Morning Joe - Trump backtracks over releasing video of boat strike

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Trump backtracks over releasing video of boat strike To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mr. Mr. President, why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? Why not just do it now? No, it's not the question that I mind. It's your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It's the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who's highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question. Your DOJ IG just reported this year that there was thorough vetting by DHS and by the FBI of these Afghans who were brought into the U.S. So why do you blame the Biden administration for what this man did? Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? Because they came into, on a plane, along with thousands of other people that shouldn't be here, and you're just asking questions because you're a stupid person. Are you committing to releasing the full video?

Didn't I just tell you that? You said that it was not the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious, a terrible, actually a terrible reporter, and it's always the same thing with you. I told you, whatever Pete Hankseth wants to do is okay with me. Okay, that's different. But in total there, that was a look at President Trump lashing out at reporters who press him on topics that are inconvenient for him.

Yesterday, it was releasing the video, the complete. video of the deadly strike on survivors of a boat attack. We're going to dig into the president. Now, delegating that decision to Defense Secretary Pete Hagseth, also ahead, Paramount is upping the ante in a bidding war for Warner Brothers discovery, as President Trump is again indicating that he will be involved in any deal. Meanwhile, the president is set to hold a rally today for the first time in five months. He's expected to. workshop a new message on affordability, despite repeatedly calling it a Democrat hoax. It comes as he is working on a bailout for American farmers who've been hurt by his tariffs. We'll go through

all of that. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, December 9th, along with Willie and me, we have the co-host of our 9am hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lamar, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Semaphore, Ben Smith, and CEO and co-founder of Axis Jim Van dehi. Willie, we have a lot going on this morning, and that was quite a roundup of the president bashing reporters and speaking them into a way that if our kids spoke to someone that way, we probably would ground them. Yeah, and as you point out, it's always on a topic where he doesn't have a good answer,

so attack the source instead. Or maybe it's become distracting to the topic. Right. We're going to dig into that in the moment. But, Ben, we've got to ask you first real quick here before we get into the details. Paramount David Ellison now launching a hostile bid to get Warner Brothers discovery going right to the shareholders on this. How do you see this playing out? Well, first of all, I mean, it's not that hostile to offer somebody $108 billion. That seems like it's a friendly, actually.

It's a little bit friendly, and I'm not sure David Zazlov isn't miserable that he's managed to cause a bidding war for his company. But I mean, they were, as David Ellison was on Squawk yesterday, saying, look, this is outrageous, I started this bidding war. How could I lose it, essentially? And I think the answer is if he does, it will be seen as this incredible kind of overreach, essentially arrogance in assuming that, you know, because they directed money toward the president because they felt like they were in with Trump that he was going to do them this favor. And in a way, you know, somebody who in Washington was very upset about this deal said to me, you know, it's as though the Ellison's took the worst stereotypes of the Trump administration as being totally corrupt and transactional, assumed they were true, acted on them in public. And that, I do think, rub some people in the Trump administration the wrong way, whatever you think of them. An interesting element of this, too, is that Jared Kushner, his group, is involved in this deal as well, which could bring the president into it.

And a lot of money. Okay. Well, we're going to have much more on that ahead. And Jimmy Kimmel, seems like that whole kerfuffle has actually made him bigger, getting signed for another year when there is one point talk that maybe he might step down. So all of that coming up, but first, less than one week after President Trump said he would have no problem releasing the video of that deadly restrike on a boat in the Caribbean, he's now placing the decision in the hands of his defense secretary.

Many members of Congress are pushing for the release of the full, unedited video of the attack and surrounding communications information on that, when the U.S. military launched a follow-up missile strike after seeing two survivors of the first blast still clinging to wreckage in the water. Here's what the president said about releasing that video last Wednesday, followed up by his new comments from yesterday. You release video of that first boat strike on September 2nd,

but not the second video. Will you release video of this? that strike so that the American people can see for themselves. I don't know what they have, but whatever they have would certainly release, no problem. Mr. President, you said you would have no problem with releasing the full video of that strike on September

2nd off the coast of Venezuela. Secretary Hegstead now says... I didn't say that. You said that. I didn't say that. This is ABC fake news. You said that you would have no problem releasing the full bit. Okay, well, Secretary Hegsa... Whatever He wants to do is okay with me? He now says it's under review. Are you ordering the secretary

to release that full video? Whatever he... he decides it's okay with me. So every boat we knock out of the water, every boat we save 25,000 American lives. That was a boat loaded up with drugs. I saw the video. They were trying to turn the boat back to where it could float. And we didn't want to see that because that boat was loaded up with drugs just like everything else. So obviously, I mean, there's the tape. A week ago, he said one thing he claims now yesterday that it's fake news that he said the thing we just saw him say on tape. Again, it just gets at what we pointed out. out at the top of the show. He's floundering on this. The Pentagon is floundering on this

question. They're getting criticism still from some Republican members of Congress. There's talk of withholding funds for Pete Hags that's travel until they see this video, the second video of the second at strike on the vote. Where is the White House landing here in terms of an answer and a response? Because it's been a tough couple of weeks. Yeah, flailing's the right way to put it. First of all, we have Democrats, the handful of who have seen the video, say, including Congressman Himes, we talked about this yesterday, say, it's one of the most disturbing things he's ever seen as an American, just the, and we have people describe it to, have described it to us as these two men on the boat for 40 minutes. And then before that second

missile comes in and kills them, they were clearly no threat to anyone. But we are seeing some Republicans push back as well. Now, like the chair, chair, our service committee, chairman, Senator Wicker, we haven't heard from them yet. So that's a big voice that needs to wait in here. But others have said, look, we need to see this video. If it's, if it's exonerating, great, let's see it. But if it's not, then we have more questions about the legality. of this strike and potentially others. As you say, Willie, now they're putting at least a little bit of teeth into this by suggesting they might withhold some funding. But in terms of inside the West Wing, they recognize the story they can't get their arms around right now. It seems

to be spiraling by the day. And for Secretary Hegseth, you know, he's received votes of confidence from the president. He gave them another one yesterday. But there are plenty in that building who say, look, he's already lost the Pentagon. We've seen him, you know, be reduced to a lot of like attacks on woke rather than being at the front lines of negotiations with Ukraine, let's say. and that his job security, though he's not in imminent danger, there are people around him who say, look, the president is tiring of this distraction. Okay. And then Jim Vandehi, questioning of the administration's tactics with these boat strikes is coming from perhaps an unlikely source. He's been yelling at reporters, but I think this is one that he likes a lot. Unlakely source. Longtime Trump supporter and far-right political activist, Laura Lumer.

She was recently granted press credentials to cover the Pentagon. And in a post to social media yesterday, Lumer questioned the focus on attacking boats from Venezuela, writing in part, given that 90% of the drugs coming into the U.S. that are killing Americans are coming from Mexico, when can we expect to see airstrikes on the Mexican cartels in Mexico? Lumer continued, writing a support-killing narco-terrorists. I'm simply wondering when the U.S. government is going to go. to carry out airstrikes on Mexican cartels who are responsible for 92% of the flow of drugs into our country.

She added 8% of the drug supply into the U.S. comes from Venezuela, and it's not fentanyl. So when you've lost Laura Lumer, Jim Van der Heye, that's my first question. And my second one is I think it's fair to say that it's also a big question to back up a little bit and talk about these strikes overall and whether or not they are lawful. And again, I'm waiting to hear from Roger Wicker on that. Yeah, again, I'm skeptical until proven otherwise that Republicans are really going to stand up to Trump and really force his hand on this if he doesn't want to release the video. I think the fact that you have Laura Lumer criticizing it, I think it speaks to like pretty widespread concern with how they've handled the whole topic.

I also think it speaks to a broader topic that we've touched on before, which is, is this meltdown inside of MAGA, where you take the 10 most powerful people, all of whom could be massive assets to the president, and they spend almost every day infighting with each other and these awful allegations. And if you watch any of the MAGA media over the weekend, just terrible, gross, kind of accusations against each other about their sexuality and their commitment to America, what Tucker Carlson is doing, whether or not he's going to buy a place in the Middle East. and that was the base of the party.

That was the power of the party. And when you start to see those members of MAGA turn on each other and then turn on the president, it just takes away one of his weapons in terms of getting Republicans to fall in line. But I end where we began, which is until I truly see Republicans force his hand, I think it's rhetoric and I think it's, yes, it's indicative that they're willing to say a couple of things, mild things against the president. But let's see if they really force him to release that video when Pete Hagseth doesn't want to and the president doesn't want to. Yeah, it does feel like token resistance for the moment.

We'll see. Let's bring into the conversation, staff writer at the Atlantic covering national security and the Defense Department, Nancy Yusef. Nancy, good to see you. You, John Lemire, others co-authored this piece about Pete Hegzeth. Pete Hegs is seriously testing Trump's no scalp's rule is the title of the piece. So what are you hearing from inside the administration? about the frustration from the President or others in the White House with Secretary Heggseth, and will it come to a head at some point?

Well, last week was a particularly bad week for the Defense Secretary. In addition to questions about this double-tap strike, questions about the mission writ large and what impact is actually having on drug trafficking into the United States. He was also sued by one of the victims of these strikes by the family who said that this man wasn't a drug trafficker, but a fisherman. He was sued by the New York Times for restricting reporters from covering the Pentagon. So he's faced a number of questions around his leadership. And they've all been sort of rooted in questions about his judgment.

And so as Jonathan points out, there isn't indications that he is in imminent danger. But you are seeing a lot of questions about his ability to conduct the job. And within the Pentagon, it's leading to, in some cases, resignations from, people who were fearful that they'll be in the position that Admiral Bradley was in, where they carry out an order and have to then carry the burden of that decision in a political climate and a command climate that the Secretary himself created. And Nancy, let's talk a little further about these strikes themselves, even in the midst of this furor around the September 2nd strike, Secretary Higseth authorized another a couple of days ago. There's still sort of an open question

as to if the U.S. will expand its operations, perhaps with ground strikes. The president keeps hinting that that could come in days ahead as they try to pressure Maduro out. What's the latest you're hearing in terms of what, you know, there's so much U.S. military assets in the region. What could be next? It's, I'm glad you mentioned that, that video, because up until that point, there have been 21 previous strikes, either the president or the secretary defense released those videos. That last video was released by, by U.S. Southern Command, which I think speaks to some effort to sort of distance themselves from the release of those videos.

So what we've seen now is a massive military buildup in that region. More ships there since the Cuban Missile Crisis, upwards of 15,000 troops total. And the second double-tap strike has really opened the aperture on a wider conversation about what the U.S. military intends to do in Venezuela. Remember that these missions have not had congressional authorization, and even before the questions around the September 2nd strike, there had been frustrations on both sides of the aisle about this mission.

What is it hoping to achieve? How do striking these boats really stop the flow of drugs into the United States when the most deadly drug fentanyl is not coming through these waters or on these ships? And whether these strikes are actually leading into possible regime change? If so, what does the U.S. hope to achieve? And what is the day after it look like, even if the United States achieves its goal of potentially the fall of the Maduro regime. And so right now, the military presence remains there.

But at the Pentagon, there seems to be a sense that as there are questions about these September strikes, the initial ones, that it is harder to have a bigger conversation about whether this mission can be escalated into potential ground operations into Venezuela. Staff writer at the Atlantic, Nancy Yusef, thank you very much.

And of course, we remember the video that the Democrats put out that told members of the military, just reminding them of their oath and that they don't have to follow and they should not follow illegal orders. And we've shown you a lot on this show. Pete Hagezeth himself saying that and believing that, apparently. But here is more of that. Some more examples of Pete Hegseth talking about what troops should do.

This is from back in 2016. Military leaders saying you could not possibly kill the families of would-be terrorists, and they would not follow the order. And is answered, Donald Trump's answer, and what if the generals won't listen to you? When you say, take out the family, they'll listen. That's really not the answer. No, I got some response from vets on that saying you're not just going to follow that order if it's unlawful. Military is not even going to follow his orders.

Military's not going to follow illegal orders. And so the Trump campaign was forced to change their position and say, we're going to try to change the law so that the military can operate within the law. That's a tall order also. But then when pressed on it, he's an armchair tough guy. I hate to say it. But this is a guy who said that John McCain is not a war hero, yet he sought his own five military deferments.

But he goes way too far. And then when the military says, we won't follow illegal orders like torture or killing families, which is not loosening the rules of engagement, he suddenly realizes, wait, I might actually be commander-in-chief. And the problem here is that voters don't know whether you get the bluster Trump, which is the armchair tough guy, or you get the one who walks it back on a statement now and says, no, no, no, I'll follow the law. Here's the problem with Trump.

He says, go ahead and kill the families, go ahead and torture, go ahead and go further than waterboarding. What happens when people follow those orders or don't follow them? It's not clear that Donald Trump will have their back. Donald Trump is oftentimes about Donald Trump. Wow, that's him literally talking about Donald Trump. I know he said it so many times, but just to put some quotes around it, Pete Hagseth on Donald Trump, he won't follow illegal orders, and that's bad. Armchair, tough guy.

Armchair tough guy. So think about when that was, Ben. That was March of 2016, all those clips we just saw there. That's Pete Hagseth, who then and now actually understands the rules of engagement, despite what he's saying. He's changed his tune now to say, we're going to get rid of stupid rules of engagement, I guess permitting boat strikes on those fishing boats. but in March of 2016, it still maybe felt safe to criticize Donald Trump and the Republican Party

to say what you actually believe. Now, of course, he's brought everyone under his thumb. Yeah, I mean, that was the last moment, probably, when you, back in 2016, and Republicans assumed he wouldn't win the primary that he wouldn't be president and could say whatever they want. It really does show, on one hand, how consistent Trump has been in a lot, particularly his approach to, you know, we should take the shackles off the military. I mean, one irony is that hegeseth got his job in more or less a similar way. I mean, his sort of core crusade was defending American soldiers accused of war crimes. And so while they may have had a dispute there, I mean, the basic trend of Trump's management of the military is they should be, you know, they should be less

restrained, they should worry less about killing people. You know, given Jonathan and Nancy's reporting that really tracks not just what has happened here, but his 10-month tenure, I mean, starting with Signalgate, so much unheaval, firing so many people in the Pentagon, bringing his spouse in on pretty classified meetings, as well as maybe a brother or a brother-in-law, this sort of erratic behavior, macho behavior, and also the families of some of the victims here have begun filing human rights complaints. And again, instead of taking responsibility, Hegseth is sloughing it off on someone else and still acting like a tough guy. And Jim Vanda High says he doesn't think Republicans will ever come to the table and stand up to Trump or he's not holding his breath at least, Jim.

But, you know, they do have to consider the danger that, first of all, they were warned about in the nomination process vehemently across the board about how unfit Pete Hegseth was for the job and now potentially. how completely unfit he is for the job leading the Pentagon. Right, but as you know, what Republicans think and what Republicans do are two totally different things. It's not like those senators were sitting there enthusiastically wanting to put Pete Heggseth in as Secretary of Defense. They did it reluctantly. The president had to intervene and persuade some of them that he was the real deal. They understood exactly what they were getting into. And they did that with the entire cabinet.

They've done that with every single Trump policy. they feel like he's a president. He won. He won in areas they didn't think they could ever win in so that they have to be deferential to him. From day one through today, they've continued to be wholly deferential. So maybe, yes, they should stand up to them. You could make that argument, but they haven't. And until they do, I'm going to be deeply, deeply skeptical of it. And the viewer should be deeply skeptical of it because the Republican Party has continued to fall in line. This one is problematic because there are serious senators who have deep, deep reservations about this entire military operation.

We keep going back to this one shooting of this one ship. You're talking about dispatching the U.S. military to the shores of South America to wage war, at least on these ships, potentially on a nation, without any authorization, and without really any explanation. It's still not even totally clear to me as somebody who really thinks about this and talks to people about it. What exactly is he up to? Is it about regime change? Is it about putting pressure on Maduro? Is it about stopping the flow of drugs? If it is about stopping the flow of drugs, it makes no sense at all because that's not where most of the bad drugs that are full of fentanyl are actually coming from.

So that discordant explanation of it is why Republicans are troubled. With all that said, I'm still skeptical that they're going to do anything about it. Well, the generals we've had on the show say, if this is a war, it's we're talking about war crimes, which is a whole new level. Still ahead on morning Joe President Trump's former personal lawyer, Alina Habibu. is stepping down as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor. We're going to take a look at several U.S. attorneys, including Haba, who have either lost their jobs or are under scrutiny for how they got those positions in the first place. Plus, President Trump is rolling out a $12 billion bailout for struggling U.S. farmers.

Is it a sign his sweeping tariffs are not working? And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Ackyweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Meekup, burr, is it cold this morning? And it stays cold in the northeast, your acuether exclusive forecast, increasing clouds, New York City, Boston. There will be a little snow this morning in Detroit, Buffalo this afternoon. How about snooze and cruise weather?

I talk across the southeast. It's just dry, although there can be a couple of showers in South Florida. If you're doing any traveling, the acuether travel forecast, green is good. so there shouldn't be any delays. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, make sure to download the Akiwether app today. Well, I'm sorry that you feel that way, about 60 minutes.

And the last thing I want to do is upset you during this sensitive time. But I have one more bit of entertainment news to share. And that is that I've decided to extend my contract here at ABC for another year. Late night host, Jimmy Kimmel, with that announcement yesterday. after he was briefly suspended by ABC in September for his comments about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. With the new extension, Jimmy Kimmel Live will continue through May of 2027. So you heard Kimmel mentioned Trump's complaints about the most recent episode of 60 Minutes. That shows parent company, Paramount, is looking to compete now with Netflix

in acquiring Warner Brothers Discovery. The media giant announced its hostile takeover bid yesterday with offer of $77.9 billion compared to Netflix's offer of $72 billion. The offer from Paramount all cash and worth $30 a share. Paramount run by David Ellison looking to take over all of Warner, including networks like CNN and TBS. Paramount has accused Warner of never meaningfully engaging with its previous takeover proposals, while Warner still recommends supporting the Netflix deal for now. So, Ben, for the layman who hasn't been, like, deep in the pages of the Wall Street Journal and understands all the machinations of this, let's pull back just a little bit. So Netflix announces this massive deal, this purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery. What is David Ellison

and Paramount doing right now? So, I mean, just in the biggest picture for regular people, everybody knows there are too many streaming services. You have nine subscriptions. It's, you know, Paramount Plus, really. And so there is a race to consolidate them. So, you only have a couple. That's sort of the big picture. Paramount, owned basically by one of the richest men in the world, Larry Ellison, who is David's father. He's making basically a pretty reasonable decision. We are too small. We have all this cash. We're going to try and acquire the second biggest thing out there, which is Warner, which includes HBO, includes his incredible library of films, Harry Potter, all sorts of stuff like that, went very, very aggressively.

And then to everybody's surprise, Netflix, which, you know, has never really bought anything like this just jumped in with both feet. Netflix, huge public company, very, very well capitalized, very strong balance sheet. And Warner suddenly finds it, I mean, and Ellison suddenly finds himself, despite their personal wealth, the underdog here, they've brought in money from each of the major Gulf states, the Saudis, the Emirates, and the Qataris, and Jared Kushner. That brings a whole other set of financial baggage around how fully guaranteed is that money. And then they've also had to promise, but don't worry, we won't give any of those people board seats. They'll stay out of, and so it's become a very kind of complicated, messy situation with all sorts of

consequence, among other things, for people who make movies who are freaked out that they're basically only going to have one customer at the end of this. Interesting. Jim Vandehy, if you could break it down for people who are like, what does this all mean? What's at stake here in these deals? I mean, so much of the attention is on CNN, but it's kind of the dog asset within the portfolio. It right now is a cash cow, but over time, these are really tough businesses to run. What's at stake is like can you really get this massive library of films and can you, as part of the consolidation like Ben said, can you win that war? It's interesting because I think for consumers, you're like, wait a second, this is about, there's concerns about whether or not this is

going to be a monopoly. It feels like we have too many choices. I'm with Ben. Like I'm trying to watch something. I've got seven or eight subscriptions. I feel like I have too much choice. I want fewer choices. And I think that's probably how most consumers feel. But that political aspect's real. There's lot of reporting that the president has been very clear, especially at Paramount, that if they own CNN, he wants to say in how it's run, who runs it, what its reporting is like, which is crazy. This idea of presidents intervening in specific business deals. I mean, imagine if Kamala Harris were president and she was saying Fox wanted to do a transaction. I said, sure, I'll do this transaction as long as I get to pick who's running Fox and what your programming

is that would drive the right batty. But that's essentially what the president's doing. And I think that Paramount smartly understands how much the president cares about TV, cares about CNN. So I think it's one of the cards that they're paying. I don't think this is over. I think both companies are going to make bigger bids. It is fun drama, I think for Ben, for me, for reporters who are covering it in the deep in the industry, the end result for consumers is probably not going to make a darn bit of

difference in your life. And as you say, David Zazlov, who runs Warner Brothers Discovery, is enjoying this bidding war. You can be sure of that. But on the political question, the Wall Street Journal has an op-ed and its editorial page today saying this is not the way capitalism is supposed to work, which is to say the President of the United States season interview on 60 Minutes with Marjorie Taylor Green puts an angry post up as a message effectively to David Ellison of like get control of your people or I'm going to let Netflix have this deal.

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right because there was a sort of, I think it was widely felt there was kind of a nod in a wink that when the Ellison's got Paramount, they'd return CBS into a pro-Trump Trump Network. People at CBS were very freaked out about that. But what they also did was CBS put its new editor-in-chief, Barry Weiss, in this position where there's incredible scrutiny on how they are treating Trump. And they have a huge impulse to prove their independence from Donald Trump, which is, of course, not what Donald Trump wants. Yeah, that's a fascinating story unfolding inside that network. Co-founder and editor-in-chief of Semaphore, Ben Smith, thank you very much for coming on. His new reporting on the Paramount

story is online right now. And CEO and co-founder of Axis, Jim Vandehi, thank you as well. We're going to be reading his new piece entitled Trump Betts Party Presidency on AI. And coming up, do President Trump's own mortgages match the description of mortgage fraud? That reporting is straight ahead. Plus, the Supreme Court appears poised to expand President Trump's power over independent agencies. We're going to break down that expected ruling. Morning Joe is coming right back. Hertz picked up. Intercepted and now the ball's out and Hertz ends up with a ball in his hands.

He fumbles. Chargers ball. Now you don't see that. day. Why? Because it's never happened before. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hertz throws an interception and then fumbles on the same play. Two turnovers on the same play by the same player. Two of five turnovers committed by Hertz against the Chargers last night. Chargers' offense wasn't great either. In fairness, Herber had a broken hand. The quarterback, they went cold after the opening drive touchdown relied on five field goals, including one for the lead in L.A.'s

first possession of overtime. But Hertz tossed away Philly's overtime opportunity. With his fourth interception of the game, the Eagles were in field goal range, too, to tie at a tipped ball. Chargers hang on to win 22 to 19. It was not pretty, but they got the W.

They now move within two games of first place in the AFC West. So, John, the Chiefs, not leaving him for dead yet, but they're in a spiral right now. The Eagles are not playing well. the two elite teams of the conferences now look to be sort of stepping aside maybe, making way for others. Yeah, that was last year's Super Bowl. The Chiefs are in worse shape than the Eagles.

They, of course, lost Sunday night to the Texans. And with the L.A. win last night with the Chargers, the Chiefs are full two games behind even the last Wild Car team. They're three behind the Chargers now. So basically, the Chiefs would have to win out and have someone else lose out. Like their chances of making the playoffs, I think it's like single digits at this point, which is a remarkable fall for which has obviously been the preeminent team the last handful of years. As for the Eagles, I mean, they're still eight and five. They've got a game and a half lead on the Cowboys. Cowboys have a tie.

Boy, they're not playing well. And the questions about Jalen Hertz, which we thought were answered last year. When he was a Super Bowl MVP, he played great. That offense has completely stalled in recent weeks. Their closing schedule is pretty soft. You'd think they'd still make the NFC East, but they don't look nearly as dangerous going into the playoffs. You'd think, though, to be fair, if there's ever a team that could turn it on,

and we've been saying that about the Chiefs this whole time, too. You have to give these guys a benefit of the doubt. Lisa Rubin's here for a separate story, obviously, but I see the pain on your face. Eagles fan. Are the Eagles going to be okay, Lisa? I believe in Howie Roseman. Sure. Highe Roseman is a hero in my house. We own a lot of Hertz jerseys at the Ruben-Orem household.

Go birds. And by the way, even great playoff teams, they go through a little swoon sometimes that win their last four games. They get hot again. This becomes part of the narrative that how they came back from this. Quick note, also, Heisman finalists announced last night, led by Diego, of Vanderbilt, of course, who has the most impressive stats of any of the quarterbacks by a long shot. The frontrunner may be Francisco Mendoza just because he's the quarterback at Indiana of the number one team in the country right now. Jeremiah Love from Notre Dame and Julian Sane from Ohio State.

So we'll be watching for that on Saturday night. Really, we know who has your vote. Well, I mean, I'm voting for, if I had one, of course, for Diego Pavia, because I went to Vanderbilt. Also, the numbers just show it. He's a better quarterback than the others. We'll see what happens. Also, I mentioned Jeremiah Love, great player for Notre Dame. Notre Dame over the last couple of days after they didn't get into the playoff,

it has been fascinating to watch the way they've refused to go ahead and play in their bowl game, that they have complained for two days now about the process, that it's a joke, that it's unfair. The truth of the matter is they play two tough games at the beginning of the season, Miami and Texas A&M. They lose both of them. And then they go on a 10-game winning streak against, like, Syracuse and Boston College. So Miami beat them head-to-head, John.

I'm not sure what the complaint is exactly when Miami had the same record and beat you. Yeah, that's the simplest explanation. Almost that was a playoff game to make the playoffs. And that one, Miami won. Yeah, Notre Dame has really gotten angry last. They've teed off on the ACC. Yeah.

Because the ACC, the way they lobbied to get Miami in, they're saying the AD is, you know, the headline here unloaded, in fact, on the ACC. I mean, Notre Dame's always sort of existed in this weird place, of course, in the college football landscape, and they have such a national brand and following, I think they assumed that the TV networks

and the committee would want them in this playoffs. And, of course, that didn't happen. But I guess it also just speaks. We're talking about this a little bit yesterday, too, that even though you expand the field, you can't eliminate the controversy. There's always going to be somebody upset. And I think there are some in the game

who think the drama's good. It keeps more eyeballs on it. At least expand it to 16, maybe get rid of the conference championship games and make that weekend the first round and then you get a couple more. Well, I think that's the other beat here. The conference championship case, which you really used to matter.

That was a big Saturday every December. Meaningless, exactly. All right, other stories to cover besides the Eagles losing. Alina Haba has announced she is stepping down as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey. The former personal attorney for President Trump made the announcement yesterday following a ruling by a panel of federal appeals court judges that she was unlawfully serving in the role after overstaying her. temporary term. President Trump blamed Haba's resignation on the Senate's so-called blue-slip tradition, which essentially lets home state senators veto presidential nominees to district courts and U.S. attorney offices.

It's a horrible thing. It makes it impossible to appoint a judge or a U.S. attorney, and it's a shame. And the Republicans should be ashamed of themselves that they allow this to go on because I can't appoint a U.S. attorney that's not a Democrat because they put a block on it. So if you appoint in Virginia or in New Jersey or in California, a U.S. attorney or a judge. I mean, a judge situation is ridiculous. The only people that you can get by are Democrats because they will put a hold on it. The department says it plans to seek a further review of the situation. and Haba could return as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor if the ruling is overturned.

As for now, Haba will remain at the DOJ in a newly created role as senior advisor to the Attorney General for U.S. attorneys. So I guess they could bring her back and what is this telling us? They can't bring her back absent Mika, a different ruling from the Third Circuit in Bonk, meaning all of the judges agree to rehear it or a contrary ruling by the Supreme Court. But in the meantime, as you noted, they sort of put it on ice. He made some announcements yesterday about personnel changes in the District of New Jersey that deliberately leave the U.S. attorney slot open. That's because President Trump and Attorney General Bondi don't have any other statutory routes to install someone on a temporary basis there. They've got two choices.

He can either nominate someone and have the Senate confirm them, or they can leave the situation open. and allow district judges to fill that void as they are entitled to do by statute. It remains to be seen whether the judges of the district of New Jersey will try that route again. They did try it right as Alina Haba was about to lose her job the first time. And what did they do? Pam Bondi fired the person that the district judges chose, immediately put Alina Haba into her place, and then elevated her again to U.S. attorney. I think this whole game of musical chairs is about to come to a stop.

The question is, what will higher courts do vis-a-vis Alina Haba? And perhaps more importantly, what will they do with respect to a number of other similarly situated U.S. attorneys around the country, the most notable of which is, of course, Lindsay Halligan. Yeah. I was going to ask you about that, Lisa, you got a piece that's about to post on MS Now's website where the authority of several federal appointments have been challenged. The authority of Lindsay Halligan, as you mentioned, of Alina Haba. But the list goes on.

of people who were not qualified for the jobs or put in those places, have made missteps in many cases. Is this now going to be a trend that some of those further beyond Halligan, beyond Haba, are going to lose their positions as well? Some of them already have, at least technically, according to judges' ruling. So I'll give you an example, Segal Chata and the District of Nevada. She's been ruled to have been unlawfully appointed, but the judge who made that ruling also agreed to stay it, pending her appeal to the Ninth Circuit. You also have a couple of others who in progress and look like that could trend in the wrong direction for them. One of them is John Sarkone.

He's now the interim U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, that's the Albany region, where he is conducting a separate and different investigation into Tish James than the one that led to her indictment in the Eastern District of Virginia. And the New York Attorney General's office was subpoenaed in that matter. They moved to quash or invalidate the subpoenas on the grounds that John Sarkone, like Alina Haba, like Lindsay Halligan, was invalidly appointed. judge last week at a hearing in that matter said the only remedy here isn't just invalidating the subpoenas. If I find that he was invalidly appointed, I'm going to have to disqualify him as

well. All right. The U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to once again expand presidential powers. It comes as its conservative majority yesterday appeared to back the move by the White House to remove the board members of independent federal agencies. The court would effectively overturn the 90-year-old unanimous decision known as Humphreys executor, which limited when presidents can fire agency board members. That decision was put back in place in 1935, in part, to ensure the boards would work free from political influence. So talk about what's at stake here. Well, I think what's at stake here isn't just whether or not Rebecca Slaughter, who was a commissioner to the federal Trade Commission can be restored to her job. I think after hearing the argument yesterday,

most people agree Rebecca Slaughter is not going to be serving on the FTC in the future. But Mika, more broadly, the arguments that the government is making about overturning Humphrey's executor would allow the president to fire members of multi-member commissions that sort of form an alphabet soup of how Washington functions, everything from the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Elections Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, all sorts of regulatory bodies that help establish the ground rules for how industry works in this country. And it's no accident that the president is going after some of these bodies arcane or not. Because remember that the conservative legal movement right now has sort of

two twin pillars. One is enlarged executive power at the expense of the other two branches. But the other thing is they don't like the administrative state. Last term, the Supreme Court overruled a case called Chevron, which led to. a lot of deference to the ways that agencies made regulations. Supreme Court said, we're not going to do that anymore. And that has huge consequences for everything from environmental regulation to economic regulation in this country. Is there a stopping point to this? For example,

some of the liberal justices asked yesterday, well, if he can fire people like FTC commissioners, can he just get rid of any civil servant to? And what about the Fed? That's the biggest outstanding question. And Lisa Cook will have her own day before the Supreme Court next month. So Lisa, Lisa, you're You're certainly right that the Supreme Court has been favoring the executive branch all the time, which is why it was so striking. They seemed so skeptical of Trump's arguments about tariffs a few weeks ago.

So give us an update there. When should we expect a ruling on that? That's a very hard question to answer. So I'm going to give you the most precise one that I can. The president has been posting on it nearly nonstop. It's probably in front of mind for him. And I think that's because the president in his mind is trying to influence perhaps the decision making or at least the court of a public opinion in the meantime.

We could get a decision in the tariffs case any time. I don't know, sometime next week to the end of June. That's when the Supreme Court's term ends. But, you know, generally, historically speaking, the more important a decision is, the longer it takes the Supreme Court to decide, the more it waits to almost the end of the term at the beginning of July. So any time between now and July, John, there's your answer. And that one who creates such uncertainty for business leaders in the economy because they're not sure. Who are being hurt.

Right, the tariffs. I mean, he may say they're not out loud, but they're being hurt by the tariffs. They'll tell you that themselves. MS now senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin, thank you very much. And still ahead on Morning Joe while the latest on the deadly September vote strikes. Could the full video be released as President Trump now claims he never said he would release it? Morning Joe will be right back.