republican proposal that could bring cuts to social security and medicare, calling out lawmakers by name who have supported those cuts. i mean, he negotiated, basically, with republicans on the house floor. it was quite a sight to see. they conceded. i mean, his position it s a strong one. meanwhile, house republicans yesterday were focused on hunter biden, big tech. that s what america really wants. and the fbi. we ll show you the big moments from a grievance-fueled house oversight committee hearing. plus, new york congressman george santos doubles down on his criticism of senator mitt romney following romney s confrontation of the embattled new york lawmaker at the state of the union. mitt romney, of course, saying what everyone should be saying on the republican side. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is thursday, february 9th. good to have you all with us. with us in washington, white house editor for politico, sam stein. washington bureau
very good. 100 times. smart move. smart move. special correspondent for bbc news katty kay. columnist and editor for the washington post, david ignatius join us, as well. as with us, acting secretary of defense under president donald trump, christopher miller. he served in the position immediately following the 2020 election until president biden took office. he is out this week with a new book entitled soldier secretary: warnings from the battlefield and the pentagon about america s most dangerous enemies. we ll get to that in one second. katty, i am curious, though, what was the take on zelenskyy coming to london? i mean, look, everybody who met him, it was very staged. sunak met him at the airport. he spoke in the great hall where queen elizabeth laid in state when we were there for the funeral. a lot of pomp and circumstance. he had the meeting with king charles, what i still want to call prince charles. the visit was only announcd two
misspending pandemic money, biden himself and inflation. this had nothing to do about joe biden. it was personal everything. that s the crazy thing. let me just say and i don t have to worry about republicans doing this because they re too stupid to. uh-huh. if i m running this republican hearing, my first hearing is on afghanistan. the straj tragedy of afghanista. why did he ignore all his generals? what are the consequences of it? how did our allies feel abandoned? do that. it undermines him as a strong leader at a time when he is trying to talk about ukraine. and then move to crime. move to the resurgence of crime since 2020. let democrats go, oh, wait, you re just the numbers, it s safer than ever before. let the democrats walk into the trap instead of the republicans, which you re doing. then talk about the border. they can t do that. it ll never happen. it s not rocket science. people are gas stoves. since joe biden has been elected
i keep wondering whether the republican party, writ large, is just going to have to disown this thing at some point. it s not working. democrats are going to pound them. trump came out and said, don t touch the entitlement programs. mccarthy said, don t touch the entitlement programs. but this pamphlet exists and is there. here s the problem for kevin mccarthy. he told them, don t scream or yell. don t play into it. mccarthy said, we re not touching social security. we re not touching medicare. mccarthy, over the past couple mccarthy goes, he has a respectful meeting with biden. mccarthy is trying to be a mainstream speaker for at least a little while, for all of those people that won in biden districts. and his party, he s they ll vote him out if he gets too mainstream. right. he has crazies that aren t letting him do that. president biden, as we said, is headed to florida today to
conservative websites for days. but to the larger, overall point, that the republicans have talked themselves into a box. it s been years in the making. because they have spent so much time on these conspiracies, on the fringes of the right. whether it s about hunter biden s laptop. the alleged deep state conspiracies that have led to the creation of this weaponization of the government committee that s meeting for the first time today. the house oversight committee charged with looking into everything about hunter and his business dealings. they caught themselves in a corner, and they ve been doing it for so long, it infiltrated mainstream conservative media, including some of the opinion hosts, primetime on fox news. now, the voters demand it. what i keep hearing from republicans here, outside of those on the extreme right, but more mainstream republicans, they re deeply uncomfortable with these hearings. they know there should be other things to be talking about,