alliance among them. at one point, a fight almost broke out on the house floor, but perhaps the most telling moment came at the very end. on his way out of the capital, at around two a.m. after finally taking his oath of office as speaker, mccarthy stopped to talk to reporters to give special thanks to a special someone. i do especially think president trump. i don t think anybody should doubt his influence. he was with me from the beginning, somebody wrote that out of what he was there, and he was all in. he was all in. kevin mccarthy maybe the speaker, but this is donald trump s house. built on the backs of trump s republican acolytes whose jobs depend on the support of donald trump s own base. but dynamics that were on display during a four-day speakership battle have continued to play out in the six months since. the chaos caucus republicans, many of whom are trump loyalists and some of whom participated in the attempt to deny mccarthy the speakership, brought the cou
that s why they re sending all these democrats in to run. it s crazy. it is not personal for me. i have no you know, people want me to hate trump or love trump. that s not what it is. i just tell it on policy. i m not going to talk about him personally. i don t care about that. i think politics is too personal, and i think that s why people are so frustrated right now. donald trump and nikki haley with different approaches about talking about the other. both are making their pitch to voters in new hampshire, while ron desantis has his sights on haley s home state. we ll have more from the campaign trail straight ahead. plus, the latest on the foreign aid package that republicans have tied to border security. we ll go through yesterday s meeting at the white house between president biden and speaker mike johnson. also ahead, another concerning escalation in the middle east as pakistan launches a retaliatory strike inside iran. good morning. welcome to morning joe.
here are the top stories we re covering this hour. israel says its war effort to eliminate hamas is entering a new phase with the new year. but is it going to reduce civilian casualties as the question has been questioning. this as prime minister netanyahu suffers a major political setback from his country s supreme court. i ll teak to ambassador mark regev and the democratic senator. and in tokyo, a five-man crew of air national guard claimed dead but all 400 on board a wide-body passenger plane escaping safely in just minutes after their plane exploded on the runway. and we ll look at the surge of respiratory illnesses over the holiday season. as flu, covid and rsv give families a rough start to 2024. and good day, everyone. i m andrea mitchell in washington. israel is starting the new year by launching intense attacks against central and southern gaza, even as the idf begins the process, it says, of bringing the first several thousand of its troops home. that includ
how an operation in gaza went so tragically wrong. also the autopsy results just in for matthew perry. what authorities say ketamine had to do with the friends actor s death. dr. sanjay gupta is here to break it down. i m kaitlan collins, and this is the source. an already-cash strapped rudy giuliani is now in ruins for trying to destroy the lives of two americans in georgia, who simply were doing their patriotic duty in november of 2020. a federal jury has now ordered giuliani to peay ruby freeman ad shaye moss $148 million for defaming them, for their emotional distress, and also for punitive damages. the amount was so astonishing that there was an audible gasp in the courtroom today as it was read. the jury having none of it from donald trump s one-time lawyer for wrongfully, repeatedly, and viciously accusing an innocent mother and her daughter of tampering with votes in 2020. almost just as breathtaking, he is still doing so to this very day. the absurdity of t
it s 4:00 in washington d.c. a hail mary move by the disgraced ex-president that serves as an indication that special counsel jack smith may well be close to making a decision on whether or not to indict donald trump. we re at donald trump s dear attorney general, the special counsel is being mean to me phase. make no mistake we have been here before. late yesterday lawyers for the ex-president asked for a meeting with merrick garland. the letter itself was brief, filled with the usual trump rhetoric about being persecuted despite the fact that the ex-president is the one who has resisted handing over some of the nation s most sensitive intelligence secrets. documents he kept just one lock, one door away from hundreds of people at his pay for membership club to the government who rightfully owned the documents and asked for them back. the new york times says the letter asserts that trump is treated unfairly in the investigations led by jack smith. the washington post is r