Morning Joe - ‘What ghouls are justifying this?’: Joe outraged by claims shooting victim was a domestic terrorist

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

‘What ghouls are justifying this?’: Joe outraged by claims shooting victim was a domestic terrorist 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.

Those are law enforcement officers being physically attacked. By this standard, would any of those officers being justified in shooting and killing the people causing them physical harm? Every single situation is going to rely on the situation those officers are on. That they know that when people are putting hands on them, when they are using weapons against them, when they are physically harming them, that they have the authority to arrest those individuals. The president pardoned every single one of those people. and make sure that they're getting justice for their actions going forward. President Trump pardoned every single one of those people.

And every single one of these investigations comes in the full context of the situation on the ground. Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Knoem pressed yesterday on the apparent double standard for capital police officers during the January 6th riot and ICE agents currently on the ground in U.S. cities. It depends on the situation on the ground. Well, does that mean it's okay if police officers? officers have the hell beaten out of them because they buy into a bullshit conspiracy theory. I don't, I don't see that in police regulations. I don't see that in ICE regulations. I don't see that in any regulations in Washington, D.C., but people that were beating the hell out of police officers, people who were found guilty by a jury of their peers for beating the

hell out of police officers on January 6th. Pardon. Noam is now sending more federal officers to Minneapolis as protests continue there in response to the deadly shooting of Renee Good last week by an ICE agent. And while the Trump administration is trying to crack down on protests at home, President Trump is showing support for demonstrators in the Middle East amid growing unrest across Iran. Meanwhile, the president says he may block ExxonMobil from operations in Venezuela after the company's CEO called the country, quote, uninvestable. Now, where did we hear that before? We heard it last week, David Ignatius, reporting the day after, that at least right now, it is uninvestable because it's too dangerous and it's going to take a while to bring stability to the country. And when stability comes to the country, then they'll send oil executives.

down there, but they don't want their oil executives beaten up. They don't want their families. If they go down or other people kidnapped by motorcycle gangs that are in the streets right now, I mean, there's been a warning sent, Mika, over the weekend that if you're an American, watch out, get out of Venezuela because they're coming for you. So why would an oil company, which, again, at some point, I mean, they want money. They're in it for the money. They're in it for the bottom line, they just understand that if America's telling Americans, the American government, that you need to get out of Venezuela, why would they send their people into Venezuela right now? It's going to take a while.

Uninvestable. It comes as he continues to talk about taking control of Greenland, one way or another, despite warnings on what that could mean for the future of the NATO partnership. Plus, federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into Fed chair. Jerome Powell will show you how he responded. A lot going on on this Monday morning. And with us we have for it, staff writer at the Atlantic, Frank Four, CEO and co-founder of Axis, Jim Vandahai. Good to have you both. Let's get right to it.

Thousands of people, both in Minneapolis and across the country, hit the streets to protest the recent deadly ice activity. Nearly every major city saw demonstrations marching in opposition of the immigration crackdown and the death of Renee Nicole Good last week. The Progressive Organization Indivisible said there were more than 1,000 planned events scheduled over the weekend. In Minneapolis, police said more than two dozen people were detained after a Friday night protest. Most were cited and later released. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam says hundreds of federal officers are being deployed to Minneapolis. Some of the officers arrived yesterday. Others will be there today.

Noam told Fox News the extra reinforcements are needed to support ICE and Border Patrol operations. She also defended her statements about the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good last week. If they conduct violent activities against law enforcement, if they impede our operations, that's a crime, and we will hold them accountable to those consequences. I'll remind everyone, Maria, that every single thing that I've said has been factual about what's been going on in Minneapolis, what's been going on in Minnesota, and with the incident that we had where we had a tragic loss of life. You know, when you lie about your lies, when you lie about your lies, and then, And this is a trick that over the past 10 years, as we've gotten into this new Orwellian sort of sense, you'll have podcasts saying, here comes the most honest person of all time, or here comes the greatest historian of all time. And then they'll say that like World War II was Churchill's fault.

Or they'll say, this is the most honest person I've ever seen in the world. Or everything I say is true. You know, Christine Elm right there, Frank Four, says, everything I have said about ice and everything. She says it's true. No, no, it's just the opposite. You go back to her cowboy hat press conference. Everything she said was a lie. Absolutely everything.

And while we're looking at the head of DHS, a couple of things for President Trump to keep in mind While looking at the person who is running this agency into the ground and running his numbers down on the issue of immigration, approval of Christy Knomes, ICE itself has plummeted 30 percentage points since she took control. I read it an Axis, so I know it's true. It's a you-gov poll. and more than half of Americans, 54%, say ISIS tactics are too extreme, and only about 25% support the tactics. Frank Four, Americans are seeing their streets occupied, and they're seeing the, you know, it's so crazy after you have the Secretary of Defense, and yes, that's what it's called Secretary of Defense, talking about, quote, fat officers and fat, fat members of the military.

How ironic that we see all of these fat out of shape people that they push through, right? And in how long? Instead of five months, they have these shortened training sessions. So they go out there and they're ill-equipped to handle what professional law enforcement officers, the NYPD or the LAPD or any of our law enforcement agencies are equipped to do. And suddenly, tragedy is unfolding on the streets. But we all predicted this was going to happen. We all said, these guys are untrained.

They're out of shape. They don't know the basics of law enforcement. Tragedy is going to strike. And sure enough, it's striking. And ISIS numbers are plummeting. Donald Trump's, I mean, the Wall Street Journal said it last week, even on the one issue that he's always been strong on immigration, those numbers are plummeting. Why? Not because of the southern border, because the southern border is like sealed off. It's because of what Christine Ome is doing with ice. Right. You have these paramilitary squads being parachuted into cities where they're not welcome. They've, they don't have any.

of the training that a conventional police officer would have about interacting with the community. They feel besieged. They've been allowed to operate with this alternative set of rules where their faces are covered. They're operating in these vehicles that are that are stealth and are intended to blend in. And they feel as if the community around them is hostile to them, which in fact, it is hostile to them. And it's a terrible cocktail where you have police officers who aren't up to the job being thrust into an impossible situation where they have infinite authority and are suddenly confronting huge numbers of citizens who aren't comfortable with the presence of this alien force operating in their streets. It is something that I think you

could only say has been designed to induce the sort of confrontations that we're seeing right now in Minneapolis. Well, and me, Capri, Christyneau, ice, the ICE professionals at work, they did it along the border for the most part. Well, they're border agents. They're not urban. That's the training. They're not trained to engage in what's happening. Now, the NYPD, they know how to do that. Right. They're extraordinarily professional. You look at the LAPD, you look at other police, they're used to that. That's what they're trained for. Under Christyneum, she has put all of these people that are grossly ill-equipped to do this. New recruits that had a really shortened training time.

And they're breaking protocol right and left. They're breaking procedure right and left. I mean, if you, the much talked about video or everyone's looking at the shots and what the angle was, which is absolutely legitimate to look at. There's, I mean, from the beginning, the ICE agent is walking in front of the car. You don't do that. The ICE agent is shooting at the car. You don't do that.

And then who... Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. He's carrying a phone. He's holding his phone. What ICE agent is fumbling with his phone and a weapon. Like, who are you doing, your family videos, along with a weapon?

It's nuts. Nobody does. And you look at the shots that are up there. There are the first shot, his feet are to the side of the car. I'm sorry for people that don't like the truth and you want to watch shows that lie to you and want to watch networks that lie to you and want to watch podcasts that lie to you. I'm sorry you don't like the truth. But here are the shots.

Much debate over shot number one. What was she trying to do? And the poor fools that sent out the video of his. His phone thinking it was going to help him, those poor fools have no idea that they just made his case worse. And then look at the second shot. He's at the side of the car shooting point blank inside of the car. And then the third shot, again, side of the car extended, shooting right in her window point blank. looks like it's directed straight at her head.

Now, we could find out which one of those shots, or two of those shots, were the kill shots. I suspect even this officer couldn't have missed from point-blank range aiming straight at her head from the side. That would get any police officer with any investigation in deep, deep trouble. But what's happened here, Mika? What's happened here is the feds have swooped in

and basically shut down any real investigations. So when you have Christy Knoem off the top saying, oh, she's a domestic terrorist. Yeah. The same woman that said, hey, I'm not mad at you. Her last words, we're good. I'm not mad at you. The woman in the video is not screaming,

she's not being a radical extremist spent on killing an ice. agent says Charlie Sykes. Her very last words on this earth were conciliatory, not threatening. That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you. And even when you see her turning her steering wheel sharply to the right to avoid him. Look at this. Look, look, look, that's what Christy known called a domestic terrorist. Right here. The last seconds of her life, she's sharply turning her steering wheel to the right to avoid the ICE agent, who, of course, is standing to the side of the car now because she's turning sharply to the right. And slowly. And slowly. And he shoots her despite the fact she's turning sharply to the right. And then just for good measure, shoots her at what appears.

appears to be at her head at point blank range from the side of the car, when he's at the side of the car, when he's completely out of danger, completely out of danger. And again, who's justifying this? Who, what ghouls are justifying this? Is that, is that where America, but I guarantee you this. if there was a 27-year-old Iranian mother that was trying to drive out of an area of protest, and a member of Iran's security forces stuck a gun to the side of her car and shot at her head in point-blank range,

oh my God, the world would be up in arms and Donald Trump, as you will see when we play the clip, would use that as justification for invading Iran. But here you actually have people calling this woman a domestic, I mean, who raised you? Yeah. I've got to ask that question. Who raised you to celebrate the shooting of a 27-year-old mother whose last word? were conciliate, 37-year-old, whose last words were conciliatory and who was trying to leave the scene. And not just shooting from the front side of the car, but just for good measure,

aiming twice in her window at the side for two kill shots. Look at shot two. Side of the car, leaning in to shoot at her. And then look at shot three. Again, completely clear of the car still, aiming to shoot at what appears to be her head. A final kill shot? Well, we really wouldn't know, would we? Because the feds have desperately tried to clean this up

as quickly as they could. Taking the investigation. And taken the investigation away from people who actually might conduct an honest fair and straight investigation. Instead of having an investigation done when you have the secretary who is responsible for this, calling her a domestic terrorist and talking about snow banks, like right after this happened, getting everything wrong. Well, listen, Mika thinks I'm too optimistic.

But I do think the wills of justice do grind finally. And I do think those that are responsible for this killing will ultimately be held accountable in the court of law. I just do. We're still, despite the fact that Christy Noem thinks that ICE agents can shoot whoever they want to shoot from a side window, that's not what we are at. what she should have be doing right now, what Donald Trump should be doing right now, what the administration should be doing right now is saying this guy screwed up. We're going to do. You know what they should do? They should actually do what Tom Holman did. I'm not going to pass any judgment right now.

That would be unprofessional is what he said. That would be unprofessional. Let's get the investigation on it. And then do an honest and fair and straight investigation. and then after doing that, let the chips fall where they may. And if there was somebody who was untrained, somebody who made a mistake, somebody who made a deadly mistake,

well, you actually announced that in your investigation, and I know this is hard for people in the White House to understand that would actually make people trust you more that you were an honest and fair broker-in-lawful. instead of lying immediately, talking about snow banks, talking about people trapped, talking about domestic terrorists for this 37-year-old woman who is being conciliatory until she drew her last breath. And then was called a effing B after he shot her.

After he killed her. After he killed her, he's then calling her a fucking bitch. Okay. Joe. Wow. That's what he said. I know. After he murder.

After he, I take that back. After he killed her. After he killed her, that's what he called her. That's true. During an interview with CNN, Secretary Christie Nome was pressed on whether there was a double standard when it comes to ICE agents in Minneapolis and the Capitol Police. During the January 6th attack, take a look at that exchange. I want to ask a question about the rules of how law enforcement is allowed to engage when feeling threatened, per your assertions. because I want to show some video to you right now and ask,

what is the appropriate response for the police officers in this situation? Those are law enforcement officers being physically attacked. By this standard, would any of those officers being justified in shooting and killing the people causing them physical harm? Every single situation is going to rely on the situation those officers are on. But they know that when people are putting hands on them, when they are using weapons against them, when they are physically harming them, that they have the authority to arrest those individuals. The president pardoned every single one of those people. And make sure that they're getting justice for their actions going forward.

President Trump pardoned every single one of those people. And every single one of these investigations comes in the full context of the situation on the ground. Yeah, the full context on the ground. Would you like the full context on the ground? Talk to four or five of the law enforcement officers who's died following this. And there's families say that actually it happened because of the January 6th riots. That's a full context of it. And even after that, they're pardoned. Jim Vanda, I not only pardoned, but called patriots by so many people.

So many people after they see police officers just getting the hell beaten out of them, what do they do? They concoct conspiracy theories to try to justify beating up cops. And even those conspiracy theories are blown apart. by investigations done over the past few months. So anyway, Jim, weighed into this, if you will, and I've got to say underlying all of this, we're obviously focused more on the young mother who lost her life. But just from the political side of this,

Axis printed poll numbers, we see it all over the place. This is a political disaster for the White House. ISIS numbers continue to plummet. They'll only get worse. I mean, we haven't even shown other video of people being threatened over the weekend, but their numbers keep getting worse. Donald Trump's strongest issue, immigration keeps dropping, not because of the southern border, done a great job at the southern border,

but because of what's happening in the streets of America. It's the streets of America under siege. And as you say in Axi, it's the eight years. agencies, net approval, fell 30 percentage points in a year. Talk about it. Yeah. Listen, the president's been getting briefed on this very topic that immigration is turning into a liability. And I agree with you. It was his strongest issue. If you wanted to take one issue and say, why is he's president, you would point to tightening up the border, which he's done. Where he's losing the American people, and this has been emphatically true now for six months,

is that the American people are very torn by what to do with those people that have been here but not committed any crimes, are employed and often still paying taxes. People are really, really torn on that, and in fact, really are on Donald Trump's side on this. So when the American people see you administering justice politically, which is you're sending ICE only into Democratic cities inside Democratic states, and then you're doing things like the things that you've been talking about the last 15 minutes, you can't ask people not to believe their own eyes. That's where Joe Biden got in trouble. That's where I think President Trump is getting trouble on this. When you talk to any Republican, almost any Republican in the House or Senate, especially those that aren't in sort of like the hard, hard chargers on immigration, they too are privately quite torn. They don't know what to do about the millions and millions of people who are here, who are part of companies, part of the workforce, part of the reason that your hotels work, your restaurants work, all the different places that employ a lot of people who are here illegally. They are torn on what to do. And they don't think it should be.

be sending ice, some cases poorly trained, into neighborhoods that ends up with results like this. And so I think you can anticipate more of it because there is this big divide inside the White House. There are practical people around the president, especially in the political team, we think this is really dangerous territory politically. You do have Christine Ome, you do have Stephen Miller who understand how to pull the strings of Donald Trump to get him to keep taking a harder and harder line on these things. So at the end of the day, it's the president's decision whether or not he's going to back off. And yet Stephen Miller's not getting pulled.

Christy Noem's not getting pulled. The president's getting polled and their policies are pulling his approval ratings down. You look at his approval ratings. They're going down, especially on immigration. They're going down. And what should be his strongest issue right now because of Christy Noem and because of Stephen Miller? They're pushing. Yeah.

the president to occupy American streets. And this doesn't, again, this doesn't end well politically for anybody. You look again at the numbers, ICE's approval ratings have dropped 30 percentage points since Christy Noem took over ICE. 30 percentage points. Before Christy Noem took over ICE, they had a positive approval rating. Now they're deep underwater. Only about a quarter of Americans support ISIS tactics. Over half.

54% I believe the number is. Think Christine Ome's ice tactics are too brutal. Well, I mean, you don't, I haven't seen a video yet of a peaceful apprehension and deportation where someone is approached at work or on the street and then taken away by people in masks, put in a car and put at a detention center, often unreachable by lawyers or family. But I haven't seen a video of people clapping for this saying, great, oh my gosh, you're cleaning up a mayor. This person, whoever it is, crying, wanting to be with her family, begging to be able to

stay, being taken away on a peaceful level when it happens without any type of altercation. It's not popular. It's not comfortable. And what we're cruel. What were voters told during the campaign? We're going to go after the worst of the worst. And following up what Jim just said, when you talk to Donald Trump supporters, when you talk to Trump supporters, they will say the same thing. Almost all of them will say the same thing.

Certainly those that we talk to. They'll say, yeah, I'm glad he did what he did on the border. It needed to be done. Things were terrible at the border. Biden screwed up. Chuck, okay. Then they'll say, yeah, we support. the worst of the worst. The president said he was going after the worst of the worst. We support that.

That's what they'll say. But even this weekend, we were talking. We're out walking and we met a Trump supporter all in for the president. Very. Except on this, he just shook his head. He said too much. Too much. Too much. Too much. He said. And that's what Christy Noam is doing right now. to Donald Trump's approval ratings on immigration. This is clear cut. Yeah, and we're going to get to, after the break, Wall Street Journal investigation that is showing that the situation in Minneapolis where there are a shooting is involved is not the only one.

We'll be right back. 32 past the hour, a new visual investigation by the Wall Street Journal reveals the Minnesota shooting is not the first case of ICE officers breaking the basic law enforcement safety protocols or firing into moving cars. Joining us now, co-writer of that report, visual investigations reporter at the Wall Street, journal Brenna Smith. Brenna, the report details 13 incidents nationwide since July of federal immigration agents firing at or into civilian vehicles. Tell us about what you found. Hi, thank you for having me. So I was on a team of report.

who basically was trying to answer this question of how were these vehicle stops escalating into violent encounters? We looked and scrubbed as much as we could of past court filings, news clips. We were able to see since last July that there were over a dozen other incidents. We obtained footage of four of them.

And in those we were able to then go and work with and speak with various sources and current and former DHS agents as well as as police trainers who helped develop curricula for vehicle stops to be able to understand if there were any similar characteristics across these videos. You know, John Lemire, there were 13 incidences of ICE agents firing at cars, at automobiles. In 12 of those 13 cases, the person they were shooting at were unarmed. And in the one case, where that wasn't the case, the weapon was actually secured.

in a place that would have posed absolutely no threat to the agents. Yeah, this is, it's remarkable that these patterns do emerge, Brenna. So let's talk more about that, please. The Joe points out, 12 of them unarmed, obviously, this victim in Minneapolis last week, unarmed. What are other sort of patterns are you seeing? When you said you spoke to some current and former law enforcement, what are they saying in terms of perhaps mistakes that were made by these agents,

Were there some defenses offered in terms of actually, you know, though maybe it shouldn't have escalated to a shooting, but some of the tactics were correct? What are some of the patterns we found here in something that's, you know, I think we all fear is going to happen again? Yeah. So I think something to keep in mind is that traffic stops are actually a very well-studied area of law enforcement. It's something that's been, there's decades of research about the best, safest ways to go about doing a vehicle stop, not just for civilians, but also for the officers themselves. When we looked at four of these incidents and the experts that we spoke with were basically telling us that the tactics that ICE was using in those four recorded videos were essentially, there were times where then they were boxing in the vehicle and not something that should be reserved specifically for typically high-risk situations. And when you do it, you need to do it right. They need to not have any room to flee.

And that typically was allowed to happen. There also were actions that one expert described as intrusive actions. where it's when you use some more aggressive tactics, it can provoke resistance from civilians, such as when you smash a window, you reach into a car, you grab into a car. We saw that here with a door handle. Right, yes, with the door handle.

Another key one is the idea of interacting with a moving vehicle in general, whether that's moving into the path, or also shooting into a moving vehicle. One expert described that the shooting to a moving vehicle is something that needs to be taken with significant calculation, though hard to do on the fly,

because essentially if you shoot into a moving vehicle, he called it essentially an unguided missile after that. All right. The new piece is online now. Visual Investigations reporter at the Wall Street. Journal Brenna Smith, thank you very much. We will get back to this, but we have to move to Iran now. The civilian death toll from growing protests there has climbed to nearly 500,

along with roughly 50 members of the country's military. This is according to the Associated Press, citing a U.S.-based human rights, organization. Demonstrations against the current regime have been ongoing for weeks amid growing frustration with the country's struggling economy. In recent days, Iran's military has cracked down on protests, detaining over 10,000 people, according to the AP. President Trump has said in recent weeks he would consider intervening if Iranian protesters were shot. He said this, of course, one or two days after an American mother

was shot for being at a protest. Okay. Yesterday he was asked by reporters on board Air Force One whether Iran's government has crossed a red line. Well, no, they're starting to it looks like, and there seem to be some people killed that aren't supposed to be killed.

These are violent. If you call them leaders, I don't know if they're leaders are just a they rule through violence. But we're looking at very seriously. The military is looking at it and we're looking at some very strong options. We'll make a determination. What if they do that? We'll consider things targets they wouldn't, that they wouldn't believe. If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they've never been

hit before. They won't even believe it. I have five options that are so strong. So I mean, if they did that, it'll be met with a very, very powerful force. And that's something Iranian leaders know. They're certainly at their weakest point since really after the Iraq-Iran war in the early 1980s. Let's bring it right now, columnist, an associate editor of the Washington Post. David Ignatius, David, I look at these extraordinary images out of Iran over the weekend. And I can't help but think of the protests that we saw on the streets in Iran in 1979. late 1978, 1979, leading to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran.

Talk about it. So, Joe, I think that's the right comparison. This is a rebellion across Iran. As in 1979, it began in the bazaars of Iran. It began with merchants who felt squeezed by a collapsing economy, and then spread and became more political. A difference, which is important, is that in 1979, there was a leader. merging to symbolize and champion this movement.

And that was Ayatollah Khomeini, was then in exile. In this case, there isn't a leader on the scene that we can detect the son of the late Shah of Iran. Reza Pahlavi has positioned himself to be such a leader, but he's also generated a lot of resentment inside Iran. As I look at this right now, Joe, I see a one-way story. a one-way street. The regime is headed toward ever greater crises. It may, through severe repression, killing, suppress this revolt as it did. The revolts in 2022, 2023, 2017, 2018, 2019. Almost every year

there's been an uprising in Iran. But it can't do that forever. This regime is just running out of out of gas and Iranians know it. And I think that's their dilemma. They see Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates racing into the future, becoming AI superpowers, they hope, while Iran is stuck. It can barely feed itself. Inflation last year was running at a 42% annual rate. So that's Iran's dilemma. The choice for the United States is what to do about it, how to help. And it's a tough choice, one that the President will have to think through very carefully. He's obviously considering military options. He needs to be sure that in striking Iran militarily, he does damage that truly weakens the regime that outweighs the resentment Iranians inevitably will

feel if their country is being bombed by a Western superpower. There are a lot of discussions about shipping Starlink terminals into Iran so that the black out of the internet, which has been underway since Friday, can be ended. That's also complicated. You can jam Starlink. It's easy to find who's using the terminals. They will be arrested. They may be, they may be executed. Iran has made clear this is a, this is a crime. In smuggling in the terminals, you blow the smuggling which you use to do all kinds of other operations. So there are a series of very difficult decisions the administration is facing right now today. And, you know, I think it's so uncertain in their minds, yet what the right thing to do is,

it would be hard for me to make predictions. David, what does the military option look like at this point? And what's the best case scenario for how that plays out internally? So the best case scenario is that a regime whose security forces are weak, are right, that failed to help its proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Gaza, Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And Iran itself couldn't fend off, and there was Israeli attack last June, that that regime, if hit hard, will begin to crack. What does it mean to hit it hard? So what it means, I think, is heavy munitions striking barracks, bases,

certainly missile production facilities that the Iranians would use to retaliate. But to show the Iranian people that this security force, which is hated by a lot of the country, isn't so tough that they're going to crush you. They're themselves on the run. I think that's what it would look like. It would be barracks, logistic resources. And those things can be done. People have noted we have no aircraft.

carrier strike group in the region, that's true, but you don't need one, I'm told. We have enough aircraft in Europe, enough missiles that could be launched to hit the targets that it's not necessary to move the Gerald Ford or any other aircraft carrier task force into the region right now. So the president is expected to receive a high-level briefing tomorrow. The options will be laid out for him as to what he can do here. I'm told at the moment they're not leaning towards kinetic strikes might be more like cyber attacks, things like that if they do want to intervene. Jim Vanda High, but certainly military options, not taken off the table. But let's speak about what this can mean. First of all, if the president were to authorize this, there would be potential

blowback for Israel. Israel's already bracing itself or how Iran might retaliate. The Iran has threatened U.S. bases in the region as well. But also back here at home, let's talk about the politics of it. This is another potentially moment of international adventurism for this president. And again, much like Venezuela, very few will shed tears for the regime that's endangered, either there or now here in Iran. But it does seem like another thing that's about overseas, that not necessarily America first, that so many Trump voters have said, look, this isn't what I supported. And not only that, it's not helping my grocery bills at all. I mean, it's wild. If you just think about the last year, no one was betting that the president

would come in and it'd be the war president and be intervening in so many, different countries. It's obviously caused a massive issue with parts of the MAGA base. His whole mega base has been a mess for the last six months anyway, sort of infighting over everything from Israel to the size of the federal government. They do seem to get really worked up when you're talking about the Middle East and any intervention. Interestingly, they seem much more open. We had a piece in the last 48 hours about how you're seeing the Steve Bannons of the world talk about hemispheric dominance with a great admiration and thinking that might be the route that the president should go. They do tend to

get more worked up when it's in the Middle East. I don't think the president cares. The president, anyone who's talked to him, you're talking to the same people we are. I think there is a chance that we strike around. They've been telling reporters for the last 48 hours, it's obviously a live option. A lot of us thought it could have happened in the last 48 hours, so I wouldn't be shocked at all if that happens. But he just feels like a man in full and feels like he is running the national, the international stage. And I think the comment that he made to the New York Times, what you've heard from Stephen Miller, they don't think there's any limits on his power and any limits on his authority. And so this is just one of the many things that fall into that bucket.

David Ignatius, I do understand there's been a lot in the president's inbox. As far as foreign policy it goes. And I do understand that it may seem to be a bit too much. Maybe it's just because I was in my formative years in 1979 that I see the ending of this terrorist regime as something positive. But I think this is, I think this, to me at least, I'd be curious. Or do you think Iran is separate from everything else we've been talking about. I remember 1994 when I was running for Congress, even though I was in a Navy, there was an Air Force General that was talking to me early in my campaign, but nobody thought I was going to win, and he was advising me.

And I asked him, I said, General, this is 1994, what is the one thing that you think would cause the greatest geopolitical shift that would help the United States of America? He didn't talk about China. He didn't talk about it. He said, one of the great tragedies is losing Iran as an ally in 1979, and them turned. into an enemy. He said that shift of Iran from one of our toughest enemies to an ally, he said would be an extraordinary, remarkable advantage for the United States geopolitically. I believe that in 94. I believe that today. I'm curious your thoughts. I share that. I think

the world turned on a hinge in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. The shocks in the region, the shock to Saudi Arabia, encouraged Islamic fundamentalism in those countries, gave a boost to what became al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. And for Iran to turn back, as Henry Kissinger used to say, to stop being a cause and become a nation that makes rational, national decisions would be a fundamental change in the world, something really, you know, you think what would be worth are getting deeply involved, even having to use military force. That's a goal that would make a significant difference. The problem is this is not a little conflict. Iran is a huge nation in territory. It has

more than 80 million people. It's culturally sophisticated. I visited Iran several times. I'm always struck by the serious intellectual work that's done there, the universities, just the sense of Iranian nationalism. So if President Trump decides this is the moment, and there are a lot of reasons why he should, because it really does make a difference, he needs to plan this more carefully than he does most things. And he especially needs to plan what happens after that first day when the B-2s come in and he's got bang, you know, we did it. So that that's just the beginning of this one. And if you go in without a good plan, you'll make things a lot worse. All right, with your help, we'll be following this columnist and associate editor at the Washington Post. David Ignatius, thank you very much for being on this morning.

David's new piece is available to read online right now. Jonathan? Yeah, all right, Frank, your latest piece for a little magazine known as The Atlantic looks at the Trump administration's destruction of the civil service and the people it affected. You summarize this purge this way, writing in part, government is part of a delicate American ecosystem. As it erodes, crises that lay bare its indispensability will multiply. Capturing the magnitude of the destruction is an almost impossible task. Statistics can convey the scale, but only individual stories reveal what has actually vanished. the knowledge and skill that have been recklessly discarded.

The damage will ripple through every national park, every veterans hospital, every city and town. And Frank, it's a great piece. You do have these individual stories. Tell us a larger tale. Just what has lost here, which there's been so many headlines that have spun out of this administration at such a pace.

It feels like what Doge did and what Trump authorized, the destruction of the government, the bureaucracy, feels like years ago. It wasn't, and its impact will be felt for a long time. Tell us more. It's really hard to wrap your mind around what has befallen our government. And I tried to do this by creating kind of a composite portrait of the void. And so I went and I profiled 50 different individuals across the government who are no longer there. Across agencies, across hierarchies, within agencies.

80% of the government exist outside of Washington, D.C. So most of the cuts that have happened are out beyond the Beltway in hospitals, in parks, in outposts of agencies. And sadly, what we've lost over the course of the last year are not the people who are underperforming in these agencies. If Doge had wanted to go into these agencies and to make them more efficient to take away, some of the people who were underperforming, it could have done a careful study and targeted those people. Instead, it went and it kind of recklessly tried to just make cuts as fast as it could.

And what ended up happening is that the people who had the most skills, who understood how to use government the best, are the ones who ended up leaving because they were offered voluntary resignation packages. And they have this ability to go land on their feet in other places. government is something that is, there's no real user's manual for how we do most parts of government. I mean, there may be courses that wouldn't take, but really, the fact is, is that when you're doing things that involve interpreting laws, that involve executing in oftentimes delicate situations, wisdom is something that exists within institutions. It's embodied within people. It's something that's handed down over the course of generations. And when you lose the most experienced best operators in government, you're losing not just

specific expertise. You're losing something about statecraft and the ability to operate this kind of unwieldy instrument that is government. And that's the thing that is almost going to be achingly impossible to replace. All right. Staff writer at the Atlantic, Frank Four, thank you very much. CEO and co-founder of Axis Jim Vandahi. Thank you as well. We'll see you again tomorrow. So the 2026 World Cup is set to begin this summer with games taking place in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

But there are reports that thousands of fans are canceling their tickets over the Trump administration's immigration enforcement and calling for a boycott of the U.S. games in response to Trump's recent threats to Mexico. Joining us now the founder of the Men in Blazers Media Network, best-selling author Roger Bennett. He has a new book coming out this March titled We Are the World Cup, a personal history of the world's greatest sporting event. Roger, thank you so much for being with us. We are sure that highlighted in that will be Mika Prasinski downtown knocking over a table. as she tried to stand on top of it. Landon Donovan scored the tying goal to take USA into the next round.

But other than that, tell us what else your book. That did happen. What do you think I just said it? And by the way, it's told in great depth. It's one of the great moments of American football history. Mika, losing her mind when the U.S. showed a glimmer of promise. I mean, the book's a deeply personal history of the tournament for hardcore sports fans, but also newcomers to relive the backstory of every World Cup of the modern period.

The World Cup's coming here. It kicks off June the 11th. It's like a global eclipse that sweeps the entire planet simultaneously. And my promise is if you read this book, you will be ready to win the entire thing. For Morning Joe fans, there is a lot of Morning Joe stories. You played an incredible role in the inextricable rise of the game, Joe, having this tiny little segment on for 14 years, 15 years now, has almost been a symbol of the growth of the game in America,

which when I moved here and we started broadcasting, it was like space to Captain Kirk, Joe, the final frontier for the game. Right. Yeah, I remember. And I remember saying to the Morning Joe team, hey, we can have this guy named Roger on every week and we're going to talk about Premier League football and they just stared at me, what?

What? And I said, listen, I love it. And, you know, the underlying theory of this show is, if I'm interested in it, chances are good. People that watch the show are interested in it too. America's caught up with you, Joe. America's caught up with you. I mean, the book tells every backstory.

Maradonna's hand of God, Zidane's head, but all the way to Lionel Messi's transcendent epic Greek odyssey to 2022 glory. but it also tells of Tom Bruchot falling in love with the game. The first time I came on, he cut me off. Bruchar said, no, no, no, no, no. We have American ball sports to talk about. And then at the whole segment up by talking about baseball.

And I kind of sullied off. Every week after that, you kicked Broucair off whenever I was on set. And then two years later, the producer said, get on now. I was like, Broucair's on. I'm not going on with Broucair. And I got on. Broucaulton cut me off. He goes, no, no, no.

And I was like, what, Broca, what? And he goes, I have to tell you, I used to hate Premier League soccer, but for the last two Christmases, I've gone with each of my son-in-laws. We go and watch four games, and we fly coach. And I love it. And Mika and Joe, first of all, I want to thank you. But second of all, when we got Brocault, loving football in America, I do think this is the moment the game's gone over the top.

No doubt about it. When you got Brocair, you got it all. Exactly. The book, We Are the World Cup, a personal history of the world's greatest sporting event, is out this March. Roger Bennett, congratulations, another good one. Roger, thank you. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Support your indie bookstores, America. There you go. We'll see you soon, Roger. Thank you. We have so much going on today. Coming up, federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell. We'll show you what he is saying about that. And how some lawmakers are responding.

Some Republicans not happy. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Accuethers, Bernie Raynow. Bernie, how's it looking? Happy Monday, Miss Mika. On a day in the Northeast, it's kind of a typical January day. Excusive Aque weather forecast, a little bit of a wind to contend with but some sunshine and dry, although there will be a few flurries around Buffalo. Now, your acuether forecast for the southeast.

Cool but dry, 51 Atlanta, 52 Charlotte. Look for a couple of showers in Miami this morning, but travel delays are going to be few and far between. However, enough wind that there could be some minor delays in Boston and New York City. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Acuether app today.