Morning Joe - Suspect in Brown University shooting found dead

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

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So I'm going to ask you about some of the things that the president said last night because some of them were just mathematically impossible. If you cut something by 100%, the cost goes down to zero. If you cut it by four, five, or six hundred percent, the drug companies are actually paying you to take their products. So it raises the question, how much of last night's speech was hyperbole and how much was fact? No, what he's saying is you bring it, if a drug was $100 and you bring the drug down to $13, right? If you're looking at it from $13, it's down seven times. It's down a 600% higher price before. It's down 700% now, right?

So a $13 would have to go up 700% to get back to the old one. So it all depends on when you look at it. You could say it's down 87% or you could say it would have to go up 700% to be the same one. So it just depends on what you look at it. But basically what he's saying, and we all know what he's saying is we are hammering. the price of drugs down. It all depends on how you look at it. And if you're willing to look really stupid while you look at it,

the only thing missing there was Judy Collins in the background singing, send in the clowns, and then ending by saying, don't bother, they're here. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik offering his bizarre explanation. Instead of just saying, yeah, he was wrong, he exaggerated, nothing can go down 600%, and there's no way when you buy a drug, the drug company is going to pay you six times the amount they were going to charge you. Just one more exaggeration and one more example of somebody, just looking kind of dumb, trying to twist themselves and knots to explain the unexplainable. that keeps coming out of this White House, and it seems to be coming out in rapid succession. This comes, of course, as we know, we're the one-time payment that Donald Trump announced for service members is coming from. It's not coming out of thin air. In fact, he is robbing Peter

to pay Paul. We'll tell you who both of those characters are, taken out of one side of their pockets and giving to the other side of the pockets, just so he can say, look what I'm doing. for you. A little slight of hand there. Plus, today's a deadline for the Justice Department to publish all of its case files on Jeffrey Epstein. We're going to see if they actually reveal anything new. And President Trump, with new comments about Venezuela, and asked whether it's about oil or about drugs. His answer, it's about everything. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, December 19th. Along with Willie and me, we have the co-house. host of our 9 a.m. hour, staff writer for the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, also MS now senior national

security reporter David Rode. David's a graduate of Brown and has stayed very close to that community. We're going to get his reaction on the latest. We have columnist and associate editor at the Washington Post, David Ignatius, talk about Venezuela, Ukraine, and so much more. And also White House reporter for Axios Mark Caputo. Willie, lot to go through there, starting with that tortured explanation of whatever that speech was about last two nights ago. A lot of people still asking the question that one Republican asked me while it was going on. Why is he yelling at me? Why is he yelling this about everything that he's speaking about and why is he giving this speech even to begin with? And poor Howard Lutnik, the

Commerce Secretary out. Again, these are the Titans of Wall Street, the Masters of the Universe, the Alpha males having to scurry around and clean up messes behind the President of the United States. We'll get to that in a moment, but we begin with an update on the mass shooting at Brown University. The suspect was found dead last night in a storage locker in Salem, New Hampshire. This evening at approximately 9 p.m., federal agents breached a storage locker in Salem, New Hampshire in search of Claudio Neves Valenti, a Portuguese national, we believed, shot and killed two Brown University students and an MIT professor in Brookline, Massachusetts. Federal agents found Neves Valenti dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Authorities believe the suspect Claudio Manuel Neves Valenti also murdered MIT professor Nuno Luiero at his home in Massachusetts just days later. They believe he acted alone in both crimes. Officials say they do not have a definitive motive yet for the shootings, but found that Valente and Luriero previously attended the same academic program 25 years ago. Valente attended Brown University in 2000 as a Ph.D. physics student. He has no known previous criminal record. Surprising break in the case came in the form of a Reddit tip from a bystander. named in the police affidavit as John. He happened to see the suspect approaching a rental car.

Authorities were then able to track the vehicle down using the license plate. Two Brown University students were killed in the shooting. Of the nine others that were hospitalized, three since have been released. Five are stable and one does remain in critical condition. Joining us live from Providence, MS now investigated for Porter Mark Santia. Mark, what more can you tell us about this suspect and how police tracked him down? Good morning, Willie. Yeah, we were in New Hampshire just a few hours ago. We're in Rhode Island right now. There's a sense of relief, but there is so much heartache and so many questions right now. Police say they are working to try to get an answer to just what was the motive. Here is what we know right now. The suspect in this Brown University mass shooting also believed to be responsible for the murder of an MIT professor. He was found dead in a storage facility last night with an inflicted, what police say was a self-inflicted gunshot wound there in New Hampshire.

Police have identified him as Claudio Manuel Nevis Valenti, 48 years old, a former student here at Brown University. He was enrolled only in physics classes for a Masters of Science PhD program. He officially withdrew in 2003. Now, physics classes are held here in the Barrison-Hawley building. This is where police say the suspect fired 44 rounds in the auditorium and hallway last Saturday, killing two students and wounding nine others. The suspect, police say, was a Portuguese national.

His last known address was in Miami, Florida. After the shooting, investigators say the suspect drove to Massachusetts and killed an MIT professor in his home two days later. Police do believe the suspect and victim knew each other. They're believed to have attended the same academic program in Portugal. Investigators were able to link the suspect to the crimes based off of what they say was his rental car, the hotels he booked, as well as security.

curie footage and a witness who posted his encounter with the suspect on Reddit. Again, investigators say at this point they do not have a motive when they do find answers. No doubt it will bring little comfort to the grieving families, the injured students, and this heartbroken community. Willie? You know, we're looking, Mark, right now at a Reddit post just from a by, from a civilian, a bystander who thought he saw something that he may have seen on the news, a figure that looked like the person he saw in that video footage we've been playing.

Can you talk a little bit more about how this played out because obviously police have been frustrated. They arrested one person of interest, investigated him, had to release him after no connection was shown between him and the shooter. And then the kind of case went a little bit cold for a few days. So can you explain this break on Reddit a little bit more? Absolutely. It was interaction that occurred just behind the building here, just behind this engineering building. It was a person in the community who came upon someone. the person being called John came upon someone who said was acting very suspicious posted that on

Reddit and then went up found police took that step went from posting something to then saying something went to police had an interview with police told him it was a very strange interaction it was a person who had a rental or a vehicle with florida plates and it really stood out to him and that sort of was what police were going through willie this is something we heard all week police exhausted all their leads, and they really made a push. They reached out to the public, the community being that force multiplier, the eyes and ears, they showed the video,

and that's when things started to fall into place. That's when, you know, people said, wait, I remember that person in the neighborhood. Willie, he was here in the neighborhood on campus for more than five and a half hours before the shooting. So police knew someone had to see something. It was just a matter of showing that video, reaching out and getting someone to say something. And that's exactly what John did. He posted it on

Reddit and then took it one step further and reached out to police. That's why police say no tip is too small. Call it in. It might become a piece of a larger puzzle. MS. Now is Mark Santia reporting live for us this morning from Providence, Rhode Island. Mark, thanks so much. David wrote, as Joe mentioned, you are an alumnus of Brown University. Obviously, I've been following the story on a personal level, but also covering it as well. What more can you add to the story of the pursuit of this person of interest, now this suspect, the man they believe, committed these murders? Look, thank God for John. It's amazing that he came forward. It's amazing. There are some reports that he actually ran into this individual in a bathroom in Barris and Holly. That's the room,

sorry, the building where the shooting was carried out and then followed him outside because he just wasn't dressed appropriately. He was acting in a strange way. So it's so wonderful that this person had the bravery to come forward. And it is a huge sense of relief in terms of what happened to him that led him to do this. Why, you know, 20 years later, he comes back to Brown and kills these students and wounds nine others and why he kills this MIT professor. We apparently know no one knows. So heartache at Brown, but I think some relief and just questions about how can we stop this from ever happening again? A dead professor at MIT and two beautiful young students,

18 and 19 year old at Brown killed as well. We'll have more on this story throughout the morning. Meanwhile, the U.S. military says it carried out two more attacks yesterday on suspected drug smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific, killing a total of five people there. U.S. Southern Command shared this short video of the strikes on social media without providing any evidence of its claims about the boats or their passing. as has become their habit. This marks the third day of strikes just this week in a highly

scrutinized, months-long campaign that has killed at least 104 people across 28 known attacks. Along with the deadly boat strikes, the Trump administration has positioned thousands of troops in the region and ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers coming to and leaving from Venezuela. The actions raising questions about the motive and legal basis behind the moves. The New York Times puts it like this, quote, the core argument for using armed force overdose is caused by fentanyl coming from Mexico. The target of the strikes, boats suspected of carrying cocaine from South America. A Venezuelan president's alleged involvement in drug trafficking intolerable. A former president of Honduras convicted in a U.S. court for doing the exact

same thing, pardoned by Mr. Trump. Republican Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky called out those inconsistencies and question the administration's goals in Venezuela during a floor speech this week on Capitol Hill. The framers understood a simple truth. To the extent that war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America. Let's be honest about likely outcomes. Do we truly believe that Nicholas Maduro will be replaced by a modern-day George Washington?

How did that work out? In Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria. Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMD's weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Now it's the same playbook, except we're told that drugs are the WMDs. If it were about drugs, we'd bomb Mexico or China or Colombia, and the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez. This is about oil and regime change. That is Republican Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky. In a new phone interview with NBC News, President Trump left open the possibility of war with Venezuela, saying, quote, I don't rule it out, no.

He also declined to say whether ousting President Maduro is his goal, Trump said, he knows exactly what I want. He knows better than anybody. I'm clear what exactly that means, Joe. Well, I mean, he knows better than anybody, but Donald Trump and Susie Wilds and David Ignatius, Susie Wilds made it very clear. Made it very clear.

And, of course, I do love how people, David, around the White House, who are trying to spend this interview, this Chris Whipple interviewer, acting as if she's a babe in the woods. Oh, she was manipulated. She didn't know what she was doing. Oh, oh, he took her out of context.

I mean, the things that she said explicitly, she knew what she was saying. She also knew. I mean, many things that she said will probably end up being quoted in courtrooms in future cases, whether you're talking about political prosecutions, whether you're talking about a challenge to this war. But in this specific case, the president's chief of staff said, it's about regime change, said people a lot smarter than me in this administration believe that this will lead the regime change. That said, we first started with a nonsensical argument that it was about drugs. That's just preposterous for all the reasons mentioned above.

and Donald Trump now talking about oil, which actually does make more sense, because remember when he was told that when 2016, when he said he wanted, we should have gone into Iraq and seized their oil, he was reminded that that was a war crime, didn't care, wants to go after oil here. And then finally, here we are again on regime change. I guess Congress is going to sit back and let him just go ahead and do whatever he wants for whatever reason he wants without. Again, questioning the purpose of this. I've got four reasons why they shouldn't do that. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya. Regime change, especially in this century, never ends well. So, Joe, this Congress, as you say, seems determined to give up its Article I powers to declare war. Nobody really has the guts to stand up and insist on clarity about what this mission is.

my own perspective as an observer, is that this is in a way a branding exercise. Donald Trump wants to brand Latin America as his own. There's going to be Trump Latin America and Venezuela's the first test case. He wants hegemony. He wants to have U.S. rule in our hemisphere unquestioned. It's the biggest difference really in his foreign policy is this focus on Latin America. And I think that he is gradually tightening the squeeze on Maduro in Venezuela, finding new reasons each week. For now several months, it's been these drug smuggling boats, but as we've noted, they're not smuggling the drugs that are really doing damage to the United States. Then it was seizing oil tankers that had been sanctioned under previous reasons, but were available targets. And now the president, as we sometimes say, is jawboning.

He's threatening Maduro with further additional strikes and this not-so-veiled suggestion that what he really wants is for him out of Venezuela. He knows what I want. He knows what he has to do, the president just said. With a group of friends last weekend who followed foreign policy, people were taking bets as to what country is going to grant exile to President Maduro once Trump's squeeze finally succeeds. I don't know, Joe, if you want to put in your bet.

But, you know, I think at bottom, this is an effort to reorient U.S. foreign policy and the use of our military towards this hemisphere, then as well as the first test case. Some of the arguments don't quite fit, but the broader argument, this is our area. of our sphere of control, I think, is what's behind it. David, as we wrote in our newsletter the other day about anti-Semitism, quote Ecclesiastes 1-9, there is nothing new under the sun. And as a public service to people in the White House who don't know history, that don't read history, I'm not, I'm not being snide, it is the case.

They don't know the history of what has happened in the past. can march them back, David. I mean, 1961, the Bay of Pigs went terribly. If you look what happened in the coup that the United States and the CIA pushed on Guatemala in 1953,

that ended in chaos and dictatorship. It ended very badly for us. If you look at what happened in Brazil, there was the idea that we were going to oust a leftist government in Brazil in 1964. Why? Why?

What happened? They had a dictator. They had an autocrat. They had severe human rights violations for the next 20 years. You can look at other countries in South and Central America. It never ends well. What did we do in 73 with Alende when we pushed him out of power with a coup? We brought in Pinochet, who had the most probably, had the most repressive regime in South America over the past 50 years, tortured people, disappeared people. I mean, every example of the United States trying to go in and interfere in Central and South America has ended badly. My God, it almost ended Ronald Reagan's presidency after he won 49 states with the Iran-Contra crisis. It never, again, it never ends well, David. Do you have an example of the United States going down and using the CIA or using efforts like this to remove a central or South American government where it doesn't end up blowing up

in our face and causing even more chaos on the ground, more destabilization on the ground and more hatred toward the United States on the ground and makes it harder for diplomats like Marco Rubio to do their job following our bungled efforts in Central and South America. You know, Joe, I would have said a few months ago that Columbia was an example of the United States helping a country escape the clutches of the most ruthless narco traffickers, helping them run what amounted to a covert action over years in the jungles against the alliance of drug dealers and rebels. But even that, Donald Trump decided, for reasons that are still unclear to me,

he wasn't comfortable with. So Columbia is now on the outlist. I've tried to sit down with retired CIA officers over the last month or two who served in Latin America and put to them exactly the question that you asked. Did any of this stuff that you did through your careers work out very well? And the answer is usually not because of the difficulty of recruiting operatives in these governments in Latin America, who are democratic forces themselves, who can break free of Cuban influence. The Cubans are very active in Venezuela and throughout the hemisphere.

And fundamentally, the lack of a base to create new regimes, this is familiar to us from Iraq and Afghanistan. You don't just put in water, stir, shake, and you have a democratic regime. It really has to come from the people. And to see us making these mistakes in our hemisphere is unfortunate. I'll say one thing for Trump in support of the broad effort. We do need to pay more attention to our own. our own hemisphere. That's a fact. We don't need to pay attention to it in terms of fomenting regime change and seizing vessels and blowing little drugboats out of the water. We need to pay attention

in terms of consistent, sustained involvement in helping the government's cultural ties. In all those senses, you know, I think Latin America emphasis is overdue, but not in the way that it's being conducted now. Yeah, certainly in foreign policy circles, there's belief the U.S. has ignored its own backyard for far too long, but this president's approach to the Western Hemisphere. It's not just Venezuela. Let's remember, he talked about seizing the Panama Canal. He talked about taking Greenland. He wants Canada as the 51st state. That's the approach to this point. We'll see where he turns next after Venezuela. But David Rhodes, let's talk about the Maduro regime. And what seems to be a ticking clock here, You know, the president continues to up the pressure.

More and more military assets, including even this week, have moved to the region. Maduro, though, has made pretty clear. He's put his nation on high alert suggesting he thinks some sort of conflict may be coming, strikes on land or more. What's the latest you've heard as to the approach? But more than that, how long can the U.S. maintain this posture? Like, how long can that carrier group be there? Like how long can the U.S. have this type of armada in the region? And at some point, is that going to force Trump to make a decision? So the carrier does need to get, you know, resupplied and refurbished. So it's a matter of weeks, is the general estimate I've heard. And there's no facility in the Caribbean that can do that. And there was a big strategic change, I think, this week. And this was this effort to block oil sales by Venezuela. And I talked to experts and former diplomats. And they've said that is a way to pressure the majority.

regime. But the New York Times story was by Simone Romero that was noted earlier. It will inspire nationalism among Venezuelans. To say out loud it's about the oil is exactly what Maduro wants. That will help him. So it's going to take a while, but he needs those oil sales to sort of pay soldiers to keep the government functioning. So that's the thing to watch. But there's a broader change here. It's like a step back into history and it's a colonialism. And I was in Europe just last week, there's a sense that Trump is creating spheres of influence who he thinks we should go back to the 18th century. The Americas is Americans, you know, is our sphere of influence. And they feel in Russia, they feel, sorry, in Europe, they're being abandoned to Russia. And Russia will have a

sphere of influence that includes Europe and China will have a sphere of influence that includes Asia. This is music to the years of Vladimir Putin and President Xi in China. It's extraordinary. It's the U.S. stepping back from the world. And it just doesn't fit sort of modern technology, modern trade, the way young people want to live in Venezuela and other country. So I just don't see how all this is going to work in the long term. Mark Caputo, the White House, the Department of Defense, seems undeterred by all the criticism it is received, not just from media reporting, but from Republicans. We heard Thomas Massey there as well questioning the methods here. What is the White House's end goal, as far as you can tell,

talking to your sources. A small boat here, a small boat there. What's the end game? Well, two or three days before Trump took office, Axios, I wrote the first story saying that they're going to have a policy of regime change. So that story is bearing out here pretty well. Now, that having said, the main thing that people have to remember is, yes, all of those parade of horribles in South America and Latin America have occurred under U.S. leadership. But one thing left out of the conversation. One thing left out of what Thomas Massey said was Panama. Panama in 1989 was invaded by the United States. Manuel Noriega, the dictator, the leader of Panama at the time, was indicted as a drug trafficker. The United States invaded, snatched him, flew him here to Miami, and then

after he was indicted, criminally convicted him, and he went to jail. And that for the administration is the template. It's not our bends. It's not Ayende. It's not what happened in Colombia. It's what happened in Panama. Now, does that mean they're actually going to invade? Not sure. But we appear closer than ever. In the end, no one really knows. It's up to Donald Trump. Everything that's being done up to this point is about in the phrase of Marco Rubio, as he's told people behind closed doors, quote, preserving the president's optionality. So if Donald Trump suddenly wants to flip the switch and bomb or invade Venezuela, he can. But until such time, and until he decides to do it, he's not and we're not. So it's a sort of wait and see approach. And as David Ignatia said,

just sort of slowly squeezing more and more pressure on Maduro to see if he cracks or ultimately if he leaves. And in a spate of recent interviews, the president, including yesterday on a phone call with Kristen Welker of NBC News, not shying away from the possibility of regime. change in Venezuela. MS now, senior national security reporter David Rode, thank you for being with us this morning. We appreciate it. Still ahead on Morning Joe, a new analysis from the Wall Street Journal shows the Trump family's wealth has grown exponentially since the president returned to the White House this year. One of the reporters behind that piece joins us next with details. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from

Acuweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking out there? Willie, it's a windy Friday in the Northeast. How about soaking rain, Portland, Boston, New York City? Then here comes the cold. Temperatures in the 20s in Chicago and Detroit. It's windy and cool in the southeast. Put sunny in Atlanta, 52 degrees. Your weather exclusive forecast, though, still calling for some warmth in Miami.

Travel, yes, delays. New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, especially this morning. But the wind can cause delays throughout the afternoon. as well. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, make sure to download the Ackyweather app today. Enjoy your Friday and The View. Special envoy, Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner are going to meet with a Russian delegation this weekend in Miami. The meeting comes as European leaders committed to lend Ukraine around $105 billion to help keep the country fighting Russia's invasion, but felt to agree on a plan to use frozen Russian assets for the loan.

David Ignatius is so much to talk about here. Congress also passing legislation, I believe that would give the Ukrainians about $80 billion more. and aid. I'm curious. What's your latest read on the negotiations? It's been a bit more difficult to follow the back and forth in U.S. media. I'm curious what your read is on it. So thank goodness this is less a negotiation by tweet now than by negotiation. So I think after the visit of Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff, the U.S. negotiators to Europe to see the Ukrainians and their European partners, there is closer agreement on a package that doesn't satisfy all of Ukraine's demands, but goes further in talking to Ukrainian friends in the last week.

They feel as if the U.S. is making an effort to listen to their concerns, to try to come up with package that would be attractive enough in its positive features of guaranteeing Ukrainian security in the future that Ukrainians might consider making compromises, even giving up some territory as part of an overall settlement. Now it goes to Russia. Now Whitkoff and Kushner will go to talk to Kirill Demetriyev, who's been the Kremlin's emissary. And there's every expectation the Russians will say no. So sadly, as we head toward Christ, with hopes that this terrible war can come to an end. I don't see the signs yet of a real common ground between Russia and Ukraine.

I think, Joe, we just have to say with a sense of horror that this war is going to go on into a bitterly cold winter. Ukraine is going to have some of the greatest suffering it's had since the war began. But every intelligence analyst I've talked to in the last week says the idea, that Ukraine is on the verge of collapsing is simply false. Despite intense pressure, that front is generally holding in Donetsk. Despite the terrible suffering of having heat and electric power out in Kiev and many other cities, Ukrainians are hanging on. The riots, the Russians, in fact, who are having difficulty these days, keeping the numbers steady in their lines. They can't replace the people they're losing. Remember now, Russia's lost 1.2 million casualties in Ukraine.

It's a staggering number. So, you know, at the holidays, we want peace desperately. It does look as if Kushner and Whitkoff are working hard. This is a serious earnest attempt. But I don't see the signs yet that they're going to have a breakthrough. I will say it's very interesting what you're saying about Russia's problems because the Russians have been telling anybody around these negotiations that will listen, how weak in the Ukrainians are, how strong they are. And it just reminds me of that old Churchill saying the Russians are never as strong as we think they are, never as weak as we think they are. This war is damaging them as much as they're damaging as it's damaging the Ukrainians.

And you just wonder, David, whether a lot of that talk, a lot of that chatter that they keep saying that whether it's Marco Rubio or negotiators, a lot of that is, you know, just them whistling past the graveyard, thinking they can take a maximalist position and not surrender on really what I think is the key issue, and that is an Article 5 type guarantee. I sometimes think, Joe, that Putin is running on just sheer arrogance. That's all he's got left. His plans for this war, his vision of the oneness of Ukraine and Russia's idea that Ukrainians would embrace Russian troops as they invaded. That's so far in the past. The Russians are caught in a nightmare for them. You know, we think about Ukraine's plight. Think of this Russian expeditionary army that essentially makes no progress month after month.

At some point, something's got to give. One of the projects I'm thinking about talking to people about is how the United States can increase the pressure on the Russian war machine without going to war itself. We're not going to do that. In the coming months, as Ukraine suffers in this cold winter, how does the U.S. help squeeze Russia a little bit more so that Putin might finally realize that it's time to end this war? But for the moment, at Christmas time, no sign of a breakthrough. Yeah, and now from the very serious to the very stupid, as I'm sure you know and everybody else, Donald Trump's hand-picked board at the Kennedy Center voted yesterday to rename the venue,

the Trump Kennedy Center. It's embarrassing. It's just, it really is humiliating, and the White House doesn't even understand how humiliating this is for them. Many point out the board lacks the legal authority to do this, that it would take an act of Congress to officially change the name. I know, David, we were skeptical about even bringing this up because we understand what everybody else understands.

He doesn't have the legal authority to do this. Even if he does, his name would be torn off the building the first day he's out of office. But for people born and raised in Washington, D.C., I understand, like, for instance, you, this is really a troubling thing to see. Yeah, Joe, it does feel like a kind of sacrilege. This is, was a meant to be a living memorial to a president beloved, cut down in his prime by an assassin, who celebrated the arts. He and his wife had a special flair for the arts, and the Kennedy Center was meant to honor that. You walk in and there's a beautiful bronze bust.

Everybody who's ever been there remembers that image of John F. Kennedy and what it recalls. And today, I just, in my shock, I went to their website. And, yeah, sure enough, you know, you print out a document here, and it says at the top, the Trump Kennedy Center. It's already happened on the web. I mean, you say, Joe, it will never happen. I mean, it's already here. And so if you're trying to decide what play or musical you want to attend this Christmas season,

you're going to be going to the Trump Kennedy Center. It says so right here. Whether this will last, I can't imagine that it will. It is kind of branding exercises with so many things about this president. But, you know, if you grew up in the time that the Kennedy Center was meant as the memorial to this president who loved the arts, the idea that a new president with his hunger, his overwhelming ego, comes in and stamps his name on the front door, it's shocking. You know, Mark Caputo, this kind of falls in line with something else we saw this week, which was during all the crises we've seen from the shootings in Australia on the camps of Brown University,

the murder of Rob Reiner, the things that the country has been consumed by the president publicly was talking about this new arc he wants to build. And sort of joke, it'll be the arc to Trump. Of course, he wants it to be called the arc to Trump. Now, no mystery how this happened. He fired everybody from the board of the Kennedy Center, installed his supporters, and got the place named after him. Not surprising, but obviously disappointing to a lot of people in Washington and across the country. And potentially politically risky. Fox News had a poll recently just this week a few days ago, where it said that I believe it's a plurality of American, American voters,

thought that Donald Trump was focusing too much on issues other than the economy and things that are important to them. And Trump has really not just focused on foreign policy, but closer to home for him, the White House, rebuilding the White House tearing down the swing, building a new ballroom. He's focused on redeveloping the golf courses at Andrew's Air Force Base. He's looking at the new Arc to Trump and the like. And one of the concerns that was mentioned at the top of the show, or actually it was the previous show, was that Trump's approval ratings are falling. A lot of people wanted to focus on the economy, and he's not as

laser focus on the economy as a lot of folks, including folks in the White House, hope he's would be. Yeah, when press secretary, Con, Levin, announced this name change yesterday. I mean, there have been a lot of unusual statements this year, but this is among the best. She says in her tweet, congratulations to President Dongey Trump, and

likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be truly a great team long into the future. Just a new level of absurdity here on this. But to Mark's point, the White House trying again to get the president to talk about what he doesn't seem to want to talk

about, which is acknowledge that Americans are struggling right now. We hired his Oval Office address the other night in which he shouted at us that things were just fine. But they have billed. He's traveling. He went to Pennsylvania last week to talk about affordability. Didn't go so well. Even Republicans wringing their hands about, well, he didn't really deliver the message

we wanted. You're going to try again tonight before he goes off for a two-week holiday vacation down at Marlago. He will be delivering a speech, Willie, in North Carolina, where AIDS have said, look, he will talk about affordability. He'll talk about the economy. But if there's one thing that we can sort of take to the bank in this unpredictable presidency is that he will go off script, he'll talk about what he actually wants to talk about. Odds are that includes the Kennedy Center. Yeah, I mean, affordability is complicated, it's difficult, it's unpleasant, maybe for the president,

a lot easier to talk about your minions naming things after you. So he does that. White House reporter for Axios, Mark Caputo. Mark, thank you. Mark's latest piece available online now. And the Washington Post, David Ignatius, David, thank you as well. Always good to have you. Coming up, how President Trump, quote, spun a social network into a nuclear fusion company. We'll explain that new reporting straight ahead on Morning Joe. Darnold, Playfake, looks, throw. Smith and Jigba.

Now, now, now comes the drama. Barner in motion. Darnold throws caught to the two points. Eric Sauber. The Seattle Seahawks not settling for the tie in overtime last night. After connecting for a touchdown at OT, Sam Darnold turned to the wide open tight end. He hadn't thrown to all game for the walkoff.

winning two-point conversion. A huge division win, a huge win in the conference. Seahawks overcome a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter. Stunning the Los Angeles Rams, 3837 was the final, taking a one-game lead over that division rival atop the NFC West. Week 16 of the NFL regular season picks back up tomorrow with two games in what would be a huge Saturday for football fans. That is because the first round of the college football playoff finally kicks off tonight in Norman, Oklahoma, with the eight-seated Sooners, hosting number nine, Alabama. Continues tomorrow with a triple header alongside the NFL slate as well. Joe, tonight, you guys spat in leadoff in the college football playoff going on the road to a team that beat you in Tuscaloosa, really good Oklahoma team.

How you feeling? Yeah. Well, at first, I want to talk about Sam Darnold. The guy's incredible. I mean, you look what he did with the Vikings, led them to incredible record. And then they sort of toss him aside, and boy, have they ever paid for that. And then who would have guessed that Sam Darnold would have done the same thing in Seattle? But this guy is just absolutely on fire out there.

The Seahawks team, somebody that we've managed to overlook week after week after week after week. You turn around, I think they've got the best record now in the conference. And last night, what a comeback against the team that most. people assumed before last night was the best team in football. So that's fascinating. Tonight, Willie, I've got to say it all comes down to Ty Simpson. I hate, you know, saying that, you know, I look at these players as kids now, you know, they're young. I hate to say, but it all comes down to him. He's, you know, he had a great first half of the season, just like Milro had a great first half of his season the year before, and then just collapsed down the road. Now, there's a lot of talk. There's

been a lot of talk coming out of Alabama that the Missouri game he got hurt might have got a herniated disc maybe he's playing hurt but I will say Alabama fans have been been calling for a backup quarterback for the past three or four games right now DeBoer has not done it it's something that certainly Nick Saban would have done I hate to make those comparisons but we saw him do that in a national championship game took jalen hurts out because he wasn't performing up to snuff one with Tua. So the question is, how long is DeBoer going to keep a quarterback in who's been playing terribly over the past four, five, six weeks? And when he can't complete a pass, you know, everybody stacks the line, our running game dies. It's so, you know, I mean, if we have a

quarterback that can complete 15 and out, we can win a game. Yeah, and Ty Simpson's had a couple weeks now, remember, maybe to get healthy. If he was hurt, maybe to get his head right. I just saw mock draft the other day that had Ty Simpson the 10th pick in the NFL draft. He's an incredibly talented player. And if he's at the top of his game, they got a good shot. Jonathan, you also have these games tomorrow, which will be interesting because you've got the smaller, you know, Ken James Madison put up a fight in Eugene, Oregon against the Ducks. Most people don't think so, but we'll see. And then Tulane, going to Ole Miss, a team that beat them by five touchdowns earlier this season. Yeah, two

heavy underdogs there in James Madison and Tulane, to be clear. A lot of buzzer on Miami, though, the lower seat against Texas A&M is in the kickoff game tomorrow. I think that's our best of the trio we'll see tomorrow, but for most, the main event tonight, obviously good luck to Joe's Crimson Tide.

Back to the NFL, just for a moment, we should note, the Rams had nearly 600 yards of offense last night, didn't turn the ball over, and still lost. That's not easy to do. you know, Seattle obviously now, as Joe is right, they're the top seed in the conference, although they have a tough finishing a couple of weeks. And we should also flag one really good NFL game tomorrow. Packers, Bears tomorrow night. That could be for these. That could be amazing.

Yeah, Commander's Eagles in the afternoon. Skip that. Watch college football. But Packers Bears in the evening, that could be for the NFC North. Yeah, I've got to say tonight, obviously, we've been looking forward to this Alabama game all week, very nervous about what's going on. Tomorrow, Willie, I think the two games are circled Miami and Texas A&M. You know, Texas A&M, we're not sure how good they are. They played teams in the bottom half of the SEC. Did not play, did not go through the top SEC scheduled at Alabama and Georgia and other teams went through Auburn.

So we don't really know yet how good Texas A&M is. Don't know how good Miami is. That should be a barn burner tomorrow. Might be a great game. And then again, soldier. field, the Packers, and the Bears, oh my gosh, is that not going to be an incredible game on Saturday night? And it's fun to have the Bears good again, you know? It's like taking me back to my youth with the Super Bowl shuffle. I'm not comparing them to the 85 Bears, but it's

fun to have the Bears right in the thick of things. Great weekend of football. I think we all agree a great weekend to stay inside and watch America's pastime. We'll be right back here on Morning, Joe.