good morning. happy new year. welcome to a special new year s day edition of morning joe. we re on tape this morning with some of our top, recent conversations. we begin with a discussion about donald trump s increasing use of authoritarian language in his speeches and social media posts. in recent months, trump has repeated fascist rhetoric, including saying immigrants are, quote, poisoning the blood of our country, and referring to his political enemies as vermin. we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. the threat from outside forces is sinister, dangerous, and grave, more than the threat from within. donald trump echoing the words of 20th century authoritarians at a rally earlier this month. joining us now, national affairs analyst john heilemann. special correspondent at vanity fair and host of the fast politics podcast, molly jong-fast. and co
good morning. welcome cnn this morning. merry christmas eve out there. santa is making his rounds. new developments from former president trump s legal team in a filing submitted late last night. the president is urging a federal appeals court to slow out the federal election subversion case against him in washington, d.c. his attorneys driving home the point trump was working in his official capacity as president to make sure the integrity of the election results. in the document they said before any single prosecutor can ask a court to sit in judgment of the president s conduct, congress must have approved of it by impeaching and convicting the president and since that didn t happen, trump has immunity. well the appeals court expedited the process and will hear arguments january 9. the judge for the case paused procedural deadlines. it s up to an appeals court to decide if presidential immunity applies here. he is not the first president to invoke presidential i
Mitchell reports, House Republican leader Kevin Mccarthy 24 hours from the biggest moment of his political career and still no closer to securing the votes he needs to become the next speaker of the house. Also this hour, i will speak to dr. Zeke emanuel about a tough holiday flu season along with new concerns about a new strain of covid19 in the u. S. And we will have a live report from rome as catholics travel to the vatican to Pope Emeritus Benedict during the three days he will lie in state ahead of thursdays funeral mass. Good day, im andrea in mitchell. Happy new year, everyone. Well, the pressure is on republican leader in this in you year, Kevin Mccarthy has to win over the hard line House Conservatives that he needs to become the next speaker of the house. Tomorrow the new Congress Returns to washington with the speaker vote as the top item on the agenda. But at this hour no one knows how long its going to take for republicans to secure the Majority Vote needed to appoint a le
congress finally receives a classified briefing on the matter today. the senate being updated at this hour after the house was briefed earlier today. sandra: all of this as senior u.s. military and national security officials warn and have confirmed that spy balloon shot down off south carolina s coast on saturday was part of a major surveillance program run by china s military. so, what else are lawmakers learning in these briefings? we ll ask tennessee senator marsha blackburn and california democratic congressman ro khanna coming up. john: begin with lawmakers sparring over the politization of the federal government and whether the justice department has been weaponized against republicans. hello, i m john roberts in washington. let me be the first to say it, sandra, happy friday eve. sandra: and we made it to thursday. good to be with you, john. i m sandra smith in new york. america reports. republican-led committee says many questions need to be answered by the f
politics. i m john king in washington. thank you for sharing your day with us. coast to coast chaos. nationwide system outage delays flights all across the country. right now planes are back in the air, but too little runway, too little airspace, means thousands of travelers are stuck. president biden says he doesn t know how classified documents found their way into his private office. and enough. influential new york republicans call for one of their own, george santos to resign, after a dismantling of his campaign lies and shady accounting. we begin with a morning of travel hell and demands that the government get its act together. the faa says right now its flight control system is back online and it is working. an early morning outage grounded all flights earlier today. in all that means more than 6,000 flights were delayed and as a result more than 1,000 were canceled. today s mess comes, of course, weeks after the southwest airlines holiday season meltdown that led