Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/27/25

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Unvaccinated child dies of measles in Texas

We will make mistakes. We won't be perfect. But when we make mistakes, we'll fix it very quickly. So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention. So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately. Okay. Elon Musk taking center stage during President Trump's first cabinet meeting of his second term. We'll have much more from that meeting featuring someone, of course, who is not a cabinet secretary nor a nominee to become one. We will also bring you the very latest on a developing story, the growing measles outbreak

in Texas as HHS secretary. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. seemed to downplay its spread yesterday. And we'll dig into the mineral rights deal between the U.S. and Ukraine ahead of President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to the White House tomorrow. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, February 27th. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the co-host of our fourth hour, contributing writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire.

MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle is with us. U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Cady Kay. She is the host of The Rest Is Politics podcast. And the host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitaleale joins us along with co-founder and CEO of Axios Jim van de Huy Joe we have a lot of news to get to this morning But we we begin with news that broke overnight very sad news. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah sad news Jean Hackman

Willie guys one of the great actors of our time, Gene Hackman's passed away. He just, he was such an iconic actor in so many roles, became famous during the French Connection. But, but you know, as kids, I think Willie, probably you and I may have seen him first or one of the first movies Hoosiers where he played a tough basketball coach and in a movie that was so inspirational but it's funny while he was filming it on set with Dennis Hopper he hated the idea of the movie he thought it was corny and he said to Dennis Hopper I hope you have

invested well Dennis because after this movie we're never going to work again and that he saw a rough cut of it and realized he was once again involved in a project that was pure magic. You know that movie could have been corny if not in the hands of Jean Hackman and Dennis Hopper they were so good in it and it's still almost 40 years later I was stopped when it's on and I always get choked up throughout that movie. Yeah, Jean Hackman and his wife Betsy were found dead in their home in New Mexico, their dog too. We don't know what exactly happened. The

police say there is no indication of foul play. Certainly Hackman though, Mike Barnell, considered one of the greatest of all time he's a first ballot Hall of Famer you can go to Bonnie and Clyde in the French connection the Superman movies were on the other day. He's a great Lex Luthor in those

movies Hoosiers of course unforgiven he won an Academy Award for that Mississippi burning you can go on and on and the one I know Joe shares my love for Royal Tennant Royal Tennant. my kids call me royal.

Gene Hackman also don't forget his great role in get short yeah he was great in that wide range wide range of acting abilities. He was who he was off I met him a couple of times off screen. And he was the same off screen as many of his characters were on screen. A legitimate, legitimate movie star. Yeah, so great. Oh, sorry, Joe. No, I was just going to say, Jonathan, and the staying power.

Here we're watching him in a film in the early 2000s, Royal Tenenbaums, but think about it. You talk to somebody who was a big movie fan in the early 70s to talk about French Connection, Bonnie and Clyde. You talk to somebody who's a big fan in the early 80s that talk about Lex Luthor and Superman, late 80s. What would they talk about?

They'd talk about Hoosiers. In the 90s, What would they talk about? They'd talk about Hoosiers in the 90s. People would be talking about what an incredible job he did in Unforgiven. The 2000s, my favorite movie thus far of the 2000s, Royal Tenenbaums. You talk about a guy that was iconic for Would you talk about a guy that was iconic for generations? I mean, it's quite a talent. Yeah, and such a, not just the duration of his career, but the breadth and the different roles that we talked about. His adventures in the comedy, also the birdcage, he's in that. Oh my gosh.

Of course, then drama, he was in Crimson Tide and the conversation, the list goes on and on. He has a filmography that's as as strong as anyone's Willie and you know someone who also made a decision about 1520 years ago to walk away to retirement to head to New Mexico. But certainly you know we long long remembered for he'll be remembered for as long as we have movies let's take a look back now at his career with NBC News correspondent Gadi

Schwartz. If the car chase scene in the French connections at the gold standard for all Hollywood chases to follow. Then it's star Jean Hackman has come to define what a true actor is. With the uncanny ability to vanish into any role Hackman drew from within put nuance into all the tough guy roles he portrayed. All right, Popeye's here!

Is that gun just for show? A child of a broken home who lied about his age so he could join the Marines, Hackman worked many odd jobs, all to finance auditions. Every day was like a new challenge. He was going out and trying to get that job and trying to, and doing those auditions and I loved it. Kicked out of the Pasadena Playhouse, it wasn't until Hackman was 36 playing the simple-minded Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde when Hollywood took notice. Soon after, his tough-as-nails good cop Popeye Doyle and the French Connection earned him

his first Oscar. The prestige involved with an Oscar means that you have been in a couple of films that have made some money and that they can take a chance on you. And Hollywood kept taking chances. Hackman won his second Oscar for playing a bad cop in 1992's Unforgiven. But he felt the tough guy roles never really pushed him. We're cast so close to type in films that you can only do so much within your own persona. I hope you're hungry, I could eat a horse. Radish.

Towards the end of his career, Hackman found he preferred comedy for the challenge. Comedy is harder because it isn't arbitrary. If they don't laugh, it doesn't work. The problem is... Always shrugging off the label of movie star, Hackman remained an actor in his own words. I guess movie star is Robert Redford and Paul Newman and kind of guys that I idolized or visualized when I was a real young guy. Moving to Santa Fe after retiring, Hackman continued to work as a novelist,

publishing his fifth book in 2013, always letting his actions speak for him on the written page and the silver screen. Wow. Gotti Schwartz reporting there. Gene Hackman was 95 years old. Michael, I was reminded watching that. He's of a different generation

where he lied about his age as a teenager so he could join the United States Marine Corps. Yeah, he did he did 5 years in the Marine Corps. Yeah, I think like late late 40's after World War 2 right after 1950's yeah, he was quite a guy he was quite a guy he was a little a genuinely ordinary human being when you meet him I had the good fortune of meeting him several times. I went to see him in Santa Fe about five or six years ago and he was the same then as he was when I first met him in 1973 on the set of A Bridge

Too Far in Nijmegen, Holland. And he was the star of that cast. He had a lot of fun making that movie. We won't go into it now, but he was a really good guy. Well, we'll also keep following what happened there. Yeah. All right. To other big stories this morning, an unvaccinated child in Texas has died of measles amid a growing outbreak in that state and others. NBC News correspondent Priscilla Thompson has the latest.

A fast-moving measles outbreak turning deadly in Texas. Health officials in Lubbock confirming an unvaccinated school age child has died. We are now seeing very serious consequence of what happens when we have measles in our community. Sending shockwaves through West Texas, especially among those like Ben Ham,

whose 18 month old foster daughter is immunocompromised. If she's around a cold, any type of sniffles and she's not protected. especially among those like Ben Ham, whose 18 month old foster daughter is immunocompromised. If she's around a cold, any type of sniffles and she's not protected. She could be in the ICU tonight. Ham early dub her second dose of the measles vaccine

as cases in Texas climbed to at least 124 with 18 patients hospitalized. Officials say almost all babies and children who are unvaccinated or awaiting their second dose. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, responding to the outbreak for the first time.

We put out a post on it yesterday and we're gonna continue to follow it. It's not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year. Dr. Anna Montanez is on the front lines in Lubbock. She says while cases occur annually, she hasn't seen them this widespread. Do we get it in patches every year? Maybe that is true, but it is in areas where there is no vaccination.

There's low vaccination rates, if you will. Measles cases have been reported in eight states, including nine in neighboring New Mexico. Officials have not said they're connected. Experts say those born before 1957 likely have natural immunity because of how widespread the disease was. But those vaccinated between 1957 and 89, before a live virus was used or when only one shot was given, might consider a booster.

As parents here hope this outbreak will soon be over. It's NBC's Priscilla Thompson reporting and you know, Mika, this is, this is, this measles outbreak is happening in places with low vaccination rates and you look at some of the counties in Texas where there's been a jump in measles cases, there's a direct overlay where you see a jump in parents telling schools that they do not want their children to be vaccinated.

And it's jumped to almost 20% in one of the counties that's at the center of this. And it's important to remember, it's important to remember because of vaccines, that in 2000, the measles itself was declared eliminated in the United States. Not supposed to be dead. And here we are again. Yeah. Joining us now, NBC News medical contributor, Dr. Vin Gupta.

Dr. Gupta, can you confirm that? Vaccines are used properly. Is the measles something that at this stage in time should be deadly in America? And secondly, what do you make of the HHS secretary saying that these things happen in scattered ways across the country, seeming to downplay it? Well, good morning, Mica. First of all, Joe is exactly right. One dose of the measles vaccine is part of our usual routine pediatric regimen, 93 percent

effective at preventing measles, two doses 97% effective. For all the parents out there, for your babies, they get them at year one and ideally at year five. So that's the routine. Joe's exactly right. Exemption rates in places like Gaines County, Texas, to just emphasize his point, are now up to 18 to 20% in 2023, fully eradicated we thought in 2000. So that's the reality that we're dealing with. In terms of just fact checking RFK, it's important to realize between the years 2020 and 2023,

Mika, on average we saw about anywhere from 50 to 100 cases in total in those years, between 2020 and 2023. So no, this is not just business as usual. This is unusual. We've seen 124 cases and it's February 26th. So something unusual right now is happening. And let's just also put a finer point on it. His former organization that he just resigned from

is actively putting out information as we speak this week, stating that somehow the vaccine itself, because quote unquote it's ineffective to their use their words, is the reason why this is happening in Texas, this outbreak versus the low vaccine rate. So this is happening, his organization is putting out this information. I don't know a single credible doctor that you'd want caring for your family, Mika or for your loved one that believes or wants any of this. Dr. Gupta, good morning. This obviously was settled science for a long time, viewed as one of the great miracles of the 20th century, along with the polio vaccine in 1955. This vaccine for

measles in 1963. We've been using it as a country, as a world for more than a half century. So what are your fears as a physician, as this disinformation that's being pumped out from certain quarters really does make its way into the bloodstream of America? You know, I mean, Willie, what's sad here is that this is not to be tripled with.

Measles is an extremely serious viral illness. It spreads through respiratory droplets. So you and I used to talk about droplet spread all the time, peak COVID. But what does that mean? That means if somebody is infected, unvaccinated, they cough or sneeze. They, Willie, studies have shown nine in 10 people around them, if they're also unvaccinated, will get infected.

It's that contagious. So that's number to be able to get vaccinated. They're not going to be able to get vaccinated. They're not going to be able to get people around them. If they're also unvaccinated will get infected at that contagious. So that's number one. It's very contagious. Number two. It is extremely serious. The

Lubbock Texas pediatric hospital, their spokesperson emphasized it. They said that there's 18 kids and I see you are roughly almost 20. All of them in it. It appears for respiratory issues, meaning that the complication that we worry about pneumonia is likely at play. So this is this is a very serious illness. One in four people unvaccinated infected end up in the hospital. So severe illness, whether it's pneumonia or brain swelling, otherwise known as an encephalitis, very, very common. This is not uncommon.

Extreme consequences are quite common. Meanwhile, a vaccine advisory committee meeting to select strains of the flu to be included in the next season's flu shot has been canceled. A committee member says there was no explanation for the scrapped meeting, and a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA,

did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It comes as the United States is in the midst of a particularly severe flu season already. The meetings are important because the virus changes year to year and the vaccine must be updated to provide the best production. And Dr. Gupta, that meeting is part of strategizing as to what could be coming. What do you make of the abrupt cancellation and does it give you pause in any way?

Well, you know, Mika, what I would say is this is not common in presidential transitions. We didn't see this during the first Trump administration. We didn't see this in the George W. Bush administration, the Obama administration. It is not common to cancel these vaccine advisory meetings exactly to your point. Your lead up was perfect.

These are meant to plan ahead. There's a six month manufacturing cycle, Mika, for the flu vaccine. So there's a reason we scheduled it in March because six months down the road, turns out that's when we want to start getting our flu vaccines. And so the fact that we are it in March, because six months down the road, turns out that's when we wanna start getting our flu vaccines.

And so the fact that we are not scheduling it, by the way, a similar vaccine advisory committee meeting was canceled just this week for a different purpose. The question here is, are these gonna be rescheduled? Are they gonna be rescheduled quickly? Not clear. And again, there's a six month turnaround. So if we don't do this quickly,

perhaps next flu strains are not gonna be incorporated or any new data into what we wanna get immunized into people's arms come September of 2025. Mike. Doctor, can you speak to the elements of a virus and how quickly those elements can change based upon the cancellation of this meeting that they're supposed to have?

How quickly do the elements of a virus change or could change? So Mike, you know we're seeing this with bird flu play out as we speak. It can happen in a matter of weeks. Where we saw in the case of again avian flu, that strain changed within a matter of weeks in terms of what we were seeing in human beings. There was actually a very sick teenager in British the virus was changing quite literally before our eyes. And so this is something that can be instantaneous. And that's why predicting what needs to be in the 2025 flu vaccine is so important. It's an imperfect

science. Let's be clear. It's an imperfect science. Nothing is ever perfect. But even if we're 50% correct that mitigates the risk of severe illness by 50% that's not going to change the world. It's going to change the world. It's going to change the world. It's going to change the world. It's going imperfect science. Let's be clear, it's an imperfect science. Nothing is ever perfect.

But even if we're 50% correct, that mitigates the risk of severe illness by 50%. That's a big deal. Yeah. NBC News medical contributor, Dr. Vin Gupta. We always appreciate you bringing the facts, the truth about medicine to us. We'll be talking to you much more.

At the White House, Elon Musk was front and center at the first cabinet meeting yesterday, giving an update on Doge's controversial email asking federal workers to justify their employment. This as President Trump announced Ukrainian President Zelensky will visit Washington. And Trump also gave an update on Gaza. NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Haik has the latest. President Trump converting his first cabinet meeting into a rolling press conference. The legal voter crossings have plummeted.

Counting progress. We're cutting down the size of government. We have to. We're bloated. We're sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren't doing their job. And immediately turning the spotlight not on a cabinet member, but on Elon Musk, head of his Department of Government Efficiency, to defend his controversial directive that all federal workers email a list of five

accomplishments from last week or face termination. I think that email perhaps was best interpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review. If you have a pulse in two neurons, you can reply to an email. This is, you know, I think not a high bar. Musk was surrounded by several cabinet members who had pushed back on his order and instructed

employees not to respond. Musk insisting that was fine. We're going to send another email, but our goal is not to be capricious or unfair. The email could simply be what I'm working on is too sensitive or classified to describe.

Like literally just that would be sufficient. The president publicly backing Musk. Hey Elon, let the cabinet speak just for a second. Anybody unhappy with Elon? If you are, we'll throw him out of here. And warning, federal workers who have not yet responded remain at risk of losing their jobs. Those million people that haven't responded though, Elon, they are on the bubble. Now maybe they don't exist. Maybe we're paying

people that don't exist. It comes as a new budget office memo obtained by NBC News instructs federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs as the Trump administration focuses on reducing federal spending. If we don't do this, America will go bankrupt. While Musk acknowledging Doge made mistakes, including cutting funding for Ebola prevention. When we make a mistake, we'll fix it very quickly. We restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.

The president also making headlines on Ukraine, revealing President Zelensky will visit the White House Friday for the signing of an agreement to jointly develop the country's valuable rare earth minerals to recoup billions in U.S. aid sent to Ukraine. The president suggesting the deal would form its own kind of security guarantee for Ukraine. It's this sort of automatic security because nobody's going to be messing around with our people when we're there. And saying for the first time, Russian President Putin will have to make concessions.

Vice President Vance heading off a question about what exactly those concessions would be. We're not going to do the negotiation in public with the American media. He's doing the job of a diplomat. The president also speaking about the Middle East after posting this AI

generated video featuring his name and face in a future redeveloped Gaza, a reference to his controversial plan to take over and rebuild it, opposed by key Arab allies. The president's slamming Hamas for how it's handled the latest release of dead hostages as the ceasefire deal moves into a potential second phase. This is a vicious group of people and Israel's going to have to decide what they're doing. Alright NBC's Garrett Haake with that report and a quick fact check for you on what Musk said about Ebola prevention being quickly restored.

The Washington Post reports current and former USA.S. AID officials say U.S. AID's Ebola prevention efforts have been largely halted since Musk and his Doge allies moved last month to cut the global assistance agency and freeze its outgoing payments. So I don't think they put it back. Joe? Well, this is the problem. It's a problem with a lack of transparency where it's basically what they're saying is hey trust us we've restored a lot of funding. You go back and you find out that that's not actually the case and a lot of times the agencies don't even have the answers. We

talked yesterday to Josh Dawsey who wrote a story about how even the lawyers representing the government don't know the current status because of things when they're trying to defend the White House, the administration, because there's so much ambiguity out there. And of course, this is something Jim Van De Heide that you wrote about Doge, how it's a drop in the bucket, how damage is being done, whatever pain is being exacted. They're not getting the gain on the other side. I'm curious, given all of that, what your take was yesterday on the cabinet meeting,

and specifically Elon Musk's role in it. I mean, there's so much in that clip to digest, right? cabinet meeting and specifically Elon Musk's role in it. I mean, there's so much in that clip to digest, right? The truth is, I think the American people are with Trump directionally, right? That, okay, the government is bloated. Yes, there's a lot of ways. Yes, you can probably cut a lot of roles. I think where they start to lose the American people

is if you're operationally sloppy, or cruel in how you're doing it. And I think you see some of the slop in terms of having to, hey, we kind of screwed up the Ebola thing. It's Ebola. Right? Like, there's ways to avoid that, which is, hey, go through the budget, figure out the things that need to change, give people a reasonable amount of time to make those changes, then make them. It doesn't need to be done in a chaotic way. And when I say cruel, the cruel part is, imagine the person who takes a job in government. Are some people disingenuous?

Maybe, but most people are like, hey, I wanna serve my country. There's an agency that exists. They didn't create the agency, they didn't create the slot. They took a job to serve their country, and now they're being told that they're they might Be either fraudulent. They might not exist They're terrible at their job

Even though no one's probably even looked at their job performance before making that claim and you just saw a lot of that In that cabinet meeting and the truth is even if you did all this stuff that Elon's talking about We pay three three billion dollars a day Elon's talking about, we pay three, I think three billion dollars a day just on the interest on our debt. And so these little bitty tucks around the corner aren't going to do a darn thing. The truth is, if you want to change the deficit, you want to get rid of the debt, you either need to raise taxes a lot or you need to cut defense. You need to cut social security.

You need to cut Medicare. You need to cut Medicaid or some combination thereof Because that's where we spend the vast majority of our money And so a lot of this is a is a is a side show unless you're really gonna get serious About trying to reduce the size of government, which is really hard work Which is why Republicans are having a difficult time coming together to figure out how can they both? Decrease taxes by up to $5 trillion, but retain all of those programs.

Yeah. I mean, they're just not going to be able to do it without blowing a hole in the debt again. Again, the CBO estimating $20 trillion additional in debt over the next 10 years. And of course, we didn't over 220 years, we didn't have $10 trillion of debt accumulated. Jonathan O'Meara, there are so many fact checks we have to go through there. One of them is Donald Trump kept saying, and we're going to be talking about Ukraine in a minute, but Donald Trump kept saying that we've spent $350 billion defending Ukraine, giving Ukraine money.

It's just not even close to true. He's also said the United States has given more than Europe. That's also not close to being true. I think the number is somewhere around $140 billion, but even of that, I think only $80 billion of it has been delivered. One additional thing, one additional thing that's very important to say here, when you listen to administration officials, it sounds as if we wrote a check to Zelensky and said, here you go. No, that's not actually the case.

For so much of this funding, billions of dollars have gone to American factories, American workers, American jobs. This this has been in part a jobs bill because so much of the aid that we have sent them has started here in the United States and has created jobs in America. Yeah, that's actually was Mitch McConnell's talking point for fellow Republicans last year trying to get funding approved through the Senate to Ukraine saying, look, a lot of this is right here at home. And we'll talk more about that in a moment. UK Prime Minister Stammer in Washington today, Zelensky tomorrow.

But back to that cabinet meeting. First just the optics of it. President Trump called on one person to speak at that cabinet meeting, Elon Musk, who's not a member of the cabinet. He also then had all of his cabinet officials applaud Musk's efforts, saying, don't you like what Doge is doing? And they all sort of like on command had to clap. Even though we know and have reported over the last few days that so many of these cabinet

leaders were completely taken by surprise by that Musk email, now seems like it's going to be going out again, pushing more people out of the workforce. We should also note, Social Security Administration is being told to instruct to cut its staff by half. The Labor Department, which of course enforces equal employment opportunity laws, has been told to cut their staff by 90%. Caddy, there's going to be, by mid-March, the Trump administration wants to utterly gut the federal workforce. That's their plan.

At the same time, we have reporting today that the FAA is terminating a $2.4 billion deal with Verizon and instead going to give that contract to Elon Musk's Starlink. We also know that so much of this is gonna be used to fund for tax cuts, which are going to largely benefit the rich. So we're already seeing some anger from voters, from Republicans in these town halls. And now you're taking away services, rewarding Musk and Trump's rich friends.

Do you think that this is now going to break through? We're going to see some real opposition. Yes, so there is, I mean, I think there is some opportunity here for Democrats, and you're starting to hear some of them talk about this. There's some new data by a group called Grow Progress, which does big AI searches and has found that Elon Musk is a point of vulnerability for Donald Trump. First of all, we've seen his approval numbers decline just in the course of the last month, but this new data is suggesting that the general public is twice as likely to be concerned that Elon Musk is going to go too far than that he's not going to go

far enough. So he is a point of vulnerability for Donald Trump. The speculation that the relationship might bust up fast, I don't think that's going to happen as quickly as some people had thought, partly because Elon Musk has an enormous amount of money, and all the indications are that Donald Trump, look at just just yesterday likes what he's doing. But if Democrats are looking for somewhere and the other thing that this data is showing is that the thing that people are concerned about are exactly what you just said John, these conflicts of interest. Where is Elon Musk actually making changes that may benefit him? And if you start to see people who are

growing increasingly anxious, for example, as Ali has reported often, about cuts in Medicaid coming. How is that going to look if Elon Musk is there making changes to the U.S. government that might potentially benefit Starlink and SpaceX at the same time that Americans are worried that some of these cuts that are passed in Congress might hurt their Medicaid? This is why Democrats are wondering, look, is there something brewing that suggests overreach in the White House that may give them an opportunity to be more of a resistance or an opposition than they have been? But then I also think, too, there was this really fascinating moment where you, of course,

see Musk in the cabinet meeting. And then on Capitol Hill, you had Trump's chief of staff, Suzy Wiles, going up there and trying to talk to senators about concerns that they have about Doge Mika and basically telling them if you're not getting Your concerns heard contact my office And so you're watching Musk with firm hold and firm alliance with Trump and then his chief of staff is having to go placate Members of his own party who have been trying to be quiet about the concerns that they have but saying hey We need something and she's offering her office as a place for that. All right.

Still ahead on Morning Joe, Amazon CEO and owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, is making a major change to the newspaper's opinion section. We'll dig into the controversy surrounding that announcement with the former executive editor of the Post, Marty Barron. We're back in 90 seconds. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations, there are no peoples, there are no Russians, there are no Arabs, there are no third worlds, there is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems. One vast and the main interwoven, interacting,

multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petrodollars, electro dollars, multidollars, Reichmarks, Rims, Rubles, Bounds and Shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. I tell you, when I heard the news yesterday coming out of the Washington Post, I immediately thought of Ned Beatty's iconic performance in the 1976 film Network, which actually started as a parody and now, of course, has become prophetic. He portrayed, though, Ned Beatty, Arthur Jensen, the chairman of an over-leveraged conglomerate

that owns a television network. And that scene feels especially relevant today, given the next story. The billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, announcing yesterday a major shift to the newspaper's opinion section, saying it's now going to focus on what he calls two pillars, personal liberties and free markets, and pointedly said the paper will not publish any opposing viewpoints on those topics. The decision to reduce the scope and views of the opinion pages is a major departure from the paper's long-time approach to commentary in response to the newspaper's opinion editor, David Shipley, resigned from the position he's held since 2022, declining to stay at

the helm under the paper's new editorial direction. Let's bring in right now the former executive editor of The Washington Post, Marty Barron. Marty started in that position in early 2013, months before Bezos purchased the Post and he served through 2021. Marty, I mean, most of us when we saw this, we just said, what the hell? It's like something that we've never heard. I mean, it's obviously opinion pages can go their own direction, but to say we don't publish opposing viewpoints seemed shocking at best. What was your reaction?

Well, I was shocked as well. You know, Bezos said that he's in favor of personal liberties. Well, of course, so am I. And that's why I'm in favor of free expression. You know, it's right there in the First Amendment. And news organizations have always honored free expression by having a variety of points of view on their opinion pages. But Bezos now is just shutting that down.

And he's saying that only his point of view is going to be represented on those pages. And that really is a betrayal of the heritage of the Washington Post and I think a betrayal of the very idea of free expression. And it actually can contrast how newspapers, news organizations honored free expression with a variety of points of view. It actually dishonors free expression, you know, which is the most fundamental personal liberty of American citizens. So Marty, as you heard that new edict from Jeff Bezos to focus only on personal liberty

and free markets, what did you take that to mean? In other words, if you're an op-ed columnist at the Washington Post sitting down in front of your laptop this morning, what are you expected to write about? Well, that's a good question. I think it sends a very disturbing message to the very good columnist at the Washington Post that if they are not in line with his particular point of view, if they don't share his view on all of these issues, that they can go take a hike.

And you know, maybe some of them will take a hike, because the signal is that they're not welcome there. Marty, you've had quite an accomplished career. Miami, The Herald, Boston Globe, Washington Post. You know, more than most people know, that the editorial page and the op-ed page, basically, but the editorial page specifically belongs to the publisher. If the publisher wants his views on the editorial page, he will get it. But what does it do in your sense here, the staff at the post, what does such behavior

do that Bezos exhibited yesterday due to the morale of the repertorial staff? Well, I think the morale has definitely gone to the tank. It's true that the editorials belong to the publisher, to the owner. They can use the editorials. But to say that the entire opinion page belongs to the owner as well, when historically those opinion pages have been available for a variety of points of view, you know, Bezos himself has said over time that those pages should have a variety of views, and I totally agree with him.

That's the nature of democracy, is that we have a vigorous debate over policies. But this is really an anti-democratic move. It says that, no, the only opinion that is permitted here is my opinion, and you have to share that, and there's no room for you on my pages and on our site if you have an opposing point of view. That is anti-democratic in nature. Marty, there's no evidence, I haven't heard any from colleagues who work at the Washington Post,

that Jeff Bezos has been at all involved in the news reporting of the Post. I don't know if you've heard anything about that. Obviously it's something that I'm sure you keep close tabs on what would it, what have you heard and what would it do to the Post if that started to become the case? Well, that would be terrible if it did happen. I too have not heard anything like that. I've

seen no sign of it. In fact, the post news coverage has been remarkable. I mean, it's been really revelatory. They've broken a lot of you know, one big story after the next. They're telling the public what it needs to know about what's happening in their government. That's what a newsroom ought to be doing. And they're doing it with a lot of vigor and I think with a lot of rigor as well. I would just like to see the owner publicly thank his reporters and editors for that kind of work because they deserve his gratitude for it. Former executive editor of the Washington Post, Marty Barron, thank you so much for being with us. We so greatly appreciate it.

Jim Van De Hei, you also worked at the Washington Post. Tell me about your thoughts about what happened yesterday when you saw the directive, and expand that out a little bit and talk about these conglomerates. You know, like for instance, the possibility that Paramount may settle a deal on a 60 minutes lawsuit when 60 minutes stands by its story, but they've got a deal that they wanna get through. So, you know, there's been some talk

that they might to get through. So, you know, there's been some talk that they might do that. Talk about how all of this plays into blurred lines in the age of Trump. Listen, I come at this as someone who worked at the Post 20 years ago, someone who, you know, helped co-found Politico and Axios. So I also think about it from the ownership perspective. One, I think you have a lot of owners of media companies who are buckling to pressure. It's indisputable. You can't really debate it.

I think the institutions themselves are still doing good journalism, but owners are buckling. It is what it is, and we have to just be eyes wide open that that is in fact happening. Listen, to be honest I've been baffled by almost everything the Washington Post has done for the last five years. I don't understand the strategy I don't understand the direction. I don't understand the way they communicate with their staff I don't understand the hostility between ownership in the staff. Listen, it is Bezos company

He is losing it looks like somewhere between 70 million and a hundred million dollars a year He has every right to do whatever the hell he wants to do with the publication So if he wants to if he wants to make the editorial page I guess like the Wall Street Journal to me It sounds boring, but maybe you'll figure out a way to make it more exciting But it feels like the world has a lot of opinion that area I'm surprised he didn't just shut down the opinion page, put all your money into reporting if you want to be the paper for all of America, which is the way he's been describing it.

Probably need a lot of reporters in America to do the job. And so the idea of kind of replicating the Wall Street Journal or The Economist and then also saying, hey, if you don't agree with our opinion, there's no way you're going to be on the pages. It just sounds weird. Co-founder and CEO of Axios, Jim Van De Heijn, thank you very much for your take. And coming up, we're going to take a quick break from the news and politics. To look at some of the big sports headlines this morning, including the NFL owner who

got an F grade from his players, Morning Joe is coming right back. Let's go. There's a tradition in tournament play not talk about the next step until you've climbed the one in front of you. I'm sure going to the state finals is beyond your wildest dream, so let's just keep it right there. Forget about the crowds, the size of the school, their fancy uniforms, and remember what got you here.

Focus on the fundamentals that we've gone over time and time again. And most importantly, don't get caught up thinking about winning or losing this game. If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential to be the best that you can be, I don't care what the scoreboard says, at the end of the game, in my book, we're gonna be winners. Okay? All right. Let's go.

Let's go. Let me hear it. Go, go, go, go, go, go. Pickering was locked in before that game. Of course, they got the dub, went on to the state finals. That was Gene Hackman in his role as coach Normandale in the iconic 1986 movie Hoosiers which is based on the true story of a small town Indiana basketball team as we've been discussing this morning. Hackman died yesterday at the age of 95 as we remember the late actor this morning. This past weekend the

real Hoosiers the college version at Indiana University honored the late Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight in sort of a strange way, recognizing the 40th anniversary of his throwing a chair onto the court in the middle of the game. Hoosiers head coach Mike Woodson, who has said he will not return next year as coach, sat in the chair for the duration of Saturday's game against Purdue. Okay, Indiana, perhaps channeling the glory days of their former coach, pulled off the upset of rival Purdue by 15 points.

Let's bring in the host of Pablo Torre, finds out on Metal Arch Media, MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre, and contributing editor at New York Magazine, Will Leach, a big Illini fan we should point out here and now. Will, good to see you. New York magazine will leach a big Illini fan we should point out here and now will good to see you too much big going on big big win over Iowa a couple nights ago will needed that one to get in the tournament. So where do you want to start you want to start with the chair throw I want to memorialize me but it's not so true.

Look it's not so strange because I'm Catholic and these are relics I'm familiar with how we treat these venerated items. And there was Mike Woodson speaking, coaching, ex cathedra, I believe they say in Vatican City. Look, Bob Knight, unimpeachably authoritative, unimpeachably great as a coach. The chair throwing thing as a part of his morality play though is funny because it's not what you,

it's not what we should confuse for the cause of his coaching greatness, but rather a cost to pay because he's so great. The guy could be deeply unhinged and he did stuff like this. But that counts also as nostalgia now, which feels like a larger metaphor for lots of other things maybe happening at the moment.

And in fairness, he avoided the ref. It was more of a gesture than anything else. The theater of authority. He didn't hit the ref. The drama? He threw it sideways. He's also a very good friend of Bill Parcell's, which is an odd relation.

That tracks. I think all of that tracks, actually. Yeah. So Will Leach, what do you make of Indiana team I'm sure you have no love for as an Illinois fan commemorating Bob Knight's chair throwing. Yeah, two great things. First off, I think it's been forgotten about when Bob Knight

threw the chair. The game had only been going on for five minutes. Like that was not built up. That was like before the first TV time out, for crying out loud. I think that's important. And I also love it's also a reminder of how poorly, how much better we've gotten at designing

chairs. Um, Woodson actually had to have like a massive cushion just to sit in that thing. Cause those old plastic chairs from 40 years ago, he might've thrown it as well if he had to sit in that the whole, the whole game. Yeah. It is kind of wild to me that that kind of impestuous, uh, uh, immature insanity Indiana has said, you know what? Those were our good times. Those were

the things that we need to be able to hold on to. And I guess it worked because they did win. So Pablo it is spring training. Thank you. Thank goodness. Mike Barnacle could not be happier radiating spring to my right. This is the only time of year where we see him smile. So let's talk about some of the early storylines here. First would be of course we're seeing the debut of the automatic ball strike system the challenge system which you know is that's a couple per game per team. I think it's fine. I don't want to go full robot arms just yet but also Friday Shohei Otani comes back. Yeah I mean Otani it's funny that we just watched him have a season that felt historic only to realize he was only half

of himself. The guy again I don't know if it feels like broken record stuff when you say he is the only person to ever do something like this. He makes Babe Ruth being the two way player Mike look look like a

pale reflection of what we see when we see Ohtani pitch and hit and so the return of him. Yeah yeah, I don't want to be numb when we see like a singular all time great actually get to do it because he's healthy again. That feels good. Yeah, well, especially the Dodgers are gonna feel good. I mean, my God, what a team they have. Will, unfortunately for you, your Cardinals are rebuilding.

But you still have a smile on your face to see baseball back as fans baseball with every day of the other world the real world thank you thank you Pablo for recognizing correctly that the Cardinals are in fact that have the best fans in baseball we know it you're welcome thank you America but yeah at a certain level at a certain level it's where the Cardinals have like totally taken the entire setback they tried to trade their best player this offseason, Nolan Aronado, and failed, which is a very weird thing to do. The Cardinals trying to get rid of their best players and being unable to. It's a very, very strange time. But nevertheless, I've seen, I watched the Cardinals lose

7-0 in a spring training game to the Yankees yesterday and soaked up every second of it. That is the whole point of spring training is to imagine it's to know that later there are seven oh victories in the future somewhere maybe possibly public. Can I ask about Luca before we get to the topic? So Luca plays the the Mavs for the first time in L.A. triple double. I still for the life of me and maybe you figured this out in your conversations with people that you talk to don't understand that trade from the Dallas side of things. They wanted more defense I guess so they get AD who's heard they didn't like Lucas work ethic or something. He's obviously this magnetic star who fills the arena. What were they thinking when they got rid of this guy. Can I drop a name here because your question is one that I've experienced in person.

I was in the city and I saw Chris Rock very randomly who accosted me demanding to know why we in the media are behaving like the deep state by not calling out this trade on its face for being absurd. And I resembled the remark because I don't think I've sounded the alarm in the way that's probably sufficient. It's crazy what's happened. It's crazy to trade the best youngest international star under the age of 30 who by the way is now guaranteeing that he is going to show up with one of those revenge bodies you have post-breakup. bodies you have post break. Like we know how the pettiest young star in the league is

going to respond when called out because he is I don't know enjoying a postgame beer or enjoying hookah which by the way describes I don't know a supermajority of NBA players arguably in some form or fashion.

So what we're watching is of course what the Mavericks asked for which is to say the greatest gift to the Lakers by allegedly a sports deep state. Yeah and the Mavericks of course leaking details about their concerns about his conditioning to justify the trade but even if you're going to trade him they never shopped him around they simply went to the Lakers. I will as a Celtics fan never get over it. Will let's turn though to your newest piece for New York magazine about ESPN commentator

Stephen A Smith and some recent buzz around him, wait for it, running for president in 2028. Smith of course has become one of the most successful sports media personalities in recent years in part because of his brash personality and loud hot takes which have recently extended to the world of politics. And in the piece, Will, you write this. In a world where expertise, rationality, and complexity are under constant assault by cartoonishly vile people, foundationally motivated by willful and aggressive

ignorance, the Stephen A. Smith political boomlet represents a deeply flawed kind of counterattack. The reasoning here is nothing more than, hey, they have a bunch of people who don't know anything. Maybe we should get our own person who doesn't know anything. Stephen A. Smith for president, my God, I do not think I have ever written a more ridiculous phrase. It's the result of giving up, of ceding everything that actually matters. If he is any sort of answer, then quite frankly, we are not serious people,

and we'll great call back to the name of his original show quite frankly on ESPN. Let's talk a little bit more about this I mean we don't know how serious to take it but clearly you're not on board the Stephen A Smith train for 2028. I mean I wouldn't think it's just a weird I can't believe we've been actually talking about this on the show but it's remarkable because the New Yorker has written about this there was a CMBC piece he was on Pod Save America discussing this stuff. Really kind of semi-seriously, though it's remarkable when you kind of hear Stephen A, who for the record, I have no ill will toward him. I think he's generally, I don't believe he's a malevolent presence,

but it's remarkable to me the way that like at a certain level you kind of listen to the statements he talks about in politics. They're really not all that deeper than Josh Allen can't win the big one. It's remarkable how much kind of a surface level discussion of sports transfers over to the way we kind of talk about politics now. A lot of it feels like Facebook feedy or like what you would blare into a talk radio station. And listen, one of the most incredible things about Stephen A. Smith, one of the reasons he's so successful, he has the unique ability, as my old colleague Tommy Craggs once said, to be emphatic on command. That is important, particularly in television, particularly in like in like 27, like two minute segments that he does. That's an important skill. Unfortunately, in

our politics, that seems to have become the primary skill. And so it's remarkable to me to see this skill that she has, and he the primary skill. And so it's remarkable to me to see that this skill that he has and he's very entertaining. And listen, I think he's much more entertaining than some of the other people that we may have to be running in four years for the Democratic Party. He's certainly very entertaining, but the idea that that is enough or even sufficient,

I have to say I find it kind of wild. But Will, the naysayers on that would just have two words for you. Donald Trump. What? I mean, yeah, okay, sure. And it's working out great. Okay, the new piece for New York Magazine is online now.

Contributing editor Will Leach and host of Pablo Torre Finds Out on Metal Arch Media, MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre Finds Out on Metal Arch Media, MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre. Thank you both very much for being on this morning. And coming up, Democratic governors Kathy Hochul of New York and Andy Beshear of Kentucky will join the conversation to discuss the impact Doge Cots are having on their constituents. Plus, we'll speak with Independent Senator Angus King about his urgent message to Republicans and why he says they should take a stand to protect the Constitution.

We're back in two minutes.