president's loss, instead of looking into election results in 2020 saying they need new ideas or better ideas to win more votes, the former president and supporters decided the only way for them to win is to suppress your votes. it's wrong, it's undemocratic and it's frankly un-american. >> president biden marking the one year anniversary of the attack on the u.s. capitol. blaming donald trump for what happened that day. this morning we have complete analysis and historical significance of the address. we are also following the new advise about covid, why they're saying we can't beat it and we have to live with it. and desantis sits on up to 1 million covid-19 tests as they expire two weeks ago without use. we'll tell you why his administration did that. good morning and welcome to "morning joe," it's friday, january 7th, happy friday! willie, what a week? >> what a week it has been and what a week it was. it was the one year anniversary of the attack of the u.s. capitol as you said. one of the most powerful speeches yet as president. he addressed the nation in the same building that was under siege one year ago. he laid blame at the feet of the former president trump. >> for the first time, a president did not just lost in an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob reached the capitol. the former president rallied the mob to attack sitting in the private dining room off the oval office in the white house watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours. the former president of the united states of america has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. he said so because he values powers over principles. because he sees his own interests is more important than his country's interests and america's interests. and because his ego matters more to him than our democracy and constitution. he can't accept he lost even though that's what 93 united states senators and his own attorney general and his own vice president, governors and state officials and every battleground states have all said he lost. even before the first ballot was cast, the former president was preemptively down of the results. he built his lies for months. he was not based on facts. he was looking for an excuse and pretext to cover for the truth. he's not the former president. he's a defeated former president. former president who lies about this election and the mob that attacked this capitol could not be further away from the koor core of american values. you can't love your country only when you win. you can't obey the law only when it's convenient. you can't be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies. those who stormed this capitol and instigated and incited, held a dagger at the throat of america's democracy. they did not come here out of principle and patriotism? they came here in rage, not in service of america but rather in service of one man. >> 24 hours ago, the question was would president biden go after donald trump? yes, the entire speech was about donald trump even if he never mentioned his name. when he made his inaugural address two weeks after january 6th, president biden, it was about healing and trying to put the country back together given the trauma that we just suffered. now, a year later, all the senators all the members of the media and everyone in this country who fanned the flames of this lie. >> and they continue to last night and trump's supporters, really, it was hilarious on one count. i felt pity for those who still feel they have to defend the in in -- >> what they are spewing is un-american. it down plays police officers being brutalized and beaten by american flags. those capitol hill officers took their own lives because of the chaos and the ptsd who said what they went through that day was worse than what they went through in iraq. and again people on a certain network mocking and not only those police officers through the years but also suggesting that there is nothing to see here to move along and i am so sad for my former party members. i wonder what they must think of themselves and what their children must think of them as elected representatives who won't even show up for a moment of silence to remember those capitol hill cops. >> horrified and only liz cheney and vice president dick cheney showing up on the republican side. the republican party taking the position that the riot of the united states capitol where people deliberately trying to stop an insurrection or commit sedition against the united states of america that came to try to stop the counting of votes, by the way which is sedition against the united states of america. and the fact that people are offended when you call it that. i was thinking yesterday when watching joe biden, he tried to bring this country together. he's tried to tell progressives to be patient and try to work bipartisan deals out with republicans. obviously he decided yesterday that he was going to be more aggressive but just listening to it now is kind of sad, i guess if you are in a political party where you think the truth is some how ideological. he rallied the mob to attack the capitol. that's what the former president did. he had testimony from all of his staff members and that's exactly what he did and he spread a web of lies about elections. he did that. so karl rove was talking about yesterday and what mitch mcconnell talked about and what republicans have said time and time again. and unless of course they are scared of their own voters. he pointed out willie that 93 united states senators disagreed with him and said he was lying about a stolen election that his own attorney general called that stolen election and i am quoting, attorney general barr here, donald trump's claims were nothing but quotes and -- the governor and the legislatures in every battleground state rejected his lies. of course over 60 federal judges and courts, rejected those lies. the united states supreme court rejected those lies and the two most conservative members of the supreme court. why don't we take up this pence case, it's not going to make a difference in the outcome of the race because there are not enough disputed ballot to change it. just for legal reasons, we'll take a list and even the most conservative members of trump's supreme court said there is not anything to see there. i guess that's triggering for a lot of trumpists. you can see in the wall street journal, those are objective truths that we all know that you can get traditional -- that was triggering to trumpists yesterday who were doing their best to say that there was nothing to see here and move along. i do think yesterday serves a useful purpose and not only remember the sacrifices of those capitol hill cops but also just to once again cast a light how the house republicans had become. yeah, that visual representation of where we are in congress was a group of democrats in one side of chamber and liz cheney and her father, the former vice president and dick cheney standing there as the only two republicans who showed up to observe day and acknowledge this day. the facts are on the side of dick cheney and liz cheney. more than 60 courts rejected claims that there was fraud in the election and many of them led by trump's appointed justices. you have a republican election board two days ago and it's arizona once again said joe biden won in maricopa county. there is no case to be made anymore there was a fraudulent election, there was just fear and some of the pathetic performances we saw yesterday including last night on tv. i don't know how what's it's like to wake up and look at the mirror everyday, is the job that important to you that you are willing to give everything up and sell your soul. the answer is yes to every republican. the former president did put out a statement last night. he lied about the vote in 2020 and other previous presidential election. >> let's bring in jonathan lemire and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steel and author and nbc news, michael beschloss. michael steel, let me ask you as a former head of the republican party, what you thought about that scene that we watched play out yesterday? >> i thought it was powerful on two fronts. one it spoke to the dignity and the impressive commitment of the idea of democracy that liz cheney has brought to this discussion. carrying the weight if you will for a lot of americans, a lot of us and on the republican side who still believe in democracy and to joy's point have not come to trumpism and the second thing was just the stark reality o the republican party at this point, how low it's willing to sink itself, these are the same people who are going to look at the country in the eye in less than 11 months and tell them, tell us hey vote us into power. giver us the power back. oh, never mind that we just crapped all over the january 6th commemoration. never mind we just stepped on the the anguish of the capitol hill police and people that lost their lives. give us the power back. never mind we had an agenda that we spend intend to govern on. many respects is on us as citizens. are you going to buy that line and are you that afraid of what's going on that you are willing to sacrifice the constitution of this democracy because donald trump thinks he won an election? the quiet moment of capitol hill steps, the country saw leaders who were trying to help us through this. and it also saw men and women who didn't giver a dam and were not there. those images for me are going to be important the next few months as kevin mccarthy and lindsey graham and ted cruz and josh holly whine their way through this political cycle and claiming socialism and blaming democrats for the fact that it's snowing outside instead of laying down a reason for us to support them. there is none right now. i just think the country should be concerned about what is prepared to do come november because it started last night. >> at the same time i agree there are two tracks here, there is the track to accountability that's happening with the january 6th committee and i hope for our country that people in the highest levels of stoking this riot are held accountable. i think this was president biden's strongest rebuttal yet for the antidemocratic forces in congress and with the former president. he kept it simple. this is about the truth. our country is based on values and it's imperfect, we are working on everything every single day and what binds us together is the love of the united states of america and what we the people created here and the truth. when a reporter came out, you are divisive because you said what you said. he said you got to face the truth. the truth is divisive for whoever that reporter is or the truth is divisive for clowns who were on tv last night and other channels. the fact they are offended bide reality and somehow they see that as idealogical . if supporters of donald trump want to say the truth is somehow a partisan and hateful? well, they just really exposed themselves. that says so much more about them than it does about joe biden. donald trump lied. he pushed it back in march and april, he knew he was going to lose the election and he kept on pushing it. 93 u.s. senators said donald trump is lying. . and his own attorney general had profane words for donald trump. his own president disagreed with it. you had governors and legislatures in every swing state saying the same thing. you had over 60 federal courts saying the same thing. you had the trump supreme court which his imprint was on that and saying the same thing. michael beschloss, i believe this country is far more resilient than many people i hear speaking not only on this channel but on other channels who believe we somehow won't get through this. i know we will. with that said yesterday was a dark day if you compare it to what happened after september 11th where there was an attack against the united states and against the world's trade center. you had democrats singing "god bless americ," we unite as one. they were suffering still through ptsd from that dreadful day. the first attack from our capitol since the war of 1812. >> right, exactly right. and you said it so well and good morning everyone. here is a case and you look at that republican side and the only two to show up to honor those police and others who tried to defend the capitol and the members of congress who put their lives at risk were dick cheney and his daughter. it tells you a lot. if we had a conversation like this, let's say joe and mika and willie ten years ago about one of the most heated issues in american life, one of us may have said at least we all believe in democracy. that would have been a bro mind because everyone accepted it. not everyone believes in democracy in this country. the sad thing that is turning out to be the difference between the two parties. if you had to boil down joe biden's speech yesterday, the one sentence that is in 2022, americans may well have to make the choice do we want democracy or do we want tyranny. it made me think in high school where i learned from john lock & who says when law ends, tyranny begins. you are totally right. this is the most major attack on our capitol since august of 1814 and what we now have to find out is was that just spontaneous gathering? it was not. was it licensed by groups that we don't know enough about? was it licensed by members of congress. was it licensed by the sitting president of the united states, donald trump to overturn this democracy to disrupt the transfer of power and install a tyranny. >> important to point out that adam kinzinger would have been standing there with liz cheney but he's about to have a baby. >> yep. >> he is. that would be what you call an excuse absence. also ten years ago it's very interesting, jonathan lemire if somebody had said that what prty was defending democracy and another was opposed to it. i would roll my eyes and say good god, such hyperbole and sadly for the trump wing of the republican party, about 40% of the republican party, what's said was just completely accurate and 40% of republicans said this past week in a poll they support violence against the federal government when they feel it's necessary to commit violence and you got the former of the president of the united states supporting hungary and this ill liberalism that someone on the right want to bring to this country, a man who actually bragged about liberal democracy and suggested western style of democracy. a man who says much easier to rule because he does not get criticized from the press and the free press has been crushed there. he taps the phone of political opponents and members of the press. it's an illiberal state. you had donald trump who openly support orban or openly support a movement away from western style democracy. so sadly of what michael bescloss says is true. if you are trying to figure out what people are saying in certain channels, well, you can take them in the words, they don't support western style democracy and it sounds like they agree with those republicans, large chunks of those republicans who say violence against the united states of government is okay. for them i guess january 6th was really much to do about nothing. well -- they think it's okay to be violence if you don't win elections. >> it's those threats that are front of line for the biden white house as they prepare to come up to this anniversary. there is been some debates as to how squarely president biden take on even if you don't mention his name. we know people who's been covering for donald trump for a long time being perceived as weak and losers. these are words that biden used a lot yet hitting trump where it really hurts. have you ever encounter a speech from the current president that was so critical of a previous president. the biden team feels like it was needed. >> sure it was. >> at the amazing thing that took joe biden a year to say it and i think that's testimony to the fact that president biden tried to be a unifier and is still trying. when it comes down to a situation just as joe was saying where a huge chunk of the republican party is not for democracy and people like orban or other dictator perhaps saying that's an effective way of dealing with the world or the democracy of thomas jefferson. we are in a neuter rain. it's not anover statement to say if that was the case, joe biden's success had a lot to do with the future of successes of democracy of this country. if you got only one party that's hovering and protecting that flame. >> yeah, i got to say, mika, is so important for those republicans who spoken out over the past year against what happened on january the 6th, to continue doing so and to hold fellow republicans especially in the house to account. and what mitch mcconnell have done on january 6th and we talked about karl rove yesterday and reheard what mit romney said in the past. no, they don't need to go out to press conferences everyday. you know and bring it up and attack the president's lies. certainly in a day like yesterday, i understand a lot of senators were at a funeral. we certainly understand that. that would not stop senators from delivering strong statements which that's what mitch mcconnell did. it just does not work. so for those republicans who still believe in western style democracy and peaceful transfer of power. i have been saying this morning, 93 senators and a lot of republicans in there believed in just that, it would be great for him to speak out against the radical members of the republican house especially and against those 40% who believed that violence against the united states is justified. >> president biden spoke truth to those who want to pull away from america's core values for personal gains. it's a choice now. are you with them or with you with we the people. michael beschloss, thank you very much for coming on. still ahead, another capitol police officer files suits against donald trump. the latest legal effort to hold the former president and his allies accountable for the january 6th attack. plus, this is what covid testing lines have looked like in some areas of florida recently. >> it's a sham they didn't have tests? >> oh, they did. why did state officials let 1 million tests expired? >> i am sure that nobody warned them that they had a million tests and about to expire. what governor desantis is saying about that. a winter storm is hitting the northeast right now. >> by the way -- northam, check your weather forecast, i know you want to blame motorists and truck drivers had to deliver on time if they want to get paid a lot less than you have. check it dude, make sure your streets are clear and don't blame truck drivers and a lot of other americans that have work to do going up inner state if they drive when there is a little bit of snow. >> we'll have the impact of travel coming up on "morning joe," we'll be right back. joe," we'll be right back. ♪3, 4♪ ♪ ♪hey♪ ♪ ♪are you ready for me♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪are you ready♪ superpowers from a spider bite? i could use some help showing the world how liberty mutual customizes their car insurance. ow! i'm ok! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ only in theaters december 17th. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ nurse mariyam sabo knows a moment this pure... ...demands a lotion this pure. new gold bond pure moisture lotion. 24-hour hydration. no parabens, dyes, or fragrances. gold bond. champion your skin. your heart is at the heart of everything you do. and if you have heart failure, entrust your heart to entresto. it's the number one heart failure brand prescribed by cardiologists. entresto was proven superior at helping people stay alive and out of the hospital. heart failure can change the structure of 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required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. whoa, look at that snowy times square on this friday morning. it's 34 past the hours. flight cancellations continue across the country. more than 2100 u.s. flights cancelled yesterday alone and an equal number already this morning as another winter storm hits the east coast. >> let's go to bill karins. what are we looking at, buddy? >> i heard my first report of a foot of snow in connecticut. this is like a fluffy snow globe of a storm. it's not windy at all. everything is on the trees. if you had to be out on it, it's difficult. areas of nashville picked up six inches. lexington, kentucky at 10 inches of snow. you can get an idea and we are talking tennessee and kentucky, the roads are at a standstill. for a couple of hours the roads were blocked and stuck. now let's get into what we are dealing with this morning. this is the biggest snow storm of the season from philly and boston. that's the area that's getting hit the hardest. the snow is coming to an end now. d.c. is done and baltimore is done. the heaviest snow is i-95 to boston. that's it is most dangerous and treacherous drive this morning. this is additional snow on top of what you already have, maybe another inch or two in new york and half a foot is possible from providence up towards boston. let me give you the timeline of this, where the snow is ending, the storm is ending up to 3 or 5 inches. new york city and the snow will be up to 9:00 a.m. or so. as we go up the coast, it will take a little longer for it to stop. that's why the morning's commute will be difficult as we go through the later half. boston by the time we are done, 8 to 10 inches. it looks pretty as long as you don't have the drive-in it. i know boston public schools are closed today. >> thank you very that report. >> coming up, the latest casualties of the big lie. cyber ninjas, the firm that led the ballots in 2020 is shutting its doors. >> what? >> cyber ninjas. we hardly knew you. >> you could not even rig an election count? >> yes, oh my god. >> and of the top of the political risk expected the play out over the years including how the division and dysfunction here at home could play out on the world's stage. >> instead of being the countdown -- >> he does his wonk-wonk. >> for that happy holiday message, stick around, "morning joe" will be right back. around joe" will be right back. biden: this is the challenge of our collective lifetime. and every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases. we have the ability to invest in ourselves and build an equitable, clean energy future, and in the process, create millions of good-paying jobs and opportunities around the world. there's no more time to hang back or sit on the fence or argue amongst ourselves. so let this be the moment that we answer history's call. y'all heard it here. if you wanna be fresh, you gotta refresh, like subway®. like the new baja steak & jack 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>> this is if one that you guys have been talking a lot every morning which is that the u.s. elections are degrading every cycle on a log arithmetic step functions after 2016 a majority of democrats think that trump was not a legitimate president. 2020 add president trump himself to that noise making it much worse for the united states and the state of the nation and now we are looking ahead to a midterm whether republicans will not take the house but maybe the senate and a lot a lot of key state legislatures and gubernatorial places and places that you need to certify the elections. our allies and our adversaries around the world see that the united states is the country that can't really run its own internal system. it's getting massively more and domestically distracted. that means they can't count on as much of their allies, maybe they can take advantage and shake the trees. if you are a country like russia, that's one of the big reasons why putin has been challenging us on ukraine and the status quo of the european security environment over the course of the past few weeks. >> michael steel here, let's go to russia. you just set it up perfectly. you got putin who's trying to move the pieces on the geopolitical chess board on his favor. how do you assess that? the counter point to that, do you see nato and our allies taking a more independent role in dealing with those moves by russia or are they going to cue first to the instincts of the united states, president biden and his administration to figure out the best counter move to some of the things we are seeing happening, not just in eastern europe but potentially africa as well as the middle east. you see what happens with kazakhstan. they want the russians to come in. look, i think the initial response of the biden administration was the right one as the russians said we need a meeting now and ukrainian situation is not acceptable. they mask hundreds of thousands of troops on the border. the biden administration immediately gets to the aallies. if you guys invade ukraine, we are going to make you pay hell economically, we'll cripple your country and spell out how we'll do that with sovereign and sanctions and deaths and we'll reposition right up to your porter. that's a big deal and that would hurt putin and stop putin where rolling tanks into kiev. he's not going to make it easy on the americans. keep in mind putin has said falsely that acts of genocide being committed by the ukrainians by don bosh. that's a die but he has to defend them. what happens if he says okay to defend them, i am going to send formally russian troops, all those troops on the border into the occupying territory. the americans will consider that of further invasion. europeans who really depend on russia for energy in the middle of winter will probably not. that's a serious problem for the united states. that's potentially a biden bluff that's been called by putin and the implication of that, the europeans split away, we got midterm elections and cyber attack starts to pick up again. unlike u.s. china which is pretty quiet this year. they recognize that they can keep the economy too important. the russians are causing trouble. >> ian bremer, thank you very much. appreciate this list every year quite honestly. >> i love for him to come back to talk about number two which is how tech companies are not being controlled by the government and the consequences. >> that's a show of itself and we should do that. still ahead, bedtime stories not just for kids but thousands of adults who struggle to fall asleep are using apps to get their z's. we'll talk about the booming bedtime industry, you are watching "morning joe," we'll be right back. 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(gasps) ♪ did it work? only pay for what you need ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ spider-man no way home in theaters december 17th ♪3, 4♪ ♪ liberty. li♪erty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪hey♪ ♪ ♪are you ready for me♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪are you ready♪ you need to do some self-evaluation. what's not to like? here is what i can tell you. life can change just like that. don't take relationships just for granted. i called him after bo died and he seems to said well, the bo was my soul. we talked for a long time and he came to my ceremony and said something of the most heartfelt things that anybody can said to me. and, he's the nicest person i think i have ever met. >> is that right? >> he's as good a man as god ever created. we don't agree on much but i think he's been dealing with a good blow. he focuses on what he's got to do and not what he lost. his heart has been ripped out but he's making sure other members taken care of. he starts talking about his grand kids, more woried about them or anything. >> what's not to like. >> so moving. >> good man god ever created. >> you almost believe him. >> we agree with lindsey graham there. >> i agree. >> lindsey's consistency. we were talking about him on the floor and i can't do it with a straight face, willie, i am sorry. here is lindsey yesterday. he said what brazen politicalization of january 6th by president biden. how dare he said the same thing yesterday that he said a year ago. that's not in the tweet actually. i am a little confused here. i am not exactly sure what the taliban has to do with the united states capitol being attacked and lindsey being so angry. i am off the trump's train and again i think three people in the hell dog bothered him at reagan national airport and he melted down. this guy is all over the place. i mean biden's an angel and a devil. there is a young kid there is a movie called "civil" and it freaked me out. i don't know if lindsey has 48 but he's getting close. i have known him for a long time. there are many layers of that onion to peal. one day joe biden is the greatest guy of all time. and he's the enabler of the taliban. he's off the trump's train. pealing back another layer, oh, look at that. there is an image of that layer of him dodging at mar-a-lago after he said he was done with donald trump. >> enough is enough he said the night of january 6th before quickly hopping back on the trump train. i am glad we played that clip, it was from 2016. it was six or seven years ago where he had tears in his eyes where he's a good of a man as joe biden is. it shows lindsey graham and others have made a choice. a man who truly believes is a good man. he pushed him to the side for a man who he believes could save his political highs and a man he fears and kneels before like so many politicians do politically and said please, i am sorry that i offended you. what can i do to make it up? can i play golf with you at mar-a-lago? what they are doing is choosing a man they don't like, joe, we talked to all these people privately, we don't like donald trump. people they love and admire as lindsey graham says gets pushed to the side for a man they fear for donald trump. >> you have donald trump attacking people's family, jonathan lemire and he'll attack family members. donald trump will and members of the senate will cuddle right up with donald trump. it's really is nothing i have ever seen. i mean you know i had a dear friend who was attacked after he passed away. he was attacked and slandered for political reasons and you know what, i never for gave and forgot and i spent the rest of my political career and good part of the time in the media evening that score. because the attack was so personal and it was so vicious and it was so revealing and that was to a close friend of mine. people whose family members are attack and they turned the other cheek. i got to say sadly even -- he was eviscerated the bush family. a good decent public service loving family. it happens across the republican party for the life of me, i don't get it. 2015 and 2016, it was not lindsey graham was full of praise, he denounced donald trump all the time, he's a danger to the country and as well as the republican party. trump gave out graham's cell phone number at a rally. graham said trump was a threat to what the nation stood for and yet of course as soon as trump was elected, graham hopped on board as a trump's whisper in the senate. january 6th could not have come quickly enough. it's run by fear and fear of one man and his followers and another example, last night, ted cruz who himself has been the subject of a lot of taunts from donald trump about his family and father and his wife. the other day referred to the january 6th rioters as terrorists. he was called on the carpet and eviscerated for that saying that was not true and crews had to apologize. he apologized on the show and twitter and it was clear that he was -- that is who right now wheels the influence and control over the republican party and there are very few descending voices. it's striking as a final point that it was liz cheney and dick cheney who showed up yesterday. dick cheney prior to trump the least popular republican to the republicans' eye. >> it's important too in realtime. it's important to remember dick cheney when you see him there before january the 6th. dick cheney led other secretaries of defense, former of secretaries of defense to say hey, be on alert, do not let the pentagon be you in a coup attempt against american democracy. one of the things i really want is liz cheney and benny and the january 6th, committee getting in the bottom of it was where in the hell the national guard was. why the pentagon was dragging their feet. i think dick cheney had all the reasons in the world to be concerned and so yes he was treated with respect and should have been treated with respect. those of us who believed in western democracy we are all in this together. >> we are, joe. and to willie's point, what i think you are seeing play out is basically an abusive relationship. lindsey graham and ted cruz's are so sycophantly tied to trump's world, this base that he's claimed and they don't have any other orientation. their sense of self-respect and dignity does not matter. the only thing that does is they please this man that they make sure that he's okay that he's approving of them. and so when they make a statement of true facts and tucker comes after them and starts going after them. their response is okay, i don't want to upset. i am so sorry. forgive me. that's the sign of an abusive relationship and it goes back to what we are talking about in the last hour is the country now has to step in. the country, we the people have to perform an intervention on behalf of democracy on behalf of all the things that we value that were represented yesterday by the cheneys standing there and the speaker of the house coming across the isle to shake vice president cheney's hand and liz cheney's hand for the adam kinzinger and others who are out there trying to level best to show the dignity of that still matters. these are compelling times in so many ways, we got to go out as citizens to break this abusive cycle because it's tearing us all down and bringing us all down. it's not just the gop anymore, people. it's not just lindsey graham waxing poetically about joe biden and then the next minute slamming him as a socialist. the reality of it is this infection is taken hold in such a way, joe, that we have to intervene now as citizens to change it to stop it. >> well, mika and i talked about this. it's too revealing unfortunately and the poll numbers i just dismiss, the people thinking the elections was rigged. 69% of hillary people thought trump's election was rigged. those things happen. you can find crazy numbers throughout the year. here why it's so ominous, we have 40% of republicans saying violence against the united states of america was justified. 41% of independence is justified. we are getting to a tipping point here where there are no nationalists and extremist and there are american -- which is why a lot of people yesterday and last night that are donald trump supporters who were trying to make the argument, the baghdad-bob argument that there was nothing to see here. move along, nothing really happened on january 6th. because they believe violence against western democracy. >> here is what president biden said yesterday on the one year anniversary of the attack on the u.s. capitol, blaming it at the feet of donald trump's. >> for the first time in our history, a president and not just lost an election, he tried to prevent peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob reach the capitol. the former president rallied the mob to attack, sitting in the private dining room of the oval office of the white house watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours. the former president of the united states of america has created this and spread this web of lies about the 2020 election. he's done so because he values power over principles because he sees his own entrance is more important than his country than america's interests and because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy and our constitution. he can't accept he lost even though 93 united states senators and his own attorney general and own president and governors and state officials in every battled ground states have all said he lost. even before the first battle was cast, the former president was preemptively sewing doubts about the election's results. he built his lies over months, it was not based on any facts. he was just looking for an excuse, a pretext to cover for the truth. he's not just a former president. he's a defeated former president. and so at this moment we must decide what kind of nation are we going to be? are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm? are we going to be a nation we allow partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people, are we going to be a nation live not by the life of the truth but the shadow of lies? we can't allow ourselves to be that kind of nation. the way forward is to recognize the truth and live by it. >> it was a strong speech and filled with obvious truths. >> right. >> some basic insights and the fact that was controversial to maybe 40% of americans shows you just where they are. let's bring in right now what i like to call the dispatch hour of power. we have the editor of the new yorker, jacksonville lepore, "these truths" and ed luce and unfortunately, -- david remnick, i always talk about your extraordinary insights following donald trump's election in the early hours. i am curious of your thoughts after seeing everything unfolded after the one year anniversary of january 6th. >> i am reminded of the late '80s. bill mckippin warned the world that climate was changing and they were ignored and they were left off and we are now in the situation that we are that's going to cost us trillions of dollars to even much less reverse this trend that's going to affect us all in ways that we can barely imagine. yesterday's speech was given by the president of the united states may have been blated and we may even want to hear it sooner. it was a strong speech but it can't end there. who's listening? if it's just confine to one-half of the nation then we are in trouble. when we were kids, we were told that the constitution was a perfect document and it would save us and the law would save us in any way. what's true to hear is people matter and leaders matter as well and people who were in positions of persuading have enormous influence and power. i just published a column which i talked to somebody and barbara walter warned us of civil war. to me is a very useful and necessary warning. a civil war would not mean blue verses red and all the rest. it would mean a prolong period in which small malicious and groups of extremists is assassination year and a storming of the state capitol there and a plot against the governor of michigan kidnappers because of a policy that people don't like. that kind of undermining the democracy is not only possible but we have seen examples of it, mostly january 6th. the notion of democracy being imperil, why should we be exempted? it's a trend all over the world. we just happen to have deeper and richer institutional experience that helps us and there are guard rails that ranged from law enforcement to the law most importantly and the democratic party is not acting in an anti-democratic way. the threat is severe and real. if we ignore it as we have ignored warnings of the late '80s and '90s of climate change. >> we certainly do. we were saved in 2020 by checks and balances. we were saved by an independent federal judiciary time and time again but there is no guarantee. that'll be the case in 2024 and early 2025. as i travel across capitol hill and travel across the country and i talked to democratic leaders and i talked to people in media and academics. e find they are -- especially democratic leaders in trying to figure out how to respond the the lies, how to respond to the gas lighting and the alternative realities. they still don't seem to have a good answer to that and the way i know that is because in some of these meetings, the question turned back around which is what do we do? they just lie. and still five years later, there is not a good answer to this gaslighting. >> i can see the problem but i think that it's well described as all of us living in a fully aud animated polarization machine. the you will imagine by the the speech yesterday which was laying out the evidence hoping to reach those trump voters who still believe the election was stolen and carefully laying out the case that series of myths. there was an abbreviated version of the speech. but, these are not the same thing. there are ancestors conceiving a new nation, we are here testing whether any nation so conceived can long endured so you can see biden addressed it that way. the battle had never happened and there was no such thing as a civil war. the degree that it's difficult. it's hard to over state and makes it difficult and i entirely agree with david's point that we need to attend to the possibility of a very unfamiliar civil war of the 1816 and not the model here. there is a line to be careful to not cross and the rhetoric of reconcile of conflicts to be avoided. individual politicians and public officials and citizens, there is a lot that all of us can do. i think that what biden was saying to do was conjure for us some of the language that was interesting. he talked about the use of history looking over him with an open book. he was conjuring the medieval era where he was talking about capitol police defending the capitol and he talked about daggers and kings and what he was trying to warn us that democracy existed from a certain moment in time and it could be quite an essence and not just in other parts of the world but here as well. >> i think also joe what he was doing in this speech is he was keeping it and a smart strategy when you are dealing with republicans who are confused with their identity right now. he kept it simple. he was just focused on the truth. s and the difference between the truth and lies. someone who tells the truth and someone who lies and how we have to focus on the truth if we want to keep this country together. i did see him and he had a negative reaction to some other folks in other channels wanted to down play or criticize what the president said but the president so desperately kept focus on the truth that they appeared to be scrambling for a response and there were so many different responses because he was focused on one thing. the truth. that's it and trump's defenders and that's why i keep on saying. look at baghdad bob, how do you respond when joe biden says he lost and guess who agreed with him? 93 united states senators and his own attorney general who called his claim -- and over 60 federal courts and even the most conservative members of that supreme court, thomas aledo and every governor and every state legislature and every state, every battleground state. it had no good points. i just want to add a southern statement about what jill said that we can get past this. i know we really frustrate people and i know how the united states can get past this and we can come together and you look at what abraham lincoln was balancing until 1865 when he got assassinated. my god he was trying to figure out and he was talking about human bondage and we were talking about lies. we can get through gaslighting and with that said, ed luce, there is this common misconception over simplified views of working class and teaming masses and people coming out and liberal elites say they're the ones that fall prey to these lies. i know. and willie knows and you know and we all know that people graduated from law school and people who run hedge funds. people who have been educated from the best universities on the planet who also are not following prey to these lies but italians come over with satellites and changing votes in maricopa county. they're not only believing it, they're spreading it. yeah, it's much more comforting to say in a way, more comforting to say this is idicy and people are prone to misinformation. it's people who knows it full well. it's the josh hawley and the ted cruz and the people who come from great privilege who have great wealth and who know full well the lies that they're saying and they're doing so and i don't know, you talk about baghdad bob, the 1960s chinese cultural revolution and i think well the people there put on capsule and stood up in courts and denounced themselves, they did so, they need their family to be killed if they did not do that and they would be killed anyway. they had real material consequences and recanted and lie to save their lives. what is the consequences for lindsey graham? what's the consequence for ted cruz? that's a thrust of this speech yesterday by biden appeal to character. i admire the speech and agreed to the speechlt i think it's going to fall on death ears if you are appealing to character and principle and truth and healing in this context. i think you need stronger medical analogy and we need to talk about crime and prosecution and we need to talk about defense of the republic. i think biden displays all the qualities that we know him for and what he said every word is true. i am skeptical whether it's enough. we are talking about cynical people, severely hit that are manipulating the truth in order to advance their careers when there would be no sequences to them other than maybe being primary but no serious consequences to them if they tell the truth. >> they all know better but they choose to do exactly what you said. there was a stark illustration of where we are politically as a country inside that chamber when you had democrats paying tributes on one side and on the other side, two republicans, liz cheney and her father. the former vice president, dick cheney and obviously before donald trump was the villain of the republican party to most democrats and to progressives, call every name you can think of and the pages of your publication, what did you make of that scene yesterday, not a single republican outside liz cheney and her father could be brought to stand there in fear of crossing donald trump just to acknowledge the day and law enforcement the jobs they did perhaps to save some of their lives that day. >> if you don't mind me going back to my russia days. people who risked their lives to stand up against totalitarism. people went out to protest innovation. but what was required to help transform that country to have any kind of movement was a -- to make itself known so there would be reform of people of government. and ed is absolutely right to raise the idea of what is required of these people and no one is asking them to give their lives. what's the great risk for a senator -- it's to risk whether or not to stay in washington or they go back or return to a job or selling insurance or teaching school or whatever it may be. that's all that's required. that's the level of courage that's required and no one is asking ted cruz to put his head on the block for democracy. he's willing to risk nothing. he's not willing to risk his job. that's what this is about. we have to really realize how fragile democracy is. it's not just the lost. it's not just the strength of the country, it also depends on courage of human beings of human beings to stand up for essential things once in a while, a historical moment. no one is suggesting everyone has to read on a text policy or foreign policy or what have you but unless there is some broad base coalition, standing up for essential things or the law or truth verses non truth then we are in deep, deep trouble, as we are in now. >> i want to go to you for a moment to go back to how you started our conversation. i really appreciate the constitutional context and with that and what joe and mika laid out in terms of what the polling is showing right now where 40% of the american people are relevant to donald trump. how do you reason people out of a position they did not reason themselves into. where there was no national the philosophy and no theology that sort of brought them to believe in this message of corrupt constitutionallism by donald trump and turned a blind eye to the constitution emotively and not to rational. >> i think biden's gambete was you improve people's lives. the reasons he didn't give the speech was help wanted to go in and govern, he want to inaugurate relief and he wants to pass the infrastructure bill and move on and not have to engage, this is the kind of rhetorical battle that if you don't win it, you are fuel to the fire. that was the danger. he was keenly aware of that. what's tricky of the anthropologist of persuasion and i think about another moment when a president was incredibly affected at persuading people, appoint of view that was largely familiar to them. largely through the work of reasoning and persuasions, people said and explaining the nature of banking. it's complicated and requiring a lot of discrimination to think through. at the time you can walk downey streets in the country and you would not miss any words of the fdr address. any car that drove by would have its radio on. you just could not miss that speech. that's not the case today and it means that there is a very different capacity for sper persuasion that the president has. we exaggerate the power of persuasion over the current environment. biden was trying to do the country a favor and accepts the fact that the president is not supposed to be blairing announcements to the american people on twitter. he's supposed to be governing. it's difficult to restore that. and a number of scholars put together and found that curriculum materials to schoolteachers which we call media literacy today. there was an extraordinary problem in the 1930s and it took a sustained effort on a lot of institutions to try to help people. if you look at the world today and decide that you don't trust to establish news organizations and you are going to figure out for yourself what's true and what's not true. that requires an extraordinary amount of discrimination and discernment that is very difficult for any individuals and that's how people get -- i don't think that's the presidency's office to answer. >> jill lapore and david remnick, thank you for being on. still ahead on "morning joe," is coronavirus here to stay? top health experts advising president biden response now says the u.s. needs to adapt to a new normal. we have a rare opportunity to speak with dr. sanjay gupta. he'll be our guest, next. you are watching "morning joe," we'll be right back. e watching we'll be right back. okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete balanced nutrition for strength and energy. woo hoo! ensure, complete balanced nutrition with 27 vitamins and minerals. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. ♪ ♪ derriere discomfort. wwe try to soothe it with this. cool it with this. and relieve it with this. but new preparation h soothing relief spray is the 21st century way to do all three. even touch free. preparation h. get comfortable with it. ♪ ♪ ♪ (music) ♪ i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ biden: this is the challenge of our collective lifetime. and every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases. we have the ability to invest in ourselves and build an equitable, clean energy future, and in the process, create millions of good-paying jobs and opportunities around the world. there's no more time to hang back or sit on the fence or argue amongst ourselves. so let this be the moment that we answer history's call. new year, new start. and now comcast business is making it easy to get going with the ready. set. save. sale. get started with fast and reliable internet and voice for $64.99 a month with a 2-year price guarantee. it's easy... with flexible installation and backing from an expert team, 24/7. and for even more value, ask how to get up to a $500 prepaid card. get a great deal for your business with the ready. set. save. sale today. comcast business. powering possibilities. it's 7:41 in the morning. a beautiful picture of a snowy rockefeller center of christmas tree. it's now to adopt a new normal where we learn to manage the disease whether trying to defeat it. covid-19 is here to stay and the country needs to adapt a new normal since vaccines and infections don't offer a lifelong immunity. that means treating covid like other respiratory viruses. >> we have to re-orient our goals. >> reporter: confirmed cases at an all time high driven by omicron. hospitals swamped with patients most unvaccinated saying their doctors and nurses are under tremendous stress. >> we are beyond exhausted and depleted and we are asking for your grace and understanding while in the hospital. >> oxygen is not enough and ventilators are not enough. they're laying in bed for months for weeks to months. >> it's been a lot of uncertainty and i am tired. >> reporter: pediatric hospitalizations are at an all time high, for children under five, a could have is a sign of omicron infection. the icu colorado hospitals a third of the cases are covid admissions. >> kids are like adults are catching it quickly and members of our children are in the emergency department. >> a familiar face and we are glad to have him with us today. dr. sanjay gupta, his best selling book "keep sharp," it's out now in paperback, so good to have you with us, we'll take any book you write because it means we get to talk to you on our network. covid is here and we have to learn with it and it's not going away. we have to get on with our lives and learn how to manage it. is that the right approach? >> yes, i think so. we have known probably since the spring of last year that this was becoming endemic where it's persistent in society. two issues which we brought up. hospitals are becoming overwhelmed. that's the truest measure of the fact that we need to have more mitigations and measures to slow things down. hospitals becoming overwhelmed, people are getting in car accidents and strokes or whatever. we are clearly not there given hospitals are pretty overwhelm. the other thing is, willie, i start of thinking as a weather event. with the weather, there are times the weather is clear and sunny skies and you don't worry about things that much. right now we are getting drenched in virus, people are calling a virus storm. if you can see the virus, you would see it everywhere right now and that's fairly too much. we may be in this mode where at times we have to slow things down and other times you can take your foot off the brakes of it. >> we are at a place much different with the vaccines being readily available to anyone who wants it and now we are in with boosters and talking with moderna's fourth shot. we know what works is the vaccines, keeping people out of the hospitals and keeping people from dying. how does it apply when we think about schools. should they be saying you can all get vaccinated and we know how it protects you. you need to come back to work and go back to school. that's what a lot of places are doing. you have to think of this weather analogy, there will be time where so much viral spread and even if you are vaccinated which is good for you if you have that immunity, you are far less likely to get sick but what we have seen and learned over the last couple of years, even with that immunity, you can carry the virus and spread it to somebody else. there is a lot more virus in the air, the chance of that happening is higher. that's sort of the phase we are in right now. you look at south africa and germany around the world that's been dealing with this. you see the number of cases start to decline over a period of a few weeks. that's likely to happen here. right now it's situation of open schools and you are testing and a lot of people come back and they test positive, the current guidelines, five days of isolation, things start to shutdown again. you get stutter stepping over the next few weeks. it makes sense to open things up and know that people who have immunity and protected test as much as we can. we still don't have enough testing in this country is a failure, a surprising one considering how long we have been talking about this. over the next few weeks the number will come down and you will have the sort of return and work and school without the stutter stepping we are seeing right now. >> dr. gupta, i would like to turn to your book "keep sharp," you debunk myths about aging and cognitive decline, focusing less on improving intelligence and more about making new brain cells and making the ones you have work more efficiently. you write in part this, clean living can slash your risk of developing a serious mind-destroying disorder, including alzheimer's disease even if you carry a genetic risk factor for it. i would like to know what you mean by that and what else can we get out of this book to develop a healthy brain later in life. >> good morning, thank you for having me, happy new year to you. i spent a couple of years working on this book, i was inspired by research that was coming out clearly demonstrating that throughout your life at any age you can continue to grow new brain cells. i think the conventional wisdom in the neuro science community was you got what you got and you drain the cash overtime and that was it. you can grow new brain cells of any age and many many societies around the world, the idea that you are going to develop a neuro disease like alzheimer's that's not normal. here in the united states we see a lot more of that and expected, you have a family history and it's preordained and that's not the case. what do other societies do in many places around the world? it has to do with clean living as you said verses a new therapeutic or some break procedures. just a couple of examples, when we talk about movement. i use the word movement instead of exercise, that has the most evidence around it for growing new brain cells, when you are moving, you release the substance, a neuro factor, a scientist i spoke to describes it miracle growth of the brain. how do you release more brain derived factor? brisk movement tends to be one of the best ways to do that. that's different than intensive movement. interestingly, and this was a revelation for me, when you're intensely exercising, good for your heart, you are releasing a lot of cortisol. cortisol, a stress hormone, can block those factors so you're doing stuff good for your heart but not necessarily your brain. brisk walking better than running. when it comes to sleep. we know that sleep is that time of the day when you are getting memories scored to put long-term memory stores, washing away waste products associated with building up plaques later on in life. we see places where they're getting plenty of sleep. there are several things i write about in the book but we use our entire brains but probably are using our brains like our covid lives, using 10% of our brains 90% of the time, traveling to the grocery store, back and forth to school. if you want to build reserve in your brain you have to travel to other parts of the brain. it's to not keep doing the same activities, crossword puzzles, things like that but to do totally different activities, things that get you outside your comfort sewn or even things you're doing with your hands. brushing your teeth with your nondominant hand can be a way to build that cognitive preserve. i have a left-handed guitar to get that mental acute and cognitive reserve. that may sound silly but if you're trying to exercise the different parts of the brain, it can work really well. >> sounds useful and you validated my slow running. my daughters are like, mom, you run so slow, i could walk next to you. maybe i'm on to something. >> good for the brain. >> we have someone who calls you his mentor, he started this covid, let's bring in medical contributor dr. vin gupta who has a question for you. >> mika, thank you, good morning. sanjay, it's really an honor to be here with you and willie and mika. sanjay, just in reading your book, it's something we picked up here as a family, one of the favorite lines in the book is if it's good for the heart, it's probably good for the brain, and you talk about dementia care, mental health is a big issue, youth mental health. we're all stressed. two questions. one, who are you hoping will read this book? and the second -- the second would be as a pulmonary doc, what advice do you have for the person who struggles with getting good sleep? you mention good sleep a lot, sleep hygiene. those two questions, i would love your perspectives. >> and, first of all, what a pleasure to be with you, or as my wife calls vin, the younger, the smarter, and the better looking gupta. that hurts my feelings, my wife says that. >> ouch. >> with regard to who should read this book, it's interesting. a lot of times we think about dealing with disease once we have it. it's the society in which we live. we don't talk about preventing this and the step further the idea of optimiing functions. that's not the most inspiring message. the book is for people at any age of life but preferably younger because i think we're not optimized in terms of our body function and brain function. we're not. it's like we have these gigantic suvs and drive our kids to school. we never let the vehicles do what they can do. the same can be said of our bodies and brains. what i think is interesting if you optimize, which can make you happier and joyful and a better spouse, son, daughter, whatever, now it can also help you potentially stave off neurodegenerative diseases. i hope people of all ages read this book. with regard to sleep, i have to say this and maybe the case is the same for you, vin, i think it was sort of rmanticized during residency, i only got four hours and i'm functioning well. if you teach people the what and the why, the why is that you are clearing away metabolic waste products when you sleep. you're taking things throughout your day and storing them. people say i forgot something. it's not that they forgot, it's never they truly remembered. they didn't allow the function of the brain to store those memories. i think it's important in terms of inspiring people. try to go to bed around the same time every day. make sure you use the bed as a place to sleep, that you are not engaging in working on your laptop or other things keeping you awake there. those things do work. they work in societies all over the world and they can work here as well. >> the book is "keep sharp: build a better plain at any age." fascinating and very necessary out now in paper back. dr. sanjay gupta, thank you very much for coming on and dr. vin gupta, thank you as well for joining and sharing in this conversation. sanjay mentioned the importance of sleep. if your new year's resolution is to get more sleep, stick around for our discussion coming up. and this note as we head to break four years into my 50s, i'm 54, i wish my younger self could have conjured what i see now. a 57-year-old woman is vice president of the united states. a 65-year-old woman runs u.p.s. a 66-year-old biochemist laid the groundwork for the vaccines that are turning the tide of the pandemic. and 81-year-old nancy pelosi serves as speaker of the house for the second time. and all these women, like millions of us, achieved their best successes after 50 rather than just hanging on, experience and wisdom lies in front of us. "forbes" in partnership with my know your value platform recognized this seminal moment with our inaugural 50 over 50 list and now we all know that when women join forces, their momentum is unstoppable. that's why last month we took things a step further with the announcement of the "forbes" 30/50 summit this march we will bring together generations of women in abu dhabi to mark international women's day 2022. rather than just being a hash tag, that important day will now have a gathering worthy of it. the global event links the 30 under 30 and 50 over 50 list where we highlight the remarkable work of women leaders in all stages of their careers. and starting next week will begin our weekly preview right here on "morning joe." it's another huge step in women knowing their value around the world. and you can hear more about the issues at the forefront of this movement on my new limited series podcast mika straight up. listen wherever you get your podcasts. we're back in two minutes with more on president biden's consequential speech yesterday. calling out the former guy. ♪ it wasn't me by shaggy ♪ you're never responsible for unauthorized purchases on your discover card. with voltaren arthritis pain gel. my husband's got his moves back. an alternative to pills, voltaren is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel for powerful arthritis pain relief. voltaren, the joy of movement. welcome back to "morning joe." it's friday, january 7. as washington commemorated the one-year anniversary of the capitol insurrection, president biden spent much of his speech yesterday calling out former president trump for his actions that led to the riot. here's nbc's chief white house correspondent peter alexander. >> reporter: more than a year removed from the violent insurrection at the capitol president biden warns the threat to america from within is deepening. >> i will defend this nation and allow no one to put a dagger to the throat of democracy. >> reporter: an indictment of his predecessor donald trump without even mentioning his name. >> he's a defeated former president. >> reporter: blaming mr. trump for pushing the lie that the election was stolen, those false claims embraced by republicans. "the washington post" reporting at least 163 republicans who promoted those lies are running for statewide office that is would give them authorities over how future elections were run. the partisan divide underscored by this stark image during thursday's moment of silence. two republicans in attendance, dick cheney and his daughter liz cheney telling savannah mr. trump remains a threat and a focus of their investigation. >> have you heard about conduct from witnesses or otherwise that suggest that there is a potential criminal case against the president? >> certainly we will be looking at that. there are important questions in front of the committee such as whether or not through his action or inaction president trump attempted to obstruct an official proceeding of congress. >> reporter: former trump blasting the speech as political theater insisting democrats want to own january 6th so they can stoke fears and divide america. but mr. trump's former press secretary says she is among more than a dozen former trump officials set to meet next week to discuss ways to stop him, recounting his behavior inside the west wing during the attack. >> he was in the dining room gleefully watching on his tv as he often did, look at all the people fighting for me, hitting rewind, watching it again. >> jonathan lemire back with us. columnist and associated editor for "the washington post" david ignatius and senior columnist for "the daily beast" matt lewis. and, matt, in your new piece for "the daily beast" you say yesterday was the day joe biden became president and you write in part, upon winning, you should govern with malice toward none. for a president who hopes to win re-election, this is both generous and politically necessary. but here's the thing -- trump's fans see this as a war against an evil enemy not an election among americans. the maga forces lost at the polls in 2020 but they're refusing to surrender, preserving liberal democracy is a daily battle and it turns out so is establishing the fact that the 2020 election was decided legitimately. for now at least, the two things go hand-in-hand. if you were hoping today was about bringing closure to a horrific event, think again. to borrow another phrase from an american winner, it ain't over till it's over. and, matt, in a sense this was an extremely clear but also very simple speech by president biden. >> absolutely. one of the big messages was -- what was it, barack obama, said i won, you lost. i criticized obama for that at the time but joe biden waited a year to say this. i think it's just an acknowledgement you can't ignore donald trump and his lies because they fester. experience shows us there's a wrong way to challenge trump. you don't want to elevate him or wrist with a pig in the mud because the pig likes it and you end up muddy. the right timing and the right tone. it was incredibly thoughtful and serious and well laid out. i think he prosecuted the case and demonstrated donald trump lost the election, and i think he did it in a manner that was strong. bill clinton said it's better to be strong and wrong than right and weak. in this case biden was strong and right. i think when it comes to defending liberal democracy, historically speaking liberals -- and i don't mean progressives but people defending liberal democracy -- liberals have too often come across as weak. in the face of fascism and other more dynamic forms or alternative governing systems. i think what biden did was demonstrate toughness. people keep saying well, will this matter? is this enough? the israelis call it mowing the lawn, and that's a controversial thing to say in that context. it isn't over. this is a fight, the fight for liberal democracy is a fight you fight every day. ronald reagan didn't just talk about the evil empire one day and restore optimism one day and move on. it was a deck ate or more than a decade if you go back before. a constant assault on the forces of darkness and so i think this is an element that may go down as one big moment in a much longer, larger struggle. >> and ronald reagan famously said the fight for freedom, the fight for personal liberty is a fight that each generation must engage in, nothing is guaranteed to us. and so, david ignatius, the battle lines were, unfortunately, drawn by donald trump and the liberal right, and for those that might suggest that sounds very melodramatic that there would be anybody who didn't support western style democracy, a lot of people on the trump right praising authoritarianism and ill liberalism in america and then this past week 40% saying violence against american democracy can be justified. >> president biden decided to take a strong line. yesterday he had wanted as president to be able to govern past the former president donald trump to do his business, to reoccupy the center of america where you can get legislation passed and be an effective leader. he's been obstructed by republicans at every turn. we saw a different tone. it was a well written speech. pretty well delivered. joe biden is not the greatest speech maker. it was emphatic on the basics. donald trump lost. he got under his skin. and he was very clear about the response all citizens face, republicans face. i thought it was good, joe, that he continued to hold out his hands to republicans to say i'm willing to work with you across the aisle anytime on legislation, but he wasn't bending on the basic definition of the crisis that we face going forward. final thing, i thought the cheneys, liz and dick cheney, on the floor of the house, i think the fact there are a few republicans willing to speak the truth, willing to say our country was threatened and we will fight like hell. liz cheney, this is how democracies die. hopefully there will be a building out of a little bit of that good sense among republicans. what a contrast between liz cheney trying to speak the truth and ted cruz just basically cringing as he was interviewed by tucker carlson on fox news. that contrast ought to be clear to americans. >> there was, i thought, a beautiful moment yesterday, jonathan lemire, that i think really explains where defenders of western democracy are, american democracy, that moment when speaker pelosi came over and shook dick cheney's hands, two people who had very little in common politically, fighting each other politically throughout their public lives but fighting each other within the guardrails of madisonian democracy. though both believe the other had views that were not good for america, they believed that you debated those views within the guidelines of the constitution or the guidelines of separation of powers and the constitution meant what it said. and that's the thing, whether you're talking about bernie sanders or dick cheney or all those in between those two points who believe in the rule of law, in the constitution, that you don't overturn elections because your side lost. that's a positive message. we can differ politically and our views can differ politically but for those of us who want to fight within the political framework for our constitutional republic, that's a good image for all of us to see. >> it is. dick cheney was so hated by democrats that i believe in 2007 articles of impeachment were drafted against him while he was vice president. president barack obama went out of his way repeatedly to say when a smooth transition they gave him when obama came to office in january of 2009. the bush team was incredibly professional, did everything they could to get the new democratic administration ready to go. let's contrast that to donald trump who would not acknowledge, still has not, that he lost the election to now president joe biden. the president in his speech made a passing mention of voting rights. we know that will be the center piece of a speech he will be giving in a couple days in georgia and that is where the battle must be joined, a lot of democrats say that needs to be the priority of this administration this coming year. what do you hope he will say? >> i hope a hail mary to twist their arms because there is no chance of getting ten republicans, probably no chance of getting even one or two to vote for this. chuck schumer said there will be a vote on that on martin luther king day, ten days from now. and biden a very clear goal. i understand people like oprah winfrey and bill clinton and all kinds of people have been on the phone to manchin and i guess he's really enjoying this moment in the sun and prolonging it. i hope what they're saying you might be getting your andy warhal prolonged 15 minutes of fame but your name will be mud. your name will be mud. and i hope that at some level biden can reinforce that. i have no idea what his price point is and whether anybody else does, either. >> you have held the line as others have run to donald trump the last five or six years and yesterday was a pretty clear distalation of what's happened when you didn't have a single one of them outside of liz cheney and dick cheney standing inside that chamber. they've made clear where they stand on january 6, on donald trump, and that is to side with him and minimize what happened that day. what happens from here now as you look at the elections, the way they have to run and keep donald trump close and looking ahead to 2024? what does it look like for republicans and a conservative like you? >> i think the best case is to transcend trump. in the case of republicans, they missed that opportunity. they made that mistake of thing trump will go away. i think it's really too late to hope they'll have a direct assault on trumpism. the best case scenario they could transcend him and we're not going to go back to mitt romney nor should we. the world changes but maybe we can go past donald trump to something that is not il liberal. a lot of people have talked about how dick cheney was once this hated darth vader type figure. in a way that rivals donald trump and demonstrates how bad trump is and i think we could take a little solace, there was a time republicans revered and feared dick cheney. dick cheney was, you know, if dick cheney -- if were you a republican, a lot of the people who were even elected still to this day if dick cheney told them to jump, they would have said how high. and now dick cheney finds himself far outside the mainstream of republican thinking as the republican party has moved on. we have to hope that it moves on from donald trump similarly just in a better direction. >> thank you very much. and now to this cyber ninjas, the firm that led a partisan review of 2020 ballots in november is closing down. the florida-based company is shuttering following a scathing report by election officials and the threat of $50,000 a day in fines. the associated press reports a maricopa county superior judge said he would impose the fine until the company hands over documents related to the so-called audit after the arizona republic newspaper filed a public records request. county election officials released a report rebutting almost every claim in the ballot review concluding that nearly 80 claims made by cyber ninjas were misleading or false. >> misleading and false and still -- and still -- they found more votes for joe biden. >> you know, what can i say? >> well, there's nothing to say. it's pure idiocy. >> florida governor ron desantis said up to 1 million covid-19 tests held by the state expired last month without use. the batch of rapid tests expired between december 26 and december 30. the administration claims the stockpile was never given out because there was no demand for the tests at the time. this despite a spike of cases in florida that has led to hours long lines at testing sites and difficulty finding at-home kits. i can tell you we would have liked a couple of those tests in florida. we're looking for them. couldn't get them. >> leading up to the holiday. >> the confirmation the tests expired comes after the desantis administration mocked candidate nikki fried for warning the tests were about to expire. the governor's office had called her allegations, quote, bizarre, with the health department spokesperson dismissing her. it's come to my attention she needs to turn on that blinker and get back in her lane. wow. beyond the fact that is condescending and rude, governor desantis says he will ask the governor to extend the expiration date of tests. that's not the point. wow. the united kingdom unveiled new travel rules for fully vaccinated travelers along with those under 18 years old. they're not allowed into great britain without a negative covid test. british authorities scrapped their predeparture testing mandate for those inbound travelers. the new rules apply to travelers entering england, wales, scotland and northern ireland. joining us now british ambassador to the united states karen pierce. >> madam ambassador, thank you for being with us. i think we're trying to figure out how to live better with covid especially the omicron variant where we've seen people get sick obviously in the united states, hospitalizations up and infections way up but deaths still down. so talk about what the british government is doing and how you all are working your way through this. >> well, good morning and happy new year and thanks for asking me on. the omicron variant is pretty virulent but is turning out to be less serious in terms of hospitalizations. we can reracket our travel restrictions for people coming into the country and what we are now doing is -- there are no tests for -- and then once you're in the uk you used to have to take the pcr test on day two of arriving. that's now being replaced with a cheaper -- and also, you don't need to self-isolate unless you have a positive test. >> madam ambassador, this is david ignatius in washington. we have another big problem ahead. next week a series of meetings between the u.s., nato and britain -- excuse me, and russia that will involve britain over ukraine. i would be interesting in what your government is thinking about ways to deter vladimir putin from invading ukraine. >> it's a very serious issue, david. thank you for raising it. allies like the u.s. are watching it very closely, the russian attempts to build up on the ukrainian border, to threaten ukraine. anyway to you is having a series of meetings. we are giving support to ukraine and spent overed 2 billion. at the same time we already -- nato is ready to talk about what it perceives as its security problems. we have always been ready to dialogue. only diplomacy can help the situation. >> ambassador, good to see you. back to the omicron question. neighboring france introduced vaccine passports and emmanuel macron said something quite rude about what he wanted to do to the unvaccinated this week, perhaps controversially. there is a serious point there that there's a degree of penalty and of shame that works with the unvaccinated. is britain any closer to having vaccine passports? and i say this in the full knowledge it has a very good record in terms of the booster rollout internationally. but there's still massive rates of infection in britain. are vaccine passports any closer in britain? >> there isn't a consensus to introduce vaccine passports. there wasn't a consensus in the government or in parliament and it's very much part of the approach to encourage people to behave sensibly rather than to punish them and so far, as you say, we have a very good right on the booster, the prime minister's commitment of everyone eligible would have done so. that's been met. 75% of people have had the booster and that figure is nearly 90%. [ inaudible ] omicron is less serious than the previous variant. we think the measures are good but do appeal to people to behave sensibly and to get all their jabs. we keep it under review. no one is complacent about the disease. >> uk ambassador to the u.s. karen pierce, thank you very much. david ignatius and ed luce, thank you as well. and up next, stock futures move higher in anticipation of the jobs report due out within the next hour. stephanie rule will join us to break down those numbers. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪♪ for skin that never holds you back. don't settle for silver. #1 for diabetic dry skin #1 for psoriasis symptom relief and #1 for eczema symptom relief. gold bond. champion your skin. my plaque psoriasis... ...the itching... gold bond. the burning. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful. emerge tremfyant®. with tremfya®, adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... ...can uncover clearer skin and improve symptoms at 16 weeks. tremfya® is the only medication of its kind also approved for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. emerge tremfyant® with tremfya®... ask you doctor about tremfya® today. for tonight's sleep story we travel to the south of france. i'm steven frye and i'll be your guide as we meander lazily through the lavender fields. >> i'm sorry. i started nodding off. that stuff, if you have trouble sleeping, put that on, boom. just like that it knocks you out. bedtime stories are not just for children anymore. that was from the calm app which is now more than 200 sleep stories listened to over 450 million times. the adult bedtime industry has boomed. adults are drawn to bedtime stories and it goes beyond women si and whimsy. i use the calm app because i have bad tinnitis and they have all these sounds on there that sort of helps drown out the tinnitis. my mom and my aunt would listen to ernest hemingway and spy novels when they were my age and they said they would fall asleep like that. if i can't sleep i put on joan and with all due respect i'm asleep in five or ten minutes. why is it so effective in calming people down and putting them to sleep? >> well, a bedtime story works by capturing your attention just enough to quiet that hamster wheel of your thoughts and worries and that allows your adrenaline to slow down so your brain can transition into a quiet state that's ready for sleep. >> and so talk about -- this has become a big business. why do you think it's become such a big business now? >> well, i mean, in the last few years we've all been forced to look at our health and wellness and confront it head-on and 50% to 60% of adults suffer from bouts of insomnia, facing this neverening goal of getting the perfect night's sleep and feeling well rested when we wake up. now this is kind of a way for us to do things for ourselves, take control, and this is a new concept that's not new at all because we grew up with bedtime stories and that's part of the comfort of it. >> going back to the basics, you can read books and go to seminars or people that have made millions and millions of dollars talking about how to sleep. this is back to -- this is sitting around campfires telling stories and, like you said, bedtime stories which, again, soothes us and puts us to sleep. >> yeah. when i told people unfamiliar with this concept this was my latest story, they either thought it was fascinating or very silly. and we have this idea that adults are past this part of things we did as children but people have always fallen asleep reading books or listening to tv shows or podcasts and that's the same general idea. the truth is we could all benefit from the sleep routines we teach children. kids are some of the most energetic and well rested people in the world. >> willie, mika and i -- i found out after we got married that mika liked to fall asleep with prime time cable news on. what are you doing? i would wake up at, like, midnight and my hair would be sticking straight up and i would turn it off. but a lot of people do. when i was young i would go to sleep with the radio on. diane keaton reads it. i bet you i've heard it 500 times over the past couple of years. it's extraordinary writing but also when we're on our phones and social media all day you do that and it really does stops, as hillary said, the hamster wheel stops. and you start connecting to the story. >> it's so hard to disconnect nowadays, so hard to slow down. so hard to turn your brain off. as hillary says, it goes back to when you were a kid. i'll make up a story or tell them a story about their childhood or main and it naturally helps you go to sleep. one of the interesting things in your piece these train journeys being the most popular and when you look at the calm apps or other places you go in a journey that cakes you somewhere and that sets you off to sleep. >> exactly. those are across the board, across all apps some of the most popular options. people like that description. it helps them imagine and it's just nice. we've all looked out the window of a car or train and it's great to zone out, meditative almost. >> all right, hillary richard, thank you so much. a fascinating topic. a fascinating story. wonderful having you here. hope to see you again some time soon. coming up next, breaking news on the economy. we have the december jobs report out. we'll break down those numbers. but first, willie, before we go to break, i'm really excited. jack, of course, will be coming down before we go to church. you know what he says, papa, papa, what does uncle willie have on today? he is going to love this because two of my favorites are on your show this sunday. >> and, again, jack is a small italian boy. i don't know how it happened but he is. >> i don't know. 6'3", yeah, exactly. >> we're going to revisit one of our favorites. the golden globe awards, two guys nominated in the same category for best actor, steve martin and martin short, for their roles in "only murders in the building" that hit series on hulu. they could clean up. they have some tough competition but it's cool to see these two guys who have been friends forever now nominated. we have a long conversation about their lives and career and mostly they just insult each other throughout, which is the most fun of all. this sunday on "week today." ♪ ♪ ♪ "how bizarre" by omc ♪ no annual fee on any discover card. ♪ ♪ as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love noliberty mutual.any discover card. 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 ♪ (music) ♪ i think to myself ♪ ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ how bout sushi? i just had sushi for lunch yesterday. indian? ehh, maybe... how bout seafood? you know i don't like seafood. [collision beeping warning] [silence] how bout tacos? tacos. automatic emergency braking — one of six advanced safety features standard on every 2022 chevy equinox. find new technology. find new roads. chevrolet. with voltaren arthritis pain gel. my husband's got his moves back. find new roads. an alternative to pills, voltaren is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel for powerful arthritis pain relief. voltaren, the joy of movement. every day in business brings something new. so get the flexibility of the new mobile service designed for your small business. introducing comcast business mobile. you get the most reliable network with nationwide 5g included. and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. we have breaking news. the jobs report -- when these jobs reports come out there are 12 different ways to look at them. you can look at for "the wall street journal" saying the united states added a record number of jobs in 2021. for december, though, the u.s. added about 199 jobs last month lower than the 422,000 jobs, get this, unemployment climbed to 3.9%. of course that is getting down so low but, again, it is a tale of two indicators. nbc news senior business correspondent and anchor stephanie ruhle. it is always frustrating and people say i don't get it. you say the news is so bad but unemployment rate is 3.9%. it's looking like full employment and yet these numbers, we have to say, are worse than they look because this is before omicron hit. >> no matter what we say right now, the people who, like us, will say they're absolutely right, and the people who hate us will call us dunces. 199,000 is a low number that is a miss and actually the november number did get revised up but not as much as we thought. it's not that great. unemployment down to 3.9%. you saw a huge amount of jobs created last year. omicron is going to slow the recovery down, not because hospitalizations and deaths are up so much but because over this month, look at even all of us, all of these business that is everybody get back in the office, that's not happening. and that impacts every cafeteria, coffee shop, every neighborhood business. this is lingering on. we thought we were going to get a bigger number, we didn't. we're in an economic recovery. >> i never thought were you a complete moron, dunce -- >> someone does on twitter, i promise. >> let me ask you this, you mentioned omicron and the effects here heading into an election year. to give us a step back, the 30,000 foot view of where things stand. >> it is a tale of two economies, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer. the real issue is inflation. we saw a huge amount of people, we got how many people are quitting. what are they sitting at home? they're not sitting at home. it's actually good news when people have the confidence to quit their jobs it means there are better jobs out there and we are seeing workers have more power right now, ask for signing bonuses, ask for higher pay. they're getting it. even with higher wages inflation is moving up quicker so you may be going home with a bigger paycheck but it's meaningless when your grocery bill and gas bill are higher. >> all right, nbc's stephanie ruhle. you'll be talking about all of this for the next hour or maybe the next 59 minutes and 47 seconds depending on when we try to get it over to you. if we're a couple seconds late, i want to guarantee you both mika and alex are screaming in my ear going shut up. we're going to try to do that before 9:00 this morning. >> thank you so much, joe. bye. coming up, it was about a year ago, of course, that a mob of trump supporters threatened our democracy. now can democrats use the reminder of january 6th to get meaningful legislation done on voting rights? president obama's former chief speechwriter is with us next on "morning joe." ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪3, 4♪ ♪ ♪♪ ♪hey♪ ♪ ♪are you ready for me♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪are you ready♪ some of our colleagues to hand fistedly invoke the january 6th anniversary to advance these aims. washington democrats have been trying to seize control over elections for years. the fact that violent criminals broke the law does not entitle senate democrats to break the senate. it is surreal to hear sitting senators invoke january 6th to justify -- listen to this -- to justify breaking rules to grab outcomes they have not earned. let's talk about surreal. what's surreal is republicans -- and they've been doing this for, what, a year and a half now -- republicans using the big lie to justify passing legislation across the country that actually takes away voting rights, and beyond that, decides who is going to count the votes. i mean, it's -- that is surreal. that's mitch mcconnell, of course, saying it's distasteful for democrats to connect the party's push for new voting rights with the violence of january 6th and the chaos that's followed. let's bring in president obama's former chief speech writer and the co-host of pod safe america jon favreau, also the host of the podcast titled "offline." jon says it reverses male pattern baldness and improves your back swing. i can't wait to get into that. jon, republicans -- me being a former one -- we would sit around and laugh about how democrats really didn't know how to fight. didn't know how to win elections. never said that about the president obama administration. you guys figured it out. you figured it out in iowa in '07 and kept doing it moving forward. so i'm curious what are your thoughts right now because democrats that i talk to on the hill and also some on the other side of pennsylvania avenue have trouble with the gas lighting. they lie all the time, how do we respond to them? it's something we talked to with jill earlier today, how do democrats do that? >> i mean, i don't think you have to fact check every lie, i don't think you can. i think if you are a party of fact checkers that's not going to get you anywhere, but i think joe biden showed us yesterday what democrats need to start doing. he made a case, he made an argument. he showed that he was someone who was trying to shape events as opposed to just being shaped by events. he showed us that he wanted to fight. like i think that donald trump is telling a story about the country that he wants, which is very, very different than the country most of the rest of us want, and we have to start telling a story as well. it's not just about individual policies, it's not just about delivering on individual policies, it's about making an argument about why democracy is the best form of government and why that should connect to people's lives. i think biden started doing that in yesterday's speech which was certainly the most powerful i think since his inaugural address. >> i agree. it reminds me so much of what i heard during barack obama's iowa campaign, where he would go to the back of the bus, people would start telling him bad news, he would wave them off and go, you look at the polls, and he wasn't responding all the time to the attacks or to the bad news that was coming in. how important is that, that the democratic party and people running as democrats get off their back heels? >> yeah, i think it's important for them to get off their back heels. i think it's important for them to like get off twitter and all the stupid little fights that consume most of washington every single day, and i think they need to tell a story about the country and where it's going and what republicans are going to do. look, we dealt with this in 2011, 2012, barack obama was having a pretty tough time in the white house and then early in 2012 even before we knew the republican nominee was going to be mitt romney, we knew what our message was going to be in the 2012 campaign. we knew that barack obama was going to position himself as the fighter for the working class and that republicans were going to nominate someone who was going to take care of the rich so we started laying out a series of speeches in late 2011 and 2012 that sort of defined that battle, and i think as we head into the midterms in 2022 democrats need to start talking not only about what they're trying to do for the country, but what republicans want to do if they take power and make this a story to tell and not just a series of sound bites. >> jon, it's willie. great to see you this morning. as you know, there are a lot of people, democrats included, inside the senate who believe all this talk about getting rid of the filibuster is just kind of theater for progressives and that joe manchin has said a million times and kyrsten sinema has said a million times they're not going to change the rules for build back better, for voting rights or for anything else. what do you do with that reality where you know you're not going to get a single republican to vote for it, that's been made clear for a long time now, but you may not have enough democrats to even get to 50 votes on anything? >> yeah, it's -- it hasn't been very fun. so, look, i think you have to keep fighting, you have to keep trying. they're working on all of these potential rule changes that maybe manchin and sinema would be fine with. if they're fine with them and some republicans are fine with the rule changes will there be changes that help you pass voting rights legislation and then you get into the joe manchin cul-de-sac again where that's all you're talking about. look, there are 163 republicans running for statewide office that would give them control over the administration of elections in that state, and no amount of voting rights legislation is going to stop those people from running and potentially winning. ultimately we have to beat these people at the ballot box. we have to beat them at the ballot box within the context of the unfair system that we have and the system that we don't yet have the power to change partly because of manchin and sinema right now. so no matter what, the path goes back to trying to beat these guys at the ballot box. that's where this comes in and i think that's the case the democrats have to make regardless of what you get done in the senate. >> i mean, just win, baby. the thing is so many things that people are complaining about are determined by state legislatures. they have to win in washington, but they have to start winning in state legislatures across the country, too, to take care of redistricting, to talk about laws that juries have to follow, et cetera, et cetera. so talk about your new podcast. >> oh, yeah. so i have a new podcast called "offline" it's a sunday series about all the different ways that the internet is breaking our brain. i did it partly for myself because it has broken my brain over the last several years, i'm on twitter way too much and then i also did it because i think, look, we have spent a year now, two years now, stuck inside for a lot of time because of the pandemic, we've been online too much and i think it has contributed to making everyone angry, more polarized, nastier to each other and, you know, i think social media is a big part of that. so i've been talking to people from all different -- i've talked to everyone from stephen colbert to monica lewinsky to megan ropino about how we can actually use the internet in ways that are healthier, more productive for our own lives and democracy. >> man, that sounds like such an extraordinarily important message to send out and a podcast to launch. thanks so much, john. we will all be listening and we appreciate you being on. hope you come back soon. >> thanks for having me. all right. and that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle is going to pick up the coverage in two minutes. find your rhythm. your happy place. find your breaking point. then break it. every emergen-c gives you a potent blend of nutrients so you can emerge your best with emergen-c. ♪♪ gravity. it's a force to be reckoned with. no one knows better than we do. but without gravity, you can't have lift. the very thing that holds you down is the very thing that helps you rise above. thanks to gravity, the real force to be reckoned with just might be you. ♪♪ 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? ♪♪ hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle live at msnbc headquarters here in snowy new york city. it is friday, january 7th, and we start this morning with breaking news. the december jobs report just came out and it showed only 199,000 jobs were added last month, that is a huge miss. it is less than half of what economists were expecting, and at the same time the good news is that the unemployment rate dropped to just 3.9%. now, it is important to remember this doesn't capture the full impact the omicron variant may be having on jobs. think about all the flight cancellations and the school