this to the floor, but there are various pathways where this could make it to the floor without his support. There's the discharge petition that we discussed yesterday, which would require the signature of four Republicans on top of 213 Democrats to work around Johnson and bring something to the floor without the speaker raising it. But then from there, it would still be an uphill battle for this to actually ultimately get through the House and clear it to get on

the president's desk. There's also the possibility that Johnson is going to have some negotiations. Let me ask you there. I'm so sorry. Why would it still be an uphill battle even if they got the discharge petition? And what procedurally happens next? Yeah, that is a good question because this is a little gets a little bit in the weeds. But essentially, there are Democrats who have signed on to a discharge petition that's already being circulated. And some of those Democrats have already indicated that they're going to drop off of it once it does get onto the floor. These are people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some of the members who are on the far left plank who do not support

Israel funding at this time. The timing of this does not necessarily work in favor of anyone, quite frankly, because it's just emboldened people on the right as well as the far left and some who are not even on the far left, but just Democrats who are becoming increasingly disenchanted and disgruntled with the way that Netanyahu has acted as the war in the Middle East and Israel has been playing out and especially frustrated with the way that Biden has been managing Netanyahu. So they need to get to the number 218. That's the magic number with the discharge petition. Only 100 and I believe it was seven or 11 Republicans initially voted for Ukraine support. So it's going to be a little bit piecemeal sticking together, patchworking all of the

sort of warring factions here to get to that 218 number. Yeah, I mean, I mean, the key really is and and and Jen, you know, this the key is going to be finding the four Republicans. Maybe it's three now, I guess, the Republicans who will actually sign a discharge petition. You're told, you know, from the second you walk in, you never vote against the rule, because if you do, you're turning the House over to the Democrats or the Republicans and you never, ever sign a discharge petition. I will say, if you have Chairman McCaul and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and another strong chairman saying to Mike Johnson, hey, little boy, you figure this out or we're going to sign that petition.

We can either run over you or we can work around you. What do you want us to do? Because I find it I still, Jen, and I think I think you would agree with me that despite the level of Republicans who are being the number who are being unpatriotic today, we do see in the Senate those who are being patriots. And by the way, I understand there are some people that oppose funding for Israel. I understand there are some people who oppose funding for Ukraine, and they have from the beginning of the war. So I'm not saying they're unpatriotic. I deeply, deeply disagree with them. But if that's been their consistent position and they're doing it for reasons other than trying to impress Donald Trump, which is exactly what Mike Johnson has been doing, then OK. But you have these unpatriotic Republicans who are voting against Ukraine and voting against Israel because Donald

Trump has told them to do that because they know he's against Ukraine and Israel. And as Mike Johnson told Liz Cheney, everything he's doing on the floor, he's doing like spreading the big lie to get in Donald Trump's inner circle. So with all that said, doesn't it seem, Jim, that they're going to find a way to get this discharge petition done? They're going to find the three or four Republicans or they're going to quietly go to Johnson and say, we can do this with or without you. Well, and won't they feel emboldened after last night? Right. Won't won't the more traditional establishment Republicans, you know, the chairs that you described, the people that are serious about national security that have been there for decades, that, you know, that remember what it was to fight the to to to for for the U.S. united policy to be against Russia, that they will feel emboldened after last night. And, you know, people that won, Republicans that won in Biden's seats in 2022, like Mike Lawler, also from New York,

aren't they going to be nervous after what they saw? And that vote in the Senate, that was good that you went through all those senators that voted for on the Republican side. That was a big vote. And it was a big vote for senators who at the time it felt like this bill was going nowhere and they voted for it anyway. They took that political hit anyway, that they're going to get in their own party. And, you know, that can embolden House Republicans to, you know, to fight to get it done, too. But you know how it is after there's a bad special election. Joe, you know how it is. The next morning, freak out.

Wednesday morning, freak out on the Hill. So, yeah, I feel like either the chairman are pushing the speaker to bring this to the floor or a discharge petition gets going. But people feel ornery. They are probably unhappy about the Mayorkas vote yesterday. There's a lot of reasons for consternation in the House Republican caucus to try to to want to fight back. Yeah. And the senior members are going to be going into a caucus meeting and they're going to say, do you see what you freaks are doing to us? You do realize that we're most likely going to lose control of the House and go back into the minority again. They're saying that right now. And so, Mika, they go into this caucus meeting and there is usually a freak out after a loss like this. This was a 16 point swing in two years from Santos to Swazi. 16, about 16 points. That stuff doesn't just happen. You need to clean it up.

It happens. I just did. Happy Valentine's Day. That stuff happens because one party's screwing up really badly. Yeah. And this House, seriously, if I wanted to put together a scenario where House members would do something to deliberately, deliberately lose control of the House, I would have drawn it up exactly like the Republicans have drawn it up thus far. And so, yeah, there's going to be added pressure for them to support Israel, to support Ukraine, to actually do something on the border. Because right now, just saying we passed a bill doesn't do it. When you had a bipartisan bill in the Senate,

that could have become law. So I think you're going to see it. You're going to see they own Trump, but they own it. They're the one who voted. And they're the ones that are going to lose. It's happened time and again. When you try to get close to Donald Trump, Trump's going to lose. But he doesn't care. He's a he pretends to be a billionaire. But these House members, they're going to lose and they're going to go home. So, Jackie, you know, they're going to be working for, you know, their dad's pest control company again. And that's fine. The one thing they did do was impeach Alejandro Mayorkas. It was a second vote. So they've been working really hard on this thing.

Scalise showed up for this one and they got the vote they needed. But what exactly does this impeachment accomplish? What does it mean? What does it do? Yeah, before I get to that, can I just say off of the point that Jen made that after last night, you would think that any sort of rational actor would look at the results and think to themselves, well, the border obviously is going to be hurting us when it comes to the elections in November. Let's try to jam the Senate

and add some new provisions. Some of these provisions we've been talking about in H.R. 2, add them to this foreign aid bill and try to jam the Senate on it and force the vote of Democrats who have effectively been able to successfully turn the narrative against Republicans on an issue that they have owned up until now. But the leadership in the House right now is so chaotic and disorganized. I mean, even just watching Speaker Johnson and Whip Tom Emmer try to corral members on the House floor from our perch in the chamber was a stressful experience that I could sort of viscerally feel for them. Johnson has such little control over this conference that such obvious moves that you think would happen as a result of this electoral win

for Democrats is not happening. This is a House conference that has time and time again acted against their best interest, especially when it comes to November, when these Biden 18 people like Anthony Esposito, Mike Lawler, those New York Republicans that Jen named are going to face electoral backlash potentially. But they did get one thing done yesterday. That was the impeachment of Mayorkas. This is something that they've hyped up for over a year now after promising to deliver political retribution for Donald Trump. He was the first cabinet member, sitting cabinet member to be impeached in history, but also

in an unprecedented fashion, the first person to be impeached where there is no offense. There has been a chorus of conservative voices. Wait, no offense. He has male pattern baldness. So we're going to impeach him. I mean, no offense. Why haven't you impeached somebody with no offense? Yeah, I mean, Republicans have argued that he has committed maladministration. There's been gross incompetence. But Mike Gallagher, Ken Buck, Tom McClintock and again, a very loud and growing chorus of normally traditional GOP validators and friendly conservative voices have said that this does not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors that we would normally see when it comes to impeachment

proceedings. This made it through. Nevertheless, there were less absences or there were actually more absences, but sort of tied absences to Democrats and to Republicans missing from votes last night, which evened things out. They got this through on a single vote. We're now going to see an impeachment trial in the Senate in two weeks. Patty Murray is going to oversee that. She'll be the presiding officer. And then they're going to be 11 House impeachment managers who are going to make their case. Love how Jackie just presenting it as a bit of historical trivia, the first person ever impeached without committing an offense.

There's a little confusion here, too, by the way, because everyone thinks that William Belknap, the secretary of war under Ulysses S. Grant, was the first first first cabinet member. But actually, he was impeached after he resigned from his position. So technically, this is the first sitting cabinet. There you go. I want to bring Jackie along for bar trivia night. She knows it all. The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. Jackie, thanks so much as always. We should also point out this is not going to get through the Senate. He will not be convicted, obviously controlled

by Democrats, and he needs 67 votes anyway. So part of that foreign aid that we're talking about here goes to Israel and negotiations to secure a hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas reportedly will continue this week in Cairo. An American official tells The New York Times lower-level officials now will carry on the discussion just one day after CIA Director Bill Burns and his Israeli counterpart met with officials in Egypt yesterday. People familiar with the talks say no major strides were made. Israel and Hamas disagreed on how long the ceasefire should last and the ratio of Palestinian prisoners to be released for each hostage.

NBC News foreign correspondent Raf Sanchez joins us now with more from Tel Aviv. Hey, Raf. Willie, good morning. An Israeli official tells me they are not optimistic about these talks, given the scale of the gaps between the two sides. There's also a lot of concern worldwide that if Israel moves ahead with its threatened attack on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, it could derail these negotiations at a very sensitive moment. Someone who is not at the table in Cairo but still looms these talks, is Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza. And there is an irony here that Israel is negotiating indirectly with this man, and at the same time, trying to track him down and kill him. Four months into this war, Israel claims to have killed, captured or wounded around half of Hamas's 30,000 fighters in Gaza.

We've shattered 18 out of 24 Hamas battalions and we're mopping up the remaining terrorists with ongoing raids. But Israel's number one target remains at large. Yahya Sinwar is the leader of Hamas in Gaza. And according to Israeli officials, the man who masterminded the October 7th massacre. Sinwar has been in hiding since then. Israel's military says this video shows him fleeing in a tunnel with his family three days after the attack. Two former intelligence officers confirmed to us it shows Sinwar. But despite a $400,000 bounty on his head and an air and ground

assault on Gaza that's killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, he's so far stayed one step ahead of Israeli forces. We joined some of those troops as they pushed into Gaza, arriving in the remains of Han Yunus, Sinwar's home city. Where we're standing here, my soldiers' foot to take this ground. We followed them deep underground into a set of tunnels where they believe Sinoir was recently sheltering. They offered no firm evidence, but said these beds suggest senior leaders were here.

While inside this cage, troops say they discovered the DNA of three young hostages, all released during the temporary ceasefire deal in November. Somewhere in this vast tunnel complex, the Israeli military believes Sinwar is hiding. It is not clear if he is still able to give commands to his troops, how much he can communicate with the outside world. But every day that he is alive is a day that he is defying Israel. And so the hunt continues.

You've been chasing Sinwar for four months. Why is it you haven't caught him yet? We'll kill him. He doesn't care about his people. He's putting his people between him and us. Sinwar was captured by Israel in the late 1980s, but he was released in 2011, one of more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners freed in exchange for a single soldier held by Hamas. He's looking at you and you say to yourself, he's going to kill me. He's going to jump at me. Michael Kuby, a former Israeli intelligence officer, spent more than 100 hours interrogating Sinwar.

Sinwar learned to speak Hebrew, he read all the books about the Israeli leaders, about the history, about the geography, about everything that he can read Israeli. He even translated books from Hebrew to Arabic at the prison. Having studied his enemy, Sinwar rose quickly through Hamas's leadership after his release and fooled Israel into believing he was more interested in governing Gaza than using it as a base for attacks, a misreading that became fatally clear on October 7th. Israel now hunting Sinwar, while at the same time negotiating with him over the fate of the hostages. And few believe his death will mean

the defeat of Hamas. Israel has assassinated so many of Hamas leaders in the past, didn't do anything to the organization, but make it stronger, more determined. But for Israel, killing Sinwar would be a battlefield victory and some small measure of justice. Now, I met Sinwar five years ago in Gaza. He's a very intense man, as you can imagine. His background is in Hamas's internal security unit, where he is alleged to have murdered suspected Palestinian collaborators. Israeli officials say he likely has some of those hostages close to him in the tunnels for his own protection.

And they say he will not allow himself to be taken alive. Mika. NBC's Raf Sanchez, thank you very much for that report.