meanwhile, the trump desantis rivalry is heating up. we ll show you how the florida governor responded to the covid criticism. we ll look at the rnc s 2024 playbook as party leaders want to double down on an issue that lost them the elections in the midterms. running straight into loserville. and today, president joe biden and speaker kevin mccarthy sit down at the white house in hopes of ending the standoff over the debt ceiling. plus reverend al sharpton joins us live from memphis ahead of his eulogy today for tyre nichols. good morning and welcome to morning joe, it s wednesday, february 1st. along with joe, good to have you back. good to be back. willie and me. we have jonathan lemire, u.s. special correspondent for bbc news katty kay is with us. and member of the new york times editorial board mara gay. so we start with today s high stakes meeting between president joe biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy. their focus, ending the standoff over the debt ce
hunter biden materials, the authenticity of at least some of which has been confirmed by reputable media outlets, there s no dispute about their impact on the 2020 election. they flopped and he brings up such a good point. this is what you talk about the performative part of this. they ve become obnoxious and cartoon characters of themselves, not in synch with where the american people stand, not just democrats, but republican women and men who did not like seeing roe overturned. well, you can look at those issues, but you bring up such a great point. the gesturing, the performative art of being obnoxious all the time. i remember when i was campaigning, i talk about, hey, these are the things i m going to do when i go to washington. here are the issues, balanced budget, congress live by the same rules that everybody else live by, pass regulatory reform, we re going to push tax reform, we re going to push welfare reform and i would talk for 20 minutes and somebody said, joe,
immigration. this is not helping. so what s so fascinating, rick tyler, is you have two conservative leading voices in washington, lindsey graham and also matthew continetti both saying donald trump could go down, not over russian collusion, but over all these things he s doing on the side where he may be setting up a perjury trap, he may be setting up an obstruction trap, an abuse of power trap, while the underlying crime of collusion may never be proven. just might be a really dumb guy. a lot of other conservatives, people supporting him, saying please just stop. pass a tax bill, repeal obamacare, pass regulatory reform, get this country growing at 3%, 3.5%. that s what a lot of them are saying. i think the president does feel a little bit inoculated from his behavior in that two things would have to happen for him to suffer, i think, serious