Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/9/23

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

Testy House hearing on alleged Twitter censorship

A lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare. Well, let me just say this. It's your dream, but I'm going to, in my veto pen, make it a nightmare. But here's actually the good news. There's a lot of good Republicans. I found it interesting that when I called them out on that last night, it sounded like they agreed to take these cuts off the table. Remember I said, no, I'm serious.

Remember what I said? I said, so you're not going to cut it cuts off the table. Remember I said, no, I'm serious. Remember what I said? I said, so you're not going to cut it, huh? No. I said, OK, we got a deal. Well, I sure hope that's true. President Joe Biden continues his populist push, hammering a Republican proposal that could bring cuts to Social Security and Medicare, calling out lawmakers by name who have supported those cuts. I mean, he negotiated basically with Republicans on the House floor. It was quite a sight to see.

They conceded. I mean, their his position. I mean, so it's a strong one. Meanwhile, House Republicans yesterday were focused on Hunter Biden. Big tech. Because that's what America and wants. And the FBI. We'll show you some of the big moments from a grievance-fueled House Oversight Committee hearing. Plus, New York Congressman George Santos

doubles down on his criticism of Senator Mitt Romney following Romney's confrontation of the embattled New York lawmaker at the State of the Union. Mitt Romney, of course, saying what everyone should be saying on the Republican side. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, February 9th. Good to have you all with us, with us here in Washington.

White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein. Washington bureau chief for USA Today, Susan Page. Pulitzer Prize winning columnist at The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, and the host of way too early White House bear chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. And along with Willie in New York is MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle and former White House press secretary, now an MSNBC host, Jen Psaki. This is just massive. This is a big start to the show.

I'm overwhelmed. Warning of a thousand stars. No, let the show. I'm overwhelmed. Morning of a thousand stars? No, let's not. Let's talk, Willie, about the end of an era. You know, the Yankees, Montreal Canadiens. What did I miss? I know where you're going. I got you.

Kyrie Irving's Flat Earth Society in Brooklyn. I mean, all of these great sports dynasties changed the way we looked at the game. I'm confused. And now it's no more. The Brooklyn Nets. Yes, the Brooklyn Nets. The super team assembled a couple of years ago. Right.

With memories, Willie, by the way, that will last us a lunchtime. Memories that didn't last much out of the first round of the playoffs, unfortunately, for Nets fans. So they brought in Durant. They brought in James Harden. They brought in Kyrie Irving over the last couple of years. A super team, three Hall of Famers put together, eliminated in the first round in their first year together, in the second round their second year together, and now they are all gone. James Harden last year was gone to the Sixers. Kyrie Irving just demanded a trade.

He's in Dallas now. And last night, Kevin Durant made no secret. He wanted out of Brooklyn and was traded to the Phoenix Suns, creating a new super team in Phoenix. So he's won a couple of titles doing that. Remember, he went to the Warriors about seven or eight years ago, won two titles, was the MVP of the finals both years. So he's got his rings.

Now he's chasing another one in Phoenix. Well, and Gene, he's, I mean, Phoenix, you know, they've got a pretty good team. Pretty good team. And no flat earthers there. No flat earthers. That we know of. That we know of. That we know of.

You know, pretty good weather. I mean, you know, I think Kevin Durant is coming out fine here. The problem in Brooklyn, really, was that in the NBA, they play with only one basketball instead of three. Right. And if you're going to have Harden and Irving and Durant, you really need three basketballs. Oh, yeah. Because they all need and want the basketball to score.

Right. And so that didn't work out. Got it. But happy for them. Why do you think we only let Barnacle on two, three days a week? Well, he's a bull. And he doesn't show up. Pass it.

I'm open. I'm open. I'm open. Pass it. I'm open. I'm happy for KD. I think he's got a shot of doing in Phoenix what he did in Golden State. Great ball player.

Mike Barnacle, do you have anything to add to this conversation early in the morning? Actually, I do. I can't wait for Kyrie Irving. I'm open. Uh-oh. morning actually i do i can't wait for kairi irving kairi irving a true flat earth guys you just alluded to joe in dallas i can't wait for his musings on the grassy knoll and what happened to jfk in dallas he will absolutely go there on that after about a week he scored 24 points in his debut and luka don Doncic said, wow. Yeah, he said, wow.

And he said, wow. And then he was like, and what was he saying about JFK Jr.? Yeah, right. All right. I'm going to get to the news now. House Republicans all queuing on grill. Former Twitter employees on Capitol Hill yesterday. This didn't really go the way they expected, in an attempt to prove that the social media companies singled out. They were all OK. Former Twitter employees on Capitol Hill yesterday. This didn't really go the way they expected, did it? No. In an attempt to prove that the social media company singled out, they were all, okay, right-wing voices for censorship. In a six-hour House Oversight Committee hearing, the four former employees faced questions

about the company's decision to ban the sharing of a 2020 New York Post article, which made unsubstantiated claims about then candidate Joe Biden's youngest son, Hunter, shortly after the Post published the article. Twitter pointed to concerns about hacked material as the reason for blocking the story. Twitter has since admitted that decision was a mistake. But in yesterday's hearing, the former employees refuted claims that the site colluded with the Biden campaign and FBI to influence the results of the 2020 election. In fact, a former employee said yesterday that it was actually the Trump White House that tried to influence Twitter's content. model. This is where we're at. After model Chrissy Teigen responded to this attack against her by then the then president in 2019. You testified about a 2019 tweet that was about President

Trump. And I think it's from Miss Teigen. What was the tweet about? Would you like me to give the direct quote? Yeah. Please excuse my language. This is a direct quote, but Chrissy Teigen referred to Donald Trump as a. OK, free speech. And what happened after Miss Teigen posted her tweet? What did the White House do? What did the Trump White House do? From my understanding, the White House reached out to ask that this tweet be removed. Yeah, this is Veep. And another moment yesterday, that same former employee revealed that her bosses changed Twitter's internal rules. Mika and I know something about this.

A lot about this. To accommodate Trump's hateful rhetoric against immigrants. I'd like to show you a tweet posted by former President Trump about my colleagues and I on July 14, 2019. It says in part, quote, Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came? My team, Ray, made the recommendation that for the first time

we find Donald Trump in violation of Twitter's policies. At the time, Twitter's policy included a specific example when it came to banned abuse against immigrants as they specifically included the phrase, go back to your country or go back to where you came from, correct? Yes, that was specifically included in the content moderation guidance as an example. You brought this up to the vice president of trust and safety, Del Harvey, correct? I did, yes. And she overrode your assessment, didn't she? Yes, she did. And something interesting happened after she overrode your assessment. A day or two later, Twitter seemed to have changed their policies, didn't they? Yes, that trope, go back to where you came from, was removed from the content moderation guidance as an example. So Twitter changed their own policy after the president violated it in order to potentially

accommodate his tweet? Yes. Thank you. So much for bias against right wing on Twitter. It's just good job. It's just so shocking, isn't it? It's actually the opposite of what the Republicans said was happening. Again, Mika and I saw it dealing with with with Twitter saying, wait a second.

So it's legal for a guy to accuse somebody else of murder 12 times, but it violates all of these policies. And they go, yeah, well, we're looking into that. And then in this case, on this racist trope that fascist Jews go back to where you came from, they actually stopped letting that be a banned phrase because they wanted to change the rules for Donald Trump. In fact, Willie, this entire hearing reminds me of that scene in the classic movie, The Other Guys, where Will Ferrell, where Will Ferrell, stay with me because this is an important moment in movie history, patiently explains to Mark Wahlberg, after Mark Wahlberg after Mark Wahlberg says that lions will eat tuna, how his family of tuna will devise breathing devices and devour the entire pride of lion. No, I'm just saying. And what was the punchline? Will Ferrell goes, that didn't really turn out the way you expected. Did it? And neither did this hearing. Republicans made fools of themselves again.

They tried to, it's just like the FBI. The FBI, the New York office's leaks against Hillary Clinton for two years and James Comey's letter elected Donald Trump. And they're trying to say the FBI was going after Donald Trump. It's just not. And the same thing here. They keep doing these things that never turn out the way they expect. And Will Ferrell also said, as he flipped that on Mark Wahlberg, guess what? Now we have a taste

for lion. Speaking of the tuna, now we're coming to you. We have turned the tables. We tuna, we're coming after you. We've lost so many people with these references. We're going to continue to dive deeper into them. Should we just recite the whole thing? Watch the other guys. Will it continue? Huge Oscar snubs for that movie. We can talk about that later. Jen, as you watch these play out, as someone who was inside the room as a lot of this was happening,

so much of this for conservatives is based on a New York Post tweet about Hunter Biden's laptop. But as Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats exposed yesterday, there was a lot going on within Twitter that allowed everything that ran up to January 6th. Exactly. I'm not going to quote the other guys. I have no more quotes to offer. But I will say the largest issue here, I mean, if you were running a local political campaign and you're running ads on television and you say something inaccurate about your opponent, guess what happens? Your ad gets pulled down. These platforms live by a very different set of rules and people consume more information

from them than any other source of media. So think of the danger of that. And with that in mind, as Ocasio-Cortez just said, basically, they're allowing hate speech, racism. Also, let's not forget inaccurate information about vaccines and how they can save your lives run rampant on these platforms. So what these Republicans are doing essentially just to break down past all of this crazy word salad of yesterday is they are defending the pushing of inaccurate, dangerous information on the platforms that most people receive information from that are that is racist, dangerous, prompted. January 6th is prompting people not to get vaccinated. That's what they're defending. That's the hill they have decided they

want to die on. Yeah, it appears're defending. That's the hill they have decided they want to die on. Yeah, it appears like the Republicans have walked into this one pretty poorly. And to Jen's point, a lot of the tweets that were taken down by the congressmen and women who were objecting yesterday to Twitter were because of bad information about the pandemic, bad information about vaccines, bad information that could be dangerous to people's lives, not because they made a joke, as Lauren Boebert said about Hillary Clinton. Well, there's all of that. Absolutely. But there's also the misreading of what's going on beyond the committee room where those hearings were held. I mean, the idea that they think apparently their strategy is to key in on people who are

vastly interested in what's going on on Twitter. This is what they care about. Yeah. Hunter Biden's laptop and photos of Hunter Biden that nobody wants to see. That is what they are defending having out there. Nobody. The other night at the State of the Union, we were just talking about it off air. The president of the United States spoke briefly about the horrendous nature of costs of flying.

If you're taking your family. visit the world for school vacation weekend, extra charges for baggage, a separate charge for a different seat, stuff like that. That resonates. This Hunter's laptop with continued hearings and haranguing about language and everything like that, I suppose at some level it's important, but the larger cosmic level in terms of reaching people, I don't think so. No, no. And it just doesn't prove what they expect it to prove.

And when you dig into it again, we saw time and time again they were bending over backwards to protect Donald Trump. Absolutely. Twitter was shameless. They were scared of Donald Trump. And honestly, it threatened people's Absolutely. Twitter was shameless. They were they were scared of Donald Trump threatened people's lives. Oh, yeah. So to know that Trump's lies only intensified leading up to the January 6th insurrection. And although he was banned from the platform after the Capitol attack, former employees said yesterday that they urged the company to take

action before the violence, but claimed those pleas fell on deaf ears. Despite the evidence presented, Republicans continued to hurl even more baseless attacks against former Twitter employees yesterday over issues like their own personal accounts being banned or suspended for spreading violent rhetoric. You didn't shadow ban or permanently ban my Democrat opponent. No, you did that to me. And that was wrong and it was against the law. Now here's something that disgusts me about you. You permanently banned my Twitter account, but you allowed child porn all over Twitter. I found out last night from Twitter staff that you suppressed my account for this tweet.

It's a freaking joke about Hillary Clinton being angry that she couldn't rig her election. It's a joke. You, ladies and gentlemen, interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election, knowingly and willingly. That's the bad news.

It's going to get worse because this is the investigation part. Later comes the arrest part. Later comes the arrest. Far, far, far. Are there, do you give out felonies for just being dumb? I'm just wondering, like seriously, because there are a lot of Republicans on that committee that need to get themselves some good lawyers if they can. Where do we begin?

That's unbelievable. Where do we begin? Well, with Will Ferrell, I think, for starters. We also start with January the 6th, where again, because Twitter was so scared to cross Donald Trump, they allowed all of this hate speech, all of this planning,

all of these conspiracies to grow up around a, quote, rigged election that led to an insurrection against the United States of America. That's on Twitter. You know, we've heard about the Republican strategy

going into this new era with divided government and Republican control of the House. We've now seen in the past two days the Democratic strategy in response. President Biden and the State of the Union did not mention these investigations. He focused on a lot of other issues, more than hours worth of other issues. And then yesterday we saw Democrats in Congress engaging on these issues in a way to dismantle the charges that have been made that are inaccurate. This is like a this is a two step that may serve Democrats well when voters think about the issues that really affect them in their own.

Yeah, I mean, this is I'm not joking here. This is micro targeting. This is political micro targeting. They're not they're not speaking to independents. They're not speaking to swing voters. They're not speaking to even their own voters in suburbs, highly educated voters that are still voting Republican. They're not appealing to them. These are people that are appealing to, I mean, the reddest, red hot Trumpers. And this is the face of the Republican Party for the next two years. It's very bad news for Republicans in 2024. I think there's something

when we were talking about this last time I was on how issues like gas stoves, for instance, become, have such currency in Republican politics. It's because a lot of Republican politicians live in this Twitter echo chamber right now. These issues become

so forceful for the commentariat that politicians assume that the mass of the public care about. And maybe their base in their districts. Right. Like maybe the most extreme people. We're not even sure about that. Right. Like this could be so micro that it doesn't even reach those people. But obviously, if you look at the hearing yesterday, it was you know, you'd have to be in this incredibly tight echo chamber to understand a lot of it. You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert saying, you shadow ban me. Like, do people actually know what that even means? And it's all about them. Are you kidding me? And also, you know, as just sort of, and to pick up on Barnacle's point, I don't like to compliment Barnacle, but he has a good point here, which is, you know, there is other stuff that they could focus on that I think on the long term basis would be more strategically fruitful for them.

So, you know, you could make your first hearing, for instance, about misspent covid relief money or the drawdown in Afghanistan or, you know, just sort of Biden himself and inflation. But this had nothing to do with Joe Biden. It was all personal. And that's a crazy thing. OK, so let me just say and I don't have to worry about Republicans doing this because they're too stupid to. But if I'm running this Republican caucus, my first hearing is on Afghanistan, the tragedy of Afghanistan. Why did he ignore all of his generals? What are the consequences of it? What how did our allies feel abandoned? Do that. It undermines him as a strong leader at a time where he's trying to talk about Ukraine and then move to crime, move to the resurgence of crime since 2020 and let Democrats go, oh, there aren't the numbers. It's safer than ever before. Let the Democrats walk into the trap instead of the Republicans, which are doing and then talk about the.

Like they can't do that. They can't find it. But this is not rocket science. He brought the gas stoves since Joe Biden has been elected president. They've talked about Dr. Seuss. They've talked about gas stoves. Yeah. And they've talked about Hunter Biden's laptop. Yeah. Right. And now Twitter and Twitter, Twitter. And they'll sprinkle in the lab. Everybody theory, you know, in the nation. I go out and I, you know, I go home to Orangeburg and I'm talking to folks, you know, down at the hardware store. You're in the Piggly Wiggly. The Piggly Wiggly. Exactly. Right, exactly. Hey, Gene, what do you really think about Dr. Seuss?

Exactly, right. And all they're talking about is Dr. Seuss and Twitter. That's all. And gas stoves and lab leaks. It is ridiculous. And by the way, just as an aside on Twitter, there is a simple free market solution that Republicans could talk about back when they believed in free market solution. They're publishers.

Consider these platforms publishers. They are publishers. And hold them responsible the way we hold The Washington Post responsible and USA Today responsible for what they publish. Yeah. And by the way, Willie, again, the fact that these people dare to call themselves conservative when they don't understand the first thing about free speech. They don't understand the first thing about, you know, about private enterprise. Like Twitter is a private company. Marjorie Taylor. It's against the law.

It's not. No, it's not. It's a private company. Facebook? Sam's wife? Does she still work for him? Oh, okay. Thank God we don't have to do that. She's moved to Twitter? Did she move to Twitter? No.

She's not. God. No, no, she's working for RT. So anyway. I'm joking. I did because I love. So, Willie, they say stupid things like, oh, they're violating our First Amendment rights. You know, I never said I never told Twitter once you're violating my First Amendment rights or this is about First Amendment rights. They're a private company.

I just wanted to sue Twitter because they were publishing these these tweets. Right. And why couldn't I? Why couldn't I? Because of Section 230. Because there and this is Gene, this is your great point. If if Twitter gets something terribly wrong, if they lie about you, if they damage you, you can't sue them. If they really did something terrible to MTG, she should be able to sue them. Boebert should be able to sue them. That other guy from Louisiana, who may God have pity on his soul, should be able to sue them. That other guy from Louisiana, who may God have pity on his soul, should be able to sue them. But they can't. And so they say stupid things like, oh, this is a First Amendment

violation. No, it's not. It's a free company. And in America, last time I checked, like free enterprise, private corporations, they can do pretty much what they want to do about who they let on their platform. But Gene is exactly right. If The Washington Post writes something that's a lie about me, a lie about you, a lie about MTG, a lie about Lauren Boebert, you sue them and you hold them accountable. And by holding them accountable, you make sure they don't do it again. It's kind of like flying on airplanes. Make us scared to fly on airplanes.

Oh, my God, can we not talk about this? I'm not scared of flying on airplanes. You know why I'm not scared of flying on airplanes? Because if the airplane I'm on goes down, guess what? Stop it! The companies, they're going to have to pay a ton of money, and it'll probably go out of business. So I'm pretty comfortable.

Willie, take it. I better knock on wood somewhere. Shut up. Wait, but'm pretty comfortable. Willie, take it. I better knock on wood somewhere. Shut up. But my point is, Willie, but my point is this. You hold these companies accountable in the free marketplace, right? Let them be sued if they violate,

if they breach common standards that every other company is held accountable to. But for some reason, these people in Silicon Valley. You know, I've never heard the silver lining of a plane crash before. Now you know. Oh, my God. Guess what? There's a reason why American airlines,

airlines in the United States are so safe. And by the way, conservatives may not like it. American Airlines, airlines in the United States are so safe. And by the way, conservatives may not like it. It's because the lawyers who were there looking and making sure that they maintain their standard of care. Guess what? What? You're going to love this ending. I'm not going to love it. These social media companies, Willie, they're flying blind. Go ahead. Oh, there you go. Tied it up with a nice bow. And they sort of cry, you know, we're just we're just opening the gates to the fairgrounds.

And it's a place where people have debate and conversation. And we can't be liable for that. No, they're publishers and have been for a long time. So that's something to work through. And then, Jonathan Lemire, if you look at the foundations and the basis of this committee, the beginning of what we saw yesterday, it was this New York Post article that people couldn't share for a day. Like, that's the foundation of the whole thing. And as Katie Porter, the Democrat on the committee, said yesterday, this is her quote, for nearly six hours, we've been going back and forth about this supposed suppression of a single news story from a single outlet for a single day. This hearing has been in its length nearly one quarter of the amount of time that Twitter users could not share the link. We're spending almost as much time screaming about this as we are as this ever was a problem.

So kind of getting to the heart of the matter here, which if you really want to talk about Twitter, as a bunch of Democrats pointed out yesterday, we can talk about Twitter and January 6th and a whole bunch of other things. Yeah. And Twitter acknowledged they they they made a mistake there with that article, but it was readily available soon thereafter and ricocheted certainly around conservative websites for four days. But to the larger overall point that the Republicans have talked themselves into a box. It's been years of the making because they have spent so much time

on these conspiracies, on the sort of fringes of the right, whether it's about Hunter Biden's laptop, the alleged deep state conspiracies that have led to the creation of this weaponization of the government committee that's meeting for the first time today.

The House Oversight Committee charged with looking into everything about Hunter and his business dealings. They've cocked themselves into a corner and they've been doing it for so long that it infiltrated more mainstream conservative media, including some of the opinion hosts primetime on Fox News. And now the voters demand it. And what I keep hearing from Republicans here, outside of those on the extreme right, but more mainstream Republicans, is they're deeply uncomfortable with these hearings

because they know, to Joe's point earlier, there should be other things they're talking about, other things that might resonate with a broader spectrum of voters. Instead, there's this narrow, narrow sliver, but if they don't go through with it, they're going to upset that narrow sliver, their base, that online, over the top base that lives to own the libs. Yeah. And by the way, so why don't we get an issue? I said they

should talk about Afghanistan. They should talk about the southern border. They should talk about crime. Let's talk about an issue that that the base would love. Like I've heard a lot of Democrats quietly bemoan what's happening on college campuses, have real hearings about what are their free speech problems for conservatives on college campuses? Are there free speech? Like that's actually something that more than 13 percent of Americans care about. But Jen Psaki, the problem also with these hearings are you look at these issues, they never produce it. The Twitter files. You remember the Twitter files?

Oh boy, that was rough. This is going to be the end. It's fascinating that the Twitter files had such an extraordinary blind spot and ended up being the most biased thing I've ever seen in my life. Because we find out after the Twitter files come out, I guess Elon didn't give them all the information about like Twitter executives cowering in the

corner and doing whatever Donald Trump wanted them to do. You've got the Twitter files. You've got the New York Post, the Hunter Biden laptop thing. These things have been looked at. It's just like when when they were, you know, who's the special Durham? It's just like Durham. I'd read Durham's pleadings and say, OK, there has to be something here. Yeah. Meek will tell you, I read one pleading all day and I called about 30 legal experts. I go, what's here? And everyone said, I've been reading it. I don't think anything's here. Conservatives keep doing this. They did it with Durham and their witch hunt against the FBI. They did it on Hunter Biden's laptop and their witch hunt against Twitter. They did it on

the Twitter files and their witch hunt. Like, they only want to go after blue witches. They don't want to go after red witches. These things never, ever produce the punch they expect. No, I mean, to go back to Mike Barnicle's earlier point, I mean, this is like a word salad of right wing craziness. Right. I mean, and if you are just a normal person, 80 percent of the country, by the way, that is not on Twitter. And you're hearing things like Durham woke mobs. Many of the sentences in Sarah Huckabee Sanders's speech the other night. You tune in and you think, I have no idea what you're talking about. I have to go buy eggs. My health care is too expensive. My prescription drugs are too expensive. I'm not sure about gas. It seems down,

but I don't want it to go up. And it just feels very far away. So in a strange way, this Republican strategy right now has made them seem like this, like, right wing elite society that is not connected with what is actually happening in the country. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe. By the way, can I just ask a quick poll? Oh, no. I don't know. Everybody feel better about flying on planes? No. Stop it. A little bit, I guess.

A little bit, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Still ahead on Morning Joe, former President Trump is ramping up his attacks on Ron DeSantis and the Florida governor is hitting back. No, no, no. He's kind of tapping back. We'll show you those new numbers. Plus, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's excuse for Republicans who heckled President Biden during the State of the Union address. Also had embattled Republican Congressman George Santos. His comments on that tense exchange that he had with Senator Mitt Romney, what he's saying about that. And NATO's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is our guest this morning. He is meeting with top national security officials in Washington, D.C. today to discuss continued

assistance for Ukraine. You know, Santos said that Romney took out a trident and used it against. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. If I were a lion and you were a tuna, I would swim out in the middle of the ocean and freaking eat you. A lion swimming in the ocean? Lions don't like water. If you placed it near a river or some sort of fresh water source, that makes sense.

But you find yourself in the ocean, 20-foot waves, I'm assuming it's off the coast of South Africa, coming up against a full-grown 800-pound tuna with his 20 or 30 friends, you lose that battle. You lose that battle nine times out of 10. And guess what? You've wandered into our school of tuna, and we now have a taste of lion.

We've talked to ourselves. We've communicated. Yeah. And said, you know what? Lion tastes good. Let's go get some more lion. We've developed a system to establish a beachhead and aggressively hunt you and your family. And we will corner your pride, your children, your offspring. How are you gonna do that? We will construct a series, your children, your offspring. How are you going to do that?

We will construct a series of breathing apparatus with kelp. We will be able to trap certain amounts of oxygen. It's not going to be days at a time, but an hour, hour 45. No problem. That will give us enough time to figure out where you live, go back to the sea, get more oxygen, and then stalk you. You just lost to your own game. You're outgunned and outmanned.

Did that go the way you thought it was going to go? Nope. It's the end of the world, just know that. It's the end of the world, just know that. It's the end of the world, just know that. I feel fine. Biden also talked about the strong jobs market. He said people are working as bankers, real estate developers, dancers, philanthropists, Broadway producers. And that's just George Santos.

That is a beautiful look at New York City. Pass the hour. Top of Mika's penthouse. It's a really old joke. It's really not old. We just started. Oh, no, we've got jokes much older than this. Penthouse. It's a really old joke. It's really not old. It's 15 years old. We just started. Oh, no, we've got jokes much older than this one. No, absolutely.

Much older than this one. So, Willie, we're looking at the newspapers, and Kyrie, back in the Daily News, says he felt very disrespected. Always. There were actually some people in the Nets organization that actually believed the Earth was round, did not like that at all. But but what's what's what's on the front page of the the newspaper of record for Morning Joe? Well, I'm going to first give you the back page up here. Daily News, Mike Lupica,

our good buddy, says LeBron is the greatest of all time, puts him at the top of the list. So that's your request for the front page of The New York Post. What we've been talking about this morning. Here it is. To grill a mockingbird. Come on now. For the headline, as always, if not for the content, but the headline is good about the Twitter hearings yesterday. We're in it for the headline. OK. President Joe Biden took his populist message to Wisconsin yesterday, the first stop on his administration's 20 state, 30 event post State of the Union address when he highlighted how some of them want to cut Social Security and Medicare. They seem shocked when I raise the plans of some of their members and their caucus to cut Social Security. And Marjorie Taylor Greene and others stood up and said,

liar, liar. Reminds me of that liar, liar, house on fire. You have a senator... ...named Ron Johnson. Ooh! Ron Johnson on Social Security and Medicare, quote, we should transfer everything. So we have to consider everything every year. Come on, man.

And then and then we found there was a you know, there's a senator named Mike Lee who was also yelling, you know, liar, liar, house on fire kind of stuff last night. Well, I didn't even know this, but they played a video showing him. He said when I said they want the I didn't say the whole party said Republican leading Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare. And so they played last night something I didn't even know existed, a video of him saying, I'm here right now to tell you one thing you probably never heard from a politician. It'll be my objective to phase out Social Security, pull it up by a ruse, get rid of it. Then he added, I'm quoting this now,

Medicare and Medicaid are the same sort. They need to be pulled up. Sounds pretty clear to me. How about you? I remind you that Rick Scott from Florida, the guy who ran the U.S. Senate campaign, has a plan. I got his brochure right here. He has a plan. Here's what he says in his plan. Let me get open it up here. He says, all federal legislation sunsets every five years. If the law

is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Wow. Listen, let me tell you something. Wow. Let me tell you something. Wow. Let me tell you, that was not JFK, right? I don't care.

At the inauguration, it may not have been Reagan and the Brandenburg Gate. Nope. That's politics 101. And good politics. You just sit there. You calmly go to a union hall. You hold up never anything more powerful than holding up your opponent's own words, especially after they make fools of themselves the night before and protest gesticulating. And I mean, Mike Lee, my God, that face. And then he's saying he wants to tear it up by the roots.

I mean, this is Jonathan Lemire. This is again, this fits perfectly with what we've all been saying for 40 minutes. Republicans are talking about things that nobody cares about except their most intense crazed base. And Joe Biden is showing how Republicans want to tear up by the roots, as he said, some Republicans, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And they just don't have the courage to the rest of them to say it out loud. Is this what we're going to see for the next two years? A lot of this. So I was there in Wisconsin yesterday. First of all, anytime a president brings props, that's a win. So he did. He was able to show off the Republicans' own words. You heard the boos in the hall.

Wisconsin, a deliberate choice for his first stop post-state of the union, arguably the most important swing state on the map, the one with the smallest margins of victory, one party or another. And the next two years, White House aides have told me are going to look a lot like this. Union halls targeting the jobs, showcasing the jobs he's created, targeting economic policies to make, leave a little breathing room for those kind of workers, blue collar workers, many of whom don't have the four year college degree. They're creating programs for those people. And they're going to talk about real issues that they feel about each and every day. And it is to call out those Republicans by name, to draw those contrasts about things that they matter. But also even some

of the smaller stuff, too. The resort fees, the junk fees, the airlines fees. Those got some of the biggest cheers in the room yesterday because, again, people feel those.

It really does. And why don't states say to me, this is what the next year is going to look like. The president going on the road delivering these types of messages. That's a bit Clinton there, right?

Yes. To talk about school uniforms that we can sneeze at, but mattered to parents, a lot of parents at that point. And the Biden strategy only worked because Republicans took the bait. Right. If Republicans hadn't heckled him and hadn't said liar, it would not have worked with the same force that it worked yesterday. You could count on them.

Yeah, and I think we all know how this is now going to go, right? They took the bait. And so the next couple of days, maybe weeks, are going to be conversations about, well, would you cut Social Security? Would you cut Medicare? And then there's going to be some Republicans who say, you know, my party does need to get serious about this and we do need to reform Social Security. We're going to get into this perpetual loop. I will say one of the great sort of unforced errors politically looks to be this Rick Scott plan, which was released last cycle. By the way, no Mitch McConnell.

Mitch McConnell was like, this is horrible. We're not going to do any. No one asked for it. It was Rick Scott saying, I want to put this out to enhance my own reputation. Biden's going to trot this thing out. He's going to dine on it for the next two years. Because, Gene, it wasn't like he was a backbencher in the House of Representatives. And by the way, for the record, just for people to watch, we never brought up MTG last year

when she was a backbencher because our idea was you're a backbencher, you make a lot of noise. I know something about that. Ignore him, right? But now these people are moving to the front. Exactly. You take a guy like Rick Scott. He was the most powerful Republican senator during the last term for running Republican campaigns. And he said, we're going to tax everybody.

We're going to tax the poor. We're going to tax the middle class. We're going to tax the working class. And we're going to get rid of Social Security and Medicare every five years and make people vote on it again. It was inexplicable then why he did this. Why did he come out with this thing that was clearly beyond the pale in terms of American politics? And I keep wondering whether the Republican Party at large is just going to have to disown this thing at some point because Democrats are not working on them with. Well, they're trying to come out and said, don't touch the entitlement

programs. McCarthy's come out and said, don't touch the entitlement programs. But this pamphlet exists. It's there. It's something you can. And by the way, here's the problem for Kevin McCarthy is McCarthy told them, don't scream or yell. Yep. Don't play into it. McCarthy said, we're not touching Social Security. We're not touching Medicare. McCarthy over the past. McCarthy goes. He has a respectful meeting with Biden. McCarthy is trying to be a mainstream speaker for at least for a little while for all of those people that won in Biden districts. And his party, he's got crazies that aren't letting him do that. President Biden, as we said, is headed to Florida today to Rick Scott's home state. And yesterday, Senator Scott responded to Biden through a series of tweets. He admits that his plan calls for all federal legislation to sunset in five years.

But he tried to spin it by claiming it was, quote, obviously an idea aimed at dealing with all the crazy new laws our Congress has been passing of late. The Florida Republican wrote, quote, to suggest that this means I want to cut Social Security or Medicare is a lie and a dishonest move. This isn't the first time Scott has been criticized for his tax plan. Fox News grilled him about it last year. You recently put out an 11 point plan to rescue America. Two of the big points of which are, quote, all Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently, over half of Americans pay no income tax. It also says all federal legislation sunsets in five years.

If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again. So that would raise taxes on half of Americans and potentially sunset programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Why would you propose something like that in an election year? Sure. Well, John, that's, of course, the Democrat talking point. It's a 11-step plan. No, no, it's in the plan. It's in the plan.

But here's the thing about reality for a second. First of all, let's talk about Medicare. But Senator, hang on. It's not a Democratic talking point. It's in about Medicare. It's not a Democratic talking point. It's in the plan. And also in the plan, it says we ought to every year talk about exactly how we're going to fix Medicare and Social Security. OK, John. Yeah, it's in the plan. So, you know, the reason that Rick Scott put that out there to get attention. So in that way, he's got it.

He's got attention. Yes, very good. Kudos to the interviewer for following up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no doubt. And he stayed on it, didn't he?

Yeah. It's Willie. It's in the plan. And John Roberts. Great interview. Yeah, he is so good. John Roberts pushed him hard. Mitch McConnell has a problem with it. So when Rick Scott is saying that people are lying about his plans,

he's talking about Fox News and the guy that runs the Senate caucus for Republicans. And as you mentioned, this is why Mitch McConnell has private and sometimes spilling into public disdain for Senator Rick Scott because of things like this and this plan. So, Jen, as you watch the last couple of days play out, the president's now going on this 20 state, 30 event post State of the Union tour. You can sort of see the contours of the next two years. Can you not? His message going into these swing states, talking to workers while some members of the Republican Party light themselves on fire politically in public. Right. I mean, first of all, there's no better fight for Joe Biden to be having that Rick Scott tweet was a gift to no one else but Joe Biden and people supporting or thinking about his reelection campaign. The other thing about having him out on the trail is having spent a year and a

half working for him and traveling with him. I have never met a bigger extrovert. I mean, he gets energy from being with people. And you could even see that in the speech the other night. The first part of the speech where he was listing data and numbers and navigating through that, it was fine. He was talking a little fast. He got energy when he had that back and forth with the Republicans in the room. And when he's out on the trail, that's when people see the magic of who he is.

It's not actually when he's giving big formal speeches. It's those interactions on rope lines, those ice cream stops, of which he'll probably do zillions when it's warm out. So this is very good that he's going to be out there. And I think, you know, union halls and the event like yesterday is exactly what people will see. And I just want to follow up with what you said. Expect to see him in union halls in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. I mean, we're talking about it off camera. If he nails down those three states, then suddenly that blue wall that Democrats used to brag about is erected again for the Democratic presidential candidate. Yeah, they had it for many cycles. Trump broke through in 2016.

Biden got it back in 2020. And if there are Democratic concerns about Florida, if they do feel like that's gone, although the president and his team believe there's a shot, he's going there today. That does make your path a little narrower. But if you can keep those three Great Lakes states there where there is those union presidents, the workers, and also they feel like this president has a shot to bring back some of those white working class voters that Democrats have lost in recent cycles. He's going to tailor the next two years to look exactly like we heard yesterday. And I'm telling you what, if he's talking about Social Security and I'm dead serious here and they're talking about Twitter, he gets those white working class voters. Twitter and Hunter. Jen Psaki and Susan Page, thank you both very much for being on this morning. We appreciate it. And with increased focus on migrant crossings at the southern border,

families desperate to enter the U.S. are taking a different and dangerous path to get here. We'll have that new reporting. Plus, Florida schools just banned a children's book about a Hall of Fame baseball player known for his humanitarian efforts. What that's about. ahead on Morning Jail. I have a record number of personnel working to secure the border, arresting 8,000 human smugglers, seizing over 23,000 pounds of fentanyl in just the last several months. But American border problems won't be fixed until Congress acts. If we don't pass my comprehensive immigration reform,

let at least pass my plan to provide the equipment and officers to secure the border. And a pathway to citizenship for dreamers, those on temporary status, farm workers, essential workers. Well, that's Joe Biden calling on Congress to pass immigration reform during the State of the Union address. And that's great, but we want to hear what Nancy Mace said. It's in Politico playbook. You need to read it. This is your publication. And it's really important news.

What is this? What did she say? For the record, I asked not to read this. Yes. And what is this? This is pretty funny. Representative Nancy Mace, appearing at the Washington Press Club Foundation's 77th annual congressional dinner, quote, stole the show full stop, keeping the crowd roaring and cringing with edgy jokes. Here's one of them again.

Sam, you can do it. Mace on Speaker Kevin McCarthy, quote, did you watch Kevin McCarthy during the speaker vote? I haven't seen someone assume that many positions to appease crazy Republicans since Stormy Daniels. Wow. We'll end there, I guess. You got another one for us? What? Got another one?

I think we have a commercial. This is your own. This is my own publication. It's your publication. That was Nancy Mace. Nancy Mace. You shouldn't have a commercial. This is your own. This is my own publication. That was Nancy Mace. You shouldn't have read that. You told me. Oh my goodness gracious. Let's bring it right now to NBC News.

That's a good one. New reporting out and some jokes. No. This is serious. Hold on. Hard turn here. More migrants are crossing the northern border into the U.S. as Mexicans fly to Canada and then head south. I saw as we as we take a really hard turn here, I saw the most heartbreaking story in The New York Times maybe three, four or

five months ago before I think a lot of people were doing this about a single family that had been trapped in snow and snowdrifts, froze to death because they thought, oh, well, maybe we'll get across Canada. Just just an absolute tragedy. I mean, it's incredibly dangerous, but the numbers are staggering. When I took a look at this across the southern border, they've gone up from 16,000 to 42,000 in over a three month period comparing end of 2022 to 2021. And this one sector right around Vermont, New York, New Hampshire, they've gone up by over 700 percent. And that's where that picture is from. That's a family carrying an eight month old baby and a two year old and negative four degree temperature. So do they fly?

Do they fly from Mexico to like Toronto? And it's legal for them to do that because the visa rules are different. And the flights are about three hundred and fifty dollars. And if you think about families who are paying five thousand dollars to be smuggled across the northern border, that's not nearly as expensive. They are still paying some smugglers. So, of course, people are cashing in on this. They're paying about two thousand dollars to be smuggled in that way. But oftentimes they're not prepared for those temperatures. Who would be? Negative four degrees. Hypothermia sets in so quickly. Look how young some of these children are. Look at where they are. Really remote areas. They're told to keep going. They'll find someone

in a car at the other side of the border. But the border patrol there says they're really finding a lot of people with hypothermia. And the issue here is that for Mexicans in particular, it is so hard to cross the border right now. You hear about some other nationalities maybe getting in. But with Title 42, the largest nationality that's pushed back into Mexico are Mexicans that make up 60 percent of those rejected. But it's a lot easier for them to get in from Canada. But unfortunately, they're rolling the dice because these conditions are so bad. What kind of deterrence exists to prevent them from taking this journey? I mean, obviously, some of it has to be communication, just about how perilous it is. But how do you effectively communicate that to these people?

Well, I mean, the Border Patrol is there, but it is so small in comparison to the numbers that we have on the southern border. Of course, you barely fund what happens on the northern border because we don't talk about it as much. So there are people who can arrest them and apprehend them and they can be deported. So they're running into those same deterrences that they would have on the southern border. But you're right. I think that this could be a growing trend because it's easier. And for those who can make it, the word gets back. And we know that people could distort the message, too. And cartels could say, hey, this is the way in now.

So really help us understand. Just let's take a 30,000 foot look at this because we talk about it all the time. You look at the numbers. Illegal border crossings were at an all time low. Well, a 50 year low when Barack Obama left office in 2016 crossings across the southern border. They started to spike during the Trump era. They've continued to spike during the Biden era and is just out of control. What's happening? Why? What's happened since Trump got into office and now through the first two years of Biden that's caused this crush of humanity? It's not who's in Washington. It's a

hemispheric problem. You have two point five million Venezuelans living in Colombia now. There is so much global displacement. And if you look at the failed states just within our hemisphere, what's happening in Haiti with gangs overthrowing the government? What's happening in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba? Natural disasters, too, caused often by climate change. You have so many displaced people that policies can tweak the numbers we see at the southern border. The Biden administration put in place some pretty tough policies in January. And we've seen the numbers.

And they're trying to work a deal now with Mexico. Exactly. And we've seen the numbers come way down at the southern border from December to January. Actually, they're at a two year low at the southern border now, I should point out. But what I'm told by DHS officials who watch the movement across the hemisphere is you can put a Band-Aid on the problem. But if you don't address these root causes, it's just going to keep getting worse. Yeah, exactly. And keep risking their lives. Wow. So, Willie, anybody in New York have a question on this or a comment? Yeah, sure. Julia, I guess the question for a lot of people is how does this get resolved

at this point? I mean, all so much focus, as you say, is on the southern border. But is Homeland Security viewing this as a problem that deserves, if not equal, at least some attention up on the northern border? I will say it's something that I don't think they want to talk about as much as we started requesting our own ride along. Something that we do on the southern border all the time. That's something they're really trying to deny. They don't want images like this. They don't want reporters going out, seeing what's happening there.

So far, that has been denied by a lot, for a lot of media organizations, and that's frustrating because I don't think they want the attention on this. But I think as these numbers rise and this conversation keeps happening, we're going to have to have more access, talking to these migrants and getting there and showing what's going on. And then that could put pressure for more money. The issue right now is Republicans don't want to

give the Biden administration a dime for any kind of immigration enforcement. And it actually just makes the problem worse. Great. Hey, Julia, in terms of migrants going to Canada or crossing the border, where are they getting the money? I mean, you fly to Canada from wherever, Mexico City or from wherever. You have to have some money. Where are they getting the money? Well, often it's not the poorest of the poor who we see arrive in the United States. It's people who are able to and oftentimes sell everything, get a few thousand dollars, even pay smugglers to take them into the United States. And in this case, a plane tickets about three hundred fifty dollars to get to, say, from Mexico City to Toronto or Montreal. And then they're paying smugglers a thousand

dollars to get them across the border. In some ways, it's a cheaper way in than going across the southern border. So it could be that this ends up being a more attractive option, even though it's so dangerous, especially this time of year. Gene, real quick. No, I mean, my question is whether we will ever talk about comprehensive immigration reform in this country. And I know that's a long answer, or maybe it's a short answer, and the answer is no.

I don't know. We're so far from where we were politically the last time immigration reform even had a chance of getting through. I don't think you would find Republicans and Democrats ever agreeing on what was even proposed, say, eight years ago. So it just seems pretty tough right now. Maybe a deal on DACA. But if that didn't get through in the last Congress, I can't imagine it would now. So let's just bring this full circle. None other than the aforementioned Nancy Mays said.

You're never going to pass what the Republicans in the House want to pass, which is a border security owned by itself plan. If it's if it looks at dreamers, if it looks at comprehensive immigration reform, we have a chance to do that. But Republicans in the House, I hope they prove me wrong right now, seem more interested in scoring political points than actually fixing the crisis. But this is this is an issue where the big package ought to be easier to get done than these little pieces. Right.

Do you remember? Sorry, briefly, but there was one moment in the Trump presidency where he was meeting with all the principals around the table. And he suggested he's like, oh, let's do the big package. And he bought into it. And people like Dianne Feinstein and others couldn't believe that he was embracing it. And then they quickly, of course, backtracked. He said, yeah, do whatever, whatever you guys. But they could actually pass a big deal where really tough border security. Take care of dreamers. Take care.

And again, as you're saying, Julia, you you've got to look at it as a holistic problem and a hemispheric problem. If you don't, you're not going to fix it. It's a bandaid. NBC News Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainslie, thank you so much for your reporting. Thank you, Julia. Great to see you in person. Great to see you. Can I ask Jonathan a question?

Yes, yes. I have another Nancy Mace joke, too, if you want. Oh, good. No, this one's cleaner than Sam. Sam works blue. Mace last night says, I know everyone thinks Republicans aren't funny, but if you get a bunch

of us together, we can be a real riot. Okay. Nancy Mace will be in the Catskills next week. Check your ticket, master. There you go. All right. Okay. So, Jonathan, let me ask you a question. Does the White House understand yet how serious the southern border is as a humanitarian crisis? Because there was a real blind spot early on. I think even their closest allies would admit that a real they thought it was sort of, you know, you talk to him, go, oh, that's just Republican talking points. Now, it's actually been a massive humanitarian crisis. Yeah, no, it's time to, particularly at the end of last year, they looked back and said that was one of our real missteps of what they thought was a pretty good 2022. They bought some time with

the Title 42 extension. They were given that extra gift of a few more months. But they need to, they do recognize that. They don't see a political appetite, as just discussed at this table, for any sort of comprehensive immigration reform. But they do recognize that it's something that, A, they need to address with more resources at the border. But B, to Julia's point, it is a hemispheric issue. And right now, frankly, relationships, not the best between Washington and Latin American capitals, Mexico City among them, but the Northern Triangle as well. So they're a long way from any sort of real long-term solution.