television. we'll talk about the high stakes conversation and everything that's potentially at stake with what's going on with ukraine. were also following, though, the abrupt reversal by president trump's former white house chief of staff, mark meadows, who now won't appear for a deposition with the house select committee investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol. >> donald got mad. >> the decision not to cooperate seems to coincide with reports that trump is livid at meadows were revealing details in a new book about the timing and the severity of trump's covid illness last year. we're going to get into that in a moment. why -- literally, trump called him and said, "you can't do this," and he follows suit like a little -- >> that's what happens. i don't -- that's what makes this story so fascinating and disturbing. >> i mean -- >> day in and day out, day in and day out. >> that's what makes it disturbing? >> there are questions that need to be answered. >> it is one of the things that makes it disturbing, is the fact that there are people that are willing to continue to submit to a failed game show host, a guy that lost the house, the senate, the white house, and they're still willing to bow and scrape to him. i will tell you, maybe you've seen some things differently here, but i can tell you that, at least in my time here, if a white house tried to treat members of the senate or the house with grave disrespect, there would be hell to pay. and some of these people still keep sort of bowing and scraping to donald trump. i do not get that. >> it's disturbing. no? yeah. >> it is hugely disturbing. i'm still stuck on the idea though of him being on a debate stage with all those people two days after he tested positive for covid. and apparently gave covid to my colleague, michael sheer. he came back on the plane after talking to reporters, knowing he tested for covid two days before. that's the height of -- >> yeah. cavalier beyond -- >> what is not disturbing? >> exactly. along with joe, willie, and me, here in washington, we have columnist and associated editor for the "washington post," david ignatius. pentagon correspondent with the "new york times," elaine cooper. white house editor for "politico," sam stein. and u.s. national editor at the "financial times," ed luce. with willie in new york, we have a lot to get to. shall we launch right in? >> i'd rather talk to willie. anything in the "post" covered today? >> i know. they kind of took a day off, if i'm being honest. they had to rest. we have chicken kiev, talking about the summit meeting, that magic crackling chemistry between putin and president biden. >> that's okay. >> honestly, nothing really. >> anything daily news? >> it's heavy. it's about guns in schools. it is no fun. i wish i had more. i was going to say, the first hint we got from mark meadows that he might back down from president biden is when he instantly called his own book fake news after it came out. i think he could have seen this coming. >> see, that's what i'm talking about. that didn't used to happen around here. i mean, the fact they're so fearful of a guy that lost the house, the senate, the white house. >> we'll talk more about that. i guess they'll have to compel him to testify. first, let's get to the high-stakes meeting between president biden and russian president vladimir putin, with the president warning of heavy economic consequences if russia invades ukraine again. according to the white house, biden made clear that any military action by moscow would also lead nato to reposition its troops in europe and end the kremlin's hopes for a key natural gas pipeline. officials say putin gave no indication of his ultimate intent, but asked for reliability guarantees that nato will not expand into ukraine. officials say biden made no commitments on that matter. the two-hour virtual call came as russia has moved nearly 100,000 troops to the ukrainian border in recent weeks. which would lead to a lot of concerns that they are up to something. >> obviously, it's led to a lot of concerns. i am hopeful, david, and you have great reporting about the diplomacy going on quietly behind the scenes while these two were sort of posing for the cameras. i can't think of a setup that would be less conducive to having any sort of diplomatic breakthrough than what we saw in those images. >> that was a wooden exchange. hi, how are you? i'm good. there is a lot of discussion going on behind the scenes. the effort is to see if you can take the existing past or settlement in ukraine, the minced protocols of 2014 and 2015, and make them work. essentially, those protocols call for a semiautonomous zone in eastern ukraine. that's what the russians say they want. the russian-speaking people in eastern ukraine who are backed by the russians would have a degree of autonomy. that's in the minsk protocols, but they've broken down. it seems what putin really wants is a completely neutered ukrainian government. he wants it to have no free will. ukraine is moving fast toward the west. i don't just mean the people who lift in the capcapital, kiev, b the people in the east. the settlement along the russian borders is pretty much the same. this is a country that wants to be part of europe. to putin, he wants to hold on tight to ukraine. he sees it as part of russia's traditional territory or russian soil. that's the deeper, more difficult issue. there is a diplomatic solution there if putin is willing to take it. i just was looking this morning at all the costs to putin, of an invasion. he would wreck his economy. he would galvanize the europeans and other u.s. allies against russia, and i think also against china, in a way that would have lasting repercussions. he'll also face guerrilla warfare, extended partisan warfare in ukraine. i counted 400,000 people who received some kind of militia training. there are millions of guns floating around ukraine. it is a place where it'd be hard to subdue the population. that's what is going on behind the scenes. >> at the end of the day, does this come down to putin just wanting a guarantee from biden in the west that we're not going to extend nato into ukraine? >> he does want that, and we can't give that. >> why not? >> it is taking away the free will of the government of ukraine. everything david has said is absolutely correct, but i'd go even further. at the end of the day, i don't think -- i think the headache that vladimir putin would get with invading ukraine would be so monumental, i think he actually probably does not want to do this. because, first of all, the ukrainian military is not going to roll over and play dead. it will be a real fight, and he will incur heavy, heavy losses. that's something that, you know -- that's something he has to think about. he may not care that much about it. he may be willing to expend the energy and the blood and treasure, but it is not going to be painless. >> but richard haass suggests that this is about him putting back together the dream of the old soviet empire, which is -- >> he wants -- >> -- what is driving him. he called the disillusion of the soviet union the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. he wants his legacy with the reconstruction of the old soviet empire. >> absolutely. he doesn't like the fact the nato is right on his doorstep. he doesn't like military exercises in the black sea. he doesn't like the americans stationing nato troops in the eastern -- formerly eastern block countries. >> is that a rational fear coming from the russians? >> i can't speak to, you know, rational or not. it is on their doorstep. >> i was going to say, would we want that happening in mexico? >> exactly. nato has expanded into former soviet territory, so that is -- you can sort of see why he would be positioned, but are we going to go back to the cold war before? that's a hard one to see. so a lot of this is about this fine bit of diplomacy. is biden going to promise we're not going to conduct military exercises closer to russia? i don't think so. you know, this is the sort of thing that -- you can see where, going back to the minsk accord, as david just suggested, is a path forward, but the whole reason why we're not doing the minsk accord now is the russians haven't paid attention to it since 2015. they're the ones who chucked it out. >> ed luce, what do you make of both sides having these impossible asks? something they seemingly, at least on the u.s. side, can't be delivered, and, yet, these troops are being built up? i mean, something is happening way, way beyond these conversations, and what does the u.s. do? >> yeah, you don't put 175,000 troops on a border -- >> to send a message. >> -- on a whim. it is way too expensive. so he clearly does see it as a live option. i've heard scenarios where it is not just picking off eastern ukraine. it's rolling straight through kiev. thinking, well, we want it eventually. let's take the full pain now. there's that scenario not being ruled out. there was a scary briefing that the biden administration gave to america's european counterparts earlier this week. >> that would be catastrophic, would it not? >> it would be the worst military situation in europe since the second world war. >> let me ask this question. if it would be that catastrophic, and if we're also facing challenges out of taiwan, why not go to vladimir putin and say, we'll give you a guarantee. ten years, ukraine can't apply for full membership of nato, in exchange for abc. what would be -- >> in a way, we've already done that. i mean, we've said sometime in the long distant future, ukraine, you know, will be eligible to join nato if it wants. that's essentially the same thing. i think giving putin that guarantee would reward -- would show that biden can crumble when he is faced with -- >> except for the fact he invaded georgia in 2008. he invaded ukraine in 2014. this isn't a problem specific to biden, regardless of what anti-biden dupes on twitter are saying. this is something george w. bush dealt with badly in 2008. something obama dealt with badly in 2014. something we're facing in 2021. this isn't an idle threat. if it is not an idle threat, we can start bitching and whining until the tanks are halfway to kiev, or we can find a way to settle it. >> the way is diplomacy. as david and helene set out, it's going to the minsk process. if he wants a guarantee that eastern ukraine will be protected with a ukrainian federation, in the context ukraine is not going to be joining nato, if ever, for many years, that is a reasonable response. that's not caving in. that's not showing weakness. >> right. >> i suspect he wants more. he sees ukraine as much more important to russia and russia's identity than any other part of the former soviet union. the myth is the slavic federation began there in 188, . this is where the birth of russia took place. >> if there is a slightly different opinion, read the book on stalin's murdering of 2 million ukrainians. >> indeed. remember, he murdered a lot of russians too. >> he did murder a lot of russians. >> it's all relative. >> ukrainians, what many ukrainians are looking for, especially in the west, is they do want to move towards europe. >> a lot of complex issues which we will continue this conversation throughout the show. let's get to our other top headline this morning. willie has that. >> yeah, it's what we were talking about the top of the show. a reversal of a deal made last week with the january 6th select committee in the house, former white house chief of staff under president trump, mark meadows, announced through his attorney he will not appear today for his scheduled deposition. committee leaders immediately threatened a vote to hold meadows in contempt of congress, arguing he has no grounds for refusing to speak with the panel as he promotes a book touching on many of the topics in which they want to question him. chair thompson, vice chair cheney concludes with the following. quote, if mr. meadows refuses to appear, the select committee will be left no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which mr. meadows once served prefer him for criminal prosecutions. meadows explained the reversal in an appearance yesterday. >> we found that in spite of our cooperation and in sharing documents with them, they had issued, unbeknownst to us, without a courtesy call, issued a subpoena to third-party carrier, trying to get information. so at this point, we feel like it's best that we just continue to honor the executive privilege. it looks like the courts are going to have to weigh in on this. >> back to that in a moment. meanwhile, roger stone, a long-time adviser to former president trump, is invoking his fifth amendment right not to testify and will not appear for a deposition before the select committee or provide documents. that is according to a letter from his attorney provided to nbc news. it reads this way. quote, given that the select committee's demand for documents is overbroad, overreaching, and far too wide-ranging to be deemed anything other than a fishing expedition, mr. stone has a constitutional right to decline to respond. sam stein, roger stone invoking the fifth amendment. back to mark meadows for a moment, he had planned to give his deposition, said he would. obviously, he was reprimanded strongly by his former boss, president trump, for writing in a book that donald trump had tested positive for covid before that debate and then attended an event for a supreme court justice, for gold star families, a rally for his supporters, and backed away from giving this deposition. the committee says if you don't want to talk about the stuff you claim has executive privilege, we have a whole bunch of other questions that land outside of that. come talk about that. yet, he still won't show up. >> yeah. it's tough to do justice to how bizarre this whole thing is. mark meadows is willing to incur legal costs, potentially significant legal costs, to not talk about stuff that he put in his own book. it doesn't really make sense, except for the fact that mark meadows feels a compulsion to be nice to donald trump. i read the book. i did. >> how'd that go? and did trump do a blurb for it? >> yes, he did. >> interesting. >> it is a very interesting snapshot into the mind of someone who is trying to curry favor with the president. the one part that trump got really mad at was, you know, the revelation he tested positive. >> he told the truth. >> yeah, he told the truth. there are other parts of the book that you blush. it is over the top. he compares the speech trump gave when he returned home from walter reed, infamously, he compares that to abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. >> just come on. >> no, it is a remarkable -- >> see, again -- >> sycophants. >> it is frightening. >> it is pathetic at a level that -- >> i think the obvious, logical extension is that he is going to incur tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs to protect someone who obviously doesn't want -- you know, would never protect him if it is the reverse. he already dumped on his book, calling it fake news. it shows how one-sided these relationships can be. >> it's one way. david ignatius, i thought there was a tell in that interview that meadows had. the thing they're the most scared about are the phone records. who called whom? >> yeah. >> that's going to reveal the tick-tock of who donald trump is calling, who is furiously calling them to try to get, you know, donald trump to actually call out the national guard and save the lives of people inside the capitol. but, for him, for meadows, he goes, oh, well, when they did what -- by the way, everybody does it in every lawsuit. this is what everybody does. you get the phone records. you get office. you get everything. you get the files in discovery. but, of course, they're freaking out because that helps put the ticket together. >> the truth will come out. the phone records are part of how that's going to happen. what i find shocking about this is that the trump people are still acting as if they can run a separate state, independent of the laws, procedures of congress, that they can defy what they like without consequence. it really is shocking. you know, you get so used to seeing this. well, we're not going to testify. i'm going to invoke the fifth. it's just extraordinary for people, private citizens now, to imagine that they have the rights to defy the legal institutions of the government. at some point, you know, i hope we see a marshal come and arrest for criminal contempt one of these people. maybe mark meadows. walk him off to the d.c. jail. >> something has to happen. >> something like that that says, we do have a rule of law here, and you can't keep violating it. >> well, they have to at least show up. if they want to plead the fifth when they show up, that's fine. but they have to comply with the subpoena and come before congress. put the documents out there or else, you know, the justice department needs to be aggressive and prove that no one is above the law. >> i mean, i fully agree with everything you -- the premise of your question, everything david said. my fear is that if this is a race against the clock, the clock being the midterm elections, and the effective dissolution of this committee, they might win it. i mean, bannon is going to go on contempt july the 18th. >> wow. >> if meadows is held for contempt, and that's upheld by the courts, i presume that'll be later than july the 18th. we're already well into the election season before any penalties are going to be visited on these people. all the others, roger stone, john eastman, are taking the same stance. so they are saying to the law, who is stronger, us or your idea of the law? so far, the law has been very polite and taking its time. >> the law has been extraordinarily polite. sam, you look at the mueller investigation. >> right. >> one of the reasons there was the russian hoax, russian hoax, is because mueller and the team weren't aggressive, you know, in laying out what they discovered. not only in the first part of it but in that second part involving russia. and it is so -- i find it dumbfounding that people who claim to be journalists, reporters, commentators, would actually still run around talking about a russian hoax, as if they haven't read the second half of that report. >> right. >> or i'll tell ya what, why don't they read marco rubio's intel committee report, where the republican senate intel committee talked about the grave threat that these connections were to u.s. counterintelligence. i mean, but there is a passivity, and more and more people i talk to, when things like this come up, just say, "oh, they'll get away with it." they get away with everything. >> well -- >> trump gets away with everything. all these bad actors who lied about their contacts with russia got away with everything. trump obstructed justice ten times, got away with everything. mueller didn't do anything about it. when he was asked if he could be charged when he wasn't president, he said yes, but that was it. again, passive is the word. the government has been passive time and time again for these people who have been bad actors and who prove to future politicians that you're above the law. >> they say it out loud. i get dirt on a political rival from a foreign power. no problem. >> there is an asymmetry to it. one of the most telling moments of the trump era was when -- i laugh now -- but it was when bill barr came out quickly with his memo which, you know, shocked robert mueller. it misrepresented the findings that he'd put together. >> it didn't shock him enough to have him not come out immediately like he should have and said, the attorney general of the united states used his position to deliberately undermine the authority of the special counsel and all of the investigators who went to work on behalf of the justice department. it is a disgrace. he didn't do that. >> so the symmetry is there, which is going out quickly and affirmatively with the memo, and mueller taking a day or whatever it was to respond, with a letter of two bars saying, "i'm a little worried you may have misrepresented my findings." by that time, the narrative has already been set for half the country. the only thing i would say is it's not totally without cost. we're measuring it against a negative, which is trump did lose, right? that did happen. could he have won had he not been embroiled in all this self-inflicted scandal? i don't know. but, certainly, he did lose. and that is the cost. >> i understand. but the question is, helene, why has the justice department been as passive as it has been? not only during the trump era, we understand that, but -- >> well, they were passive during the trump era. >> right, they were. >> yeah. >> we understand why they were during, but why have they been passive during the biden administration? >> i think i worry sometimes that one side is playing chess and the other side is playing checkers. >> yes. >> there's certainly, i think, a lot of our government institutions are still operating under the old norms. where you have a trump group that has gone so far off the reservation that they're not even remotely interested in any of the norms that the institutions that we have operate under. that's sort of been the case for the past five years. the fact that we're sitting around this table at this point, a year after trump lost, still talking about him is just hugely -- it's kind of depressing. that's the state of the country that we're in right now, and that's the assault we've now seen on our democratic institutions. >> yeah. >> i do agree with sam, that at the end of the day, the institutions did hold. trump did lose. there has been some cost for him, and he is fighting mightily now. i don't understand why he hasn't gone into the good night. i think he is going to end up losing again. >> he hasn't because he needs the veneer of political being to protect himself on a host of different fronts. >> to protect himself from legal charges. >> but we do have charges he has to fight in the next year. >> right. but he feels that if he is a political figure, it makes it harder for him to be arrested because he can argue that there's politics involved. he is also raising a ton of money. all he cares about is money. so the more he puts it out there, you know -- sidney powell raised $14 million lying about the election. he is raising -- mika somehow got on a text list. >> i'm getting those emails too. >> she gets 12 texts a day, and they go, you're a traitor to america. you weren't giving money. think about all the old people, older senior citizens who are getting that, who are getting badgered and brutalized. they're raising tons of money, so that's another reason too. but why are we still talking about it? we're still talking about it because in this calendar year, there was an insurrection against the united states government. and we tried to have a bipartisan, bicameral investigation, and republicans on the hill blocked it. now, we're trying to have an investigation to get to the bottom of this insurrection and who is responsible. they are still blocking it. and this, willie s why we have a justice department. to pick what helene said one side further, we have one side playing checkers and the other side kickboxing. it's just not -- you know, you can go like this, but if someone kicks you in the face as their next move, at some point, you get up from the checkers board and respond in kind, or else you're going to lose that match. >> our country. >> steve bannon and jeffrey clark have learned that way. bannon has been indicted, and clark brought up on charges of contempt of congress. now, we may see the same here with mark meadows. one thing to note on meadows is he's already given the committee 6,000 pages of documents. 6,000 pages, including phone records and things like that. so he was actually cooperating until he couldn't come out and defend his own book, got scared of donald trump, and ran in the other direction. so this committee is going to get to the bottom. they're going to get that tick-tock you talked about. they're going to put out a report that shows us exactly what happened on january 6th. but, to your larger point, the reason kevin mccarthy and the leadership in the republican party didn't want republicans on this committee, you have liz cheney and adam kinzinger, is they can then call it a democratic operation. this is a hatchet job against the president. they'll raise a bunch of money. steve bannon becomes a martyr. it is all a game set up by kevin mccarthy, saying, if you dare participate in this, we'll strip you of committee assignments and shun you from our party. >> yeah. but, again, as republican congressman dan crenshaw said of adam kinzinger, he voted with donald trump about 99% of the time. >> yeah. >> 99% of the time. so it will be a bipartisan committee. all right. coming up on "morning joe," chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell broker a convoluted deal on the debt ceiling. we're going to talk to democratic senators richard blumenthal and mark warner about the latest capitol hill negotiations. plus, with the omicron variant now in at least 21 states, we're digging into new data on how effective pfizer's vaccine may be against the strain. and republican senator roy blunt compares covid vaccine mandates to the most insidious form of authoritarianism. >> we were just talking about the 35 million russians and ukrain ukraiians that stalin killed. >> comparable. >> you have to get a shot. >> it's the same thing. >> same level. >> that and the fact that roy, all his children, everybody in that picture, all their children, all got the vaccines to start their first day of school. >> those comments ahead. you're watching "morning joe." >> please, don't get close to household appliances. you may hurt yourself. ♪ your girlfriends they can't understand ♪ and democrats in congress have a plan to lower costs for america's working families. lower costs of healthcare premiums and the price of prescription drugs. pay less for electric bills by moving to clean energy. and do it all by making the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. it'd be a win for the everyday american family. right when they could really use one. congress, let's get this done. as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ want to save on your home internet? xfinity is proud to support the emergency broadband benefit program. for a limited time, you may be eligible to qualify for a credit of up to $50 a month toward your internet service through this program. that's right! you could qualify for a credit of up to $50 a month toward your internet service and equipment. for even more value, switch to xfinity mobile, and you could pay as little as $15 a month for wireless. click, call, or visit a store to learn more. they kept a vigil all day, making a shrinedekota, where john lennon and his wife lives. many near where lennon was shot. a gunman followed the lennons as they got out of the limousine and passed the gate. >> 41 years ago today, former beetle john lennon was shot and killed outside his new york city apartment building. the 40-year-old was entering the dakota, an apartment building on the upper west side of manhattan where he resided. he was returning home december 8th, 1980, when mark david chapman shot him at close range with a . .38 caliber revolver. he was rushed to a nearby hospital in a police car but died en route. he was dead on arrival. chapman was a 25-year-old former security guard from honolulu who had no prior criminal convictions. earlier in the day, chapman had received lennon's autograph just before he left to attend a recording session with his wife, yoko ono. >> ed luce, you know, as a massive beatles fan my entire life, this day is a black mark on the calendar. i was thinking about it this morning, though, and thinking it's been 41 years since his death. yet, in, my god, 50 years since the beatles broke up. yet, this thanksgiving, everybody was watching eight hours documenting them recording an album. just studying it. it is a phenomenon unlike any in our time. you would think, you know -- you thought maybe it would be sinatra. maybe it'd be elvis that would have this lasting impact. no, it's the beatles. and 41 years even after john lennon's death, they just keep getting bigger. >> i was on -- i used to be based in india for the "financial times," and i was on india tv. it was a talk show with an audience. each of the panelists was asked who they would come back as if they were reincarnated. people were saying gandhi or picking various names. i said john lennon. the entire audience burst into, like, a 30-second applause. it is the only time an audience has ever applauded, so i will never forget it. but, yeah, i think that stands taller than any other figure of the music world of the 1960s. one other quick anecdote, i was 12 when he died. i was in a very stuffy english boarding school. i never heard of john lennon. from that moment on, i became, well, in my own mind, an expert. i got obsessed with him. >> nobody is more obsessed than my -- ask him anything. he will know the answer. >> but you did see, though, in the documentary, there had been this, just, belief, it'd become conventional wisdom, that by "let it be" at the end, lennon was nasty. he was snarling. he was -- and he sort of -- they all believed the press clippings afterwards. they were turned into two-dimensional characters. watching this, he was a beautiful guy. he loved paul. there was that one scene where george had left the band, and they ask him on camera, "what are we going to do if george doesn't come back by tuesday?" "we'll get eric clapton." it was a tough liverpool guy, right? unbeknownst to him, they hid a microphone in the flower pot. the next day, he and paul were talking about george. there's john going, we've wounded him. we've been wounding him year after year, and we made that wound worse yesterday. we didn't do anything to put a bandage on it. we have to -- basically, we have to help our kid brother. we've got to be better. really -- >> it was the soul of the beatles. unlikely fact, i saw the beatles' first concert in america. >> what? >> no. >> you did not. >> after they went on the ed sullivan show, they came to washington, d.c. >> you were at that concert? >> i was at the concert in washington, d.c. i'll never forget walking past the ringo's drum set, and there was a hail of jelly beans, you know. back then, beatles fans was raging, and it was through jelly beans. through them at anybody walking by. it was a small auditorium, 3,000, 4,000 people. just indelible image of john, you know, at the microphone, and paul, sweet paul. ringo. so, you know, i was in there at the start, and, you know, there is something about beatles music that's just different. >> yup. >> you listen to it. it doesn't sound like anything else. >> right. >> it endures. it is as fun to listen to now as it was in 1963. >> it does endure. >> it is timeless. they were kind of a bit before my time, and i grew up, though, being huge fans. my kids grew up being huge fans. it is enduring. >> what's amazing is how much you know about them, which we'll stop talking about. don't ask him anything about the beatles. it's amazing. several digital services, by the way, are still recovering after yesterday's amazon web services outage. the interruption disrupted many streaming platforms and other widely used websites, including disney plus, venmo, slack, and even the mcdonald's app. >> oh, no. >> horrible. >> amazon said services recovered by the end of the day tuesday but didn't give a timeline for when it expects all its services to be restored. coming up, the head of instagram will face members of the senate today to answer questions about the platform's impact on teens. senator richard blumenthal is chairing today's hearing, and he joins us here in the studio in washington next on "morning joe." ♪ from the house down the road ♪ that's a nice truck. yeah, it's the chevy silverado. check out this multi-flex tailgate. multi-flex, huh? wow. it becomes a step. mom, dad's flexing again. that's not all. you can extend the bed for longer stuff. is he still... still flexing. that's right! and, it becomes a workspace... you can put your laptop here. i'm sending an imaginay email. hey dad, dinner! hey! look who stopped by daddy's office. wait, you work here? the chevy silverado with the available multi-flex tailgate. find new flexibility. find new roads. chevrolet. >> man: what's my safelite story? find new flexibility. my truck...is my livelihood. so when my windshield cracked... the experts at safelite autoglass came right to me... with service i could trust. right, girl? >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ ♪ ♪ well would you look at that? ♪ ♪ jerry, you've got to see this. seen it. trust me, after 15 walks ...it gets a little old. ugh. i really should be retired by now. wish i'd invested when i had the chance... to the moon! [thud] [clunk] ugh... unbelievable. unbelievable. 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>> what i hope to hear is some real commitment to reform and supporting legislation, because we can no longer trust the social media platforms. >> what would reform look like? i mean, you have to be 18 to be on instagram, which doesn't work. everybody gets on instagram somehow. like, what -- what concrete changes, steps could they take to protect teenagers from the impact that, right now, is pervading an entire generation of young people? >> we're working on legislation. because what they are proposing, in effect, is more self-policing, more reliance on them. they've lost trust. what we are doing right now is working on an update and expansion of the children's online privacy protection act. more privacy, better protection for it, and also controls and tools for parents to protect kids. better notification and warning for those parents when their kids are spiral downward into the rabbit holes of eating disorders, bullying, and self-harm, even suicide. then, i think, you know, the uk has a child protection code. maybe we ought to take their duty of care and incorporate it into our laws, enforce it through the federal trade commission, not rely on an industry group to do it. i'm working on legislation. we have a framework right now with marcia blackburn, republican ranking member of this subcommittee. i think there is a bipartisan opportunity here for our protecting kids and -- >> but let's get specific though. again, their own internal documents showed that instagram, used by especially teenage girls, by minors, causes anxiety, causes depression, causes suicidal ideation. this has been in one study after another study. >> and we're seeing it before our eyes. >> i've seen "new york times" stories about it. i've seen stories about this for years now, that this is having a devastating impact on young girls. so we knew what to do when we figured out that cigarettes caused cancer and the cigarette companies wouldn't do anything about it. here, we have an instagram study. they're saying they can self police. they can't self police themselves. they were talking about starting a younger app until all hell broke loose. >> and they still haven't committed to end it. >> what, specifically, can congress do to protect our young girls? >> we can impose standards and require that there be not self-policing but actual monitoring of content, so that a lot of the bullying and eating disorders can be taken off. giving parents tools. and providing regulation, a duty of care, that is enforceable. >> what do you do, though, about image after image afterage that and girls look at these images with one filter after another filter on of these models, and they look and say, "i can never look like that" and are driven to -- talk about body shaming. even more self-hatred. >> at the end of the day, joe, and you've talked about it, we need to eliminate the broad liability shield that they have right now under provisional law called section 230. for 15 years. >> section 230. >> i've urged there be reform of section 230. we have bipartisan agreement there as well. uniquely among all industries -- >> will that will happen? will there be a reform of 230, or are politicians going to talk about it every two years when they run for office? >> i think we have a growing bipartisan measure of support for it, as never before that i've seen, and the reason is because of the outrage you've expressed, which i find everywhere i go. the revelations that not only did facebook and instagram promote these self-image problems, but they also profited from them. they knew, and they did nothing to curtail it. in fact, they gained more profit. >> willie, they're talking about, again, doing an app for even younger girls. >> yeah, instagram for kids. senator, good morning. not to belabor the point, but i think mika and joe are on the right question. as the father of a teenage girl who, so far we've kept her off of instagram successfully, we think, what do you do -- >> we think. >> -- about the core of what instagram is? it's about posting photos of yourself. to have a 14, 15, 16-year-old girl look at that and say, gosh, my abs don't look like that. my teeth aren't that white. i don't have those clothes. i've never been to that vacation. my house doesn't look like that. all those things that cause the problem, you can put some regulations, maybe you tweak the algorithm, but the point of instagram is those photographs. what can a government do about that? >> we can require transparency, willie, into those black boxes, the algorithms. the 600-pound gorillas in those black boxes that are driving the destructive content to children. in fact, possibly to your daughter. you say you think you've kept her off it. well, guess again. maybe not. and so more parental notification and warning, which so far they refuse to do. but the key is more transparency and disclosure and a crackdown on the kind of destructive content, the toxic and addictive, truly addictive content that is driven to kids. >> yeah. >> that transparency, at the end of the day, will go a long way. >> helene? >> i just wonder about how much of this is actually societal. because, i mean, instagram and facebook and all of these apps sort of distilled what was already there anyway. i mean, i wasn't growing up during instagram, but i certainly was growing up during television. i'd see these images on tv as a teenage girl. you see these all over. you see these in advertising. it almost feels as if we're talking about something that i wonder if this can even remotely be dealt with. it seems like the problem is much bigger than just instagram or one app. >> it's bigger than instagram. >> you're right. >> snapchat, tiktok. we had a hearing -- >> and more. >> -- last night -- many more. >> every time i think i've, like, put the top on it in thinking, okay, we've got that contained, there's four more ways they're communicating. kids as young as 10, 11, 12 have some sort of 365 thing. they know where all their friends are, with see them on a map, and know when they're not invited to something. this is crazy. >> helene, the difference between when we were growing up and now, you talk to people who are running middle schools, high schools, colleges, they all tell you that anxiety -- >> yes. >> they're all competing. >> all of this is skyrocketing. and you ask them why, and they have the same answer. instagram, instagram, instagram. >> snapchat. >> middle school was so hard when we did it, and now it is 500,000 times worse. remember how horrible high school was? >> yes. >> i look now, and we weren't dealing with any of this stuff these kids now are dealing with. >> here's the thing that's different. now, there is this thing called an algorithm that knows that you, more precisely your children, is worried about losing weight. systematically, purposefully, relentlessly, it drives that content to aggregate and drive down a rabbit hole those emotions. >> right. that is horrific. >> it is following kids home. it is aggravated by the algorithm. that's why i've advocated real transparency and disclosure and government intervention, to stop the 600-pound gorilla in the black boxes. that's part of what is different here. you're right, mika, there are a lot of them. >> there is the argument of personal responsibility. just take the phone away. try to take the phone away? fine, they have a computer. most school, kids are on computers or ipads. it is not that simple, and it's not a response. >> by the way, if you want to know just how bad these products are for your children, look at the lives of the people who actually develop the products. they do not let their children on them. >> yeah. that's the hypocrisy. >> the people who run silicon valley don't do it. >> senator richard blumenthal, thank you. i know you have to run. really appreciate your coming on this morning. >> no music. i'm going to talk -- you keep talking around the table. senator, thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> david ignatius, it is madness. it is sheer madness, that we know what is causing depression and suicidal ideation. we know what's causing all of these problems. we understand -- again, you talk for 5, 10 years, we've been hearing from middle schoolteachers, high schoolteachers, we give speeches at colleges, what's your biggest problem? we know the answer. well, it is depression and anxiety, suicidal ideations. what's the cause? we know the answer. they say, "it's instagram." what do we do? >> one of the great things about what senator blumenthal and so many other people are doing is they're raising consciousness. parents are talking about the dangers. i talk to my three daughters. i talk to one grandchild who is old enough to talk about it. they get it. they get the dangers of screens. i was out in california over the weekend talking to a friend's two daughters who said, we're not on social media. we know that that is not going to make us happy. people ask us, why aren't you on instagram? we say, well, you know, we've talked with our parents and we're not going to do that. i just think we're in a period now where people are re-examining these tools, these gifts from the internet era and saying, that'sharmful to me. i think you're right, joe. i always get worried about too much government regulation of content. >> right. >> but the debate that's going on, what blumenthal just told us, that is having a positive effect. >> i hope so. i hope so. these can be professional platforms. these are not toys for kids. >> you know, they spend the whole idea of the internet from the beginning, wild, wild west. >> it is. >> the rules that apply to the rest of the world, to other businesses, don't apply to silicon valley. it has caused problems with our children. it has caused problems with our democracy. it has caused problems time and time again. the fact that every other business in america can be held liable, but silicon valley can't be held liable for destroying -- >> a joke and a disaster. >> what a joke. >> david ignatius, helene cooper, ed luce, thank you all very much for being on this morning. >> thank you. >> you really didn't know about john lennon until you were 12? >> i knew about the beatles. still ahead, republican congressman dan crenshaw takes on the far right members of his party, calling them performance artists and grifters. we'll have more on his comments. plus, the chairman of the intelligence committee, democrat mark warner, joins us on the efforts to de-escalate russia's military buildup on its border with ukraine. and retired u.s. army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, who blew the whistle on former president trump's phone call with the president of ukraine, will be our guest here in washington. "morning joe" is back in two minutes. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list event. firefighter maggie gronewald knows how to handle dry weather... ...and dry, cracked skin. new gold bond advanced healing ointment. restore healthy skin, with no sticky feeling. gold bond. champion your skin. ♪ my songs know what you did in the dark ♪ ♪ so light 'em up, up, up light 'em up, up, up ♪ ♪ light 'em up, up, up ♪ ♪ i'm on fire ♪ ♪ so light 'em up, up, up light 'em... ♪ i think c.s. lewis said the most insidious form of authoritarianism is when the government tells you you have to do something because it's for your own good. if this is for people's own good, this is something they can figure out for themselves. >> interesting. >> yeah. crazy. >> republican senator roy blunt believes mandating vaccines, or implementing routine testing in the name of public health, is authoritative, using british fantasy author c.s. lewis to push his point yesterday. i think our next guest knows a little about authoritarianism. we'll get to him on that. joining us today, white house correspondent for "politico," eugene daniels. host of "way too early" and chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. washington bureau chief elisabeth bumiller. and director for european affairs and executive board member for the renewed democracy initiative, retired u.s. army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman. he is the author of the book "here, right matters, an american story." >> one quick correction. c.s. lewis, i think, is refused with j.r. tolkien there, but we'll get to that later. >> okay. interesting to hear roy blunt say the most insidious form of authoritarianism, more insidious than soviet communism, more insidious than the holocaust, more insidious than stalin's killing of maybe up to 30, 35 million of his own people, more insidious than the 60 million people that were killed, is making people get a vaccine. having a mandate to get a vaccine. when everybody in that picture, everybody around this table, everybody in this studio, everybody sitting in congress had to have five vaccines before they started their education. it really is remarkable, like, how stupid this anti-vaccine debate can be. and the continued comparisons to the holocaust for something that every one of them had to do to begin kindergarten. >> your thoughts? >> yeah. first of all, mika and joe, thank you for having me on. new format for me. i'll try to stick with it. >> you know what? >> you can do anything you want. >> it's free form. >> look at this jacket. do whatever the hell you want to do on the set of "morning joe." i mean that, by the way. you have to tell me who your tailor is. mika will love me wearing that. >> it is all politics at this point. it's a bunch of noise making for the mob, but it shows kind of a broader lack of perspective about the difficulties that people face around the world. in my military career, i was stationed along the dmz between north and south korea. i was in combat. i served in ukraine. i served in russia. you really get a deep perspective of true challenges. people that have to face, you know, basic -- account for basic needs. >> right. >> food, shelter, security. here, we're talking about, you know, some minor infringement on personal -- i wouldn't even say it is a minor infringement. it is a community service. >> right. >> it is a community good. >> by the way, how many vaccines do you have to have when you're in the military? how many vaccines when you go off to combat? >> anthrax was five alone i think. nobody complained about that. >> ouch. >> nobody complained. willie, suddenly, oh, my gosh, i can't get one vaccine that's going to, you know, maybe save my life and help me actually go into, you know, areas with other members of, you know -- fellow troops. roy blunt though, i know roy blunt. roy blunt knows better, willie. seriously? saying this is the most insidious form of totalitarianism, when roy blunt got five vaccines to go to school? his kids had to have vaccines to go to school. everyone in that picture had to have vaccines. they're acting like this is all new. >> yeah. i had the same thought listening to senator blunt, who has been there for a long time. there is a faction of the republican party who says wild things, the most extreme things it can say, raises money and gets on tv. i don't put senator blunt in that category, but he did it. we see these pushing of comparisons out to the holocaust. we've seen repeated comparisons of dr. fauci to a nazi doctor. dr. fauci who is trying to steer us out of this. we got new polling of covid vaccinations and political affiliation, which speaks to this a bit. the latest kaiser family foundation poll shows 73% of all americans say they've received at least one dose of the covid-19 vaccine. breakdown by party. 91% of democrats have a vaccine dose. 68% of independents. 59% of republicans say they are at least partially vaccinated. obviously, public health officials would like all those numbers to be pushed up a little higher, but they speak to these information silos, joe, we're talking about here. >> i will say, i was heartened -- i guess it's sort of the soft bigotry of low expectations -- i am heartened that republicans are close to 60%. three, four months ago, we were hearing it was going to be, you know, 35%, 40%. i had people who, you know, are all in for donald trump, who i talk to them and they said, "yeah, i went ahead and got the j and j." there is this grudging move to get the vaccine. >> the science is playing out in front of their eyes. >> no debate with older americans. they get the shot. >> vaccine mandates are working. there's some evidence they're working. you see what is going on in new york city now. you know, mayor de blasio said private employers have to vaccinate. >> correct. >> also, i was going to tell you about the military. there was a fair amount of resistance in the u.s. military, in active duty troops, about the vaccine, which shows you how much this has seeped into everyone's consciousness. this campaign, the authoritarian -- >> despite the fact you take vaccine after vaccine after vaccine -- >> but there was huge resistance. now, it's been mandated. lloyd austin has taken a tough line. people are faced with either losing their jobs or, you know, losing their -- >> we're over 90% now. >> you are now. >> significantly higher. every service is over 90%. we shouldn't forget the military is a representative of the general public. >> right. >> you'll have some resistance. the military has done a pretty good job of rolling out the vaccines. commanders were the ones to get first vaccinated. they did it in front of troops. they had all sorts of different enticements to get people to move along. finally, with the mandates, we're probably where we should be and will be to the maximum, you know, in the time allotted, with some holdouts. there will be repercussions for that. >> the variants are also pushing people to get vaccinated. >> right. >> we saw when we started to hear about omicron, how transmissible it was. you started to see. you talk to people in the white house there, they're not excited there is a new variant but excited that it is forcing people to get the vaccine. that is one of the things that stops this pandemic, is making sure we don't have variants. >> the variants -- by the way, you're catching on to the format very well. the variants and also i think the very stark numbers of those who are going to hospitals and even dying, being unvaccinated, versus those -- i mean, those numbers, for now, are born out for everybody to see, even those who were perhaps a bit skeptical. they now see it, thinking, i can live if i take this vaccine. i'd rather live. >> what are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? >> right. >> willie, when you see time and time again, willie, that time and time again that nine out of ten people that are in the emergency room are unvaccinated, at some point, that catches on, even to the biggest vaccine skeptics. it really starts moving people. our time in new york city, i've spent a good bit of time in new york city over the past month. i have been out in a lot of restaurants. it's hard to get into the restaurants. you have to show them the vaccine card. i have been in a lot of restaurants and looked around and said, man, this place, it's like 1999 here. i would go home, you know, and say, should i take a spick and span bath? the vaccines are working. if you were around everybody who has been vaccinated, man, they're working. >> willie has breaking news on that. >> on that topic, pfizer announced lab studies show a third dose, the booster of their covid-19 vaccine, neutralizes the omicron variant. that is incredible news. >> wow. >> great news. >> amazing. >> we haven't heard from moderna on this question. if you have the pfizer biontech vaccine, the third dose, getting the booster neutralizes the omicron variant, which will be peace of mind and great news about keeping things open here the next stretch as the variant spreads. >> that's great news. you have the pfizer pill that hopefully is going to be effective as well. you have, again, in new york city, nine out of ten people who are vaccinated. the numbers keep going up. this is really good news. if we keep going in this direction, we're going to have a good spring. >> yeah, there was another study last night that suggests the pfizer two-dose regimen is less effective against the new variant. but the booster news is good. if you get the third shot, it'll offer protection, good motivation for people to do so. >> have you had the booster? >> moderna booster. let's hope for the best. >> moderna held strong against the virus. the two doses held strong against the doses. >> higher than pfizer's. >> i had the pfizer booster. first shots were fine. the pfizer booster, it was like joe frazier's left hook. it took me down. >> i think you had moderna. >> no, we had the pfizer booster. on top of moderna. >> i see. >> the first two shots weren't bad, but the booster. the doctor said, you build up a lot of antibodies. take a deep breath. it really does though. again, this is a madness, when you hear the false information. people are like, oh, the shots. now, they're trying to do the boosters. it's this and that. science is now showing us, after about six months, you know, the effectiveness of the two-shot regimen starts to fade. you need a booster. this is not rocket science. it's not a conspiracy. bill gates isn't putting another chip into your brain. this isn't hard, is it? >> of course not. my question is, what does neutralize mean? does willie know what neutralize means? >> good point. >> it offers protection. it offers protection, i guess, as the term they used. i don't know the specifics. i don't have percentages yet from the early study. >> yeah. >> it is effective in preventing me from getting it. >> you know, i suspect also if you're talking about neutralizing, and it is coming from the companies, but i suspect, jonathan lemire, what we're talking about here, it is effective. the delta variant was so dangerous because it spread and really impacted unvaccinated people. i had a lot of friends -- i didn't know anybody that really had serious consequences the first go-around. i had several people that were taken to the hospital that weren't vaccinated from delta. one who almost died. i think that's a great danger here. the shots were still effective against delta, and it appears the shots, it looks like, will be effective against omicron too. >> again, this is all early. we're still learning as we go. the early sense about this new variant is it is very transmissible, even more so than delta. but the severity of the illness may not be quite as significant, at least not yet. the people who have been affected in south africa were younger people, who respond better anyway. that is a mixed signal. there is a concern that there are more breakthrough cases. it does seem like the two-dose vaccinations, some were boostered too, got the virus but weren't that sick. to eugene's point, there have been record numbers of americans who have gotten shots and boosters in recent days. the white house officials believe that's fueled by the fears of omicron. >> eugene, seems to me that republicans, but even democrats, are starting to understand that we're going to have to learn to live with this. >> yeah. >> we're not going to be able to -- >> for a while. >> we're not going to be able to shut down cities again. we're not going to be able to shut down schools again. it's time now. we've moved into a phrase where we're going to have to figure out how to live with this, how to keep everything open, how to be responsible. >> mandates. >> how to move forward. democrats are even understanding that on the hill, right? >> no, absolutely. i mean, doctors are telling people, we're going to have to get boosters likely every year, right, how we get a flu shot. >> at least for a while. >> for many years. i think that is something you're seeing. that is starting to, like you said -- republicans are understanding that, but democrats are too. because they have talked about not closing down the economy as much as they had. making sure that it's not just, you know, the word about the politics of that, but more importantly, how it actually affects the economy. i think as we figure out how to live with covid-19 in general, the world will change and maybe look a lot more normal. you know, masks, i'll probably wear a mask on a plane, for example. >> i will. i have no problem with it. >> don't want to talk to anybody. >> yeah. >> every time i say that, people freak out online, on twitter. i'll tell ya, it's been nice not having the flu. >> i haven't had a cold in almost two years. i shouldn't say it, it'll happen. >> people hacking and coughing on airplanes. i hate masks, but it is nice, they're keeping that to themselves. >> lieutenant colonel vindman is here to talk about the call between vladimir putin and joe biden yesterday. we're going to get to that after a short break. straight ahead on "morning joe." as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? 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[thud] [clunk] [ding] ugh... xfinity rewards are our way of thanking you just for being with us. enjoy rewards like sing family fun nights! rent sing for $1, then belt out all your favorite tunes from the movie with sing karaoke. plus, see sing 2 in theaters with buy-one-get-one free fandango tickets. join over a million members by signing up for free on the xfinity app. our thanks. your rewards. look at the white house. it is all decorated for christmas and for the holidays. welcome back to "morning joe." almost 20 past the hour. during a two-hour video call yesterday, president joe biden warned russian president vladimir putin there will be heavy economic consequences if russia invades ukraine again. putin, for his part, asked for guarantees that nato won't expand into ukraine. nbc news correspondent kristen welker has details from the call. >> reporter: in a high-stakes video call, the white house described as direct and useful, president biden warned russian president vladimir putin not to invade ukraine. russian television releasing clips of the top of the call, which showed the presidents greeting each other. >> hello. good to see you again. i -- unfortunately, we didn't get to see each other at the g20. >> reporter: according to the white house, during the two-hour call, president biden voiced deep concerns about russia's escalation of forces on the ukrainian border, with satellite images showing a huge buildup of russian troops, tanks, and artillery. mr. biden warning the u.s. would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of a russian military escalation. but would the administration send u.s. troops? >> the question here is not that -- about whether or not the united states is going to send american service members to the territory of our nato allies. we do that as a matter of course. the question is, what additional capabilities can we provide? >> reporter: the backdrop to the new showdown. in 2014, president putin invaded crimea when mr. biden was vice president, but the obama administration sanctions did not get mr. putin to reverse course. >> things we did not do in 2014 we are prepared to do now. >> reporter: republicans accusing president biden of projecting weakness towards president putin after the chaotic afghanistan withdraw and by removing sanctions on mr. putin's prized energy pipeline in europe. >> putin is seeing that this is an opportunity for them to strike again. they know that joe biden is projecting weakness on the world stage. >> reporter: we pressed president biden's national security adviser. how do you respond to that criticism that president biden is being too weak with mr. putin? >> the president has shown over the course of the past eight months that he will do what he says he's going to do in response to russian actions. so president putin can count on that. >> alex, what is your response to yesterday? >> the public-facing engagement yesterday, you saw everything the white house did yesterday with regards to engaging with allies, with the messaging, i think that was about textbook. >> right. >> now, is that going to change putin's calculus on the largest offenive in europe since world war ii that's looming? i'm not entirely sure. yesterday occurred as good as it needed to. what is going on in ukraine is the continuation of the war that started in 2014. putin wants to retain control of -- or keep ukraine in its sphere of influence. he sees it slipping through his fingers, so he is acting on that need and also on an opportunity. an opportunity is perceived weakness in the united states. really doesn't have that much to do with joe biden. he's testing joe biden to see if he is -- if president biden is going to stick to his guns and be firm and resolved and pushing back on russian aggression. >> right. >> he is looking at the underlying conditions. he's looking at insurrection. if we didn't have an insurrection january 6th, i don't think vladimir putin would see the same opportunities and same weakness. he sees gaps between the u.s. and europe. >> he's in a divide, too. i'm not going to name any names, you know, but there is cable news channel that supports put nmsz. >> absolutely. >> delivers the talking points of vladimir putin. >> he sees that. he sees leverage from this fuel shortage or gas crisis in europe, that he can apply coercive pressure on with regards to keeping europe to minimal sanctions along the way. he's looking at all these different factors to determine if this is the opportunity to go. if biden, if president biden indicates that this is not the time, putin will look for another opportunity. but right now, he does see an opportunity. this is a continuation of 2014. this is a continuation of that buildup that occurred in march/april, just weeks after the insurrection. i think this is a -- >> draws a line. >> -- line that could become violence. >> jonathan, you were frustrated by the press being kept out yesterday. >> yeah. we just played footage from russian state tv, the kremlin, of the initial moments of that call with vladimir putin greeting joe biden, and joe biden giving the -- >> this has happened before. >> it has. the white house press did not have access to yesterday's meeting. >> why not? >> it was closed to press. normally, something like this, as you well know, there's what's called a spray. the press pool comes in and sees the top of the meeting. we are not sitting there for all two hours, but you're there for a few minutes, you see the two men greet each other, whatever it might be, president biden perhaps addresses, and that didn't happen. they didn't say publicly why not. they did two weeks ago with the video conference with president xi of china. press was allowed there for that. it's not common, less media access for meetings in this administration than previous ones. we'd like that to change. my question for you, let's say the troops are there and there wasn't a sense of a breakthrough yesterday. you're right, both leaders hit the notes they wanted to, but nothing changed on the ground. the longer the troops are there, obviously, there is a greater risk that something will happen, even inadvertently, that can spark a conflict. what is putin's out? what face-saving measure can he have to pull those troops back here? he has made it clear how he feels about ukraine, where it should stand, and he's drawn a line about ukraine's involvement with nato. if the west isn't willing to give the assurance, what happens? >> face-saving measures are part of the formula to get out of the situation, but it is probably not what is going to be decisive. it'll be a pressure track. it'll be the fact that the u.s. and our allies are resolved to apply severe sanctions. no, sanctions by themselves are also not effective. the russians have hardened against sanctions. much more so than our european allies that feel a lot of the fallout from sanctioning russia. so that's not part -- that's just a part of it. the other part of it is probably assurance with regards to four structure changes in europe. critical. russia keeps escalating, our allies perceive vulnerabilities, that's part of it. also in russia's calculus, that triggers a security dilemma. do they keep pushing toward a scenario that increases for structure in europe they don't want. you know, i think weapons are another thing that's important. all these things together on a pressure track will be important. on the engagement track, you also need those face-saving measures and off-ramps. those on the margins could be the security assurances but not unilateral, bilateral, something that services both european and russian interests, not bending to putin's demands. >> could i just ask, what do you think putin is going to do? i mean, that's a simple question here. is he going to move into ukraine in a big way come january/february? >> i think february, probably after the olympics, might be a good window to do that. just like he did in 2014 after the sochi olympics. i think you have -- you know, you have a range of different possibilities. on the one end, this is coercive diplomacy. this is to bring the u.s. to bear its influence over ukraine and compel minsk. it is giving russia a veto to -- >> explain what it is. the peace deal? >> out of 2015, when the conflict kind of simmered down, you had a dynamic in which the russians really kind of dictated a certain set of terms. they're not you lateral. it requires russian pullback forces out of ukraine. ukrainian control of the border. also, a federalization, meaning that different regions in ukraine have a veto over the direction of kiev, the capital's, foreign policy. that would be favorable. these negotiations haven't gotten very far. so he is looking for, you know, something concrete that he is unlikely to achieve with regards to ukraine. the u.s. is not going to push ukraine in that direction. that's not -- you know, this is not yalta. we're not going to go in direct. we don't have the control. ukrainians indicated they're willing to, you know, stand their ground. >> right. >> so i don't see a lot of kind of easy ways out of this. i think the only surety he has -- and, again, if the opportunity exists, it's through military action -- realizes a failed state in ukraine. a failed state that alleviates significant pressure on russia, in that they don't have to deal with a prosperous ukrainian state that is a model for them, for their own population that demands, you know, rights and freedoms and prosperity. >> right. >> they want that failed state. they want to be able to claim the west is decadent in failing. i think, you know, again, the only surety and why there is the chance of a military confrontation is the military tools is the most likely one to achieve it. >> eugene, let me ask you about an issue that has been on the front burner for ted cruz, a lot of republicans. that's the pipeline. that has caused ted cruz to block a lot of state department nominees' votes. i'm curious, is there movement on that issue now, with russians moving as aggressively as they have to the ukrainian border? do you see movement on that issue away from that pipeline? and more people actually moving toward ted cruz's position, that now is not the time to do this? >> i haven't seen. i don't know if you have. i saw your head shaking while you were asking the question. ted cruz is not really a leader that people tend to look to when it comes to especially foreign policy. >> i mean, just on the issue. the pipeline decision was controversial to begin with. >> right. >> and since then, of course, we've had, really, a worsening situation on the border of ukraine. i'm wondering if you're seeing any movement away from that. >> no, at this point, i have not seen any. i'll turn to you. this fees like a great for you. >> there is some coherence around a position to put nordstream 2 back into place. on that side, there's been relative bipartisan support for blocking nordstream 2, the executive branch of biden's administration that's not for it. senator cruz's obstruction of nominations to compel an outcome in nordstream 2 is a travesty. he is holding out the diplomats and senior policymakers that need to be in play right now, doing the coordination, to apply coercion, to apply kind of -- to synchronize efforts to resist this, make sure this doesn't blow up into a major crisis. so i really hope that, you know, there's significant pressure being brought to bear on this one senator that's obstructing, you know, dozens and dozens of senior policymakers from moving into positions. >> is the white house applying pressure on chuck schumer, to go ahead and just start taking the votes? if ted cruz isn't going to -- again, this is the difference between republicans and democrats. no republican would have had thanksgiving at home if i were running the senate. on monday, i'd say, "okay, fellas, two hours a nomination. i don't really care. you better get canned turkey. we're going to be staying." when is chuck schumer going to do is that? we can blame ted cruz, but chuck schumer can call the votes. if ted wants to make them wait two hours, i'd love doing that. that would be so much fun. okay, ted. then i'd just get binoculars and look down, as republicans were going up to ted cruz going, "how long you going to do this, ted?" i want to see my kids. >> yeah. >> i'd watch with the binoculars going, "ah-ha-ha." when is he going to do it? when is the white house going to pressure? they can keep bitchin about ted cruz all they want, but they have the power to force the votes. >> more holidays are looming. i asked this exact question to white house press secretary jen psaki. >> i'm not -- come on, he's doing it. he's a professional. >> jonathan lemire -- >> most days. >> i asked the secretary about it, and she certainly exerted, hey, we want this to happen, but she stopped short of saying that they endorse that plan. that they -- >> really? >> it was floated that schumer could do this, force the vote. >> i want to play for the red sox. not going to happen. you have to do it. >> wee need pitching. >> i could be a reliever right now. >> when are they going to do it though? >> they haven't said. but they are frustrated by this. certainly, this moment, they're saying, look at the world. it's not just the russia and ukraine situation. there are a lot of hot spots. we need our people in place. they haven't pulled the trigger. >> how? >> force it through the senate. the white house hasn't provided a clear answer why it hasn't happened. a lot is, as aides said, this is still joe biden, always a senator, being deferential to the process there. it has not happened yet. >> well, this is a process. like, you don't want to -- i'm serious. >> are they worried about the reconciliation bill? are they worried about legislation? yes. >> certainly that. it's not gotten through the senate yet. >> they need everybody on that bill. >> guess what? they're not going to get everybody on that bill. joe manchin is not going to be on that bill this year. >> not before the end of the year. retired u.s. army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, thank you very much for coming on the show. >> great seeing you. >> by the way, you caught on real good. >> next time, pink jacket. still ahead on "morning joe," the house passes a $768 billion -- >> is it pink or salmon? >> -- defense bill. that's a salmon, yeah. >> version of pink. whatever color. >> i love that color. anyhow, it was negotiated between both parties and both chambers. we'll run through that. the complicated plan to lift the debt limit this month. plus, there may be a growing partisan divide among college students. new polling shows many young americans wouldn't even be friends with someone who voted for the opposite candidate. but it's much higher for one party. we're going to tell you which one. >> really a lot higher for one party. >> straight ahead on "morning joe." >> i wonder. ♪ safely walked to school without a sound ♪ ♪ here we are no one else ♪ ♪ we walk to school all by ourselves ♪ ♪ put on our uniforms from chasing we clean up now it's time to learn ♪ don't just put on a light show—be the light show. make your nights anything but silent. and ride in a sleigh that really slays. because in a cadillac, tradition is yours to define. so visit a cadillac showroom, and start celebrating today. ♪ ♪ 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? 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[ding] i was hit by a car and needed help. i called the barnes firm. that was the best call i could've made. i'm rich barnes. it's hard for people to know how much their accident case is let our injury attorneys know he how much their accident cget the best result possible. i had no idea how much i wamy case was worth. c call the barnes firm to find out what your case could be worth. we will help get you the best result possible. ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ welcome back to "morning joe." beautiful live picture of the rockefeller center christmas tree, lit up beautiful at 7:39 in the morning. a new poll finds nearly a quarter of college students say they would not be friends with someone who voted for the other presidential candidate than the one they voted for. the latest generation lab/axios poll finds 71% of democrats in college would not date someone who voted for former president donald trump. 41% of democrats would not shop at or support a business of someone who voted for the other presidential candidate. that's compared to just 7% of republicans. 37% of democrats say they would not be friends with someone from the opposite party, compared to just 5% of republicans. 30% of democrats also said in this poll they would not work for someone who voted differently from them. >> kind of weird. >> this is disheartening, joe. i hate to see this. you have an experience in your life, in college. we went to schools, lived in places with people who saw the world different than we did perhaps. you worked in a place in congress where you had a lot of friends who saw the world differently than you did. but this does seem to be anecdotally, and now we see in a poll, and perhaps donald trump is an exception here if we're talking about him individually and not republicans writ large, of a trend that's happening with the young people. >> yeah. i mean, you know, it is disheartening. when i was in congress, i was considered one of the more conservative people there. sort of a fire breather. when i came in, i always went on the democratic side. i sat down. built friendships with john lewis, elijah cummings, who married us, maxine wwatt maxine though she didn't like to admit that. it's bad back in the district. i'd built these relationships, and a crazy thing happened. there were things we a i grewed on. >> it is healthy. >> bipartisan ledge strags. legislation. elijah and i worked on long-term care for employees. became law. that was just because we sat down and engaged. willie, here, you're talking about these idealogical bubbles where people won't date somebody that isn't a member of their party, they won't shop at a business? i mean, this is really crazy. and if you look at it right now, and this surprises me, it is really tilted to one side. it's the democrats more likely to not want to be around republicans than the other way around. >> yeah. i mean, it is pretty clear, republicans are more tolerant politically in this poll than democrats are. sam stein, i do, as i said, wonder, though, how much of this is about donald trump. it is one thing for a lot of people in this country to look at a republican and say, oh, mitt romney, john mccain, george w. bush, go down the list. there are disagreements on issues, but a decent guy who served the country. with donald trump, you look at some of the things that he's done, obviously, from january 6th backward, and everything he's done, questioning the election. i think some democrats say, i don't know how you could still support that man and be on his side. i think, probably, what we're seeing in this poll is a lot about donald trump. >> yeah. i mean, i think it is all about donald trump. look, if you're a young muslim kid on a college campus, are you supportive of people who want to ban you from entering the country? it is a legitimate gray. >> sure. >> i'm not an expert on dating or anything, but, you know, politics does come into, like, who you want to marry and date, right? doesn't seem too crazy. >> are you kidding me? >> on the other stuff -- >> you guys are the exception to the rule. >> i'm telling you, when it is time to date, the last thing i'm thinking of is -- >> i think you guys are the exception. >> -- what are -- >> most people in relationships do share general world views. i think on the other stuff, it is crazy though. i think the real thing is how we consume daily news. if you look at any studies, if you are a liberal, you are more likely to unfollow people who do not share your views on social media platforms. >> why is that? >> if you're conservative, you are much more likely, by every study, to consume news from conservative media outlets. we create these incredibly gated communities around us on those elements. i mean, i think that's problematic. >> that's a problem though. i can say with mika and me, i think we still have political differences that we have. >> oh, yeah. >> we look at the world differently. >> you are too optimistic. >> she thinks i'm way too optimistic. >> oh, my god. >> i have way too much faith. >> in la la land. >> i think mika is pessimistic. >> you shouldn't be completely sympatico. >> trust me, we ain't. >> what i'm saying is, we cover each other's blind spots. >> right. >> so i'll go into a show going, okay, maybe i'm being a little too optimistic that america is going to be okay. then i'll say to mika -- >> it's healthy. >> -- maybe the fact you saw gum on the sidewalk doesn't mean the constitution is going to collapse tomorrow. it is a good balance. >> one of the things you see with younger people -- i can't believe i'm saying that at 32 -- >> how cute. >> i know. but they tend to have a lot of these because they look at the world, they look at the way that climate change is, the effects it'll have on their lives, they look at the insurrection, the last four, five years with donald trump, these democrats, and what they're thinking and saying is that, i can't be around someone who thinks like that, whether it is good or not. that's how they see it. because what they see is a party -- and i've talked to young democrats about this all the time -- is that they see a republican party that they see as anti-democratic, dangerous for them. they see a party that they think is racist and homophobic and sexist. so it says a lot about these young democrats, but it also says a lot about our politics and kind of how the republican party is perceived. those are the things that, one, we have to figure out as a country because it is unrealistic to think if you're a young democrat, you'll only go to places owned by other democrats. >> so many of these democrats, these young democrats, their first experience with government was seeing barack obama as president for eight years. >> correct. >> they were stunned, devastated, shocked by donald trump's election. also, personal experience with some of my children, they don't have any long-term perspective. they see this as the end of the world. what's happening right now. >> right. >> they haven't seen the ups and downs of american politics. now, true, these are pretty big ups and downs right now. >> yeah, dangerous times. >> but they don't see the long term. they don't see 50 years of, you know, there was a second world war. horrible things have happened in this country. again, they don't have a long-term perspective. they see it as cataclysmic right now. >> by the way, anybody that is young and thinks this is the worst we've ever been through, first of all, look at 1968. >> right. >> look at ken burns' documentary on vietnam. actually, much worse. for people thinking this is the most racist time we've ever been through. ha! we actually didn't even move towards the promise of the declaration of independence until, like, 1964 and 1965. so we've been through a long, ugly, arduous journey together. and, you're right, there is a total lack of perspective. willie, i mean, let's be blunt. i mean, i grew up, and when i had friends who were on the left, so many times they were only friends of mine because they didn't really think i believed what i believed. they told me that. i said, well, if all republicans are evil, then why are you hanging out with me? oh, you don't believe it. i go, but i do. no, you don't. and you tell an amazing story about going to vanderbilt. to think this is new, i lived on the upper west side when george w. bush was president. you couldn't go five feet without seeing him dressed as hitler on postcards, on t-shirts, on hats. george w. bush was hitler. if you voted for george w. bush, which i did, twice, i remember telling somebody on an airplane that. she gasped and threw down her drink and asked somebody if she can sit somewhere else. so this is not new. this is not new. but, willie, you actually tell an amazing story about going to vanderbilt during this time and what you learned by doing that. >> well, i always tell people, i think the best thing you can do is to leave whatever your bubble is, whether it is a conservative bubble or a progressive bubble, whether it is an urban bubble or a rural bubble, and burst it and go expose yourself. that's the best. it's harder now because people do live in these -- their own media ecosystems, they consume what they want to hear. i grew up in suburban new jersey outside new york. went to school in nashville. every friend was from a town i'd never heard of. cleveland, tennessee. places, you know, through georgia and alabama and mississippi and tennessee. i lived in atlanta for seven years after that. it just broadens you. it didn't change your core values. it doesn't change who you are necessarily, but it makes you aware of other points of view. it makes you respect the people who have them. it also sort of helps you blow up cartoon versions and perceptions, in my case, of what the south was. now, those are all my friends. these are those people. so i think when i went to college, i was sort of looking away from where i away from where i lived. we were talking about sam's dating life at dartmouth up in the lonely forest. >>al-of-the big green. >> the hanover, new hampshire, but i -- everyone has a different experience, but to your point, joe, it was just what i say to people is, go challenge yourself a little bit, and don't change who you are, but expose yourself a little bit. doesn't mean you agree with all the things those people think, but helps you be sympathetic in some ways and humanize the people who hold those views. >> before you went down to vandy, if you voted for george w. bush, you were evil. go out, play basketball and are friends, a lot of them voted for bush. okay, well, maybe they're not evil. jonathan, i'm learning the same thing. i'd be honest with you. had a little bit of a problem with my dear close friends and family members voting for a guy who accused me of murder a few times but i've worked through it. >> i have not. >> mika has not but i've worked through it. an interesting thing is starting to happen. we haven't talked politics. there's been sort of this rigidity and i'm starting to find out in a relaxing -- it's like, we can't talk politics. and now -- six, nine months later, just because we keep talking, and this is -- of our neighbors, too. because -- i don't know anybody, voted for joe biden in our neighborhood or in my family or with old friends, and in time people are sort of kind of like easing off a little bit. and i'm starting to find the conversations are becoming more natural. it requires, of course, that we both think the person voted for a person that's going to destroy the country, but we look at each other and say, american -- american -- loves their country. loves their country. we may disagree, but we can come back together again. >> certainly it is a nation where we're nor in silos than ever before, right? social media has a big part of that. people can find their own tribes. that book from a couple decades ago, accelerated since. lack of community. encouraging from your statement, but my question to you, does that last? coming up a year from the insurrection. forefront in a lot of people's minds. does that last were donald trump once again to be a public figure and candidate for president? >> always have ups and downs. i first got into congress and all thought the world was coming to an end because of bill clinton and if this bill passes -- after about the 10th, 20th time this happened i said to a friend, sun's still coming up. we got to kind of stop doing this. there's a catastrophizing. >> what? >> that i believe, yes. >> contessa: has pushed us to a place we have not been. >> look what the "atlantic" magazine is saying -- let me just -- >> can i finish what i'm saying. >> yes, then i'm going to talk. >> there is a catastrophizing that is not new. run as a republican since 1960, and called a nazi, or they've been call add fascist, or they've been called dangerous right-wing-type person. i've see clop columns i've seen it. >> talking about other things, with people, not actually talking about the issues at hand is that what we're seeing over the past four to six years is like a growing degradation of the truth, degradation of what facts really are and then an avoidance to having the conversation. which is exactly how -- it's one facet of ow things go wrong, in my opinion. because we have to hold on to the values that this country is built on, and if we can't talk about them, and we can't talk about when our democracy is assaulted and our values have been, have been stamped down by criminals or an insurrection or a leader who has anti-democratic values, we can't talk about that, then we're avoiding it, which i think adds to it. >> but, mika, your idea is go up and talk to somebody -- who did you don't vote for. no it is. who did you vote for. well, i'm in the supermarket getting from produce. >> it's different than avoiding it. >> let's talk about china. no. we need to talk to china more. no. we need to talk to russia more. we have to communicate with people we disagree with, and try to find common ground. >> i don't disagree with that. i mean, i try to do that in my own life too, sometimes. it doesn't always go well, but you should try to engage, learn and listen. i can't disagree with that, and i don't disagree with the catastrophizing either, my mother, i love her, a liberal. she thought george w. bush was an incinerator and now a great dude for speaking out against donald trump. so we obviously need to sort of understand the context and the moment and how we evolve. i will say just two things. one, i think trump is a unique person in this context. >> right, yes. >> and i don't think we should understate that. two, we've changed as society how we consume and participate in the political process. it is now social to one's identity to be engaged in that every day and in multiple vehicles especially on social media. that's very different than it was in years' past and become a sort of pride that you can make the opposition pay a price, emotionally or politically. that's changed things. the other thing, i just think it's, we live in a time and a place where we do need to actually engage more and it's harder to do when you're siloed off in your own ecosystems. >> keep it personal here. glad you got beyond just murphy's pub, and expose yourselves to others points of vie, but i don't -- i don't hang out for hours with someone who supported the insurrection or the man who accused my husband of murder repeatedly to millions of people without addressing it. that's just me. sam stein, jonathan lemire, thank you very much. coming up, our next guest says, to be a conservative today you have to oppose much of what the republican party has come to stand for. columnist david brooks is grappling with that in a new essay and he joins the table straight ahead. plus, as president biden travels to kansas city today to ran out his infrastructure plan we'll talk to the official responsible for overseeinged spending. 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promised i wouldn't miss the show and mommy always keeps her promises. oh, no! seriously? hmm! it's not the same if she's not here. oh. -what the. oh my goodness! i don't suppose you can sing, can you? ♪ the snow's comin' down ♪ -mommy? ♪ i'm watching it fall ♪ watch the full story at www.xfinity.com/sing2 we found that in spite of our cooperation in sharing documents with them they had issued, unbeknownst to us without even a courtesy call, issued a subpoena to third-party carrier trying to get information, and so at this point we, we feel like it's best that we just continue to honor the executive privilege and it looks like the courts are going to have to weigh in on this. beautiful shot of washington, d.c. it is the top of the hour. 8:00 on the east coast. president trump's former white house chief of staff mark meadows, last night explaining how he now will not appear for a deposition the house select committee investigating the janet 6th attack on the capitol. committee leaders immediately threatened a vote to hold meadows in contempt of congress. the decision not to cooperate seems to coincide with reports that trump is livid at meadows for revealing details in a new book about the timing and severity of trump's covid illness last year. it's weird, because trump did a little blurb and usually you read theanyhow, welcome back to "morning joe." eugene from "politico" is still with us and confidence coast series, katty kay and peter bake around columnist for the "new york times" and contributor at the atlantic, did not get the pink jacket memo, maybe next time, david. >> that is sat. >> my pajamas are pink. >> oh, i love it! all right. let's get right to it. >> i'm not sure we needed to know. >> so we were just having a great conversation. i think this kind of feeds into it. republican congressman dan crenshaw of texas took aim at the conservative house freedom caucus this past week referring to the group as performance artists, and grifters. at an eincident his hometown of houston. the texas republican says, "there are two types of meshes of congress. performance artists, legislators. the performance artists are the ones that get all of the attention. they're the ones you think are more conservative because they know how to say slogans real well. they know how to recite the lines that they know our voters want to hear. crenshaw then said, one of donald trump's most vocal critics republican congressman adam kinzinger was the "top of the list" when it came to supporting the trump agenda voting with him 99% of the time, adding, you know who is at the bottom, everybody in the freedom caucus. all of them. it's not true. we have grifters in our mist in the conservative movement. lie after lie after lie because they know something psychologically about the conservative heart. >> so, david, this guy's kind of preaching to the choir, to me and probably to you. we're talking last time about sitting down with people with whom we disagree. i remember being frustrated where congress was going. so i sat down and i talked to mark meadow when he was head of the freedom caucus, and i had several lunches with him. he was, like, hey, i followed in your footprints. sort of, we call ourselves federalists we still don't know why, but it was all about balancing the budget, cutting waste. all the things they said they were going to do. i said you guys are engaging in performance art. you need to get something, mark neuman, somebody to dig into the budget. see where the waste is. don't just call out the democrats call out your own appropriations. that's how we balanced the budget for years in a row. mark was like, yes, a great idea, yes, yes, yes, but then they did nothing. continued in performance art. i actually, dan, saying this, this is actually refreshing. >> yeah. you know, i had this exact conversation with a member of congress yesterday. i went up, just had coffee, and i said, you could really rise you're a talented person. a democrat. i said, you help people raise money. you work on legislation. you really get stuff done, and you can become, you know, deputy -- go into leadership. he said it's not, that's not the way it works. used to be a distinction between show horses and workhorses. show horses performance, and workhorses were the people people admire. that distinction doesn't exist anymore. now it's all show horses. model for having power is aoc or ted cruz on the republican side. it's to get a lot of media attention, have a big social media presence and that gives you power inside the body. which did not used to be the case. so he was saying, know, it's -- the senate and the house are a platform upon which you can write books and get on tv. that's different than it used to be. >> shocking to me, that the people whose name i don't want to even say on this show, because they are just performance artists, they say the most outrageous things, the most un-american things, the most hateful things, and they raise the most money in the republican caucus. i mean, it used to be -- i mean, ages ago, peter, that you actually did that, by people understanding that you could get things done. you can legislation, get it done. you actually worked hard, and, like you've said, a workhorse. >> if you put a list of pictures of most famous members of congress today other than the leadership, almost none pass legislation. they don't have a bill to their name other than naming a post office in their district or something like that. nobody's actually focused on legislation except for the people at the very top. part is the structure of these bodies in which members are shut down. even chairman shut out. right? a lot is about the performance. a lot is how you raise money. a lot how you get attention. we're spending all of this time and we're a part of this too, right? focusing whether this congressperson said something offensive about that congressperson and that drives the news. day and maybe strip committee -- which has nothing to do -- >> which only helps them. >> right. when you were in congress, they were people like that, we just didn't care about them or pay attention to them. who paid attention to jim trafican. amazing amusing day but not significant. today his successors in both parties get an enormous amount of attention and, therefore, drive conversation. >> jim trafican. at in speech, beam me up, scotty, but walk past everybody in the hall. mr. chairman -- mr. chairman -- everybody mr. chairman -- >> a medium in which they're getting their moment of fame is social media, is a medium that rewards extremism. of course, they're going to be whether on left or right, they're going to are more extreme and you end up something like mike gates saying future the republican party is jim jordan, marjorie taylor greene, gosar, not the people actually getting the work done and social media fuels this because it gives them their ability. they have their own ability and can go droect their publics and build their publics in a way they couldn't five, ten years ago. >> right. >> david, you have a new column in the "atlantic" titled "i remember conservatism" you explore whether former president trump redefined conservatism in the united states, you write, today what passes for the world view. right is a set of resentiment an moss tedses, a partisan attachment to donald trump is sort of mental brutalism. i wish i could say that what trump represents has nothing to do with conservatism. rightly understood. in the trumpian world disputes are settled by raw power and intimidation. trumpism looks at the tender sentiments of sympathy as weakness. might makes right. trumpian plunders to grades and erodes institutions for the sake of personal aggrandizement because trumpians live in a state of perpetual war they need to continually invent existential foes, critical race theory, non-gendered bathrooms, out of control immigration. >> david, one of those bum beautiful statements about conservatism, russell, a conservative mind, last edition writes a beautiful introduction where he basically says of conservatism, we don't believe in ideology. we believe the path to hell is paved by ideology. we believe in custom. we believe in the constitution. we believe in sort of small conservatism and look at world around us, and because we're conservative, we have to figure out, are we the party that protects those customs or the party of progress? we do not get locked in to a rigid set of ideologies, because that is, that's what marxists do, what people do who we're fighting. >> i was a socialist as a kid, as you should be, and then i became a police reporter in chicago. a place called the city news bureau and covered all sorts of bad social policies and thought, all well designed. well intentioned, but they ended up hurting a lot of the people they were intended to help, because they didn't talk to the people. they didn't go local and get response of, what do you need? just imposed plans. i thought, wow. holy crap. what what this guy edmund burks i read in college was talking about. the idea of the world is complicated you should be cautious to think you can plan it and understand it, the founder of moderate conservatism. that phrase left out of me, episcopalian mods city. you should do it gradually, incrementally and constantly. that humility was so core to, found it so attractive we're not going to try to impose or will. we don't know everything. be humble about it. the second thing i found super attractive about conservatism was it's about moral formation. t.s. eliot said you can't create a society in which the people in it don't have to be good. how do you create good people j.t. conservative answer to that is, it's in families. it's in neighborhoods. it's in communities. it's in the customs we all share that mold us and turn us into good people. the kind of people worthy of freedom. when i encounter conservatism, back then, about humility and moral formation. so how does that lead to donald trump? >> right. >> and so there are long answers to that but i went back and reread all the books i read when i was 22 and loved them all over again. edmund burk, russell kirk. peel like that. founding ideas are beautiful. >> road to servedom all in beautiful books. i sit here and i think and i hear -- i hear, you know, liberals or read liberals or twitter saying conservatism has always been just like it is today. you do what you were -- well, no. again, you read these books that drew you to conservatism. and -- and you understand that, again, there was the humility. not -- not the rigidity, at least when what you're talking about those founding books of conservatism where you don't assume. you know absolutely everything. you don't assume that every social ill can be fixed by a program that they design on capitol hill. but you -- you know -- and you're not at war every second of every day, but i guess -- >> yeah. a couple reasons. conservatives never reckon the race. you should not be concerned about race in the america but things worthy of preserving, things basically just. that was never addressed. a serious problem. >> why was that? >> hmm. >> i know buckley was for segregation, then regretted that. he went back on that, and -- and -- >> just never dealt with it. go back on youtube and google that, oxford at came brim, baldwin crushing him and buckley looks like a jerk. he was my mentor and hero and i love him, but he looked like a jerk. never dealt with it. ignorance or whatever. by the time i got there i never heard racist stuff it wasn't dealt with, talked about, pushed aside. second problem with conservatism is that it's based on a basic confidence in faith that we've inherited the greatest country on earth and we want to preserve what's basically just. and a lot of conservatives now feel we're threatened. we're resieged. it they're out to get us. outsiders are out to get us. the immigrants. not abundance but a scarcity intelligence. >> ronald reagan's farewell speech where reagan said when we stop allowing immigrants to come into this country, we stop being the country that we all know and love. >> i think it's fear. you had in a sense we were immigrants. immigrants made this country. and there's enough to share. it's not a zero sum game here. if you come in from india or china or wherever, you're going to make this a better country. there are more for all of us. shift to a scarcity mentality. you come in, you're taking it away from us. they're out to get us. >> did the incredible rise in inequality in the united states since economic inequality since the 1970s also suggest that was another area conservatives just didn't deal with? >> yeah. >> in terms of policy. >> sure. >> reaganomics, happy for their share of the pie to get bigger and bigger and bigger without addressing -- >> this pushed me over to the left that i thought capitalism worked in the '80s and what reagan did was right, but then it developed structural flaws leaving so many people behind. then the final and the big thing won't make progressives happy, basically highly educated people go to highly educated schools, produce, marry each other, produce highly educated kids, moved to new york, san francisco, d.c. they came to control the media, the culture, the business sector, the big tech, and all of the people were left out of this inherited merit tock crazy, this class we now have said, screw those people. and that's a lot of the resentment that drives the right right now. >> bring down college fees. you will get more people -- more programs. >> so covering obviously washington for a very long time and you've seen a lot of changes. over the past 20, 30 years. a lot of changes in conservatism. what -- what -- what rings true to you? what david said, what are your thoughts? >> yeah. struck by this. a republican party last year renominated president trump and adopted no platform. adopted no platform. they didn't say, this is what we stand for. right? reagan had a platform. may or may not agreed with it but he stood for something. john mccain, mitt romney stood for something. on the left, obviously bill clinton and barack obama and donald trump's party last year didn't adopt a platform. struck by mark meadows new book came out yesterday. beginning of the book says donald trump is willing to help people run for office. the two standards he mentions, mark meadows, is, if they're not, they haven't committed felonies and haven't dragged trump through the mud, he will help pep thp that's the qualifications he sets out for trump's endorsement. are they personally loyal to him? is it about trump? not about, he'll help them if he agrees with them has good character, expertise, experience, education, represent their people well. none of those things mentioned in marx's book. two things, have they committed felonies and are they loyal to president trump? that's extraordinary. somebody did a study, wish i remember who, in the last 24 hours remembers, that says people who came on january 6th, which counties. not trump counties. that wasn't the barometer on which we found their participation. they came from counties where white population has dropped substantially. that was the one demographic key that you could do to predict or judge where people came from on january 6th. it is this resentment, this cultural war, a cultural sense not about ideology or issues. about about idea somebody else is getting ahead and i'm not and the country is changing underneith me and i'm resentful. >> and the people they feel are getting ahead are black and brown people. modern conservative has led to a lot of this. had you seen conservatives embrace black and brown people in a different way, i think this world looks a lot different. right? maybe you don't get donald trump, because there's less for him to pick at when comes to fearing the other. and conservatism and the way democrats look at conservatism now, talking how liberals look at it and think about it, is that it is and has been under girding of fear of the other. right? because the -- and i talked to people earlier this week. i guess it's wednesday, so monday or tuesday, about sort of this issue, and what they said is that the american dream was alive. right? that the american dream that was presented to people by, and they say conservatives, was something that wasn't available for everyone. so there's resentment about that in black and brown communities, because they feel like there hasn't been help there. so when you have a republican party that embraced politics of contempt, embraced politics of trying to fight the other at all times, you end up with the country that we have now and i don't -- it's unclear how that, how conservatism and the republican party change from here i. would go beyond plaque and brown people. say women, too. look at january 6th. 90% white and 90% male. the threat that it's particularly white men are feeling at the moment in this country is producing a lot of the anger that we're seeing around the country, but i think to your point donald trump and no policies in the republican party i think of the piece in the "washington post." precisely that. support of donald trump from diehard trump world is trump the person. it's not what he does. that makes it very hard to counter him, because you can't counter him on policy grounds. he doesn't even have to deliver. it's not that he has to provide something. it's really just about him, the person. it is, as you've said, mika, that personality. >> yeah. >> so, david, understanding that there are no constants, that politics is constantly changing. you know, new england used to be solid republican, and south used to be solidly democratic. and, also, that republicans used to get at least a third of the black vote. do you have any hope for the republican party? and if you don't have hope, maybe you project hope on to a direction that they may go? >> yeah. at times a rational optimist. >> everyone in my household is -- we must be true conservists. >> you know, i would say the best future for the republican party, look at right-wing parties all around the west. as a multiracial working class party. it has become thangender doesn't matter all that much about how you vote. income doesn't matter all that much but education sure matters, so the republican party have become a party for the less educated for the people that have college degree and seen their rises in the hispanic and black community among those people. and people with working-class roots have certain interests. and the party could become a party that serves those without college degrees. across race. that's -- you see the beginning of that. now, the problem is, goes back to peter's point. you get to to have policies for those people. in my view joe biden say, build back better, the infrastructure bill, one study 80% of jobs in the infrastructure bill go to people without college degrees. they're serving republican voters by and large. >> uh-huh. >> and so republicans have to have an answer. here's the policies that we stand for to help those who are now voting for us, which is those without college degrees. >> before we go. let's just talk about the great irony of donald trump running as a populist. that last two, three-minute ad that he ran talking about how monetary systems across the world are rigged against working-class americans. he ran aslistpopulist, gave massive tax cuts to the wealthiest americans and multi-national corporations, and the night after signing the bill went down to mar-a-lago, sitting at a table with billionaires and said i just made all of you a lot richer today. >> yes. >> again, the antithesis of what a working-class leader would do. >> it is disassociated from policy, disassociated from specific ideas and programs that would benefit or at least, you know, target the people he nifk in fact represents. it's fascinating to watch. if donald trump switched to said we should do the opposite what we i said yesterday, terrific, yeah, terrific. he had credibility with it. interesting because there were times he seemed more afraid of the base than the other way around, kept him from making compromises. which you thought a new york republican might have been willing to do. right? he himself talked repeatedly over his lifetime. i'm from new york, for abortion rights, gay rights, diversity, i'm from new york and pivots when he runs for president and becomes president and attacks hard right. often thought he could have done something different. on daca, on other issues because he had credibility with the right to make changes but never did. he always stuck with the hard line position, because he felt that was what he needed to do to keep the base behind him. >> he was always scared of his base and i don't think there's a better video depiction of that than when he suggests a couple months ago that people go out and get vaccinated. they start to boo, and he backs off. he's petrified of it. >> awful. we have to bring this incredible conversation to a close. david brooks, thank you very much. your new piece "i remember conservism" for the special issue of the atlantic on the state of ow democracy. incredible two-issue topic. and thank you very much for sharing that with us this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe," our next guest has a lot to manage as in $1 trillion of taxpayer money. mitch landrieu supervising president biden's massive infrastructure plan and joins us next. you can see senator mark warner will joins as well. we'll be right back. as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ this is the new world of work. each day looks different than 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(cheers) xfinity brought us together, after all! power your whole home this holiday with wifi speeds faster than a gig. click, call, or visit a store today. sing 2 ♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." almost broke the table here in washington. president biden will travel to kansas city today to tout the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law. biden has visited several other states including new hampshire, michigan and minnesota to promote his signature legislative achievement, but missouri will be his first trip to a state that voted for former president trump in the 2020 election. and see, mitch, i told you he wants to talk to you. just waiting. always late. he's always -- late. >> i was dieing to interview you. >> yeah. you -- hey -- >> he has it in his pockets. yeah, yeah. true. >> he's also -- >> so -- >> we can figure this out. right? door to door? >> white house senior adviser and infrastructure coordinator and former mayor -- >> consumer politician. you know this. politicians? >> i wish you hadn't -- >> know how to handle money! >> you would rather rely on politicians -- of course. a much better way to go. >> this is -- politics. >> yes, yes. >> all right. so, here is, you have a great responsibility. this is a bill that americans really support. it's a ton of money, and if it's done right it can transform america. >> really. >> and if it's done wrong, then it is forever, forever a warning against massive spending bills in the future. how do you -- how do you ensure that, that this money transforms america? >> uh-huh. >> first things first. president biden was able to do what past presidents have tried to do, yearned to do, wanted to do, wasn't able to do, which is bring america together across the idea if we invest in the people in america invest in infrastructure we actually can win the 21st century and i think very astute saying the last 20, 30 years we kind of lost our way in how we do big things, but america's never won by thinking small. to his credit he asked americans to step up. said he'd do it in a bipartisan way. you noticed going in, kansas city, governor parson, going to a city with a democratic mayor. bring people together to get things done about things americans cared about. a big and important lens. the president said put me in office i'll use my power to lift up the people and invest in america. >> he's done his job, now you have to do your job. >> the challenge is, having gone through returning a devastated city, after katrina, lost 500,000 homes, 250,000 destroyed, lost 1,800 people. rebuilding the city we learned we're a lot alignment and communication. federal, state and local governments are not working together. my first mission on behalf of the president is to make sure that everybody's on the same page. not an easy thing to do as you know having been a local official. when you come up to washington if you have to go see five or six secretaries to get different things that land on won spot in a neighborhood in your city because people live in communities not just on a bus line you need to have transit services, small business development. my first job is to try to make sure the cabinet is one team, one fight and communicating with the mayor. spent the last couple weeks reaching out. reached out to, talked to text or left a message for everyone governor in the country. talked to 30 mayors personally. u.s. conference of mayors because the president says, look, one team, one fight, one mission. number two, when i did this for president obama i was pretty good at it but waste, fraud and abuse is really important. whenever you throw a lot of money as stuff, do it too fast you can get out of the way. do it right, takes a little longer. here's a complication. everybody wants to see it run tomorrow. the president is asking us to rebuild the country, a three to five proposal. we need to think about climate, those from the south know it really, really well. resilience, building back in a way that's stronger and better. also for communities that have been left out. he said secondly, equity is critically important. cannot leave anybody behind. third, blue collar jobs. labor involved, training and invest in made in america products. when you lay all of those lenses on top of it, you have competing forces, go fast but do it right. my job to try to help coordinate all of that stuff on behalf of and with the governors mayors and tribal leaders. >> willie's in new york with a question. >> good morning, mr. mayor. good to see you. you just alluded to investment in infrastructure pays off. saw it in hurricane ida. >> you can't hear him. >> this isn't going to go very well. turn it back over to you guys. >> just trying to trick me. >> willie, try it again. >> there. now do you hear? >> i got you. you got me? >> started to say your city of new orleans, referenced what happens in hurricane katrina and held during hurricane ida. that investment worked there. will will you sgrin the most critical area of infrastructure? not just old, important, roads and bridges, but clean energy, electric cars things like that, looking into the future? >> people ask me how soon is the money hitting the ground? the answer doing it already. secretary buttigieg the other day announced $1 billion investment in what they call now raise funds. used to be tiger funds. that mayors and governors really like. also administrator regan announced extensive investments in clean air and water and across lots of parts of, that's dirty lands needs cleaned up. of course, talked about lead pipes. all are critically important. really kind of laying the groundwork for the extension of high-speed internet and broadband and prepared for ev charging stations are critically important as well, however, there are pipelines that exist now if filled up governors and mayors get together they it make this happen. i want to make a point. the federal government itself will only do 5% to 10% of the view. most done by local tribal leaders, one team, one vision, one fight. as the president said, before you go too fast, i want everything done as quickly as possible, we have to do it right. because that's the vision of the new america and his vision is that we can win the 21st century if we do it right and he's completely right about that. >> so how much of this stuff that has been in the books for years and the just waiting for money on backlog? how much of new things haven't thought of before. i'm a mayor, a governor, old bridge trying for years to get the federal government to help. needed help. how much is i'm going to actually make things that we don't have right now, broadband and others -- >> a combination of both. clearly there's a backlog of lots of projects. deficit, infrastructure deficit is $5 trillion. not $1 trillion. it's big and historic it's not everything we need. that means people have to set priorities. when mayors and governors and coggal delegation and community is on the same page what the most important things are. which bridge, which culvert, which dam, that's important. new stuff here. thinking as he electrify the economy, electrify buses and ev vehicles we have to build charging stations in area people don't have them. communities of color. a little money in your pocket put a charging station in your house, but not everybody's going to get to do dla. live in a rural area, not able to do that. we have to map out across the country where those places are people need it most can get to. broadband. another one. lay fiber optic cable to get to people without access. this is really important for rural and urban america. in urban america there is broadband people don't have access to it, a subsidy to afford it. rural areas you don't have access to it you got to lay it down. think how far it will go, where it goes, and benefits, should be exciting to everybody in the country and leshed this really from covid. how much more we can do, right, through the way we have now all learned to talk to each other. some kid sitting in some faraway hollow a brilliant person changes our lives and can't do it because they don't have access to technology we have. a kid in the city can change our lives, too, but can't get it because they can't afford it. that's brand new. going to create a new office. it's convergence of three separate departments in federal government, these secretaries are working like every day to coordinate and i keep saying, look, one team, one fight, one mission. what we have to do and have to lay it. joe, you recognize this. one thing almost everybody in america agrees on and fulfills the president's mission to bring people together. i know only 13 house republicans voted for this. great they did this, but across the american -- >> only 13 voted for it, every one of them will take credit. >> they want to say -- you know this as well as i do. every time a ribbon broken, they're coming. you know what? they're welcome. the president would love to have them and standing there today with a republican governor i called the other day said, look, i'm thrilled. talked to seven conservative republican governors every one said this is what we need. >> of course. >> we're on the same page. there are other things to fight about, great. in america we ought to agree on this. go ahead and drive this to the ground. do something great for all of us. we'll fight about the other stuff later. >> white house senior adviser and infrastructure coordinator mitch landrieu, great have you on. nice to see you. >> thank you. >> mr. mayor! >> i want your jacket. >> go for it. >> not a problem. president putin wants nothing more than to extend russian influence on latest stage. his latest gambit on the border with ukraine has thedigging in. we have the latest straight ahead on "morning joe." firefighter maggie gronewald knows how to handle dry weather... ...and dry, cracked skin. new gold bond advanced healing ointment. restore healthy skin, with no sticky feeling. gold bond. champion your skin. with no sticky feeling. ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ with relapsing forms of ms... there's a lot to deal with. not just unpredictable relapses. all these other things too. it can all add up. kesimpta is a once-monthly at-home injection... that may help you put these rms challenges in their place. kesimpta was proven superior at reducing the rate of relapses, active lesions, and slowing disability progression vs aubagio. don't take kesimpta if you have hepatitis b, and tell your doctor if you have had it, as it could come back. kesimpta can cause serious side effects, including infections. while no cases of pml were reported in rms clinical trials, it could happen. tell your doctor if you had or plan to have vaccines, or if you are or plan to become pregnant. kesimpta may cause a decrease in some types of antibodies. the most common side effects are upper respiratory tract infection, headache, and injection reactions. ready for an at-home treatment with dramatic results? 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(soft music) hey dad, i'm about to leave. don't forget your hat . good morning. how can i help? i need help connecting with my students. behind every last minute save, ok, that works. and holiday surprise, thank you! a customer service rep is working unseen, making it happen. and at genesys, we're proud to help them help you everyday. talking about this morning, president joe biden the warning russian president vladimir putin of heavy economic consequences if russia invade ukraine again. the warning came during a two-hour virtual call and in a minute we'll talk to the chairman of the intelligence committee. first richard engel has this report. >> reporter: ukraine announced russia is reinforcing its positions near its border with heavy artillery and snipers, while the kremlin gave its readout of the call between presidents putin and biden. russia accused ukraine of provoking the crisis, and in a statement said putin told biden he wants legal guarantees that nato won't expand to the east, and that offensive weapons won't be positioned near russia's borders. the ukrainian government wants to join nato, but membership remains far off. ukraine's former defense minister told us president biden should not accept putin the ultimatum. >> negotiations can not happen at the gun point, because what russia is trying to do, they're trying to create a situation when some concessions are made, some compromises are made. that's not negotiation. that's -- that's almost like a robbery. >> reporter: a former supreme allied commander of nato says president biden's next moves to confront putin are critical. >> if we permit him again to cross the border of a sovereign state in anger and conquer it, the international system will be set back decades. >> and so bring in chairman of the select committee in intelligence, democratic senator mark warner of virginia joins the table. follow-up on what was said. not a lot of great options if vladimir putin invades ukraine again, but if we do nothing, well, that's a follow-up of george in '08, ukraine in '14, ukraine in '21. devastating. not only toll our reputation but the reputation of nato and -- and -- and the organized -- yeah, the world order. so what do we do? >> first of all, let's remember. indirectly how we got here. we went through four years of trump where he gave putin basically a free pass on everything. i still have vivid memories of that day when trump and putin were meeting in helsinki and trump was siding with putin over his own intelligence community in terms of our findings of russian interference -- >> testing joe biden? >> he remembers well we also had, four years of trump not wanting to engage with nato. so, yes. you have a putin that is now enhanced. did a little of this in the spring and withdrew some of those troops. so we've got to put the pressure, keep the pressure on russia, but also make sure that nato is there with us. some of the nato allies are absolutely there. they realize this threat. some of our nato allies, quite frankly, have been a little slower. >> who's been slower? >> one of the things, challenges with, i think we're getting better, but germany. germany's going through a transition now. obviously merkel just left. we've got to make sure the germans and italians and others are recognize how serious this is. >> have anything to do with the pipeline? >> obviously the pipeline, nordstrom ii, i wish wasn't being built. the idea this moment in time how we play that part, how we use that to make sure germany stays on the front line with us and brits and french and others rogs threat. >> does joe biden have to take a second look at that nordstrom ii decision? >> he said yesterday, if russia moves forward on ukraine, everything's on the table. we have a balance with someone -- i don't think putin's made his final decision yet, but we've got to balance the kind of pushback and maintenance of nato and the western alliance, but not overplay through what's going to be a very tricky next six to eight weeks. >> eugene? >> when you look at what the american government is willing to do, right? they talk about everything being on the table, but for people watching and for americans and people in ukraine, that doesn't give them a lot of hope that's going to happen because they've heard the words before, heard about sanctions before. sanctions hurts some of our allies in europe. so i guess what would you advice president biden to do here? because there is, this feels like the options are limited and they're limited in the ability to make vladimir putin behave kind of like a, not erratically? >> ukraine has been moving more towards the west but not a member of nato. we need all nato allies onboard that we need to send a universal signal against russia. frankly i think one of the things we also should be doing is having non-nato countries, like israel, india, other nations weighing in as well with saying, hey, do this, it could have huge disruption. could cause beginnings of a major, ultimately military conflict. >> david brooks set the tone for illogical optimism this morning. carry on in that spirit, which i really do when it comes to russia. seems there is some unity in the eu to act against the threat that the biden administration has been able to build. got germans to say if there was an invasion they would stop the gas stream, huge problems in europe going into winter with gas prices and inflation really high. and do you think that's excluding the russians from the unilateral system in russia -- if what? what would trigger that? >> we saw affect that had. other sanctions short of kicking them out of the financial system. we have to be willing to go whatever is needed. i would add one other thing that's at least indirectly related. is, we need to continue to reassure our leadership across a series of domains. not just here. vis-a-vis nato. one piece send a strong signal not just to putin but china, the house ought to go ahead and pass's chips bill, a recommendation in the semiconductor industry part of our supply chain and part of our national security sending the signal again that america is going to be back leading the technology race more so with china than with russia, but those are the kind of signals countries not just like nato but countries across asia are also looking for in terms of america resurgence and solution. >> what are you learning about why now? in other words, this whole thing about ukraine joining nato as a manufactured crisis. they weren't about to join nato, nato wasn't about to invite them. wasn't a precipice. 104,000 troops gathering not because of that. i think your point about trump and unexplained affinity for putin, but do they sense that biden isn't strong and in other words they got away with what they wanted to get away with under obama. biden last time, they can do it again this time? >> i think what year seeing is repeat of what happened in the spring. this is not the first time russian amassed troops on the ukrainian border. >> twice as many. >> and why it's much more serious and frankly been surprising to me that it's take be a while even for ukrainian government to acknowledge this current threat and frankly for some of our nato partners to acknowledge this level of seriousness of this, but i think you're seeing putin, feels like he's on the back nine of his tenure of a leader thinking it's a legacy issue. resolve it on a diplomatic basis, where we all want to head without, you know -- there's no way putin should be able to dictate who joins nato or not. as you said, peter, that wasn't imminent to start with. >> is it about actually taking destabilizing government forcing them to be more reliant on them? >> if we had the actual answer to that question we'd be a lot smarter in terms of the result. >> senator mark warn. greatly appreciate you being here. be right back to explain the convoluted bill going around the country to not default on its debts. tv: mount everest, the tallest mountain on the face of the earth. keep dreaming. 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a huge win for china. they'd be able to say they are so dysfunction. >> stock market would crash. american economy look a mess. the message joe biden has been having democracy proving it can work, well it wouldn't be working. >> yeah. hows boris johnson doing? >> i don't think he's having many christmas parties this year. >> uh-huh. >> he's -- look, very interesting. had a christmas in party not meant to have, because of restrictions in london. denies there was a party. now his press spokesman is caught on video camera joking about the said party. it's constant. constant drama with boris johnson and up until now, the teflon politician survived it. let's see what happens this time. >> eugene, what are you looking at today? >> most of the conversation we're having today how americans don't talk to each other and don't even want to go into buildings with each other, and that are owned by democrats. and republicans i think that is concerning because you look at what sort of happened in washington, d.c. that is the crux of what it looks like around the country. >> growing up, did you look at a girl and go, i wonder if she -- has the same beliefs on quantitative easing as me? i wonder a lot of things -- >> i'd say -- >> i'm getting a sam stein character here but my dating did not have anything to do with that. >> katty kay, did you care about somebody's political background in college? >> in college, probably. an affinity with people who had my sort of political views but certainly had friends much more conservative and much more liberal than i am, and i don't think my kids do. >> that's true. >> actually really looking at gene's jacket and his nail polish but that's mostly what i'm interested in. it's good. >> i don't have the jacket. i have the nail polish. but i need both. it goes together beautifully. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hey there. i'm stephanie ruhle live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. it's wednesday november 8th and we have breaking news on the coronavirus. so let's get smarter. pfizer just releasing brand new data saying a booster dose of its covid vaccine appears to provide strong protection against the omicron variant. the key word here, and i'm going to underline it, star it, give