Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/18/25

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

U.S. and Russian officials meeting in Saudi Arabia

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, February 18th. We've got a lot to get to this morning, including the diplomatic talks between U.S. and Russian officials happening now in Saudi Arabia. NBC's Keir Simmons is there and standing by to bring us the very latest. Also ahead, we'll go through yesterday's plane crash in Toronto, where miraculously everyone on board survived after a Delta jet flipped over on the runway. It comes as the Trump administration continues its move to gut the federal workforce, including

employees at the FAA. Plus, we'll bring you an update on the fallout inside the New York City mayor's office over the Justice Department's move to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams. With us, we have the co-host of The Fourth Hour and contributing writer at The Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, the host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitale, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post,

Eugene Robinson is with us, MSNBC political analyst, Anand Girdardis. He's publisher of the newsletter, The Ink, available on Substack, and columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius, is with us here in Washington. And we begin with the diplomatic talks between U.S. and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is meeting right now with a Russian delegation led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The group is supposed to discuss options for ending Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but the talks have drawn criticism for not including any Ukrainian officials. This is a first face-to-face meeting between a U.S. secretary of state and their Russian counterpart since January of 2022. Meanwhile, leaders from across Europe met in Paris yesterday to align their position on Ukraine after being excluded from the talks between the United States and Russia. Hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, the leaders of the UK, the EU, and Germany were in attendance, among others.

Macron spoke with President Trump before the meeting. He then later spoke with Ukrainian President Zelensky, who posted on social media saying Macron had briefed him on what was discussed. The meeting of Europe's leaders comes as concerns rise over today's talks in Saudi Arabia between Russian and U.S. officials. And Joe, I guess a lot of concern exactly about how these talks are going down. Well, yeah, a lot of concern about how the talks are going down and deja vu all over again,

as Yogi Berra would say. Going back to the first Trump administration, when at some point Angela Merkel just told other European leaders, we're just not going to be able to depend on the United States anymore. And that's right now what EU leaders and Zelensky are starting to believe. Let's bring in NBC News chief international correspondent, Keir Simmons. He's live from the Saudi Arabian capital. Keir, what can you tell us?

Well, Joe, we caught up with Minister Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister here at the Ritz-Carlton hotel a few hours ago. He was a tight lipped to the delegations are staying here, but the meetings are happening in a Saudi Arabian palace near to here, convened by the Crown Prince and the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister. There is a shot of the delegations sitting opposite each other at a table, looking fairly fairly sober as certainly they should do because these are going to be very, very difficult talks. They are formal talks, albeit hastily organised. The days seem to change, that they would take place, the times seem to change,

the location has seemed to change, but they are now underway that the pool team that are there for the talks say they've been happening now for around two and a half hours with a 15 minute break that the two sides plan to break for lunch. What they are talking about is an interesting question. One of them here, Kirill Dmitriev, who's not at that table, but he is here. US officials believe that he is close to President Putin's daughter. He is, if you like, I mean, President Trump has envoys. He is, if you like, one of President Putin's envoys. He is here very clearly talking about wanting sanctions to be lifted. He himself is sanctioned by the United States.

And there, I think you have an example of what the Russians are really looking for. They are looking to try to end Russia's isolation, as well as President Trump saying that he wants to try to end the war in Ukraine. As you mentioned, President Zelensky is not here. He is in Turkey saying last night that Ukraine will simply not agree to anything agreed at a meeting that Ukraine is not part of. There have been reports that he would come here to Saudi Arabia tomorrow. We don't know whether that is the case. Certainly there'll be no sign of the Europeans here.

You mentioned that meeting in Paris yesterday. Frankly, European leaders in disarray, unable to agree again, even whether they will be prepared to send troops into Ukraine to try to sustain any kind of ceasefire if there is one. I should say the Trump administration being clear that this is a test, if you like, that they're going to see how serious the Russians are. And I was going to ask you, Kieran, if there's any method that what appears to our European allies to be madness, excluding the Ukrainians from these talks, have you talked to any US officials or Russian officials that have said, this is step one, we're going to see if there's a broad outline on what we could negotiate and then have the Ukrainians

brought in or is all this being done on a very ad hoc basis? I think it's fair to call it, Joe, a work in progress. Certainly there are developments, aren't there? This is historic. It's extraordinary, honestly. I mean, let's keep in mind, these are the first formal talks between the US and Russian officials since Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine.

I should say, though, that President Trump's envoy on Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, gave a briefing last night in which he said that he will be in Ukraine this week for three days and that he intends to go back and back. And a bipartisan delegation from the Hill are in Europe right now trying to calm nerves in Kiev and other European capitals saying, of course, Ukraine will be at the table. The question, though, of course, is what exactly the US is negotiating right now with the Russians behind closed doors. You had the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, saying in that speech to NATO that the potential for Ukraine to be in NATO is not on the table, that even if there is some

kind of a security force, it would have to be Europeans and non-Europeans, not the US, and it couldn't be covered under Article 5, which is, of course, that all sides defend each other, an article in the NATO agreement. So that seemed to be giving a lot of ground to the Russians. Just one other point again though, a counterpoint to that, I mentioned that the Russians are here clearly arguing that sanctions should be lifted. The heavy sanctions on Russia are an enormous piece of leverage that the US has. Another point before I wrap up too, Joe, just to say, of course, these divisions between

Europe and the States, well, the Europeans have sanctions on Russia too. So if you want to lift sanctions on Russia somewhere down the line, you need the Europeans to help. All right. NBC's Keir Simmons in Saudi Arabia. Thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. You know, David, we're talking about the fault lines. Keir's talking about the fault lines that are running, obviously, through the EU on

the response to the United States, also between the EU and the United States. Because of this, when it comes to Ukraine and coming to the possibility of a peace deal without the Ukrainians being a big part of it, there are also fault lines in the Republican Party. We'll remember back to the first Trump administration where Donald Trump would say things in Helsinki, and it would seem that the Republicans in the U.S. Senate would go the extra mile to make the sanctions even tougher on Vladimir Putin. I have, in my reporting, I'm sure in your reporting, while it seems Republicans have acquiesced to Donald Trump in so many ways, I will say the hardliners, and there

are a lot of them in the US Senate as well as in the House, they still feel the same, that Ukraine has to be a part of this process and Putin can be given no gifts by this administration. What are you hearing? So, I'm hearing the same thing. I think for many Republicans, Ukraine remains a red line. Senator Lindsey Graham, President Trump's golf buddy, sometimes described as a Trump whisperer, told me in Munich over the weekend that a bad deal on Ukraine would be the biggest mistake for the United States since the end of the Second

World War. He's trying very hard to keep Trump from making the kind of concessionary deal to Putin that would mark a radical shift. My sense, Joe, is that the conversations that are taking place today in Saudi Arabia are, as Russian officials have said, more about the normalization of relations between the US and Russia after these three years of complete antagonism than anything else. There are many issues at that superpower level that are crucial to Russia. The sanctions is part of it, but think of all the billions, the hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian assets that are being held outside of Russian control.

That would be at the top of the list that you'd want to have US-Russian conversations about. The worry is that what is really going on is making a deal behind Ukraine's back that will then be imposed on Ukraine by the US and Russia. That would be dreadful. We'll have to see if that's what's in store. Yeah, that's what I've been told as well. Real alarm from European diplomats that, yes, even if on the surface what we're seeing today

in Riyadh is more about US-Russia relations, of course, they believe that a Ukraine deal could become part of this, that some parameters could be sketched out. And obviously, Zelensky and his emissaries not at the table. I'm also told, yes, that there's been a little bit of Republican pushback. We heard in the last couple of days from Republican senators suggesting not outright criticism of Trump, but sort of perhaps warnings say, well, we need to get a deal here. Ukraine should be included.

It includes Senator Tom Tillis, who was in Kiev with a couple other senators yesterday, echoing that. But I'm told the Trump administration itself, like, they're not really listening to that. Is it possible? Yes. But they also feel like at this point, they have so much momentum and political capital. If they want to make a deal, they'll ignore the Senate. They're not going to kowtow to what the GOP leaders want there in the upper chamber.

And we know, Mika, certainly I've been told again over the weekend how much President Trump prizes his relationship with Russian President Putin, that he wants to be seen as the one restoring ties with Moscow, concerned that they are the other nuclear superpower, that he wants that to be part of his legacy to normalize those relations again. And it could be that Ukraine is just sort of a small piece of a much larger puzzle for him. We'll be following that. And before we get to our next topic of the Trump administration firing several hundred

federal aviation administration employees, let's cover the flip over crash, whatever you want to call it. 18 people injured after a plane overturned upon landing at the Toronto Pearson International Airport yesterday. This is the moment a Delta Airlines flight with 80 people on board from Minneapolis ended upside down on the runway. Emergency workers on the scene raced to evacuate passengers. Two passengers believed to be in critical condition were airlifted to a nearby trauma center while one child was rushed to a children's hospital.

Several others sustained minor injuries. Here is cell phone video that captured the chaotic scene. There you can see crew members helping passengers escape through emergency exits. Snow was blowing at the airport all day, but snow was not supported on radar or radars at the time of the accident. The fire chief stated that the runway was dry and there were no crosswind conditions when the Delta plane overturned. Incredibly no deaths reported.

Here is how one passenger recounted the crash? When we hit, it was just a super hard, like a hit the ground and the plane went sideways. And I believe we skidded like on our side and then flipped over on our back where we ended up. There was like a big fireball out this left side of the plane. And when we got finished, it was, I was upside down. Everybody else was there as well. Thankfully, everybody was okay. But we tried to get out of there as quickly as possible. Thankfully, thankfully everybody was okay. Meika, I mean, this following up on what you were saying earlier today, I mean, there are obviously, earlier

this morning, there's obviously great concern about the safety of flying right now, given the accidents that have happened. The Federal Aviation Administration said the Washington Post this morning, let go, hundreds of technicians and engineers just weeks after a mid-air collision, miles from the White House killed 67 people, eliciting promises from Trump officials to improve air safety, workers said in interviews. It's something that we've been talking about on this show since COVID, since after COVID. It's something that we've been hearing about and reporting on. And of course, this was in Toronto. It originated, of course, this was in Toronto, it originated of course in Minnesota, in the US.

But you know, you have the accident in Washington DC and then there are these immediate claims of DEI, which of course, and immediate claims on who's at fault. Nobody knows. That's why we have NTSB and that's why a lot of those investigations can take up to years. But we said, following COVID, we had a pilot shortage. They're hiring a lot of very young pilots right now. Getting rid of a lot of, because of age limits, a lot of experienced pilots. We were talking about how that was really a terrible mistake. but also talked about our concerns with all of the shortages, including shortages at the FAA, including shortages that we had

up in the towers with air traffic controllers. This is a system that actually needs to be built upon post-COVID, and here we are three, four, five years later, this is not the time to cut from the FAA. And that's the problem when you have this one size fits all approach, the argument that government is wasteful. And yes, there's waste, fraud, and abuse, Gene Robinson, waste, fraud, and abuse in all parts of government. We've been saying that for 30 years. I've been saying that for 30 years. Republicans've been saying that for 30 years.

I've been saying that for 30 years. Republicans have been saying that for 30 years. Democrats have been saying that for 30 years. Al Gore said it, you know, in 2000. But this is not the time to just go in with anything other than a scalpel when you're talking about agencies like the FAA and just getting rid of people

for a political statement. Yeah, I believe there's one federal worker quoted in our story this morning as saying this is like trying to trim away getting a steak and trying to trim away the fat with a sledgehammer. It's ridiculous and dangerous, frankly, because especially when you're talking about something like aviation. But this is happening all over the government, these sort of indiscriminate firings of probationary employees, basically who haven't been there long enough to have full civil service protections, which can be a year or more.

And without regard to their performance or what their function is or how much they're needed, it is a mess. And it is going to take some time to straighten out. You saw the other day that Doge got rid of a bunch of the workers who are responsible for our nuclear weapons and making them safe, and then had to quickly try to rehire them because they shouldn't have been fired in the first place. And I think that's happening all over the government. Waste fraud and abuse, yes, but do it with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

And lawfully. We're going to get to Ana and Garen Dardis more on this, but first let's talk about the crash itself and this issue with NBC News aviation analyst John Cox. He's a former pilot and accident investigator with more than 20 years' experience on the topic of the FAA firings. The union says these firings didn't account for the already understaffed workforce, mission-critical needs and public safety.

Do you have any insight, and you may not, as to whether or not these firings could impact safety within the FAA? I think, from what I've heard, some of the people that were released were maintenance workers. We have an older system within the U.S., as far as the electronics, the radar systems and so

forth. And it requires a lot of maintenance. So I'm a little concerned that we have the number of maintainers that we need. I think the impact would be not so much on safety as capacity. So if the system can't accept all the airplanes that need to go from one city to another, it's going to have an operational impact. So I think that's going to be the first place that we see anything. John, let's talk about the crash yesterday in Toronto. And I think you'll remember like me, we were probably about the same age. I always, whenever I'm looking at gusts in the 30s, yesterday gusts up to 39 miles an hour, I go back to that 1980s crash in Dallas-Fort Worth, the wind shear crash that shoved the

Delta jet into the ground. I'm not saying this is the same thing. I'm just talking about windy conditions. I'm always concerned about wind gusts. I saw wind gusts yesterday going up to 39 miles an hour yesterday. Do you think that could have been, as you look at the facts, and we're, of course, just seeing through a glass darkly right now, are you concerned primarily about wind or possible ice on the runway? I don't think ice on the runway?

I don't think ice on the runway. Toronto is an extremely good airport about snow removal. So I don't think we're going to see much in the way of ice problems there. As for the wind, it was gusty, it was windy, but these are conditions that professional pilots fly in regularly. The crosswind was, there was some crosswind there. But here again, these are skills that pilots have. We will learn what actually happened here.

The fact that that right wing is missing, I think is a very key element for the investigators to look at. What caused that wing to come off and separate those. This airplane is a is a veteran airplane. It's been in service for decades. So it's well built. It's well certified. So what happened here? I think we'll know in short order because I think they'll get the flight recorders, both of them. I think they'll get them today. I think it was a CR 900. And yeah, they have a very good safety record. I wanted to ask you though,

a plane landing, could a plane like a Canadian regional jet going down a runway landing, if it were hit by a 40 mile an hour gust of wind, could that flip a plane over itself? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. The fact that when you think about it, the airplane was landing in the neighborhood of about 120, 130 knots. So even an eight or 10 knot gust is not going to dramatically affect the lift on the wing asymmetrically. So no, that in itself is not going to cause it. Whether the wing dipped and potentially struck the runway, that's something that's a possibility

that they will look at. But here again, the bank angle will be recorded by the flight data recorder, and that will tell exactly what happened here. Well talk about how difficult it is when a pilot is landing and let's say you have gusts 30, 35, 40 miles an hour and they cut across the runway. How difficult is it for the pilot to keep those wings parallel to the ground? Is it possible that a wind gust may have shoved one of the wings into the ground? I think that's something that they'll certainly look at when you are in a crosswind condition like this and the gusts

were in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 miles an hour. The total wind was up about 40 miles an hour, but it was about 30 gusts to 40 in that range. So, uh, as you track down the, uh, toward the runway, you're actually have the nose of the airplane pointed more into the wind so that the ground track is on the center line. As you get in right over the runway,

you align the nose of the airplane with the center line as you get in right over the runway, you align the nose of the airplane with the center line and you'll lower the upwind wing down a little bit to help slow the wind from pushing you sideways on the runway. And that's about the point where you touch down. What happened here, we don't know yet, but that's, that is the timeframe that the investigators are going to look at in depth. All right. NBC News aviation analyst, John Cox, greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much. My pleasure.

Mika. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe, the Trump administration is planning to fire hundreds of high level Homeland Security Department employees. NBC's Julia Ainsley joins us with her new reporting on that. Plus, there is a growing wave of resignations in New York City surrounding the Justice Department's move to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams. We'll have the latest on the legal saga as Governor Kathy Hockel ways whether to remove Adams from office.

You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. Imagine him going inside saying that the only way Mayor Adams is going to assist in immigration, which I was calling for since 2022, is if you drop the charges. That's quid pro quo. That's a crime. If he doesn't come through, I'll be back in New York City, and we won't be sitting on the couch.

I'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to? What agreement? That was Mayor Eric. What a pal. Wait, wait, did he say the did he say the quiet part out loud? What about the agreement we had? And you and the agreement, the what? Without prejudice. Okay, that was Mayor Eric Adams and borders are.

You don't see that every day, do you? You don't see that every day. Remember the administration threatening the mayor of New York City who has just gotten his criminal charges dropped. And everyone okay with that in the conversation? Without prejudice. Right.

Without prejudice. I wasn't in that conversation. Saying basically if he, you know, they can bring the charges back and people were concerned about a deal and talked about a deal. I wonder what that deal was. Okay. Like some transparency there. So again, what we just saw was Mayor Eric Adams and Border Czar Tom Holman.

In a moment where a lot of people say was quid pro quo playing out in real time when both appeared on Fox News Friday, this has four top officials in the New York City mayor's office have resigned. And the controversy over the Justice Department's move to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams, the city's first deputy mayor and three other deputy mayors all announced they would leave City Hall yesterday a significant blow to Adams as the officials oversee much of the operations of the city's government.

In a statement, Adams said he understood their decision and wished them well. He also clarified that all four deputy mayors will remain in place for now as a transition period. In response, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul called for a meeting today to discuss the mayor's future. The governor does officially have the authority to remove a mayor from office, but those powers have never been used in the state's history. In a statement, Governor Hochul noted the gravity of such a decision, writing in part

overturning the will of the voters as a serious step that should not be taken lightly. That said, the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored. The mayor's office has been embroiled in controversy since last year when Mayor Adams was indicted on federal bribery charges. He has maintained his innocence. Apparently, more charges were coming. Anand, you have a new essay out just this morning on the Inc. entitled, Home of the Brave? Really?

And you write in part, quote this, as I write this, there are scattered and inspiring examples of bravery all around us. Prosecutors, judges, even the occasional lawmaker. But in the main, we are proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are not the home of the brave. We are a country full of people smilingly capitulating to a tyrant.

You go on to write, maybe it was always a mistake to count on these big institutions to protect us. They haven't been for some time now. Yes, there are a handful of brave lawmakers, brave judges, brave media voices, brave others. But in general, it is now very clear after this first month that no one is coming to save us. It's time to take back our country, not only from this authoritarian nightmare, but also from the collaborators, too insipid and weak and chicken, you know what, too skinless and boneless to stand up for us.

So Anand, I don't know if you want to name names, but we have a lot of different things going on in a lot of different directions. The story I just reported, Mayor Adams, New York City. We also have some very controversial nominations being voted on soon. And yet, as you said, it appears nobody really wants to stand up in unison and say no. Yeah. stand up in unison and say no. Yeah, and first of all, in the earlier clip, you don't often hear quid pro quo and up his butt in the same conversation.

So that's the territory we're now in. That's what I noticed. Latin and English, bilingual. You know, this is a moment, it's actually something the mayor said, Mayor Adams said, that got me thinking about this essay. He used two simple words to describe what you saw on that sofa.

He said, I'm collaborating. I'm collaborating. Now, I don't know personally if the mayor has a sense of history, but anybody who does have a sense of history and is familiar with the history of authoritarianism around the world knows that I'm collaborating is a sentence with some meaning. And it got me thinking about the idea of collaboration and the fact

that the mayor, who for the sake of his own narrow freedom, tried to make a deal to turn this city that is a city made of immigrants, America's immigrant city, into a city home to Trump's immigration raids. But collaboration really is a broader metaphor. We're seeing it with newspaper owners who won't stand up to Donald Trump. We're seeing it with companies that are settling lawsuits, frivolous lawsuits to appease Donald Trump to protect their wider commercial interests. We're seeing it with so many in the Democratic so-called opposition, where, except for a few exceptions like Senator Chris Murphy and AOC and others, most Democratic lawmakers

turn out to have no spine, but that was not disclosed on their medical forms. And we're just seeing again and again and again, again, with these scattered exceptions that are very important, some prosecutors and others. We're seeing that we're just not that brave a country in our core, and I think it's very, it's a different self-image than the self-image we have. I think Americans think of themselves as brave. We think of ourselves as the country that stood up

to authoritarianism and fascism in World War II and saved Europe. We think of ourselves as a country that stood up to authoritarianism and fascism in World War II and saved Europe. We think of ourselves as a country full of spine. And we are seeing again and again, whether it's the mayor, whether it's leaders of media, whether it's CEOs stripping out the diversity programs, throwing their own employees under the bus, whether it's university leaders not standing up for their faculty. This is a country going boneless. And it's time, I think, for regular people to stand up as they did yesterday in these

50-51 protests across the country. It is time for regular people to stop counting on people with too much, I guess, skin in the game to be brave. I think the bravery is going to come from below. Well, I mean, Anna, there's something that you've actually been saying for some time. It's something that you've been saying, actually, before Donald Trump got re-elected.

It's something you said right after Donald Trump got re-elected. The idea that we're looking around, and that's a sense I get when people call or when you talk to people, they're waiting for somebody to come down from above to save them from this. And nobody has answers that, you know,

nobody's magically gonna come down and take care of this. It's like you said, everybody's going to have to do it. Everybody's going to have to stand up. I will say, an honorable mention here. I thought the way that 60 Minutes handled their situation, where they came out and said, here are the transcripts. We stand by our reporting because, of course, there's a Wall Street Journal editorial page. Others say, of course, yeah, of course they'll stand by their reporting because there's nothing

there. We'll see what their corporate bosses do. But let's look at General Milley. Here's a guy who had his portrait taken down at the Pentagon, somebody that had his security taken away from him despite the fact that he's at the top of the Iranians hit list along with Donald Trump because of Soleimani's killing. And where—I don't know, maybe I missed this, but we've talked about it. We've spoken out about it.

But where's General Mattis? Where's Mad Dog Mattis? I haven't heard him say anything. Where are the other generals that served with him, the admirals that served with him? Where are the people that served with this man? You don't become one of the highest ranking soldiers of your generation without fighting a lot of fights, being in a lot of foxholes, either literally or figuratively, with a lot of band of brothers and sisters.

And yet the silence has been deafening from active duty, of course. They have a harder problem saying anything. But even other retired generals and admirals that served with him through the years. Silence. Yeah, I think a lot of what we're learning is a lot of people think they're mad dogs, but they have no bark, no bite and no claws. And they're actually just full of fear on the inside. They're wanting to collaborate. They're wanting to make deals. You know, I remember I took a class on cinema

under authoritarian regimes when I was in college a long time ago. And what happened in all these movies was these officials who were brave at the beginning. I remember this scene in one of these Eastern European countries. Someone was brave at the beginning standing up and then somehow a nice lovely piece of meat came to their dinner table from, I guess, the leader of the regime. And that was enough. You know, if you wanted to have nice, nice things, you gave in. We know from history.

That's what allows societies to go. We now know overnight, Elon Musk's Doge Squad is has his fingers in our grandma's social security accounts, already got IRS data. We are witnessing a full scale anti constitutional coup by an unelected billionaire on the screen, Elon Musk. And we're just learning that maybe we got to amend the song because you can't be the land of the free if you're not willing to be the home of the brave. Yes.

So first on the Adams piece of this, this is a meeting I'm told the governor has been sort of reluctant to have. She is up for reelection next year, concerned about potentially alienating black voters in New York City, although Adams' poll numbers have really plummeted among all groups in recent weeks. Also some concern about, it's always helpful for a governor of New York State to have a weak New York City mayor. And of course, Kathy Hochul, we know, is concerned about doing anything that might help her political

rival Andrew Cuomo, who is widely expected to be jumping in the race for mayor in the next few weeks. But this is something where the situation became untenable. We've heard from Reverend Sharpton and other leaders in New York that simply right now, and other elected officials saying that Adams has simply beholden the Trump administration and can't put the interests of the citizens first. And we should also note this dynamic is, as Anand said,

is happening at the federal level as well. Joe mentioned 60 Minutes and how well they handled that situation there. Elon Musk, yesterday, even as JD Vance is complaining about the lack of free speech in Europe and other places, what did Elon Musk do yesterday? He suggested that those who worked for 60 minutes, because of that interview we just talked about, deserve lengthy prison sentences. That there's, you know, the idea of violating free speech there, it's only applicable for

him and his allies, it would appear, and not others. OK. And we continue. NBC News has learned the Trump administration is preparing to fire hundreds of high-level employees within the Department of Homeland Security. Three sources familiar with the matter say the administration has a, quote, centralized plan, and a list of people in high-level positions across every component of DHS who would be let go this week. The new firings would come in addition to hundreds of cuts that began across DHS on

Friday night. Joining us now, NBC News homeland security correspondent Julia Ainslie. Julia, what more can you tell us about this? Well, Mika, this is separate from what we've been talking about with Doge and the big push to try to really downsize the federal government. This is a list that was identified by the transition team and then the landing team of Trump loyalists who came into DHS. And they're looking even across ICE and CBP as Trump tries to make good on this campaign

promise of mass deportations. What they want to do is take out high-level employees. We know Washington speak. They're called SES, Senior Executive Service. These are people in manager positions, policy people, strategy people, who are coming up with how they're going to carry out the wishes of the administration and their career. Many of them served under the first Trump administration, served under Biden, and they're still here now. But it's anyone who isn't seen not only—not obstinate, but someone who's not loyal to

Trump. And if they haven't gone far enough to show that loyalty, a lot of these people could now be fired. We understand that they're across every component of the EHS. How do they show their loyalty? Like, how do they assess this? If there's anything in a meeting where they feel like they're not on the same page, if there's any suspicion they may have leaked, even if it's just a confirmation of something

pretty basic to the media, there are a number of ways that they've come up with this list. If they don't think that they've told their subordinates to carry out the plans and the wishes, these are now people on this target list. So talk about what the impact of that actually is within the agency and what are the career folks telling you as they watch their counterparts or even themselves on the Chapit block here? You know, I'm heard it's a really scary time even for former people who stay in touch with their colleagues. They're told, look, I can't even have you on my phone records right now. There's such an insular place right now for people who want to keep their jobs and want to keep doing the jobs that they've been doing many times for more than 10 years even, more than DHS has only been around since 2003, but a lot of people who really feel that they've devoted

their careers to this and want to keep doing that. It's really similar to what we saw over the weekend too when immigration judges were fired. It doesn't seem to make sense when you want a big scale deportation force in this country and you want more people out. Why would you get rid of the judges? Why would you get rid of people at ICE and CBP? But the idea here is they want short-term pain in order to have a long-term gain of

putting people in these positions that they think will make the decision for a lot. Yeah. And, David, I wanted to follow up with what Anon was saying, but also draw it into this conversation, where we're talking about effective leaders being fired if they somehow don't pass some loyalty test. Again, the silence of other people that may have worked in that agency before not coming to their defense. I talked about generals. General Mattis, can you imagine what it would have been unimaginable up until a you know, a little less than a month ago that you would have the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, one of the most highly decorated

generals of our generation, sacrificing time and again for this country, getting his portrait taken down, getting his security removed from him when he's the number two target, I think, right now for Iran because of the killing of Soleimani. And it's dead silence. I've heard nothing from General Mattis. I've heard nothing from other admirals. I've heard nothing, nothing collectively from a group of retired generals and admirals who you think would be the first people to come out and say, hey, this is a man who gave his adult life to protecting and defending this country, one of the highest ranked generals and one of the most decorated soldiers of our time, and yet just silence. Joe, as you said earlier, the silence is deafening when it comes to General Milley. I have asked senior military leaders, current and retired, if they wouldn't say something

about this situation, and the answer is no. There are all sorts of reasons for that, but the basic reality is what you say. It's silence, and silence in this case is acquiescence. And we may not be through with the stories at the Pentagon. Wait a week. You may see more instances of political retribution against senior military officers. And the point I would make, Joe, is that what we're seeing across the government looks so new but it's really the reimposition of what in the 19th century was called the spoils

system, which means it's winner take all. If the president wins, he can fire everybody and put in his own political loyalists and there are no protections. And then we had reform. We had Teddy Roosevelt. That was his great issue, was we need clean government and we need a professional civil service. That's how we got his start.

But you're seeing that idea wiped out as we return to a Trump-Musk spoil system with enormous cost for each of these agencies. Wow. NBC News, Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainslie. Thank you very much for your reporting this morning. MSNBC political analyst Anand Girdardas and Washington Post David Ignatius. Thank you both as well. We really appreciate it.

More to come on this. Coming up, Pablo Torre is here to talk about some of the early headlines coming out of the MLB spring training and how Trump's trade war against Canada is spilling out onto the hockey ice. We'll explain when Morning Show comes right back. Well, Major League Baseball players are preparing for their first spring training contest of the season and John Lemeer Kind of we got a new problem in in in boston right now you you know remember a couple years ago We had so few good quality players on on some days and it looked like a minor league team. I know you remember late august

TJ our producer our director Went up with his family and they just called him out, asked him to play center field and you know TJ's not that good. So but this year we've got a battle over who plays third base already and Devers of course acting like Devers saying he wants to stay at third base instead of saying I'll let my coach decide who's going to play third base. But there you go, new problems for the Red Sox and I like them I mean to be fair though TJ did catch the fly ball that was hit his doorway

now granted it was right at him he didn't really have to go anywhere yeah but look he caught it he got in hit the cutoff man on a bounce but still and hey and he was holding a beer in his right hand so yeah pretty good to clear it And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, But the biggest move of the off season that of course was his former teammate Juan Soto heading cross town to the Mets. Juan's decision and his apparent conclusion that he had a better chance to win with the Mets and the Yankees. You know, it's his opinion. He can say what he wants. I definitely disagree with him. But I wasn't too surprised by it. You know, it's I think that's where he wanted to be.

I think that's where it was best for him and his family. And I think that's where he's going to be. And I think that's where he's going to be. And I think that's where he's going to be. And I think that's where he's going to be. And I think that's where he's going to be. And I think that's where he's going to be. And I think that's where he's going to be. And I think that's where he's going to be. And I think that's where he's going to be. them but I wasn't too surprised by it. I think that's where he wanted to be. I think that's where it was best for him and his family and he got a pretty nice deal over

there so I think he can't say no to that but I'm happy for him. You can't replace a guy like Juan Soto but you bring in guys like this that are all-stars, MVPs, caliber players. We did a pretty good job. This show continues to delight in the idea that Juan Soto spurred in the Yankees to head to the Mets. So as Joe just mentioned, elsewhere in the American League East, maybe there's some trouble brewing in Boston

and its clubhouse after the Red Sox signed free agent and third baseman Alex Bregman. Good move. Spent some money, got Bregman, but Boston's Rafael Devers, their incumbent third baseman, was adamant yesterday that he's not interested in a scenery change, telling reporters through a translator, quote, third base is my position. We should note he's a below average, maybe, defensive fielder, while Alex Bregman, a gold glove winner.

Let's now bring in the host of Pablo Torre Finds Out on Metal Arch Media, MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre, and MSNBC contributor Mike Barnacle. Good to see you both. I'm so glad we're talking baseball. Yeah, Barnacle and I have just been grunting levels of frustration at you while you do those reads. I know, I noticed.

I can go out there, because I'm a true professional. Yeah, look, if you want to pay me $700 million, I will also say that you give me the best chance to win. This is a general principle in my life when it comes to Juan Soto, but I do think that the Red Sox thing is interesting because Barnacle... He's been shouting it down. He's been shouting it down, and I want to revel in the shouts because it's funny to me what's happened here.

Devers is going to play where Alex Cora tells him to play. That's the bottom line. The other guys that Joe was mentioning, Roman Anthony, Christian Campbell, Marcel Omeyer, there's a reason they're called prospects because they have not yet played Major League Baseball. So let's play it out and it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. Yeah, I trust Alex Cora to handle the situation. Bregman has said he'll play second base.

It'll get sorted out. I agree. We also should note some other players moving positions this year, Mike Trout moving to right field. Hopefully, he can stay healthy this time around. Jose Altube going to the outfield. That's a headline I had missed until this week. And another player doing something different.

Shohei Otani, back to the pitcher's mound. Yes, look, position changes. Spring training is a time for all sorts of theatrical protestation around, how dare you move me to the place that I don't see myself being. Mike Trout's doing it though because of health. The guy just can't stay healthy.

And so he's been, I mean, Mike, he is as good a center fielder as we have seen in the history of baseball. That's been the argument. And yet he hasn't played 140 games in seven years. He is one of the all-time great baseball players. Yes. Ranked in the top five.

Top five players of all time until the injury bug hits him. But the bottom line here is, isn't it miraculous and wonderful that we're talking about baseball instead of the other stuff? Yeah, no, I agree. But at least it's back sign of spring. talking about baseball instead of the other stuff. Yeah, no, I agree. But at least it's back sign of spring. And otherwise, pretty quiet moment on the sports calendar

except for hockey. Because Canada and the United States will meet in the NHL's four-nation face-off championship later this week. Canada's victory over Finland yesterday clinched its spot in the final in a rematch against Team USA who won a brutal battle in Montreal on Saturday. How brutal? There were three fights in the game's first nine seconds. But Team USA will

be hampered by a handful of key injuries with Ford Brady Kachuk at the list last night after he exited the team's 2-1 defeat to Sweden in a game that had no bearing on the tournament. USA was already in the finals. That much anticipated final Thursday night at Boston's TD Garden. Pablo, a couple things to hit on this. First of all, it comes in a moment where everyone is mad at the NBA. No one cares about the NBA this year, it seems.

Their all-star game is terrible. The NHL has hit on this new formula. Players really care that representing their country, the quality of play is really high. Thursday is going to be great. But there's also a geopolitical angle to this as we have the Canadians booing the U.S. national anthem in the wake of the tariffs that President Trump wants. Yeah, look, what we're watching here in this tournament, which was invented as a way to maybe gin up some interest, is the greatest manufactured sporting event in the recent history of all-star

like enterprises. 4.4 million people watched this. That is the most for a non-Stanley Cup final since I believe 2019. And the basic principle, Mike, is if the players themselves do not care, why would the audience? And so now you have this brew of geopolitics plus just genuine cultural tribal affiliation among hockey crazed countries that are saying we want to punch the other country literally in the face. You just put your finger on it with the simple word cares. The Kachuk brothers right off the top. You know, first finger on it with the simple word, cares, the Kachuk brothers.

Right off the top. You know, first Matthew Kachuk and then his brother Brady Kachuk, two fights, three fights in nine seconds because they cared about the product. They cared about what they do. They cared about their team. And yes, they cared that the national anthem was being booed up in Canada.

They cared about it and they proved how much they cared by inciting a near riot within 10 seconds. It brought a lot of interest to the game. They had the highest ratings I think for a hockey game in a long time and it proves that if the athlete cares the fans will follow. Yeah my boys and I are hockey fans. We've been glued to this but it's also broken through the casual fan this week, which has been a lot of fun to see. Thursday night will be great.

Pablo, let's hit on something else. In your podcast, you recently covered a trend that takes people's love of their sports teams to a new posthumous level. Dare I ask what you found out? Yeah, what I found out is that by 2030, about a super majority of Americans will opt for cremation. Okay, so why am I talking about cremation?

Why are you looking at me? Why am I looking in the general direction? I would never, I would never presuppose what you wish to be carried into the afterlife being. But what I would say is that we are living in a time of peak cremation and where you wanna be buried, it turns out, we want to be spread more than buried, is at sports venues. OK, so there are studies and I want to cite the American Association of

Funeral Directors here for backing me up, where where you want to go is the place that you love the most. And those arenas, John, they don't want this. Okay. They're not looking for this kind of a thing. Security departments are on high alert. They're all of these policies. And so what we did was find the one place, seemingly in America, the one sports venue that welcomed this. And so that is video of a woman named Edna, who trusted us, who trusted us with telling the story of her husband who is in that bag and the spreading of her husband's ashes throughout Sebring International racetrack in Florida. And so we found a place, we found an eternal resting place that we helped Edna locate for her dearly department. Mike, do we

think the right-handed batters box at Fenway? Is that the uh you know I think after the 2004 comeback win monster over the Yankees there were requests many requests for relatives grandparents ashes being spread on on the infield and no you can't do it no well better not do it at third base without checking with Rafael Devers. That's right. Host of Pablo Torre. Fuck, try it out. I don't know if they'll like me to.

Look at how pleased Lemire is with his disown there. We're talking about tux again. That's a remarkable self-admiration, deserved. I'm happy we're talking about tux. MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre, thank you, illuminating podcast there. Mika, back to you. Oh God.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, thank you Pablo.