Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/7/25

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

USAID to be reduced to about 290 foreign service officers and civil servants

Because here in America, we are once again a nation that believes in ourselves. We believe in our destiny and trust in the providence of Almighty God. And I can tell you the opposite side, the opposing side, and they oppose religion, they oppose God. They've lost their confidence. They've lost their confidence. It's a different group of people than I remember. As the Bible says, blessed are the peacemakers.

And in that end, I hope my greatest legacy, when it's all finished, will be known as a peacemaker and a unifier. I hope that's going to be true. All right. President Trump there with his unique style as unifier-in-chief yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. It comes as his administration continues to create chaos within the federal government. We're going to go through the plans to make massive cuts to the USAID workforce and how

the layoffs could impact life-saving aid to people around the world as well as our own foreign policy. Plus we'll have an update on the major legal fights over his executive orders as well as the legally murky federal buyout offer to federal employees. We'll also have a preview of the big game in the Big Easy. Super Bowl 59. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. Anybody glad it's Friday? Not even noticing, it's precious like any other day, February 7th. With us we have the co-host of The Fourth Hour, Jonathan Lamir. He's a contributing writer at The Atlantic covering the White House and

national politics. NBC News national affairs analyst and partner and chief political columnist at PUC, John Heilmanman who I welcomed so gracefully this morning. Graciously, generously, as sweetly as ever. It was so nice to see you approach the set. Not so great. Former senior spokesperson and advisor for the Harris campaign Adrian Elrod is here. The host of way too early, Ali Vitale, probably the happiest that it's Friday and staff writer at the Atlantic Frank for is with us

So Joe we got a lot to get to this morning after a pretty jam-packed week here on morning Joe Well, let me just say I'm sad that it's Friday I wish it were Monday and we could do this all over again Because there's just never enough time with our friends that watch, never enough story time to tell all the stories. So I'm gonna be sad, but I'm going to cling to the realization that, you know, this all starts again on Monday,

four hours a day, five days a week. I will have my stopwatch and I just, as you know, I stare at it all weekend. And it's like a countdown until the Monday show. I will say, it's always fascinating to see. We are, it's always fascinating to see Donald Trump at these prayer breakfasts. Because you never, it's like a box of chocolate. You never know

exactly what you're gonna get. Yeah. And so you have these calls for unity and you also have these these suggestions that Democrats were godless heathens that had lost their way. And of course this suggestion that now suddenly over the past couple weeks America has become a great country again. As I said all along, America is a great country. We are a wonderful country. We have been a wonderful country. And we will remain a wonderful country despite a lot of the nonsense that goes on in Washington, D.C. But it is interesting, and it does need to be brought up, that Nancy Pelosi, even when Donald Trump was deriding her personally, attacking her personally, even when he mocked

and ridiculed Nancy Pelosi's husband being brutalized within inches of his death. She still talked about praying for Donald Trump. And it was a concept he didn't understand. It's a concept that actually Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount. I am only bringing this up. It's not preaching. This is just reporting on if you're going to the prayer breakfast and you're saying Democrats are godless heathen and you don't even understand that Jesus is one of the

first things that we learn in Matthew on the Sermon on the Mount is that you pray for your enemies. You pray for those who want to persecute you. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy when you're asked to forgive. You're asked to forgive 70 times seven. That's like the perfect number. So, that lies at the heart of Jesus' ministry. And so I just remember when Nancy Pelosi talked about, when Nancy Pelosi talked about praying for Donald Trump, he said, oh, nobody believes that. How could you ever do that? He's also a man who has said that he's never had to ask God

for forgiveness either. So again, what one does at the prayer conference when prayer breakfast, when one is president of the United States, obviously is up to them. I would say, though, just a recommendation, if you're trying to bring the country together, you can pass on the whole Democrats are godless Marxists because,, maybe maybe the most intense of the base Believe it, but it's kind of hard to spread that message at the same time. You're destroying PEPFAR at the same time you're destroying all these other Aid efforts that were actually inspired by

religious organizations and presidents' belief in Jesus Christ and the need that we needed to help the poorest among us. And so, interesting time to be delivering that message. Let's hope, again, a page is turned, hope springs eternal. Let us hope that the two sides can figure out how to get along. And that starts by one side not calling the other side godless heathens. Just a suggestion. Just a suggestion.

It's just one small suggestion. That may not be the best way forward. Yeah. And speaking of helping the poorest among us, our top story this morning, the Trump administration plans to cut the number of USAID workers from more than 10,000 to just 290, two sources with the plans say, familiar with the plans. The remaining staff includes employees who specialize in health and humanitarian assistance. The agency is pushing the State

Department for less severe cuts and have submitted a much longer list of staff that they deem essential. But reports say most of the contractors have already been fired or furloughed and that the 290 that will remain are among the more than 5,000 Foreign Service officers, civil servants, and contractors still employed. Under the plan, just 12 people would be dedicated to serve the continent of Africa, and eight people for all of Asia. And 600 employees dedicated to Europe will be cut to just 10 people. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday the actions were not meant to be disruptive,

but were, quote, the only way we've been able to get cooperation from USAID. OK, meanwhile, unions representing foreign service officers and federal employees at USAID are suing the Trump administration in an effort to stop the dismantling of the agency. The suit is filed against President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant, USAID, the State Department and the Department of Treasury and seeks an injunctive relief to stop the effort to close the agency down and restore its system. It goes on to allege the group is responsible for causing a global humanitarian crisis and

costing thousands of American jobs and argues only Congress can dissolve the agency. So Joe, let's stop right there because there's a lot going on, including Elon Musk's involvement and this process that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there was no other way to do it, seems to me there are lawful ways to do this as opposed to how it's happening. And that's a question and it's a question for all of the Doge projects. Because I think, let me just say it at the outset, as a small government conservative, as somebody who actually helped lead the fight with about a dozen of my classmates, we balance

a budget four years in a row and we did that. It's the only time it's happened in a hundred years. It's the only time it's happened in a century. We did it four years in a row. There's nothing easy about it. There's government waste out there involved, but we did it constitutionally. We did it legally. It's hard. It's just a very difficult thing to do. And so the question is not whether they're going to find waste, fraud, and abuse in the government. Of course they're going to find waste, fraud, and abuse in the government.

And this is something they should do, but they need to do it legally and they need to do it transparently. There's no transparency here that I can see. I think there are people inside the White House that I've spoken to that are still sort of guessing and curious exactly about what's happening. And the speed these changes are taking place with really no organization, with no game plan, it's extraordinarily dangerous. These governmental systems opened up and opened up in a way that will allow China, allow Russia,

allow Iran, allow our foreign adversaries to possibly gain access to these systems who have big after layer after layer after layer of security could just be gutted. That's one thing. I want to say another thing though. And I find it a curious, John Heilman, I find it a curious argument that some Democrats are making, which is, let's not fight about this. You know, it's foreign aid. Foreign aid's not popular.

Let's talk about eggs. No, this is a fight that I don't care what polls say right now, if it's a 50-50 split. I still have confidence in the American people that they don't want children to die in Sudan. They don't want them to starve to death in Sudan, and they don't want malaria spreading all over Africa. They don't want these diseases spreading all over the world. They don't want George W. Bush's PEPFAR project, which has saved 25 million lives so far across the world.

They don't want those stopped at the end of the day if Democrats will actually explain that to them. And this whole idea that, oh, we don't have the money to provide grain to young children who are starving in Africa or across the world, in Sudan or across the world. I mean, one fighter jet here buys a hell of a lot of life-saving aid and a lot of prevention for diseases that will spread across the globe. And on top of that, as far as a bang for your buck goes, if you look at not only the goodwill that the United States gets out of these programs, but the

intel that we gain. Let's just be cynical about this if nobody gives a damn about the morality. The intel that we gain about Al-Qaeda's actions in Africa, ISIS's actions in Africa, what China is doing to try to elbow us out for minerals and precious resources in Africa. And we look at what Russia is constantly trying to do to undermine our position, what Iran is trying to do. Man, this is just a great value. It is a great value that we saw after World War II.

We see time and time again hearts and minds are changed and the United States power grows exponentially. What is right actually leads to might and in many, many ways. This is a strategically smart thing to do moving forward with this program. Cut the waste, fraud and abuse. But God, don't gut it. If you're a Democrat, why not defend it? Well, I think, Joe, I have heard some of the consultants

who've made this argument that, you know, Ford is a political loser. I think it's fair to say that if you were to look at polling over the course of the past, not few years, but few decades, that they're not wrong, that foreign aid is not, is traditionally thought of as a liberal humanitarian concern. It's not framed the way you described it. It's not been defended in the way you defend it.

And USAID in particular has not been put in that context. That's an argument worth making maybe. But I understand the kind of reflexive desire of some consultants to say, you know, this is a loser. Donald Trump's gonna enjoy this fight. We need to move on to a bigger fight. I am with you on the substance of it. I'm also with you on the politics of it

if it's recast in a different way. I think if you're going to try to fight this fight program by program, making the arguments for is this spending or that department or this is the level of cuts, that is also in a lot of cases, the things that Elon Musk and his team are focusing on are things that traditionally have been hard to defend, that have not been obvious winners for Democrats. I think the notion of making an argument about an unelected plutocrat and his group of toadies and henchmen with their zip drives staging a digital coup in a lot of cases, rolling

into agencies with no authorization, no one, you talked about transparency before, I say with no accountability. The Doge is acting in a lawless way to go, to target given programs of all kinds, kind of in the dead of night, over weekends, accessing computer systems, and making determinations that the Congress hasn't voted on, that no one has authorized, that no one has debated beforehand, that all of these, that argument that Democrats are now starting to glom onto, which is this is an usurpation of the democratic process. This is breaking the government.

This is a coup in all but without the Kalashnikovs. Those kinds of arguments to fold USAID under that blanket, under that larger argument and sort of say, wait, wait, stop. What's going on here? Who gave you, Elon Musk, the right to shut down anything? You are unelected and you are unconfirmed. You are unvetted. Where does your authority derive?

I think Democrats are starting to see that as a powerful political argument. And rather than fighting program by program, you need to fight this larger fight and you need to fight it right now. Frank Foer is writing more about the Doge part of this. And I think the bigger thing politically, Adrienne L. Rod, is that there's something in this catastrophe for everybody. I don't think you need to focus on just one aspect of it, because listen, Donald Trump taps into this America first attitude. And I've even heard Republicans and those representing the White House saying, you know,

there are people suffering from the fires, there are people suffering in North Carolina from, you know, the catastrophes there. Why should that money be spent abroad when we are suffering? Americans want what they can get. And there is a very me first attitude out there that Trump taps into it. So I do think it's important to mention the part and to focus on the fact that we're handing off

vital resources, that we're handing off vital secrets and making a void where Russia and China can step in, making our country less safer. Because I do think also Republicans and followers of Donald Trump are very much into national security. And this is not good for our national security. That's exactly right, Mika. I mean, look, first of all, it should come as no surprise to me that USAID is one of

the first programs that are the first agencies that Trump went after for the very reasons that you just laid out that a lot of Americans are seeing this as, you know, you're taking my taxpayer dollars, you're taking my hardarned money and you're focusing on foreign aid as opposed to my own you know the may not necessarily you know exactly true but that's that that's the equation which is exactly why Democrats and anybody by the way who opposes dismantling USAID has got to do we've got to do a better job of telling the story. To your point, talking about how soft diplomacy, talking about how giving foreign aid to foreign countries is going to actually keep America safer.

Something that we Democrats just, we got to do a better job of doing that. So you know, going out there, instead of some of these members of Congress going out and yelling we will win at a press conference, we actually need these members to go out to their social media channels. We need real everyday people going out to their communities and talking about how these programs actually help keep America safe, how they help American families.

That is just the bottom line. Because again, if you're the average American, you're looking at this and saying, I wanted the system to be shaken up. I wanted government blow to go down. The first place I'm going to go to or that Trump should go to is USAID. So we just got to do a better job of telling the story. You're referring of course to Chuck Schumer's news conference earlier this week. A few real world

implications here, cutting USAID that are collected here. Anti-trafficking work in Latin America has already taken a hit. Clinical trials funded by USAID, medical experiments have been stopped. The New York Times has a great story and depressed a terrible story on this today. Midstream, some people have medical devices still in their bodies because the trials were abruptly stopped. We have damaged the funding. USAID helped fund Ukraine's energy system. That's obviously a boon to Vladimir Putin if that goes away, as well as billions of dollars here for the US.S. economy. The Washington Post reports on how some American farmers would have contracts with USAID.

That's now gone away. That's hurting the American pocketbook here at home. And we should also note, of course, that Elon Musk, who's in charge of all this, is the leader in spreading misinformation, disinformation, outright lying on his ex account, and that for about, let's say, the condoms in Gaza, for instance, and that's been amplified by right-wing media. So Frank, your latest piece of Atlantic delves into all of this, particularly focusing on Musk.

It's got this headline, the dictatorship of the engineer. You write in part this, given American conservatives recent rhetoric, their surrender to Musk's vision of utopia is discordant, to say the least. Ever since the pandemic, the manga movement has decried the tyranny of a cabal of self-certain experts who wield their technical knowledge unaccountably. But even as the right purports to loathe technocracy, it has empowered to make engineer a radically, to radically remake the American state in the name of efficiency. You go on to write, he has casually paused global aid programs that alleviate suffering. He has moved to destroy bureaucrats careers without concern for the rippling personal

consequences. To a brain as rational as Musk's, democracy is waste and inefficiency. The best system is the one bursting forth from his mind. And frankly, tell us more about this. To the point earlier, no one voted for Elon Musk. Elon Musk has not appeared before a Senate hearing. He has not been confirmed. Security check?

It's his background. White House officials say he has received some sort of security clearance, but very vague as to what or what sort of background check went into that. And yet, he is right now, arguably, just as powerful as Donald Trump in terms of reshaping and slashing the federal bureaucracy. Yeah, perhaps doing more than any single individual, elected or unelected, to transform the American state in a short period of time.

And the thing about USAID is that it is just a beachhead. It is just the landing crew. And so what's happening at USAID is, of course, being replicated across the entirety of the federal government. And I think for people who style themselves as conservatives to see the way in which, like a true conservative, see the way in which change is rippling through

systems, institutions are being shattered no matter what the value those institutions bring. And it's just the radicalism and the arrogance and the way in which these guys who know nothing about government, these are people, and this is the Musk method as an engineer. He believes that because he is such a genius, he can descend on any system and because of his great mind, he can find a way to remake that system so that it works better. He doesn't actually understand the system, he understands the process. So he steps in and his approach is always the caricature of the Silicon Valley approach

of moving fast and breaking things. And part of that is about lawlessness. And so he's always just pushed beyond whatever the regulations are, whatever the laws are. And of course, in this instance, he's in a context where he knows that whatever he does and breaks the law in the course of causing a constitutional crisis, he'll get a pardon at the end of the day because that's the way the Trump world works. Yeah, you know, before the election, I quoted Edmund Burke, who of course is the founder of conservatism time and again.

And Burke wrote in reflecting on the revolution in France that institutions on which countries were established, protected, and sustained. Institutions that had been built over centuries by compromise and consensus could be torn down in a day by radicals. And I just, Ali, I know in Washington there is just a fear right now that not the government waste will be found out. I think that's a winner on both sides.

But you have somebody running through the federal government, basically being given the free rein to go into whatever computer systems he wants to go into that doesn't understand the basics of American government, consensus, Madisonian democracy. That, again, as Frank said, that all of that consensus, all of that compromise, all of those things that sustained us for 240 years, well, that just gets in the way of what he wants to do today. But Frank makes the great point that we've made here and you've made here, Joe, this idea that Elon Musk is being given cart launch to rip things out of the government root and stem.

And yes, these institutions are unpopular. If you want to bring it back to polling and the way that Democrats are thinking about how to mount a defense of what's happening here, the institutions might be unpopular. But the more that you remind the American public what these institutions actually do, they are not faceless entities. They are not just big stone buildings. They are people who are employed by the government to help, whether it's within USAID or within any of these other government agencies that Musk is infiltrating and then trying to tear up from the inside.

Those reminders are crucial. And so it's right that Adrian says Democrats have the incumbency upon them to point out to their constituents on a one-to-one level what the impact is going to be, but then also to amplify the way that those constituents could be losing services that they rely on because they are just blanket slashing pieces of federal aid across all of these different agencies. I do think there's also a point though when it comes to Musk. There was some reporting moved yesterday that internal polling within one of the House Democratic campaign arm shows Musk himself is actually very unpopular across

battleground districts. And so I know that there's a desire to play the long game and and focus on the midterms and turning the House back to being Democratic controlled. Yeah, that's a long goal. But in the short term, there is a political upside to focusing on Musk because he himself is not a popular figure. I think this internal polling had him at 51% across battleground states.

That poll was even done before a lot of the actions that he's taken and rightly been given credit for as he's come into these federal agencies. So there is a focus there on Musk. I've heard, as we all have heard, the consternation around making USAID a focus, but I think Democrats have an opportunity to assume the national security mantle

and remind people why these institutions are in place in the first place. Coming up on Morning Joe, Pam Bondi was just sworn in as attorney general on Wednesday. And already, she's moving quickly to shift the nation's law enforcement resources to other priorities. We'll detail the major changes that she is laying out for the Justice Department. Also ahead, since President Trump took office, there has been news of mass immigration arrests

across the country. But have they been as sweeping as the administration claims? We'll have a fact check ahead on Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. Welcome back to Morning Joe. Just about half past the hour time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. A possible meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin is at an advanced stage

of planning. That's according to a Russian lawmaker who serves as the chairman of Russia's Foreign Relations Committee. Russia's war on Ukraine will hit the three-year mark on February 24th and would be the focus of any potential meeting. Real quick, Jonathan Lemire. Totally different approach than President Biden, of course. We wouldn't even speak to Putin once the war started. There's some thought that a Middle East country might be the venue for this summit,

but it's still not settled yet, but we should expect it at some point this year. We'll be watching that. Former Vice President Kamala Harris toured fire damage in Southern California yesterday. She met with local officials in Pacific Palisades and visited a recreation center that served as an emergency shelter. Harris, who has kept a low profile since leaving office,

was asked about a potential run for governor, and she didn't rule it out. I have been home for two weeks and three days. My plans are to be in touch with my community, to be in touch with the leaders and figure out what I can do to support them and most importantly to lift up the folks who are surviving this extraordinary crisis and do what I can do to offer any assistance, even if it is a kind word along the way. We'll follow that, and Australia has passed tough new crime laws that includes mandatory minimum sentences for displaying hate symbols.

It's an effort to crack down on a recent surge in anti-Semitism. The laws will impose jail sentences for giving a Nazi salute in public and for threatening force or violence against people based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or identity among other things. Back to politics now here in the U.S. newly sworn in Attorney General Pam Bondi is moving quickly to redirect the nation's law enforcement resources. As the Washington Post reports, from reinstating the federal death penalty to ordering investigations

of sanctuary cities and those who prosecuted Donald Trump, Bondi spent her first few hours in office issuing marching orders for Justice Department staff that marked a significant shift in priorities. Among other things, she disbanded teams focused on investigating foreign influence campaigns, foreign lobbying, and national security threats posed by corporate malfeasance. Bondi also instructed a unit tasked with investigating cases involving bribery of foreign officials to refocus its efforts on investigation involving bribes to facilitate human smuggling and the trafficking of narcotics and firearms. Similarly, she ordered a scaling back of foreign lobbying investigations to

instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign governments. LaMare, break that all down. Yeah, I mean, it's a dramatic shifting of priorities here. We know that in her first hours converted in the post, she is authorizing these investigations of the investigators, the January 6th probes and the like. Didn't she say she was not going to be? Yes, she, she and her confirmation hearing made a point of trying to be above that,

that she would not do it. And she has, at least in these early days, signaled that she indeed will go the opposite direction. We're also waiting, of course, for FBI Director Cash Patel to receive his hearing and votes. But that could be another week or two. Democrats have managed to delay that process some. But it's raised real alarm bells here, including on counterterrorism operations. At a time when we know how dangerous the world has been, there was some speculation, we talked about it on this show,

that even President Trump's musing about taking over Gaza, and then I know they've walked that back some, but even putting it out there has real consequences and could incite violence and terrorism, Mika, at just the same time when the FBI says, well, we're going to be less focused on that. All right. The Cash Patel hearing is next Thursday, I believe. Yes, yes, of course.

We'll be watching for that. For a second day in a row, a federal judge has blocked President Trump's executive order attempting to limit birthright citizenship. A U.S. judge issued a nationwide injunction on the order yesterday after calling it blatantly unconstitutional during a preliminary hearing a couple weeks ago. The judge slammed Trump in court yesterday, saying in part, quote, It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals.

The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain. This latest injunction comes after a federal judge in Maryland issued a nationwide hold on the order on Wednesday. The executive order faces even more legal challenges with a hearing set for later today in Massachusetts and another hearing on Monday in New Hampshire in a challenge bought by the ACLU. I mean, John Hellman tried to stay like right where the story is, but a lot of folks when they first this, thought never going to happen.

So that the Trump team would, this would happen. That the birthright citizenship and- Would get rejected. Yes. Yes, I think well. I mean, there's an awful lot of stuff going on in the Trump administration that is, if you talk to lawyers who are not particularly ideological, just looking, black letter lawyers look at things like these are not going to be hard cases.

In a sense, on the merits that they're, in this case, playing with the constitution is pretty clear about birthright citizenship, that you have to be pretty extreme to try to find a way to interpret the constitution along the way that the Trump administration has. There's a lot of instances like this and where these are what lawyers think of as easy cases. And that has given some people a lot of hope that in the end, the courts will be the guardrail that keeps a lot of the worst excesses of the second Trump term from coming to pass. We've seen this on other fronts too. We've seen the courts have now intervened to stop the, to get in the way of the potential

spending freeze. There's issue after issue where courts are ruling against Trump already, and we're not even three weeks in. You know, the question it raises for me is, as these cases and many of them progress to the Supreme Court, is at what point does a case occur in which the Trump administration loses on something that they really care about and they decide to test the court's ability to enforce its decision, which is to say the Supreme Court has ruled against us, all the lower courts have ruled against us, the Supreme Court has ruled against us, John Roberts, you and what

army are going to enforce it? We're not going to do what we want anyway. And that is the place where I think a lot of people who are looking down the line of where does the constitutional crisis really come? It comes in the moment when the executive branch decides to defy the highest order of the judicial branch. Everyone in the constitutional law arena right now is trying to figure out when that clash is going to come.

Most people assume it is going to come at some point. The question is going to come, most people assume it is going to come at some point. The question is going to be when. And Joe, I don't see anything that he's doing here that he didn't campaign on. I mean, the comments on Gaza seem to kind of to be a surprise and yet no protests across the country. I'm looking for them, but I don't see them. You mean the campus protests. Yeah.

Sorry. It's oddly quiet. It's oddly quiet. It's oddly quiet. Yeah. I'm not hearing people running around screaming Genocide Joe or holding up schools. I've seen protests in Dearborn, Michigan, which is so deeply offended by Joe Biden's policy

in the Middle East. And yet, silence. Just silence, isn't it something? We'll let others try to figure that out. Frank For, we'll see if that constitutional crisis comes. I will say, if that constitutional crisis does come, and he says to John Roberts, you and what army? That would be a constitutional crisis of the first order. So we won't presume that that's going to happen, though it could. Let's instead, though, get back to where we are right now. I've heard from a lot of people inside of Washington, attorneys, heard from people on

the Hill, their feeling is that right now, Donald Trump is just flooding the zone. And yeah, we'll throw out birthright citizenship. We'll defund agencies that Congress has authorized before. We're going to throw everything at the wall and just try to overwhelm our opponents, just try to overwhelm the courts, and just, again, test the boundaries of executive power, which is, as Mika said, exactly what Donald Trump said he was going to do on the presidential campaign, along with people like Ron DeSantis, who also said they were going to try to expand the Article II powers as much as he could. Right.

I mean, I'm just thinking, synthesizing everything that's been said in the last minute or two, that we have an oligarchy within the White House, essentially this Musk clique that's reshaping government, in order to wake the world in part safer for more oligarchy by peeling back all of these laws that enforce foreign agent registration and that try to curb Russian oligarchs in the life. Like, meanwhile, as you just pointed out, civil society is largely quiescent or quiet in the face of all of this. That the protesters who shut down cities and campuses because of a war that was happening

on the other side of the world haven't been able to muster the energy to come out in the streets in order to prevent all of these steps that are on the road to wrecking our institutions and our system. And Frank, Frank, let's again, let's be clear here. Yeah, they were calling Joe Biden genocide, Joe. They shut down bridges. They shut down college campuses. They made Jewish students fear going to school because Joe Biden couldn't get Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire. You now have a president who says, agree to a ceasefire. You now have a president who says we're gonna clear all Palestinians out of Gaza. And there's silence. Even weirder to me is that he's

he's mounted this war on DEI that I think will directly affect the life paths of a lot of the people who protested last year. And that to me is the strangest thing, that the decisions that are being made right now within this government, within this White House, are creating cultural context that will ripple through the lives of college students, ripple through the lives of people within civil society who have the capacity to go

out and protest. And in part, maybe because there is this atmosphere of fear, you know, in the country at large, you especially see it all the time here in Washington. You see it in the attacks that he's mounting on Politico. I mean, these are things that are done not just to foment conspiracy theories that apply that will titillate the base. They're done in order to intimidate people. And maybe we have to say in the end, the intimidation is at least in part working.

And people just don't seem to grasp the magnitude of what's occurring. And it's strange. No, it is strange since they grasped it so much during the Biden administration. Adrienne, I'm just curious that there's this national movement called the Uncommitted National Movement. Their spokesperson shared a statement in response to Trump's comments about Gaza. Feel sad, angry, scared for our communities. For months we warned about the dangers of Trump at home and abroad, but our calls went largely unheard.

Kamala Harris left a vacuum by not visiting Michigan families impacted by U.S. supplied bombs to help create a permission structure for their trust while Trump visited Dearborn. Trump's legal calls for ethnic cleansing are horrific. But as on so many other issues, Democrats had a chance to persuade voters they were the better alternative and they blew it. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you need the voter to actually be interested.

And I don't understand what's going on here because people have eyes, they have ears, they can see what's happening. And I'm not sure they didn't make a stand, by the way, on a choice. That's correct. Absolutely. And look, when you look at, as Joe mentioned, Dearborn, Michigan, which I believe went 80-20 for Biden in 20 and went 20-80 for Harris in 24. I mean, look, she spent a lot of time in Michigan.

She spent a lot of time talking to these very voters. We had surrogates going in there talking to these voters. So it's not like there was not an attempt to go have these conversations. They could take a look at what she says versus what he hasn't. They could have made a stand. They could have made a stand. So I don't have a lot of sympathy, frankly.

I think a lot of us don't have a lot of sympathy. And also when it comes to the college campuses, I mean, that was something that was a persistent issue that a lot of us saw and a lot of us experienced. And a lot of students, Jewish students, had to endure in the fact that we don't see the protests or silence when Trump is literally saying the US is going to take over Gaza. And where are the protests? Where are the voices? It's a concern.

Former senior spokesperson for the and advisor for the Harris campaign, Adriana El Rado, is good to see you. Thank you very much for coming on. Staff writer at the Atlantic, Frank Foer. Thank you as well. His latest piece is available to read online right now. And coming up, we are counting down to Super Bowl Sunday.

Pablo Torre joins us for a preview of the big game. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. It is an honor to be hosting this, because I've been a football fan for a long, long time. I mean, I remember back when the Cowboys was good. I remember back when the Chiefs was bad. And I remember, what was it? Bill Palachuk's girlfriend wasn't even born yet. Oh my gosh.

Okay that was Snoop Dogg in his opening monologue at the NFL Honors last night, joking about the 48-year age gap between eight-time Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Belichick and his 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordan Hudson. Let's bring in right now the host of Pablo Torre Finds Out, a metal art media who tells anyone who will listen that his girlfriend has yet to be born yet. We speak of course of MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre. Also MSNBC contributor Mike Barnacle, happily married with allowance and he is well

and with us right now. Pablo, of course that's not right. Yes. Where is Pablo Torre? I know, I like that. In case my wife is awake. Look, Pablo, where course, that's not right. Yes. So, of course, Tori. I know, I like that. In case my wife is awake. What a background. Pablo, where are you?

Let me just say, Pablo, of course, this is Super Bowl weekend. Everybody's asking, where's Pablo? It's in New Orleans. This is where Super Bowls have always, I think the first Super Bowl may have been in New Orleans, so where else would Pablo Tori be,

except for? That's right. Miami, Florida. Yeah, so I hope you're enjoying Miami. But from Miami, what is the view? What is the view from South Beach, Pablo? So two views from South Beach. Number one, I'm here reporting, of course,

on Pat Riley, who happens to own the copyright, on the term three-peat, which leads me to my second view, which is that the Chiefs are on the road to fulfilling a prediction I made for you on this program what feels like a million years ago. But the view here is that the Kansas City Chiefs, I could give you the poetry, I can give you the argument that the Philadelphia Eagles,

of course, are the toughest team Mahomes has faced in his run. That's true. They have a rushing attack led by Saquon Barkley. That is unbelievable. Barkley might have the best season for a running back of all time that he just accomplished. And yet I say to you, are our memories really that short? The three-peat to me feels inevitable. And I just want all of us to race for a world in which we will have a quarterback in my homes who will have done something that no one has ever done in the sport.

That's the view from here. Yeah, you know, last year, I thought it was an incredible matchup between the 49ers who had an extraordinary team against Patrick Mahomes. And I kept going back and forth trying to figure it out. Jack and I were talking about it. Finally, she said, you got to bet on Mahomes because that guy always wins in the crunch.

I heard a stat a couple of weeks ago, just absolutely unbelievable. They took the quarterbacks who had been in the most pressurized situations with like two minutes left to go in a playoff game where they had either get a field goal or a touchdown to win. And you know, they had all the greats. Brady was like what? Four for eight. And I don't know who else.

Elway was three for six, whatever. And they all were about 50%, which was incredible. Patrick Mahomes got the ball in his hands with seven times with two minutes left in a playoff situation. His efficiency in winning the game for the Chiefs in those situations, seven for seven. There has never been a quarterback,

and this hurts me to say it because I love Joe Montana so much, but there has never been a quarterback that wins the big game like Mahomes because he's just never lost. Yeah, well, this is the thing. It's funny you surround us today with Mike Barnacle, John Lemire, guys who know the counterargument

to that argument, because Tom Brady is out there. Look, it's, well, but when it comes to who has actually failed yet, Mahomes is off to a start that we've never seen in terms of his career. He only makes AFC title games and Super Bowls. He's won two in a row, and the even crazier stat from this season alone is that they have won the Chiefs

15 straight one score games. So I'm just saying, like, I expect this to be close because the Eagles are good. And if it's close, there is a body of evidence that suggests, it just happens to suggest that maybe Tom Brady, when all's said and done, will not be the most clutch quarterback in the history. That's right. I heard that groan. But it's correct. Well, it's just in the numbers. And you know what's so fascinating about it, Jonathan O'Meara, over the past couple years? The Chiefs

haven't had great seasons. Of course, they had a great record this year. But they'd win by blocking a field goal in the last second. They'd win one way after the other. You know, whatever they did, they just figured out a way to win. And last year, they had an even more mediocre season. The first half of the season, they just didn't look impressive at all. And yet, they always figured out a way to win. I think the Niners were a better team top to bottom last year than the Chiefs still thought the Chiefs were going to win. This year, I think the Eagles, you take their running game, you take their defense, you

take their offensive line, you put everything together, I think the Eagles are a better team than the Chiefs. But who's going to bet against Patrick Mahomes in a close game? Yeah, it's a difficult proposition. I mean, the Chiefs, a mixture of magic, luck, and skill. And also, they're just so battle tested. They have been there so many times. They have a stunning record.

I believe it's 15 straight wins in one score games. That's unheard of. And yes, it's Mahomes. It's Andy Reid, who we shouldn't overlook here, who always schemes up a great game. It's also terrific defense. That's the real thing for the Chiefs this last year or two, is how good their defense in some ways

better than their offense, and has kept them in these games. But Pablo, let's make the case for the Eagles if you were going to do that. And I'm hoping that they win. I'm out there for on record with that. I agree with Joe. They're more talented than the Chiefs. Their defensive line, terrific.

Their secondary, very good. Jalen Hurts had a kind of up and down year, but has come on strong. They've got two good receivers. They've got Saquon, but maybe the biggest key is they have the best offensive line in football. And I think that if the Eagles are going to win, that's how they do it. By either first, keeping, creating big holes for Barkley so he could break some runs.

But secondly, keeping Hurts upright. The Chiefs have such a good pass rush. If they could protect Hurts and keep them out of sacks and therefore out of second and long, third long, which would prevent the Eagles from running, I think that's how Philly would win this game. Yeah, look, I think the real detailed case for the Eagles is the footage we were just seeing,

is what they did last week. If they could do against the Chiefs what they did to the commanders, to be clear, they're winning the Super Bowl. The issue is just that the Eagles last week against the commanders or two weeks ago now what they did was simply not just the greatest performance of their season the best offense that we've seen out of that team out of that city in years it's also the fact that that was one of the greatest rushing games if not the greatest rushing attack in playoff history and so there's an outlier dynamic here, John,

where yes, that team can do it. But when it comes to the Super Bowl, I am just going to bet on the consistency of the team that has been there and has met the moment in a way that makes the Eagles performance last week or two weeks ago. Now my brain is fried. I'm in South Florida, of course.

That feels like the exception that proves the rule is my feeling on how those Eagles looked. Yeah, you know, Mike Barnicle, one of the more exhausting arguments that I hear, there really is no, I don't think there's a correct answer because I think it's both, is asking, did the Patriots win all those games

because of Bill Belichick or because of Tom Brady? It was because of both of them. I mean, it was an extraordinary partnership. You say the same thing with the Chiefs. We always lead with Mahomes, but my god, Andy Reid, what an offensive system he has put together that matches Mahomes perfectly and their defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnolo. It just, they have extraordinary that that just complete the picture and make the Chiefs that much harder to be. Call anyone up in Buffalo and they will tell you despite their rabid fandom for the Buffalo Bills, which is well deserved, they will tell you that they watched repeatedly, not just this year. this year, Andy Reid out coached the Buffalo Bills head coach each time they played. Andy Reid is responsible for most of what happens on the field with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Patrick Mahomes, obviously one of the greatest players of all time in the National Football League. My head tells me on Sunday that Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Steve Spagnola will combine and the Chiefs will probably win. My heart tells me that this is going to be a unique Super Bowl on Sunday, that the Philadelphia Eagles, as Jonathan just pointed out, with a great running game and a big tough defense and a fine offensive line, will eke out a three-point win. Whoa!

Let's hope so. Okay. Well, we've actually made our predictions for the outcome of Super Bowl 59. Joe and I have the Chiefs while everyone else thinks the Eagles will win on Sunday. Wow, look at that. Oh wait, Heilman, I didn't get yours. Oh, I'm with, I never go against, against public Tory on anything. Okay. I'm with Tory on the Chiefs. I just gotta say, as I sit here looking at Mike Barnicle, I know what matters more to him.

How many, four days. February 12th, pitchers and catchers. Four days for the Dodgers, five days for the Red Sox before pitchers and catchers. Okay, Joe. And Elmer, I just have to ask, because I want the Eagles to win. I want Jaylen to win.

But I see you picked the Eagles. I just think the Chiefs are going to win for all the reasons we've been talking about today. I think I made the wrong choice. I'm just curious, do you really think the Eagles are going to win? Or was that just a hate pick? An anti-Mahomes pick? Are your Eagles curious? I mean, Joe, I would say arguably my best quality is sports hate and as you well

know whether it's the Yankees or the Lakers we heard that earlier this week and these days the Chiefs I respect them all but I'm rooting against them I think it's a hard pick. All these Eagles people are really saying who they want to win. I know. Those of us saying the Chiefs are who we say who we will probably finds out on metal arc media MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre thank you very much for being on this morning's