we need to go big. and if we waste some money now, we waste some money. absolutely we have too many people hurting and the economy is going to sputter and we've got to get ourselves out of this mess. and this is the way we need to go right now. >> let me tell you something, that man has a future in northwest florida politics. i like him. >> or west virginia. >> mika, that's interesting. that's from the republican governor of a state that donald trump got 69% in. >> jim justice, governor of west virginia, urging congress to go big on covid-19 relief. good morning. welcome to "morning joe". it is tuesday, february 2nd. we have columnist and associate editor for the "washington post", david ignatius. back with us, capitol hill correspondent and host of "way too early", kasie hunt. and it seems more and more likely that democrats will push through the biden administration's nearly $2 trillion economic relief package with or without republicans. the president met with a group of senate republicans for about two hours in the oval office yesterday to pitch their much smaller $600 billion package. but the message from the white house is that it doesn't meet the moment. senator susan collins said the meeting was very productive and cordial. but when it comes to striking a compromise, the sides are far apart. the president will not delay aid to try and win republican support. democrats on the hill have started the process that would allow a bill to pass without republican support. yesterday, before the meeting, white house press secretary jen psaki was asked exactly what the president considers bipartisan. >> would you consider a bill bipartisan if it doesn't have any republican support in congress but it has, you know, support among republican voters? . >> well, i think you touched on an interesting point, which is 74% of the public, according to recent polls, supports this package and the key components of this package. >> democrats and republicans. >> we saw the governor of west virginia come out earlier today and advocate forountry and bringing the country together, he's not suggesting that he is going to make one party out of the democratic and republican parties in congress. but he is meeting with republicans today, 10 republicans who have sent this letter, because he feels they made a good-faith effort to put the top lens of a proposal forward, and he wants to have that engagement and encourages that sharing of ideas. >> i know almost every democrat in congress is going to disagree. but you have 10 republicans who are coming to the white house who, yes, they started with a number that's low. but here's the amazing thing about negotiations. one party starts low and one party starts high. so we're at 650 million and 1.9 million. there seems to be a way to find a middle ground there. and if you look at the economics of this, the "new york times" this weekend quoted several economists who said 1.9 trillion actually is more money that they are going to be pumping into the economy than has been taken out currently by covid. one other thing, too, we just got a projection from the congressional budget office yesterday that said they expect economic growth at 3.7% this next year. even, even if there's no additional funding from the federal government. one other thing, they are now puttinger hour minimum wage piece into this covid relief package. liberals like mika think that's a great idea. if it's a great idea, then have a stand-alone vote on that. don't throw additional things into a covid relief package. i think most republicans, you know, or some republicans would vote for that $15 an hour. in florida, that passed. even this past years when trump won by three, three and a half percentage points. i'm just worried, and forgive me for not being brief here. but i'm just worried that joe biden has an opportunity to meet in the middle that gets 10 republicans in pushing aside, reconciliation and just getting to 50 votes. and he does something barack obama wasn't able to do, something that george w. bush wasn't able to do effectively, and that is start his administration with a bipartisan relief package. and if they need more down the road, they can get more down the road. and, by the way, this is what they did a couple months ago in december. they had a bipartisan package a couple months ago. let's have another one now. >> well, that's the question. was that meeting at the oval office with the 10 republican senators yesterday, was that symbolic, or was that genuine? was that good faith? someone who says i see your $600 billion offer against my $1 trillion plan. you're right, it does not include the $15 minimum wage hike. do democrats want to sit and negotiate with this group of moderate senators who, by the way, he is going to need for a lot more legislation over the next four years if he wants to get things done. does he actually go through and negotiate with them, or does he listen to people like chuck schumer who said this is an insult and we have to go big or go home. kasie hunt, i'd put that to you as someone who covers capitol hill every district attorney. is this a good faith negotiation, or does it look like democrats are going to go ahead without republicans? >> well, let's take a quickstep back here, willie. after this meeting ended, nobody went to the microphones outside the white house to say swear words were exchanged, that people were yelling at each other, that anyone had embarrassed anyone else. it is an extraordinarily different time in washington. and i think that that does stand to go a long way. two hours with the president and vice president of the united states is a really long time. these senators clearly had a real conversation. it was cordial. everyone came out and said, okay, that was productive. now, that doesn't necessarily mean they are going to end up doing some sort of bigbie partisan deal that you and joe are talking about. but i do think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that just the change in tone is in fact, meaningful and important. and, again, two hours in the oval office not a short amount of time. they had to have been having serious real conversations here. big picture, it's obvious the biden administration wants to demonstrate and show they are being bipartisan, this was a campaign promise he's trying to fulfill that campaign promise. whether or not he does that is i think going to be dependent on how republicans try to conduct themselves. if they continue to negotiate in good faith and if mitch mcconnell is willing to say, okay, you can go along with it, he's not going to try to stand in the way of voting with democrats on something like this, i think we could get there. but i think they also think it is important to send the message this is a once in a generation crisis. we've got to solve it, solve it big. and we're not willing to let that promise of bipartisan ship get in the way of what really needs to be done. >> david, it is a once in a generation crisis. at the same time, like i just said, we've had covid relief bills along the way. we need another. i certainly know that. i think most americans know that. the overwhelming number of americans want that. at the same time, like i said, the congressional budget office, not a right-wing operation said even without another package this economy is going to grow by 3.7%. economists have added up the numbers. this actually overshoots the mark as far as what is needed to actually take care of the shortfall. now, for americans at home -- or for democrats at home who are thinking, you know what, let's just shove it down the republicans' throats. we got 50 votes. we can do it through reconciliation, that comes with a price. again, maybe they don't care about that price. but that comes with a price. if your first move is to reconciliation when you have a chance to strike a bipartisan compromise, maybe it ends up closer to the 1.9 than the likee prudent approach especially if this is the first shot washington has in having a bipartisan presidency in, hell, 60, 70 years? i don't know. since eisenhower. >> it's been a while. i think the optics, joe, are just the way joe biden wants them. he was elected as a centrist. he said he was going to try to govern on behalf of the people, the people didn't vote for him as well as the people who did. here is his first meeting at the white house, and he invites republicans. he is going to talk for an hour, but it ends up being two hours. people walk out saying we had a nice discussion. we're trying to get to an agreement. he's got, if he needs it, the ultimate weapon here of reconciliation. if he can't get a deal through bipartisan negotiation, and my own feeling, joe, it's better in this situation, this catastrophe we're in, to err on the side of spending too much than too little. if he can't bargain out somewhere between 600 billion and 1 trillion, he's got reconciliation. he wants to get legislation passed. but i think this is just the sort of position that joe biden wanted to be in. it positions him well. we're about to start the impeachment trial. he has just enough of both. he's reaching out to republicans even as he has strong weapons to get done what he wants through reconciliation. >> let me ask about two democrats we haven't heard a lot about, other than joe manchin obviously being concerned they were sending the vice president into his state to lobby him. it did seem like a curious thing to do. i wonder what you think about the current status of his vote and kristen sinema's vote. they can go 50 votes. is there a chance that manchin, sinema, kelly and one or two other moderates break out and try to find more of a middle ground? >> i think it's possible, joe. i think jim justice, the republican governor gave joe manchin a lot of cover yesterday in saying, no, help us. we need more help. that's something coming universally from governors. i'm with you. i don't understand what the move was to send the vice president out to west virginia television stations to talk about this in a way that surprised joe manchin. i think you really want to make sure you're having a lot of close personal conversations with him, keeping him very close. if he's upset about something, it's a big risk to have him be upset about something. frankly, the calculation -- you know, it's different in arizona than west virginia. in theory, you could go into arizona and help build support for the proposal for kelly and sinema to vote with them. this is not the case for west virginia. it is one of the reddest, if not the reddest, state in the union. >> he is going to be the deciding vote on so many of these votes. >> no question. not a great way to start. get up in his face a little bit and surprise him. the white house spoke to him and smoothed things over. joe biden, joe, wants to do exactly what you're suggesting. he's a creature of the senate. he wants to negotiate with the people in the oval office, the 10 moderate republicans. he wants to get a deal. he wants to show he's actually doing the thing he said he was going to do when he campaigned. he thinks it's a better deal. he thinks it's better for the country. i said i want to do this. i want unity. but there is a limit to the unity i'm willing to tolerate here. >> yeah. that's certainly understandable. republicans don't have a good track record at all the past 10, 15 years. they have been a party against things. they have been for when it comes, say, to health care. nothing. they have been against obamacare. they had no ideas to replace it. they do have, though, now, 10 senators, the romney/collins caucus. and murkowski. 10 republican senators who are claiming to want to be constructive. i would call them at their bluff. and if he has an opportunity to strike a deal with republicans, i know twittersphere won't like it. and i know for good reason, for good legitimate reasons, people on the left wing of the democratic party won't appreciate it either. if joe biden can get 70% of what he wants this time and he can do it with republicans without running them over in reconciliation, that sets the stage over the next four years for some other good bipartisan deals with he gets some of what he wants when things aren't going his way. i know, again, in the climate we've been in the past 10, 20 years with in nile his particular republican party, that doesn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people. i'm a big believer in giving people a chance. if they screw up, they screw up. then you move ahead. >> yeah. and then there is this issue that the republicans have to deal with. marjorie taylor greene. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell is condemning the qanon supporter, congresswoman greene. mcconnell released a statement yesterday about the freshman republican lawmaker from georgia reading loony lies are cancer for the republican party and their country. somebody who suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the clintons crashed jfk jr.'s airplane is not living in reality. this has nothing to do with the challenges facing american families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party. greene later responded via tweet, quote, the real cancer for the republican party is weak republicans who only know how to lose gracefully. this is why we're losing our country. senator mcconnell is also defending, defending republican congresswoman liz cheney. cheney continues to feel the heat from her own party for voting to impeach former president trump. but in a statement to cnn mcconnell said, quote, liz cheney is a leader with deep convictions and the courage to act on them. she is an important leader in our party and in our nation. i am grateful for her service and look forward to continuing to work with her on the critical issues facing our nation. a lot going on there, joe. . >> yeah. a lot going on there. kasie hunt, why don't you take us into mitch mcconnell's thinking here. speaking out in ways obviously that the house republican leadership simply refuses to. >> they're refusing to do it. and it's incredibly unusual for any republican to get involved in the other side of the capitol's business in the way he is doing here. and i think it shows you just how important mcconnell thinks this is. you know, it's after donald trump has already left office. and a lot of the people that might have backed him up, senators like bob corker, jeff flake, rob portman is now retiring. we will see what he has to say about this today. they are gone because there was no one standing up for them or backing them up during the trump administration itself when so many republicans refused to criticize president trump as we saw one action after another that slowly slid us down to the capitol riot territory. and this misinformation has been allowed to go unchecked online. and mitch mcconnell is now looking at that and saying, if i don't do something about that, the republican party that i lead is never going to win elections again. so i need to actually do something about it. the question is does he still have enough power to actually pull something like that off, or is he so lonely now in this party that there aren't enough allies to make a real difference here. i think there are quiet ones in the senate. but you'll notice there are not a lot of republicans that are going anywhere near as far as mccouple did. most of them aren't saying anything at all. >> that is really unbelievable. you know, willie, mitch mcconnell talked about the crazy conspiracy theories about 9/11, jfk jr., sandy hook. he didn't even have to touch on, although it's been discussed before, the other horrific things she's put on facebook through the past years about the assassination of nancy pelosi. the lynching of barack obama. the lynching of hillary clinton. and these other horrific actions as well calling for violence against presidents, secretaries of state. not violence. the killing of, the assassinations of our nation's leaders. this is untenable. and republicans in the house know this is untenable. and you wonder why mitch mcconnell is one of the only voices in the senate doing this. we have to tip our hat to adam kinzinger. he is being really outspoken about that. they can meet in a phone booth inside of the house republican caucus. >> he ya. this is an easy one, which is why mcconnell stepped out and said, hey, look, if you're not going to say anything about a member of your caucus -- because kasie is right. not only does he not lob insult. he doesn't even do it to republicans. he may do it privately. it's destroying the republican brand. and it's an easy thing to criticize. if you can't step out and criticize all the things you laid out, then where is the party? where is the party? democrats are moving to strip this woman of her committee assignments in the next few days. kevin mccarthy has scheduled a meeting with her sometime this week. i'll check in with her next week. instead of coming out publicly and saying what needs to be said to cross her because he's afraid of her and afraid of her voters. think about that. the minority leader in the house is afraid of this back bench congresswoman. . >> yeah. that's pathetic. by the way, we will have adam kinzinger on our show a little bit later on on "morning joe". now to other stories making news this morning. game stop surge may be rounding the company after it lost a third of its market value yesterday. this follows -- >> who could have seen that coming? willie, we have to stop going to reddit for our stock tips. >> a 400% spike last waoefpblg robinhood and other brokerage sites continued to limit buying game stop and other names to prevent major volatility. the chair of the house committee on financial services, congresswoman maxine waters announced a virtual hearing on the gamestop matter to be held february 18th. chicago public schools and city officials withdrew threats to lock out teachers who refused to work in person yesterday. educators will be allowed to continue to teach students remotely for the next two days in what officials are calling a cooling off period. the stalemate comes as the chicago teachers union and city officials failed to reach an agreement on conditions for reopening schools for in-person learning. negotiations between the two sides are expected to continue today. schools in the nation's third largest school district had been slated to reopen yesterday for more than 60,000 kindergarten through eighth grade students. >> you know, willie, back when covid first hit back in the spring, we didn't know anything about it. obviously, you know, how schools could interact. there have been schools that have done this very effectively h. there have been others that haven't. but certainly we are all aware, and i'm sure you're aware, of schools that have used best practices to get students back into classes. with vaccines rolling out there, and let's hope teachers get to the front of the line for vaccines. there ought to be some way, not just for chicago schools but schools all across this country, to teach some students in class. . >> yeah. what a disgrace that back and forth in chicago is to all the kids who need people, adults to step up for them right now. the cdc, this is not your opinion or my opinion. the cdc came out last week with research that shows schools are safe to be opened as long as there's masking and distancing. if you take best practices schools, it turns out are some of the safest places in this country. it's true in new york city. it's true all across the country. as you said, a lot of people, including educators and players, have been surprised just how low the infection rates have been among children inside schools. so people should do everything in their power to get their schools open safely. safely is the key word. for kids and for the teachers. >> and we have news this morning about legendary singer tony bennett. he has alzheimer's disease, his wife susan told aarp this week. the 94-year-old was diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease in 2016 but continued to tour and record music until the pandemic ended live performances. according to his neurologist, performing had been therapeutic because of music's peculiar power to rouse deep memories. his family told aarp the moment he heard the announcer's voice, boom, ladies and gentlemen, tony bent, he would transform himself into performance mode, stride out into the spotlight, smiling and acknowledging the audience's applause. the singer himself tweeted on monday, life is great, even with alzheimer's. he and lady gaga have been working on a follow-up album to their chart-topping record "cheek to cheek" from 2014 due for release this spring. and finally, joe, emmy and tony winner hal holbrook, best known for his portrayal of mark twain on stage and screen for 60 years, has died at 95. he also received an acting nomination at the age of 82 for his performance in the film "into the wild." other roles included a senate candidate in "wild into the streets" and "lincoln," lieu manhole many in "wall street." and "deep throat" in "all the president's men." he was known for his role as mark twain who he portrayed playing a novelest called "mark twain tonight" he directed himself and for which he won the best actor tony in 1966. >> what an extraordinary actor. and in so many films. so many shows. david ignatius, there's that one moment in "all the president's men" where he steps out of the shadow and it is hal holbrook who is about to spill it all. >> it was a moment, you have to wonder with moments like that, did it really happen quite as cinematically as that. thinking about holbrook and tony bennett, i'm dating myself. but when i was a kid this was kind of the theme music, the old crooner and the actor who played mark twain, the great, great loss. watergate in life was pretty amazing. "watergate" the movie, was even more so. and hal holbrook helped make it so. >> no doubt about it. it's interesting talking about how music would, mika, revive his mind. my mom had a master in music. . >> that's right. . >> as i was growing up, you would sit and hear her playing piano in the house. even as she was -- >> weeks before her death, yeah. >> she could sit down at a piano and play all the songs that i heard her play in her 30s, 40s, and 50s. music really is, it's extraordinary. and it holds on. that is a great story. >> you sang with her in her final days. i remember. she would light up. just light up. still ahead on "morning joe", with a senate trial looming, president trump is facing a deadline to file his response to the impeachment charge. but does he have a defense strategy yet? plus, we'll be joined by sean patrick maloney as democrats strategize how to hold the majority in 2022. but first straight to bill karins with the ongoing winter storm. bill, how is it looking? >> it's looking like i'm heading to florida. i have 20 inches in my front yard. a winter wonderland through the northeast this morning. newton, new jersey, 32 inches of snow. close to the new jersey state record. nazareth, 31. even connecticut had reports of almost 20 inches. we will still get higher totals from northern new england through the day. this was the 16th largest snowstorm in central park history. if we get another inch or two today, could move into the top 10. boston it was too warm and rain. so only an inch. you can see it's still plenty cold out there. all the blue on this map is the snow. so just light snow from areas of new jersey, philadelphia, new york, maybe another inch or two. so let's talk about what's next. our european and american computer models agree come this weekend on saturday, a new storm will be in the middle of the country. snow for areas of kansas, missouri, illinois start night. our american computer model takes it more towards the ohio valley and northern new england. european model gives us another blockbuster nor'easter storm super bowl night into monday. yeah. what a storm we just got done with. who knows. we may have another one on the way. regan national airport, slick roads. careful on your morning commute if you're out and about. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back. be right ba. stay restless with the icon that does the same. the rx crafted by lexus. lease the 2021 rx 350 for $429 a month for thirty six months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. pick up like a pro. for thirty six months. just order on the subway app and it's ready to go with contactless curbside. turkey sub in a hot tub! now get 15% off any footlong when you order in the app. my plaque psoriasis... ...the itching ...the burning. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful. emerge tremfyant™ with tremfya®, adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... ...can uncover clearer skin and improve symptoms at 16 weeks. tremfya® is also approved for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tremfya®. emerge tremfyant™ janssen can help you explore cost support options. because of the research that i've started to do on ancestry, with documents, with photographs, i get to define myself through the scores of people who lead to me. bring your family history to life like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com keeping your oysters business growing bring your family history to life like never before. has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo new year's resolutions come and go. so give your business more than resolutions... give it solutions, from comcast business. work more efficiently with fast internet and advanced wifi. make your business safer with powerful cybersecurity solutions. and stay productive with 24/7 support. make this year's resolution better solutions. bounce forward with comcast business. get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just $64.90 a month. plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a $500 prepaid card when you upgrade. switch today. (dramatic music) (announcer) the right car for you is out there. and at truecar, you can find it and a great price. because truecar knows what people in your area have paid for the car you want and can show you what's an especially high price and what's an uncommonly low price, so you can see what's a great price and get the actual price you'll pay at the dealership. ♪ get your car and a great deal, all from home, with truecar. ♪ ♪ babe, i've got you, babe ♪ >> welcome back to "morning joe". a virtual look at groundhog day and pucks tawny phil sees his shadow, we get six weeks of really stupid election conspiracy theories and mascara running down the sides of rudy giuliani's face. . >> oh, no, no. no. no thank you. >> i have to say punxsutawney phil loses something when the mayor is sitting at a desk in front of venetian blinds. i miss that guy. >> so a postmortem of president trump's campaign finds voters perceived him to be untrustworthy and disapproved of how he handled the coronavirus. . politico obtained the 27-page report completed by a trump campaign pollster in december, which was distributed among trump's advisers just before president biden's inauguration. the autopsy, based on exit polls from 10 swing states, says that trump saw the, quote, greatest erosion with white voters, particularly white men, and he, quote, lost ground with almost every age group. the report also says trump saw a double-digit erosion among college educated white voters. the coronavirus registered as the top issue for voters. biden won them over by a 3-1 margin. >> david ignatius, republicans looking at this, and i'm sure mitch mcconnell looked at data like this and has to be so concerned. white college educated voters, donald trump, republicans lost by double digits. of course he picked up among non-college white voters. but a lot of first-time voters who did not vote before donald trump, and you can guess most likely they will not vote after donald trump. and so this causes the gop a real headache if they can't figure out a way to get some of the white college educated voters back. they sure as hell aren't doing it right now with these conspiracy theories swirling around and kevin mccarthy's refusal to face up to what happened on january 6th. >> joe, you can only think that mitch mcconnell has been reading his own version of what is in this pollster report about the trump campaign. meaning mitch mcconnell and other republican leaders are realizing that trump, in the final days of the campaign, was scaring people. people didn't feel safe. they didn't female safe with the coronavirus. he moved to agitate the base. there is still a center of the republican party. and people got anxious. and mitch mcconnell has now decided to speak up for those people. i wondered in the last month or two, who would be the giant killer of the republican party? would would have the guts to take on this deposed and in many ways disgraced president and are he claim the party. we're finding out this week, mitch mcconnell is going to make a run at it. i don't know that he will succeed. but he is a great spectator sport. he's one of those guys who has thought way ahead on the chess board. he wouldn't be doing this if he didn't think it was in his party's essential interest. and the reason is he sees the long term erosion of the party. i think mcconnell, having set his course now, isn't going to back down easily. i wonder if mcconnell might be a vote for conviction in the senate trial. >> mika, the headline out of this postmortem is that coronavirus was the main issue for most voters. it seems obvious. it's the thing we talked about every single day. we wondered why the president didn't focus on it. if he had acted like a president, a wartime president as he said he was, it might have been an entirely different situation. he always wanted to play it down as he said to bob woodward famously, and it cost him the election. >> yeah. covering the way that the coronavirus is being approached now and the debates within it is so different than even months, weeks ago where, you know, we found ourselves screaming from the rooftops somebody needs to do something about this. and tens of thousands of people have died perhaps unnecessarily because of how botched the response was by a president who seemed to care only about his own ego and needs, let alone a pandemic gripping the country. it was an incredible scene. and now we're in a different place. earlier we talked about the problem the gop has with qanon supporter marjorie taylor greene. now democrats are looking to build on support for qanon we are seen in other gop candidates in elected officials. here's a new ad from the democratic congressional campaign committee targeting california's 25th district seat. >> qanon. a conspiracy theory born yone line. and with donald trump incited a mob. trump and republicans in congress sided with the violent qanon mob. congressman mike garcia should have stood with us. but he was a coward. he voted to protect trump. congressman stood with q, not you. >> joining us now chairman of the dccc. congressman maloney of new york. we will start there, the focus on the certain members of congress still who seem to be back in the old day of the trump years, which seems like yesterday because it was. does she have anyplace on capitol hill? >> well, good morning. i think what we're seeing is that trump may have been malignant but now it has metastasized. she represents a dangerous element of the american party. don't believe me, watch what happens in kevin mccarthy's meeting this week. my guess is she rolls him pretty good because he is too cowardly to stand up to the dangerous elements. if they deny the pandemic or want to throw out the election, they certainly can't be trusted with power. we will take that fight aggressively early to those who should not be playing around with these dangerous conspiracy theories. that's what the democrats are going to do. . >> hey, congressman. it's willie. to most sane people, this is easy to criticize, all the things this freshman congresswoman has said and done over the years, including recent days. what is your read on people why congressional republicans, kevin mccarthy, won't say the obvious things, that her views are disgusting and outrageous? >> because they're cowards. and because they have been using this performance-enhancing drug and they're hooked on it. it got them pretty far. it got them with some extra strength for a while. but now it is killing the body of their party. that's what we're seeing. the problem is the rest of us are affected by this. these conspiracy theorists deny the pandemic. on so how can they be trusted with a response? they deny the results of a fair election. my goodness, if they were in charge of the house of representatives, would donald trump still be president? the point is this is a danger. it's a danger to our health, our families. they deny school shootings. our argument is that you can do qanon or you can do government. you can't do both. >> congressman, kasie hunt has a question for you. >> congressman, good to see you. thank you so much. you all are planning on holding a vote on a privileged resolution that would strip marjorie taylor greene from her committee assignments. i'm wondering the strategy behind that. some say it would set a precedent that you could strip someone for basically any reason. do you think there are republicans who would vote for you of her committee assignments if it comes to that? >> let's find out. let's find out whether these republicans stand with the mob, dangerous conspiracy theories that deny the pandemic, that think space lasers created wildfires. deny that school shootings like sandy hook even took place. let's see if they will assistant with that or sanity. the choice is between the violent mob that attacked the capitol and our constitution, common sense. i don't mind putting every one of them on the record. let's see if they have the guts to stand up for what's right. >> we were talking about this $1.9 trillion proposal of covid relief. president biden last night in the oval office met with 10 senate republicans to hear them out on their $618 billion offer. do you think he's right to negotiate with republicans and try to earn some of their votes, or should the senate push through with just democratic votes? >> look, we shouldn't be afraid of negotiating. but i think the president has made it very clear. we are going to deliver results for the american people. it's been too long that the white house was denying the pandemic and there's a new sheriff in town and he's going to get something done. if the republicans want to get in the game on marjorie taylor greene and the dangerous qanon conspiracies and a real plan to fight the pandemic, they need to get in the game right now. but i don't think the president is going to wait around forever. let's see what the 10 republicans want to do. if it's a watered-down version of what the american people need, i'm confident the president will go it alone for the american people if he needs to. >> chair of the dccc, congressman sean patrick maloney, thank you very much for coming on. good to see you. with coronavirus cases still on the rise, the biden administration wants to make testing easier by investing in at-home kits. we'll have that when "morning joe" comes right back. that whe joe" comes right back. this is an athlete, twenty reps deep, sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. liberty mutual customized my car insurance, depend. so i only pay for what i need. what a great day! what an ok day. what a messed up- only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ go pro at subway® for double the protein on footlong subs and new protein bowls. and if you want to go pro like marshawn, you got to feed virtual marshawn, too. thanks for the footlong, irl marshawn! go pro and get double the protein for just $2 more. ♪♪ in a year of changes. don't take chances on your taxes. be 100% certain with jackson hewitt. we'll get your taxes done right, guaranteed. ♪♪ congresswoman ocasio-cortez seeking safety during the attack of the capitol building. in at times emotional instagram live feed, she explained how she feared for her life. here she is detailing the moment who she initially feared was was a rioter. >> but the story doesn't end. it's a capitol police officer. there was no police officer, was not yelling capitol police, et cetera, et cetera. but then it didn't feel right because he was looking at me with a tremendous amount of anger and hostility. and things weren't adding up. like there was no partner there. and no one was yelling -- he wasn't yelling like this is capitol police, this is capitol police. and he was looking at me and all of his anger and hostility. and at first, you know, in my brain and in my mind i'm thinking, okay, i just came from this super intense experience right now. maybe i'm reading into this, right? maybe i'm projecting like something onto him. maybe i'm just seeing anger when he's not trying to be angry. but i talked to my legislative director after the fact and he said, no, i didn't know if he was there to help us or hurt us either. >> so, kasie, that's obviously congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez on instagram live yesterday. to me the most moving part is, she goes on to say she locked herself in the bathroom of her office and she heard banging and knocking and saying where is she, where is she? it continues to get worst. from the outside on our television screens. you were there. you were inside the building. now we're starting to hear more stories from congressmen and women themselves. >> that's right, willie. aoc said she waited to tell this story because she was trying to figure out the security concerns, how to protect herself in the wake of this before the details were released. it is harrowing experience she describes. members of congress, often the front doors are unlocked. their office would be inside. she said she was all the way inside a bathroom inside her own office. so probably through two or three outside doors and that, as you said, they were pounding on the door saying where is she, where is she? she was clearly a direct target of this mob the same way people were calling to hang mike pence, to find house speaker nancy pelosi. there's court documents that say one person said they were looking to put a bullet in nancy pelosi's head. yeah, the trauma is really fresh. it is getting overtaken by the politics of this. everyone there, regardless of party, it is important to remind everyone about what really happened. this was an attack on all of us. but for the people who were there, it was an attack on us personally as well. i don't think we should lose sight on that as we turn our focus to the impeachment trial next week. . >> and an attack on their lives. david ignatius, in a way, isn't during the trial a chance for republicans to turn the page on this and say it was wrong? >> they do have a chance to say it was wrong, as their colleagues remember the horror they felt of legislative members being attacked. as we get a sense of how the democrats will present the case for impeaching the president, convicting the president, there's a sense that this very powerful footage of the mob, you look into the eyes of people and see the rage and anarchy feeling they had, beating down doors, pursued them, chasing them. that will be distilled for the public to see and for other members to see. and i think it's going to be powerful. we talked about the divisive effect that the trial in the senate may have. there may be a way in which will it will force us to remember how horrifying this was. we know mitch mcconnell was just deeply enraged by what happened. i think that's been one of the motivators for what we have seen from him in the last few days, the criticism of marjorie taylor greene. the defense of liz cheney. i think this trial, ideally what we want is a moment when the country gets over, deals with and gets over what happened, comes together. >> yeah. >> knowing what is right and wrong. maybe the footage will help. >> still ahead, republican congressman adam kinzinger joins us. after launching a new effort to wrestle his party away from donald trump. plus, top economic adviser to president biden, jared bernstein, will be our guest after saying americans don't care how leaders deliver economic relief as long as it gets done soon. "morning joe" is coming right back. ng joe" is coming right back before nexium 24hr, anna could only imagine a comfortable night's sleep without frequent heartburn waking her up. now, that dream... . ...is her reality. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts, for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? dry, distressed skin that struggles? new aveeno® restorative skin therapy. with our highest concentration of prebiotic oat intensely moisturizes over time to improve skin's resilience. aveeno® healthy. it's our nature™. introducing the new starbucks, blending the coffee you love with the cutting-edge medicine you need to stay alive. three shots of pfizer, pump skin spice, java chips, and a blast of clorox chips. >> quite frankly, that is nonsense. >> don't listen to him. i don't know whose side he's on. >> oh, my gosh. welcome back to "morning joe". and look at a snowy washington, d.c. at the top of the hour, 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. it's going to be chilly, cold, snowy and icy up the east coast today. a big storm. it's tuesday, february 2nd. along with joe, willie and me, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, and yamiche al cinder and associate editor of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson joins us. we begin with the latest on president biden's plan on coronavirus relief. it is looking more likely that democrats will push through the nearly $2 trillion economic package with or without republicans. they met for about two hours in the oval office to pitch their much smaller $600 billion package. but the message from the white house is that it. >> not meet the moment. senator susan collins said the meeting was very productive and cordial. when it comes to striking a compromise, the sides are far apart. and the white house says the president will not delay aid to try and win republican support. meanwhile, democrats on the hill have already started the process that will allow a bill to pass without republican support, joe. . >> all right. so we have gone over this a little bit in the last hour. joe biden has quite a few choices in front of him. he can work with republicans if they move closer to his number. he's got the opportunity to run over him, go through the process of reconciliation, which doesn't matter with what any democrat says in leadership. if you start by going through reconciliation, you're just starting in a way that may hurt future negotiations down the road. the question is are democrats at a point after dealing with 15 years of, you know, republican hihilis phrbgs 15 years of republican obstruction, 15 years when it comes to presenting no alternative to obamacare, whether they can sit and trust these 10 republicans that are in the room to move. my personal feeling is joe biden, the uniter, needs to give it a try. >> the truth is democrats inside government and out, as you say, feel like they have been pushed around for the last 15 years. even under president obama, they feel they were pushed around. so for a lot of democrats, i think including for chuck schumer, this is their time. they feel like they won. they got the senate, the white house. so they're going to get done whatever they need to get done, whether that's through reconciliation, or bringing over a few republicans as joe biden had over to the white house last night in the oval office meeting with 10 republicans. yamiche, the again is, then, do democrats actually mean it when they say they want unity? do democrats mean it when they say we would like to have a few republican votes. we heard from congressman maloney who said, yeah, we would like to get republicans on board but we're not going to sit around and wait for them. we're not going to be pushed around and let them dictate the agenda. >> my sense is that democrats and president biden do want unity. but they have two other words on their minds and that is power and urgency. they have all this power the american people gave them in the senate, the house, and the white house. and there is a real sense of urgency talking to people that are part of the president's covid response team and who are familiar with the vaccine distribution situation. and they are saying that we cannot wait six months to have negotiations. we can't have the nine month back and forth where republicans give a little and democrats give a lot. there will be millions of americans who won't get the vaccine if they don't. even though we have enough for the summer, you will have to continuously vaccinate americans. that's lost on people. as a result what you get is a real sense that there needs to be this push with democratic power. you saw last night with president biden sitting down with the 10 republicans talking to white house aides. they told me there are $618 million plan was almost -- was basic live a nonstarter. it is less than a third of what biden is proposing. it zeros out all sorts of things, including emergency aid to states. zero on one side and billions of dollars on the other. k through 12 schools. 130 billion from president biden. the difference, the space between the two plans was so wide and vast, it's not surprising that before the meeting white house press secretary jen psaki set the agenda saying this is not going to be a place where there is going to be an offer made and accepted in any way, shape or form. i think we will see if president biden possibly going it alone. i asked the white house press secretary during the press briefing, does the president support democrats going forward with reconciliation. she said yes in terms of the process. he doesn't want to go it alone. but the base is saying we have the power. it's urgent. and let's use it all. >> gene, of course nobody can wait six months. this needs to get done on six, seven days. they are saying let's charge forward. we don't have to deal with republicans. we want everything in the fall. not to be a stick in the mud, but i'm going to be a stick in the mud. they lost 25 competitive races in the house of representatives. the political report says we're going to beat competitive races. they under performed in the senate. they won because of the civil war that republicans launched. i'm just wondering is it worth joe biden taking these negotiations for a few days and seeing if the republicans will come up to a respectable area. and if he can get 60 votes to reconciliation, is it worth it if he gets 70% of what he wants instead of 100% of what he wants in. >> well, i think he would take a long, hard look at an offer of 70% of what he wants or 75% of what he wants or 80% or some respectable figures. but 30% of what he wants is not going to fly, joe. it's just not going to fly. there's no way that $618 billion is an acceptable offer to democrats up and down the line, including president biden. so there's going to have to be a lot of movement. i think president biden would be very happy to spend a few days. some period of time taking to the republicans to see if these 10, number one, will stay together and, number two, will come up to a reasonable range. look, he preached bipartisanship and going back to the way things were. the entire campaign he was resolute on that. you he ain't going to take $618 billion. they're not going to move substantially. yeah, it will go through reconciliation and the political impact of that down the line has to be dealt with. democrats did win. they lost seats in the house. they barely won the senate. but they did win both. not just a mandate but urgency. they need to do something. drive around your neighborhood and look at the small businesses that are closed. look at the lines at the food banks. look at vaccine distribution across the country. just look at where we are. this is an emergency situation. and it's not -- there's no time for a six-month negotiation. >> as i said, mike, they have to get this moving in six, seven days. i'm curious, 600 billion is woefully in adequate. is there a number that republicans can get to? do you think democrats will be dug in no matter what? >> joe, look at the positive. after that meeting, nobody came out and attacked the other side. so that's progress right there. the other aspect, there is a woeful gap between what the republicans arrived and offered, put on the table. a woeful gap. >> right. >> and i think there is a sense in the administration, in the biden administration that the republican members of the house and the senate who were discussing these items and these dollar items and these potential appropriations, they are flying 35,000 feet above the ground. i think the white house is acutely aware of the needs of each and every state governor and a lot of mayors around this country. and the needs are tremendous. all you have to do is, look, i got a vaccine shot thankfully about a week ago. the lines were pretty good. it moved quickly. and it's a successful operation. but they had top hire people to do this in the city in boston where i got mine. states can't borrow money the way the federal government does. nor can city. i think the president of the united states, he's a dealer in a sense. he's dealt his whole life in the senate, listening to the other side. i think he will were give it a week or 10 days. but that's about it. and it's got to be full boat. governor justice of west virginia, republican, pointed that out in a clip you played i believe in the last hour. and it's a common sense thing. you've got to go big now. imagine if in january 1942 fdr had said, wait, it's going to cost a lot of money to fight this war. we can't put all the money on the table right now. we're going to lay it out because we can't afford to do it right now. we can't afford as a country, as a state, as a city, no matter where you go in this country, to say we can't afford to do it right now. we can't afford not to do it right now. >> i don't disagree. but can't there be some give and take? i mean, just for the beginning of the relationship, the new relationship between this president and the republican party? i don't know. but here now to the reason that all of this aid is needed. the first over the counter coronavirus test kits will be hitting shelves soon after the biden administration struck a $230 million deal to ramp up production. the antigen test from the australian diagnostic company is expected to cost around $30,000 each and does not -- $30 each. not 30,000, 30. it doesn't require sending samples to a lab, turning results in 15 minutes straight to your smartphone with 90% accuracy. that sounds like a test. it does not require invasive nasal swabs and other tests. appropriate for ages 2 and older. the fda originally granted emergency use authorization in december. and this test is one of three over the counter tests expected to hit the market soon. yesterday white house senior adviser for the covid-1919 response andy shraf et announced the news during the press briefing. >> ellume has been ramping up manufacturing and will ramp up from february through july. that's good, but it's obviously not where we will need to be. so i'm excited to announce the department of defense and hhs awarded $230 million to ellume in order to scale the manufacturing base and capacity of this else-to-use test. thanks to this contract, they will be able to scale their production to manufacture more than 19 million test kits per month by the end of this year. 8.5 million of which are guaranteed to the u.s. government. >> wow. joining us now, infectious diseases physician and medical director at the special pathogens unit at the boston school of medicine, and msnbc medical contributor. i remember screaming on this show about the need for testing. you look at the biden administration and how quickly this is turning around. there's a lot to do still. but this kind of testing, how does it change the game? >> good morning, mika. yeah, by a lot. you mentioned that the test actually received the eua, emergency use authorization in december. the difference, though, is that the federal government just announced they're investing in its mass manufacturing. and you need the test numbers for it to make a difference. you know, so as opposed to november when we're looking up a hill on that surge. the difference now is we have two new tools. we have the vaccines and these tests. the difference the test will make is we're in a period of time where we have discovered three highly transmissible variants. that means our everyday activities has become more dangerous. it means now if i encounter a person with one of these viruses that has a mutation, i'm much more likely to get the infection and pass it on. these allow us in our everyday activities, in hopefully people are not traveling. but if you're traveling, it gives you a much more realtime sense of whether you're infectious or not. if you're going to work in a group of people, if you're going to school. it makes a huge difference. allowing your status allows you to make a decision to keep you from transmitting it to other people. >> good morning, doctor. it's willie. let's talk about the vaccines. promising news with j&j. hopefully going to get their emergency use authorization. hopefully we have a third weapon to go with moderna and pfizer. how is the rollout going, a couple weeks into the paoeugz rollout. they don't have the supply. they don't have the doses this he need to vaccinate as many people as possible. when do you see that trajectory starting to change so the people who want it and need it can get it quickly. >> yeah. good morning, willie. so there is a crunch it feels like in the month of february. it has gone better in the last couple of weeks. what the biden administration has done is increased the allocations to states by about 16%. you know, that absolute sort of number increased numbers allowed more vaccinations. the other things they have done is they have allowed a three were-week security for states saying providers have this, they will know what amount they will have. what andy shraf it mentioned yesterday, and i have noticed it, as well as some providers at some point are keeping doses behind. having that security that the doses will be available means more doses are going out the door. the third big thing, hhs announced an expansion of public readiness and emergency preparedness act that basically allows more vaccinators to be created by pulling in retired physicians or other providers and allowing them a license to give vaccinations and currently licensed practitioners to cross state borders. i think all of those will make a difference. j&j is great news. what we know from the trial last week, it is highly effective in reducing severe disease and hospitalizations. that's really what we are afraid of with the new variants. if they go through the fda approval process, the likely time we will see it is march. the next month we might have a bit of a front. after that, they will allocate 100 million doses. i was reminded yesterday the timeline of the summer of everybody getting vaccinated is based on the current mrna vaccine. >> the question a lot of people have, if you have the vaccine, do you still need to wear a mask? if you have been found to have the antibodies or you have had the coronavirus, do you need to wear a mask? >> yeah. these questions will come up a lot more as more people are getting vaccinated. i'm going to start by saying there is a lot of uncertainty around this. the reason why is the study so far -- what's the concern. the concern is that you may be protected against the vaccines. but potentially you could still get it close to the virus, get the infection and replicate enough to pass it on. but data so far which is very preliminary from both astrazeneca and moderna saying they reduce some amount of transmission. there is not enough data out. pfizer and johnson & johnson said they will release the information. if people around you are not protected, hence, we are asking people to wear masks. however, being vaccinated makes activities that you do slightly safer. if you have to travel, hopefully you're not traveling about us of the variants and everything we know. but if you're traveling, the masking, and the distancing is a safer endeavor than before you were vaccinated. >> doctor, thank you very much. come back soon. we appreciate it. major league baseball players will be reporting to spring training next month. the union did not make a counteroffer to the league's plan which would have pushed back the start of spring training, delayed opening day and cut eight games from each team's regular season schedule. mike, tell me what's going on there? >> it's a fierce war between the commissioner's office and major league baseball. it's to the detriment of the game. not even a counteroffer, that's ridiculous. does the d.h. rule apply to both league or both leagues? no counteroffer from the players association on that. and the idea that spring training is going to begin in about 10 days in two states where the virus is still a huge danger, as it is in most states. but particularly in florida and arizona. i don't know that that's going to work. i really don't. plus, the major league baseball offer that was on the table for a delay of season, delay of spring training to the middle of march, the season will begin may 1st, spread of april 1st, they would play the players for a full 162-game season when they would be playing a 154-game season in reality. and yet the players association rejected that. so baseball is in real trouble. and they're in real trouble in the sense the way the republicans and the democrats have been in real trouble for the last decade or so. they talk past one another rather than to each other. and someone has got to fix that really, really quickly. >> you know, willie, i guess a lot of the players are thinking we did this last year. early in the year the marlins had 14, 15, 16 players out with covid. >> yeah. >> they got over it pretty quickly and went on to have a great year. a lot of their attitude may be let's get out and play. we went through this once before and got through it so let's play. . >> there were scares. they seemed to figure it out. there are pockets of the disease they isolated. they got through the season and played a world series. i'm worried about that slot in the yankees rotation now that tanaka is going back to japan. how do we hold off the sox? that's my concern. >> we decided that winning in 2018 was enough for us. we have been phoning it in since. we just got tired of winning. oh, we won the series in 2018. let's sell everybody and not replace anybody. not that i'm bitter about it. not bitter at all. who wants to win two or three world series in a row? who wants mookie bets on your side? i mean, seriously. but speaking of baseball, the red sox and covid, how's eli doing. here's an example of a good, young kid who got the disease and got real heart complications afterwards. how is he doing? has he bayed a good come back? is he expected to start the spring? >> they expect him to be fully ready to go whenever the season is ready to go, whether it's april 1st or may 1st. you're right. he got the covid. and he dealt with it. and it really damaged him for a period of time. he didn't play at all last year. it did affect his heart. i've been told the health issues have been resolved and he will be fully ready to go. to willie's point, he was worried about tanaka going to japan. i'm worried about being able to go to the ballpark. i want to actually be able to go to some games and sit in major league ballpark and watch a game. hopefully that will happen by middle of the summer or whatever. >> yes. >> and, again, joe, to your point, i have to tell you, i got tired of carrying those world series trophies around. >> i know. >> all right, idiots. let's go. >> you share my concern. >> well, obviously, so does ownership. they were tired of having to pay for all of those world series flags that they had to unfurl at the beginning of the year. they're like let's just take a break! let's sell mookie and get rid of all of our pitchers and not refill. >> okay. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> hey, so willie, mika, i would be remiss if i didn't talk about the huge trade. mika was talking about it all weekend. >> no, i wasn't. >> yes. yes, you were. >> all weekend she was saying, can you believe how good the cardinals are going to be next year. goldschmidt hitting number two. as mika likes to say, them boys are loaded >> they're good. claire mccaskill is happy. incredible lineup they have in st. louis. and the i can't think kwraoes have taken a break since 2009. so i share your pain. the good thing for barnicle, he has three or four rows to himself. he has the social distancing already. he's vaccinated. he's ready to go. >> as we all know, mike barnicle invented social distancing long before covid. >> that's right. >> there you go. now be quiet, mark barnacle. i wasn't talking about the red sox. i was talking about salah coming this close to the golden boot. we almost made it to a break. alex, sorry. >> she has no idea what she is talking about. who said that in your ear? >> i covered soccer for you yesterday when you weren't feeling well. and i listened to roger bennett. it's fascinating. >> it is fascinating. >> this game. >> this beautiful, beautiful game. >> we have to keep going now. no break. sorry, alex. the economy is in improving faster than expected, the congressional budget office says. and according to projections, the american economy will return to its prepandemic size by the middle of the year, even if congress doesn't approve anymore aid for recovery. the unemployment rate is also expected to fall to 5.3% at the end of the year. down from 8.4%. the economy is expected to grow 3.7% for the year, much bigger improvement than originally expected. a member of the white house counsel jared bernstein joins us. thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. >> so, jared, with all of these numbers, i mean, we need to -- it's like fdr convention song in '32. let's strike up the band, "happy days" are here again. even if washington does nothing, the cbo is projecting 3.75 growth, which is really a strong growth. other economic indicators are looking good. with that being the case, why do we need a nearly $2 trillion stimulus bill? >> because overall gdp growth doesn't get anywhere close to describing the lives of people who have been struggling for almost a year now with both this devastating virus and the pandemic-induced economic hardships it has generated. last week over a million people claimed uninsurance benefits. we never had that in the whole of the great recession. african-american employment is 10%. 11 million people still unemployed. when president biden, vice president harris ran for office, they drilled down on the inequities imbedded. racial and economic. of course we welcome faster growth. but that growth has to reach the folks on the bottom leg of the k in this k-shaped recovery. >> so how high do the numbers go as far as income, household income earning for people receiving checks? the republicans want to give people checks up to 50,000. what is the biden plan? >> it is for single filers. the analogous is 75,000 for the biden plan. i was looking at what people in different occupations make. i found a teacher, inexperienced, say, kindergarten teacher, makes about 70,000 a year. now, this is a person who has perhaps been working from home and is making their way back to school, especially by the way, if we can implement our reopening the schools agenda in the rescue plan. and this person gets a check under our plan but not under the republican plan. and i think that's something that's very important to joe biden and to many constituents who are watching this. >> hey, jared, it's willie geist. good to see you this morning. i have talked to some republicans who say, look, i want to go with you on a lot of this covid relief. but it is the extras that are in there, the child tax credit, raising minimum wage to $15 an hour. but not on this package. they said let's have a different conversation about that. so why not just do covid on this and separate out those pieces? >> well, it's a good question. they are welcoming the exchanges they are having with republicans on precisely these issues, how to get to the other side of the crisis most quickly and most effectively. and that's the key for the president. now, on some of the things you mentioned, in our view, obviously, they are integral. they are not acceptable. minimum wage is a good example. minimum wage is a way to reach workers working in the sanitation sector, warehouse, health care sector. in some states in this country make $7.25 an hour. and we call them essential workers. to me that's integral to the package. you mentioned the child tax credit. we have an opportunity to address precisely what i was talking about my first set of comments. the folks hit the hardest by this. you know, myself, probably you folks, we have never missed a paycheck throughout this crisis. but those on the bottom leg of the k, especially the poor, have been hit both by the crisis and by the economic side harder than anyone. and expanding the child tax credit reduces child poverty by 50%. that doesn't just help us today. that's a generational, a lifetime difference in the lives of these kids. >> i was going to let everybody know mr. bernstein, phil griffin never paid willie geist until the last week at msnbc. so willie is finally getting paid. >> that's not fair. he gave me scratch-off tickets. no winners yet. gene robinson has a question. >> jared, good morning. >> hello. >> the meeting yesterday was -- everyone seemed to enjoy it. i think the republicans and president biden enjoyed the fact that they could have a meeting and everyone could -- they could actually discuss things and it didn't devolve into an awful food fight. indeed, a meeting took place between the white house and congress. that said, is there any optimism at the white house that the republicans will actually come up to what you see as a reasonable number? a reasonable range rather than the 680 billion they started with, which is clearly a nonstarter. >> yeah. i think it was very good to see the meeting and to see that exchange of views across the aisle. something joe biden has been dedicated to his whole career. but if this stops with a good meeting, it's not going to begin to meet the urgent needs of the american people. so one of the things you heard come out of that meeting is we may be pointing in the same direction in many of these policies, not all of them. some of the things we just discussed that the republicans leave out are very important to us. but we've got to get there quickly and with a magnitude of the proposal that's the american rescue plan. the danger here is not doing too much. it's doing too little. so we're very much interested in this exchange of ideas. we couldn't be less interested in action, in delay, in failing to meet the urgency of the moment. so, you know, the fact that democrats understand this across i think all three chambers of government is critical to moving this quickly. >> member of the council of economic advisers, jared bernstein. thank you very much. thank you for putting up with these boys. still ahead, a shutting down of one of the largest vaccination sites in the country. it was organized on a facebook page promoting false claims about the pandemic, masks, and immunization. that story is ahead on "morning joe". we'll be right back. we'll be right back. >> man: what's my safelite story? 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>> well, my hero is still with us. i think he's 91 years old now. and his name is berry gordy jr., founder of motown records. he was responsible for some of the best approximate most popular music of the 20th century and gave us a set of artists who are -- whose work is immortal. stevie wonder, diana ross and the supremes, the temptations. marvin gaye, on and on. for many of us, it's the sound track of our youth. and the soundtrack of the period of the civil rights movement. and it's a new day. let's celebrate somebody who brought so much joy and happiness into people's lives with this great music that will just never die. >> gene, what an absolutely unique sound. phil specter passed away. there weren't a lot of celebrations about the passing of him. but he created this extraordinarily unique sound. but berry gordy was right there. and it was a unique motown sound. i have asked musicians that recorded there what it was like. they said, man, it was like a garage. he had cords up above. it was just stripped down to the basics. and like that incredible motown sound where you had the rhythm section, guitars up high. and then just that extraordinary roster of talent, filling it out. what an incredible innovator. >> yeah. he really was. just a couple of the secrets to that great sound, he used a lot of tambourine to get that snap. there is a kind of snap to the motown sound that you can't find anywhere else. and then there's a man named james jameson who played base in a lot of the great motown classics. and he just had -- he was a genius. it was just perfect. a lot of that is james jameson. and the house band who were absolutely first rate musicians, all of them. all of this sort of welling up out of detroit on out of the company in los angeles. it will always be motown to me, detroit sound. and there was nothing like it. >> what an incredible sound. yamiche, who -- this black history month, who are you anything about as an inspiration? >> someone who inspires me every day even though she is no longer with us is tony morison. an acclaimed author who wrote a number of novels including "beloved," song of solomon", "the bluest eye." she wrote her first novel "bluest eye" at the age of 39. she had lived her life, who became the first black editor at random house, already a pioneering figure who turned at 39 and became this amazing, amazing writer. and the books that she wrote, i re-read them pretty much constantly because they are books that show african-american life from a grassroots level. and it shows the consequences of racism in this country as we all go through this racial reckoning, reading tony morison's work tells us how we think of beauty in the the bluest eye. slavery caused one mother to kill her child. on and on and on, the consequences that remain with us. she is an amazing, amazing author. i miss her so much. i never got to meet her. so i often continue to read her books and speeches. she is just someone who is amazing. and she said if there's a book that you want to read but can't find it, then write it yourself. as someone who is writing -- >> i love that. >> i think about her all the time. and she's just an amazing person. >> and what a beautiful, beautiful spirit. mika and i have watched all of martin scorsese's interviews with fran lebowitz, which is an absolute must-see. fran lebowitz is interviewing her. and she said, why do you -- fran said every great writer i have ever met hates writing. tony morison said i love it. i absolutely love it. and i write because i want to invite people in, which also fran lebowitz said i'm not a host. i'm not a hostess. i don't want people in. they were having this wonderful back and forth. but you saw this joyous, giving, loving spirit of toni morison talking about i write because i want to invite everybody in. and you just -- you is saw the beauty of her spirit, the beauty of her soul. what a remarkable writer. what a remarkable woman. what a remarkable example. coming up, our next guest calls it the coup we aren't talking about. a discussion about social media, surveillance, and disinformation. that's next on "morning joe". man that's next on "morning joe" hey, son! no dad, it's a video call. you got to move the phone in front of you like..like it's a mirror, dad. you know? alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror? [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app with powerful, easy-to-use tools and interactive charts to give you an edge, 24/7 support when you need it the most and $0 commissions for online u.s. listed stocks. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today. just weeks after the capitol siege, there's yet another example of conspiracy theorists doing real damage. an anti-vaccine protest temporarily shut down one of the largest vaccination sites in the country. >> spread by? >> facebook. >> of course facebook. >> los angeles dodgers stadium where a group of people had false claims about masks, inside says in southern california. >> thanks, facebook. >> masks extremists filmed themselves going -- >> great job, facebook. >> a critical organizing tool of the antivaccine movement. >> of course. >> well, they're just not going to do it. they continue to allow this conspiracy theory called plandemic that goes on and tells millions of americans that covid is a hoax a anthony fauci is at fault. that's brought to you by facebook. >> okay. >> we complained about this for six months. they continue to allow that video to be posted and people continue to die because of facebook. now they're not getting vaccinations because of facebook. >> here is what they say. we have banned ads that discourage people from getting vaccines and we also label pages and groups that continue to share vaccine hoaxes, lower all of their posts in needfeed and do not recommend them. as part of our policy to remove covid information that puts people at risk for harm, we started removing claims about covid vaccines and will continue to do so. we are reviewing this page. >> you're reviewing the page? you're reviewing the page? you need to do a better job. mark zuckerberg is worth, what, $100 billion? >> let me finish the statement. >> you can do a better job. >> we are reviewing this page and will take action against any content that violates our policies. that statement is so insulting and stupid. >> that's all they are. that's all they do. they keep kicking the can down the road, whether it's violence. during the black lives matter protest, they were actually pushing people to extremists pages and ended up getting an officer assassinated by a member of the bug loo boys. that's why events like january the 6th happened and will continue to happen until the government regulates facebook and starts facing criminal penalties -- listen to me, criminal penalties -- on anybody in that corporation that puts together an alga rhythm that shoves people to those sites. if mark zuckerberg keeps making billions and billions of dollars off an operation that pushes extremists to extremist sites to kill people or stop americans from getting vaccines, then mark zuckerberg should be sent to jail. it is obscene. i can't believe that washington continues to allow this to happen. but they do. you know why? because they're getting millions and millions of dollars in lobbying money. >> as stupid as that statement is, it is more insane that facebook thinks the people on their platform are stupid, too. okay? this has got to stop. >> they're promoting extremism. >> joining us now the author of a book called "the age of surveillance capitalcapitalism." she dives into the role social media companies have played to get to this disinformation point. >> professor, i promise voices down. we're not talking about your article. we're being very mindful at this point. as i was reading your article, it reminded me of something i read six months or so where the writer said that if stossi, the east german police organization one-tenths of the surveillance tools that silicon at we're allowing these it companies to spy on us in a way that communist companies weren't capable of doing during the cold war. >> if they had facebook tools, there would still be an east germany. >> yeah. >> that's absolutely the case. this is an intolerable situation. we have seen in the whole realm of digital and in facebook's case, this is one of the principal means by which we communicate, and we have seated that to a private company whose entire economics is based on secretly surveilling us, taking our personal information, translating it into behavioral data so they can analyze our personality, our emotions, our sexual orientation. that's what they use to be able to target the way you have been describing, to figure out who is susceptible to these divisive, inflammatory messages and then provoke them, drive them with this constant over and over again for one simple reason. it's crazy. that reason is to get their engagement. why? you get your engagement, you get more data. all they want is data because the data translates into the computational products. they sell predictions of our behavior based on all that data they gather and that's what drives market capitalization. that's what drives revenue. that's what's made them the hundreds of billions of dollars, joe. this is where we're at, and this is what we have to change. we have a decade to turn this around. >> professor, it's willie gies. over the past 20 years or so, we have slowly given up everything, sometimes innocuous. give us your birthday so we can reminds your friends it is your birthday. you say we have a decade to do something about it. how do you begin to put the genie back in the bottle? >> there is one answer, and the answer is democracy. we're all aware that democracy is under siege, and facebook has had a huge role to play in this. the other surveillance capital firms as well. we've got google. we've got amazon. but, look, the only way we can end democracy siege is with democracy itself. we need new charters. we need new legal frame works. we need new institutions to oversee the application of new laws and new rights. this is what we did early in the 20th century. remember, we used to have industrial companies that were very big and very powerful. they had all the rights. there were no workers rights. there were no consumer rights. there was no social security, unemployment insurance, all of the institutions that were invented to make industrial capitalism safe for democracy. that's exactly where we are today. this is our turn to invent those rights and laws and institutions to make our digital century safe for democracy so that we can all thrive and prosper in this new world. >> mike? >> professor, first of all, the idea that none, not one, of the antivaxers who disrupted the vaccine distribution at dodgers stadium last week, not one, is mind boggling in and of itself. would you begin with the proposition that whatever facebook was originally formulated as, a communicative tool, how are you doing since high school and stuff like that, but it is now just principally a money making operation with no conscious at all. it is just all about the money. >> you're absolutely right. it began connecting people and, you know, there were some good aspirations there. but it wasn't making money. so the big breakthrough in these companies came when they figured out that they could secretly take our personal experience as their source of free raw material to translate into behavioral data. the behavioral ta ta gets computed into predictions. they sold those predictions to advertisers. now that same kind of business has just migrated across the economy and to every kind of industry. so when they figured that out, that's when they became surveillance empires, because the only way they can take our personal information is to do it secretly because none of us want this to happen. we didn't vote for them. we didn't agree to this. it has to happen secretly or we'd all be resisting. of course resistance means friction. >> we have to wrap up because we're hitting the top of the hour. "the age of surveillance capitalism." we absolutely have to have you back to talk about this more. >> please come back. >> professor emeritus at harvard business school, thank you so much. and still ahead in this 8:00 a.m. hour, with the future of the gop uncertain, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell defends one remember of his party and rebukes another. plus, congressman adam kin zinger joins us. our 8:00 a.m. hour of "morning joe" continues right now. at this point in time in this nation, we need to go big. we need to count the cows and just move and move forward and move right now. we need to go big. and if we waste some money now, well, we waste some money. but we got too many people hurting and the economy is going to sputter and we have to get ourselves out of this mess, and it's the way we've got to go right now. >> let me tell you something, that man has a future. >> i think so. >> or west virginia. >> yeah, miikka. that's from republican governor of the state that donald trump got 69% in. >> yeah. jim justice, governor of west virginia urging the government to go big on covid-19 welcome "morning joe." we have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of "way too early," kasie hunt. and it seems more and more likely that democrats will push through the biden administration's nearly $2 trillion economic relief package with or without republicans. the president met with a group of senate republicans for about two hours in the oval office yesterday to pitch their much smaller $600 billion package, but the message from the white house is that it doesn't meet the moment. senator susan collins said the meeting was productive and cordial. but the sides are far apart and the president will not delay aid to try and win republican support. democrats on the hill have already started the process that will allow a bill to pass without republican support. yesterday before the meeting, white house press secretary general sache was asked exactly what the president considers bipartisan. >> would you consider a bill bipartisan if it doesn't have any republican support in congress but it has, you know, support among republican voters? >> well, i think you touched on an interesting point, which is that 74% of the public supports this package and the key components of this package. we just saw the republican governor of west virginia come out earlier today and advocate for a big package. so, you know, when the president talks about unifying the country, he's not suggesting that he is going to make one party out of the democratic and republican parties in congress, but he is meeting with republicans today, ten republicans who have sent this letter because he feels they made a good faith effort to put the top lines of a proposal forward and he wants to have that engagement and encourages that sharing of ideas. >> i'm sure a lot of you watching this are going to disagree. i know almost every one in congress will disagree. you have ten republicans who are coming to the white house that, yes, started with a number that's low. but here is the amazing thing about negotiations. one party starts low and one party starts high. so we're at what, $650 million and $1.9 billion. if you look at the economics of this, "the new york times" this week said that $1.9 trillion actually is more money pumping into the economy than has been taken out currently by covid. one other thing, too. we just got a projection from the congressional budget office yesterday that said they expect economic growth at 3.7% this next year, even -- even if there is no additional funding from the federal government. one other thing, they are now putting in a $15 per hour minimum wage piece into this covid relief package. liberals like me could think that's a great idea. if it's a great idea, then have a stand-alone vote on that. don't throw additional things into a covid relief package. i think most republicans, you know, or some republicans will vote for that $15 an hour. i mean, in florida that passed, even, you know, this past year when trump won by three, three and a half percentage points. so i'm just worried, and forgive me for not being brief here, i'm just worried that joe biden has an opportunity to meet in the middle to figure out a middle path forward that gets ten republicans in this thing. they don't have to, you know, go immediately to, you know, pushing him aside and reconciliation and just getting the 50 votes. and he does something that barack obama wasn't able to do. he does something that george w. bush wasn't able to do effectively. and that is start his administration with a bipartisan relief package. if they need more down the road, they can get more down the road. this is what they did a couple months ago in december. they had a bipartisan package a couple months ago. let's have another one now. >> well, that's the question. was that meeting in the oval office yesterday, was that symbolic or was that genuine? was that good faith? was that someone who said i see your $618 million over against my $1.9 trillion plan and let's find something in the middle because the republican plan does not include the $15 wage hike or aid to states and cities. do democrats want to sit and negotiate with this group of moderate senators who he will need for a lot more legislation over the years if he wants to get things done. does he go through and negotiate with them or does he listen to chuck schumer who said this republican offer is an insult and we have to go big or go home? kasie hunt, i put that to you as someone that covers capitol hill every day. is this a good faith negotiation or does it look like democrats will just go ahead without republicans? >> well, let's take a quick step back here, willy. after this meeting ended, nobody went to the microphones after saying swear words were exchanged, that people were yelling at each other, that anyone had embarrassed anyone else. it was an extraordinarily different time in washington, and i think that that all by itself does stand to potentially go a long way. look, two hours with the president and vice president of the united states is a really long time. these senators clearly had a real conversation. it was cordal. everyone came out and said, okay, that was productive. now, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to end up doing some sort of baby partisan deal that you and joe are talking about. but i do think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that just the change in tone is in fact meaningful and important. and, again, two hours in the oval office, not a short amount of time. they had to have been having serious conversations here. now, big picture, it is obvious the biden administration wants to demonstrate and show that they are being bipartisan, that this is a campaign promise he is trying to fill that campaign promise. whether or not he does that is going to be dependent on how republicans decide to conduct themselves. if mitch mcconnell is willing to say, okay, you can go along with it. he's not going to try and stand in the by of them voting with democrats on something like this, i think maybe we could get there. but i think they also think it is important to send a message this is a once in a generation crisis. we got to solve it. we got to solve it big, and we're not willing to let that promise of bipartisan ship get in the way of what really needs to be done. >> still ahead, more on how joe manchin is quickly becoming one of the most consequential figures in washington. the road to 50 votes goes straight through west virginia. we'll talk about that next on "morning joe." ♪♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ smooth driving pays off. ♪ with allstate, the safer you drive the more you save. ♪ you never been in better hands. allstate. click or call for a quote today. go pro at subway® for double the protein on any footlong. or on any new protein bowl! so many ways to go pro at subway®! it's not amateur-tein, it's pro-tein, baby! go pro and get double the protein for just $2 more. subway. eat fresh. >> man: what's my safelite story? go pro and get double thei spend a lot of timemore. in my truck. it's my livelihood. ♪ rock music ♪ >> man: so i'm not taking any chances when something happens to it. so when my windshield cracked... my friend recommended safelite autoglass. they came right to me, with expert service where i needed it. ♪ rock music ♪ >> man: that's service i can trust... no matter what i'm hauling. right, girl? >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ lactaid is 100% real milk, just without the lactose. so you can enjoy it even if you're sensitive. yet some say it isn't real milk. i guess those cows must actually be big dogs. sit! i said sit! the holidays weren't exactly smooth sledding this year, eh santa? no, but we came through smelling of mistletoe. the now platform lets us identify problems before they became problems. if only it could identify where my ball went. this you? hmm... no, mine had green lights. whatever your business is facing. let's workflow it. maybe i should workflow my swing... servicenow. every veteran family deserves to fulfill their dream of owning a home and to continue living that dream throughout their lives. at newday usa, we have va refinance loans to do just that. from refinancing to lower your monthly mortgage payments to refinancing and getting cash for your family. whatever you need, we're here. let me ask you about two democrats who we haven't heard a lot about, other than joe manchin obviously being concerned that they were sending the vice president into his state to try to lobby him. it did seem like a curious thing to do. i wonder what you think about the current status of where joe manchin's vote is because we're all sitting here just assuming that they've got 50 votes and can go whatever way they want. is there a chance that one or two of the other moderates break off with this republican group and try to find more of a middle ground? >> i think it's possible, joe, but i think jim justice, the republican governor you showed at the top of the show gave him a lot of cover yesterday saying, no, help us. we need more help. that's something that's coming universally from governors. i don't understand what the move was to send people out, to send the vice president out to west virginia television stations to talk about this in a way that surprised joe manchin. i think you really want to make sure that you are having a lot of close, personal conversations with him, keeping him very close. and if he's upset about something, it's a big risk to have him be upset about something like that. and, frankly, the calculation -- you know, it's different in arizona than west virginia. you could go into arizona and help build political support to make it easier to vote with them. it is like one of the reddest, if not the reddest state in the union. so if you want to know how to convince people in west virginia to support you, you better be calling for joe manchin and asking for his support in doing that. >> joe manchin, willie, will be the deciding vote in so many of these votes, right? >> yeah. there is no question about it. not a great way to start to get up in his face a little bit and surprise him in the state of west virginia. but joe biden, joe, wants to do exactly what you are suggesting. he's a creature of the senate. he wants to get a deal. he wants to show that he's actually doing the thing he said he was going to do when he campaigned. he thinks it's a better deal. he is getting a lot of pressure, though, as you know from democrats who want to roll republicans, who want to push through something big. he said, i can't do this. i want unity, but i'm not going to wait and there is a limit to the unity i'm willing to tolerate here. >> yeah. and that's certainly understandable. if he has to, he most likely has the votes. republicans don't have a good track record at all over the past 10, 15 years. they have been a party that's been against things. they have been for when it comes, let's say, to health care nothing. they have been against obamacare. they did everything they could to stop that. they had no ideas to replace it. they do have, though, now, 10 senators. we'll just call it the romney collins caucus and murkowski. you have ten senators, two republican senators, who are claiming they want to be constructive. i would call them at their bluff. and if he has an opportunity, can strike a deal with the republicans. i know the twitter sphere won't like it, and i know for good, legitimate reasons people in the left wing of the democrat party won't appreciate it either. at the same time, if joe biden can get 70% of what he wants in this time and he can do it with republicans, without running them over in reconciliation, that sets the stage over the next four years for some other good, bipartisan deals where he gets some of what he wants when things aren't going his way. i know, again, in the climate we have been in over the past 10, 20 years, especially with nihilistic republican party, that doesn't make sense to a lot of people. and i understand why. i'm just a big believer in giving people a chance. if they screw up, they screw up and then you move ahead. >> senator mcconnell condemns a republican congresswoman. the latest on liz cheney's support of the u.s. constitution. and another lawmakers perversion of it. "morning joe" is back in a moment. did you know you can go to libertymutual.com to customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? really? i didn't-- aah! ok. i'm on vibrate. aaah! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ senate minority leader mitch mcconnell is condemning the qanon support r, this woman, margery taylor green. she released a statement about the lawmaker from georgia reading, quote, looney lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the republican party and our country. somebody who suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were prestaged and that the clintons crashed jfk jr.'s airplane is not living in reality. this has nothing to do with the challenges facing american families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party. green later responded by a tweet. the real cancer for the republican party is weak republicans who only know how to lose gracefully. this is why we're losing our country. eek. meanwhile, senator mcconnell is also defending republican congresswoman liz cheney. chaney continues to feel the heat from her own party for voting to impeach former president trump, but in a statement to cnn mcconnell said, quote, liz ceney is a leader with deep convictions and the courage to act on them. she is an important leader in our party and in our nation. i am grateful for her service and look forward to continuing to work with her on the critical issues facing our nation. a lot going on there, joe. >> yeah, a lot going on there. kasie hunt, why don't you take us into mitch mcconnell's thinking here, speaking out in ways that the house republican leadership just simply refuses to. >> they're refusing to do it. and it's incredibly unusual for any republican leader to get involved in the other side of the capitol's business the way he's doing here. but i think it shows you just how important mcconnell thinks this is. it is after donald trump has already left office. and a lot of people that might have backed him off -- rob portman is now retiring. we'll see what he has to say about this today. they were gone because there was no one standing up for them or backing them during the trump administration itself when so many republicans refused to criticize president trump as we saw one action after another that slowly slid us down into the capitol riot territory. and this administration has allowed a lot to go unchecked onryan. mitch mcconnell is now looking at that and saying, if i don't do something about that, the republican party that i win is never going to win elections ever again, so i need to do something about it. and the question is does he still have enough power to actually pull something like that off, or is he so lonely now in this party that there aren't enough allies to make a real difference here? i think there are quiet ones in the senate. but you will notice there is not a lot of republicans that are going anywhere near as far as mccobble did. most of them are saying no. >> willie, mitch mcconnell talked about the crazy conspiracy theories of the clinton and 9/11 and sandy hook. he didn't even have to touch on, although it's been discussed before, the other horrific things that she's put on facebook through the past years about the assassination of nancy pelosi, the lynching of barack obama, the lynching of hillary clinton and these other horrific actions as well calling for violence against presidents, secretaries of state. not violence, the killing of, the assassinations of our nation's leaders. this is untenable, and republicans in the house know this is untenable. and you wonder why mitch mcconnell is one of the only voices in the senate doing this. we have to tip our hat to adam kinzinger. he is really being outspoken about this. but other than that, the courageous caucus is a very small caucus indeed. they can meet inside a phone booth in the house republican caucus. >> this is an easy one. kevin mccarthy, if you're not going to say anything because casey is right, not only does mitch mcconnell not lob bombs over to the other side of the house, he doesn't criticize republicans out in the open. he might do it privately, but this was a full throated criticism of his fresh man congresswoman because it is destroying the republican brand and it is an easy thing to criticize. if you can't step out and criticize, then where is the party? where is the party? they need to strip this woman of his committee assignments in the next few days, but republicans, namely kevin mccarthy, the minority leader scheduled a meeting with her some time next week. he announced that instead of coming out publically and saying what needs to be said to cross her and he's afraid of her and her voters. the minority leaders at the house is afraid of this congresswoman. >> coming up, republican congressman adam kin zinger is standing by. his campaign to take back the gop next on "morning joe." gop next on "morning joe." look at this human trying to get in shape. you know what he will get? muscle pain. give up, the couch is calling. i say, it's me, the couch, i'm calling. pain says you can't. advil says you can. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home. the republican party has lost its way. if we are to lead again, we need to muster the courage to remember who we are. we need to remember what we believe and why we believe it. looking in the mirror can be hard. but the time has come to choose what kind of party we will be and what kind of future we will fight to bring about. the choice is ours and i've made mine. >> joining us now, congressman of illinois, congressman adam kinzinger who voted to impeach president trump and now his committee has recently launched something called the country first movement. so welcome back to the show. it is good to see you. >> thank you. >> explain how this should work. >> well, i was sitting around saying, with what i have seen happening, i'm pretty angry. you know, seeing the republican party appear to track back to donald trump even after the 6th, and i just said i need to put out a statement of who we are, where we came from and where we need to go. just because i think people need to like wake up sometimes and look around and go, man, how did we get here? so i made this video. you know, we married it with a pac and a movement. i have seen it blow up. there has been many, many people that reached out to me, that have signed up. they're just december rat for a place to go in the republican party that isn't trump versus country first. so this is developing day by day and quite honestly the outpouring has been incredible. people just want to take the party back. >> so congressman, take the party back to what? i so want somebody out there talking to young conservatives to explain that at least what i grew up with, the conservativism of ronald reagan, thatcher in there. what is conservatism? >> here's what it is in my mind. that a kid that's born in the inner city of chicago should have the same opportunity as those born in the wealthy suburbs. that builds up to this instinct of giving somebody an equal opportunity. smaller government means you have more opportunity, but there is a role for government in public health and defense of the country and infrastructure in making sure that people have a fair shot in the economy. but it's really just reminding folks that this country's job is to give you a chance to be who you want and chase what you want. from a young person's perspective, that's what they want. the idea of equal outcomes is that's the only thing that's been presented and nobody has talked about what equal opportunity is. we have not had a good spokesman for conservatism. >> even ronald reagan said government is not the solution. government is the problem. here we are 40 years later understanding we're trying to get vaccine shots into everybody's arms and rebuild a dying infrastructure. government is not always the problem, is it? >> no, it's not. i think it's also understanding that, you know, government serves an important role that the private sector can't. but the private sector can pair up with the government to do it more efficiently and effectively. if you look at infrastructure investment where it pulls the private sector into that, it's been highly successful at pushing back against russia. it is not necessarily about having to stick to the way we have done it for 40 years, but it is understanding that principal that life is really about you being able to live how you want to and we recognize there is a role for government but it doesn't need to be overbearing because with the changes of technology and things like that, the particular prescription will change. that's what country first is about. it's not about, hey, here is what you have to believe. do you have an optimistic view of the future of the company? then you should be in country first because right now we have been peddling darkness, division and conspiracy for so long. >> you have been outspoken about some of the members in your own party in the house who have put forward qanon conspiracy theories and voiced their approval for violence against other members of congress. the reason we have heard that leadership hasn't spoken out, kevin mccarthy in particular is because he doesn't want to run off voters who believe some of that stuff. he's afraid of the voters. i remember you saying, look, if it costs me my job, but i got to do what i think is right here. so what has been the reaction in your district for people who don't know, donald trump won your district by about 16 points. what has been your reaction in your district to the vote on impeachment and now this country first movement. >> so i beat donald trump by 15 points over his number. i think what that shows is that democrats will still be voting for you. it depends who you ask. i think people would be supportive. if it's the republican base, they're pretty ticked off at me. i don't look at that and say, i'm scared of that. i look at it as an opportunity to say, we have forgotten what leadership is. leadership is not reflecting people's darkest fears back at them like has been done for the last decade or two. it is inspiring people to a better future. if you think of ronald reagan, here's a beautiful view i have of the future. instead, it's been this qanon, stolen election garbage reflected back to people and we're paralyzed to criticize it because, gosh, we got to have those votes by the next election. the next election for what? so that we can be in office and peddle conspiracy theories again? so that we have to be beholden to proud boys. no. they can leave. if it costs us an election, great. what that gives us an opportunity to do is to resell to the american people a conservative and we need to lead again for once in some of our lives. >> are you worried that the qanon version of the republican party that those loud voices will become the republican party if someone like kevin mccarthy doesn't move forward, that this becomes the brand. because this is what democrats would like it to be. they say a vote for republicans is a vote for qanon. >> yeah, certainly. i am worried about that. there was an insurrection on the capitol and my colleagues, some of them, point to the summer as a moral equivalency and say you can't get upset about destroying the u.s. capitol because there were riots this summer. two totally different things. you can condemn vote. but an attack on the scene of democracy has no moral equivalency. we sit here and play this game. we got to look at our own house and say, man, we are crewed up and you got to get back. do you have an optimistic view of the country that is conservative? you want to help the economy. let's do this together. >> gene robinson has a question for you. >> in the house on impeachment, there was chaney. there were ten, basically. and coincidentally, republicans are ten seats away potentially of taking back the house in 2022. we have a tie senate. won't your -- most of your republican colleagues choose political expediency over doing the right thing, which you are proposing and look at the possibility of taking power in one or both chambers in '22 and say, okay, keep going with qanon and the proud boys and this and this? i guess i'm asking does the republican party need to be burned to the ground before it can really be rebuilt? >> well, i hope not because we're starting to see numbers, for instance. i think we'll start to see that nationwide. but, look, i think the broader point is it shouldn't have to take that. it shouldn't have to take that polling. all it should take is a look at our soul. do you want to be quiet while this government, stolen election and the attack on the capitol take place. how do you feel about that? that's the whole reason i chose to spoke out on country first. it's all about the idea of saying, look, if you feel that, like, i've got to say something but i just don't know what to say, that's the movement for you because it's time we just tell the truth. the truth is we have totally lost our way, but great, rich history that's happened. if it cost us an election to save our soul, i'm fine with that. >> all right. congressman adam kinzinger, thank you very much for the conversation this morning. and up next, a fresh look at black history from a towering team of acclaimed authors. keep it right here on "morning joe." facing leaks takes strength, so here's to the strong, who trust in our performance and comfortable, long-lasting protection. because your strength is supported by ours. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. wanna build a gaming business that breaks the internet? that means working night and day... ...and delegating to an experienced live bookkeeper for peace of mind. your books are all set. so you can finally give john some attention. trusted experts. guaranteed accurate books. intuit quickbooks live. serena: it's my 9:12, no-days-off migraine medicine. it's ubrelvy. for anytime, anywhere migraine strikes without worrying if it's too late, or where i am. one dose can quickly stop migraine in its tracks within two hours. unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks cgrp protein, believed to be a cause of migraine. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. most common side effects were nausea and tiredness. serena: ask about ubrelvy. the anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. pick up like a pro. serena: ask about ubrelvy. just order on the subway app and it's ready to go with contactless curbside. turkey sub in a hot tub! now get 15% off any footlong when you order in the app. ♪♪ for every trip you've been dreaming of, expedia has millions of flexible booking options. because the best trip is wherever we go together. my plaque psoriasis... ...the itching ...the burning. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful. emerge tremfyant™ with tremfya®, adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... ...can uncover clearer skin and improve symptoms at 16 weeks. tremfya® is also approved for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tremfya®. emerge tremfyant™ janssen can help you explore cost support options. joining us now, professor in the humanities at boston university and the founding director of the bu center for antiracist research. also with us, awarding winning historian professor and writer. keisha is an associate professor of history at the university of pittsburgh. together, they are editors of the new book entitled "four hundred souls: a community history of africa america 1619 to 2019." keisha, we'll start with you. tell us about the look and why you decided to take on this project. >> it charts the remarkable history of black america. we begin with africans who arrived in jamestown. and we tell that story of essentially how black people struggled, but also their triumphs. it ends in 2019 with the black lives matter movement. >> and ebram, tell us why you think at this point, especially at this moment in time, telling the story of these 400 souls would make a difference. >> i mean, i think, if anything, we're living in an era of misinformation, and there is not only misinformation about our politics, even about our elections being stolen, but there is also widespread misinformation about american history, about the history of black folks. so we wanted to bring together this incredible collection of writers, this community of writers. and indeed in 2018 when i was thinking of a way to commemorate this 400 birthday, this symbolic birthday of black americans, i thought why not bring together a community to write the history of a community, and i'm so glad we're able to pull this off. >> gene robinson is with us and has a question. gene? >> professor, congratulations on the book. i really look forward to reading it and it couldn't be more appropriate, i think. just a question to, i guess, professor kendi. you know, what has always frustrated me about black history month is that every month should be black history because there is no american history without black american history. yet, it has been so difficult to thought as american history. why is that? what has that been so difficult and do you think it's getting better? i think in certain ways it's getting better but on the other hand we're in the midst of a battle. i mean for the lack -- to not oversimplify it there are two major visions of america. there's a vision of america as a multiracial, multicultural nation where we should understand the histories of all the groups that have made up this country as one history. and then there's a vision of a singular or, you know, racial sort of history where we should just understand really the history of white americans and the histories of other peoples don't matter. and obviously that is just ahistorical and again another form of misinformation. >> professor blaine, it's willie geist good to see you this morning. i'm interested in the layout of this book. you take the 400 years in 40 year chunks and you have ten different authors, historians, thinkers walk through those. what stood out to you about one particular section? i mean, you've got to harlem renaissance, brown versus the board of education, the shelby ruling, the war on drugs. was there any one section that jumps out to you? >> yes, i think actually the last section of the book because what's remarkable is if you begin in that first section with 1619, of course, and you look at the development of slavery in the united states, you look at the formation of the nation in these early years, and then you actually get to the last section, and what's clear is that there are certainly so many triumphs, so many things that we can celebrate. but what's also clear is that the struggle continues and there are all of these moments in that last section where you see that some of the game gains that we've made throughout history that ultimately they're being challenged. as a quick example, the shelby ruling, one of the writers in the volume talks about the shelby ruling in that last section which of course we know is an attack on the voting rights act of 1965. so ultimately that last section, i think, is a moment where we have to pause and say, wow, we've accomplished a lot but let's be careful, we could lose a lot of the gains if we don't protect them. >> and professor khendi, that's what i wanted to talk to you about, i looked at my life, fascinating. i was born in 1963 and soon after was martin luther king's march on washington. when i started school in mississippi six years later i was in an integrated first grade, something that my elder brothers and sisters would have been hard even for them to imagine. and we move forward across the past half century and have seen so many gains and still you look at the last four years and all of the challenges that have come forward. and then you start thinking about doing this in 2018 for the 1619 anniversary. how in the world could you have imagined even then what would happen in 2020? how does 2020 -- what sort of co da does 2020 serve for this entire project? >> well, i think for me it really demonstrated the need for this project. and because so many americans in 2020 were beginning to recognize the nation's still lingering racism. we're beginning to recognize that many stories had been written out of the american story. and i think many people started looking around for those difference stories so they can familiarize themselves with their own nation. and i think that's why i'm so glad and happy we were able to release 400 souls today because i think it comes at a time where people are looking for stories that unfortunately haven't been told to them. >> yeah. and so gene robinson, i'm curious, as we talk about this, i remember we've had several conversations throughout the trump presidency, polls showing the majority of americans saw donald trump as a racist, also a pew poll showing that americans had become actually more racially sensitive because racism wasn't latent. racism was actually blatant. it was in their face. i'm wondering four years later in 2021 where do you think we are? do you think americans are more aware of the challenges we face today than they were in 2016, early 2017? >> you know, i think -- here's where i think we are. we're a country that is -- that within 20 years or so will become majority minority country. there will be no white anglo majority in this nation. we'll all be minorities. and i think that is part of what has sort of heightened the contradictions in our society, in our system. and, you know, i've always said that donald trump was a symptom and not a cause. he was a symptom of something and then he propelled it, you know, the racism, the white supremacy, the conspiracy theories and all of that. and while, you know, there is value to -- some value to having all that out in the open where it can be dealt with, i can't pretend that it's good that there's so much of it here, that -- and that it's so inflamed at this point. all the sort of civilities with which we -- any society papers over some of its divisions, those have been blown away. and i think that should worry all of us. because as we make progress, as we make fundamental progress, we also have to have a way of just getting along day-to-day. and that's what's been so -- not just eroded, but exploded by the last four years and the last president. >> all right, before you both go all month long we have been asking our guests to highlight someone who they admire in black history so aside from everybody that you have worked on in your book, i'll start with you, keishs blaine, who do you choose? >> i choose phillis wheatley, the first african-american to publish a book of poetry. her story is so important at a moment where we don't often talk about the genius, the intellect, the intelligence of black people. and phillis wheatley's story is such an important reminder now at a moment where so many people question our skills and abilities. >> ibram? >> and i would choose david george who reverend barber wrote about in "400 souls." he's known as helping to found the first black baptist church in what became the united states. what i'm inspired by david george, and even by reverend barber's interpretation of his life, because in many ways he didn't create a black church, he created a freedom church and it was really a church geared towards not only freeing black people but really freeing the american people, freeing the american people of oppression and many of the things that as a nation we have been subjected to. >> the new book is" 400 souls," a community history of african america, 1619 to 2019. ibram and keisha, thank you for joining us this morning. we appreciate it. >> good luck on the book. it looks absolutely fantastic. willie, time for final thoughts. >> well, i'm thinking back to adam kinzinger's interview a few minutes ago, he captured what's at the heart of the debate over qanon, if it costs us the election to save our soul let's do it. let's not go along for the ride with this qanon movement inside the party, let's stand up against it. >> and gene, final thoughts? >> i was thinking about the same thing. i take a different view from representative kinzinger. i think political parties change after monumental losses, when they get crushed and then they reform. and so i can't be that optimistic about the short-term future of the republican party as long as they think that they might regain power. that they have a chance in two years. i'm not sure they do. but they think they do. >> there's no reason, the last few weeks have shown, no reason for anybody to be optimistic about the republican party's future unless they make dramatic changes. >> that does it for us this morning, stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle. it's february 2nd. let's get smarter. this morning we are watching two major developments in our nation's capital. everyone focused to see who's going to make the next move on covid relief after last night's two-hour meeting between president biden