friends. it is wednesday, december 27th, i m willie geist. joe and mika have the morning off. a lot to get to including israeli forces shifting military efforts to southern and central gaza with officials warning the war could take many more months. and hours from now, antony blinken and alejandro mayor kas are set to meet with mexican president obrador. plus donald trump continues to claim he should be immune from any prosecution surrounding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. we ll have the latest there. also ahead, bus drivers across the country increasingly under attack on the job. we ll dig into an alarming trend and what officials are doing about it. with us this morning, jonathan lemire, susan paige, and retired four star navy admiral james stavridis. good morning to you all. let s begin together with israel expanding the ground invasion in gaza. this as the united states continues to urge israel to protect civilian lives and shift to a more low intensity oper
frontrunners for the 2024 republican nomination, even though only one of them is officially in the race. ahead, a veteran gop strategist explains why desantis is stealing some of trump s thunder. meanwhile, election deniers are celebrating after three states pulled out of a program to protect voter rolls with two more states considering joining them. we ll explain this latest development. plus, we ll go through the changes norfolk southern is making following the derailment of two of its trains in ohio. and we ll ask transportation secretary pete buttigieg about the federal response to the disaster and how to prevent another one from happening when he joins us later this morning. and good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is tuesday, march 7th. we are live in abu dhabi, the crossroads of the world. it truly is, with our 30/50 summit, forbes and know your value has come together to create an incredible, cross-cultural, multi-generational summit that, really, t
early with us on this thursday morning. morning joe starts right now. this isn t a question of vindication. it is not a question, as i stated before, about revenge this is a my position is that, at the end of the day, donald trump needs to be held accountable for his dirty deeds if, in fact, that s the way that the facts play out that was donald trump s former fixer after wrapping up his testimony to a manhattan grand jury by the way, former fixer who went to jail, actually got convicted and went to jail for being part of this scheme that donald trump is now being investigated for. michael cohen spent two days on the stand answering questions about the hush money given to stormy daniels, the porn star. now, we re learning that she is talking to prosecutors also ahead, we ll dig into the new reporting out of georgia on another phone call the former president made to an election official there in the aftermath of the 2020 election. it s like the end of the hunt
continues to spawn violence across the country. meanwhile on capitol hill, the stalemate over the debt ceiling continues as the country hits its borrowing limit. we ll have the latest on efforts by the white house to find some sort of compromise. plus, the george santos saga takes another really strange turn. now there are questions about where his mother was on 9/11. also ahead, we are hours away from a decision on criminal charges in the deadly shooting on the set of rust. remember that? we ll get you caught up on the case that could come to a major development this morning. and we ll dig into new reporting on an aggressive new proposal from the biden administration as it pertains to the war in ukraine. joe has the morning off but willie and i are here in new york, and we have with us, the former aid to the george w. bush white house and state department, elise jordan, an msnbc political analyst. former white house communications director under president obama, jennifer
so moving. and william shatner, this guy, he s just people are just commenting, i m getting so many texts and seeing it on twitter, so many people talking about what an incredible guy he is. i m scoring points right now, the fact that you pulled out shatner s note lucy in the sky with diamonds, that s 100 points right there. you just came back from the today show, talking about the list with hoda. that was very moving too pop. oh, my gosh. a lot of tears. hoda s on the list and savannah nominated her and we have two women over 50 hosting the today show. talk about that never happen 20 or 30 years ago, how thing have changed. the second annual forbes 50 over 50 list has chemical engineers, actresses, singers, dancers, civil rights activists in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and, yes, 90s. these women are phenomenal and there are so many of them. there really are. it s an incredible list. jonathan lemire, the red sox have something in common with people on that li