lost. and there was that rose garden moment after the supreme court decision. and he said to you, i don't want people to know i lost, right? >> he said that to mark meadows. i was standing catty corner to mark meadows. we were leaving the residence. we were at a christmas reception. the president was going back to the residence from the oval office. i was with mark steps behind mark. and this was a conversation between the president and mark meadows. >> that was part of our interview with former white house aide cassidy hutchinson almost exactly a month ago. now her former boss mark meadows may have flipped on the former president. meanwhile, another attorney from donald trump's elite strike force legal team takes a plea deal in the georgia election interference case. we have a lot to cover this morning on the legal cases tied to donald trump. plus, we'll go through the on going republican-led chaos on capitol hill. still no speaker? mike johnson of louisiana is now the party's fourth nominee for speaker. we'll tell you more about him and look at his chances of actually winning the gavel. and we'll have the latest out of the middle east where israel continues to launch air strikes on gaza after rejecting a cease fire call from the united nations. a lot going on. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, october 25th. good to have you all with us. donald trump's final white house chief of staff mark meadows has reportedly been granted immunity in the federal election interference case against the former president. sources familiar with the matter tell abc news that meadows has met with special counsel jack smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury. in those conversations, meadows reportedly shared that in the weeks following the 2020 election, he told then president trump multiple times that allegations of significant voter fraud were baseless. he also reportedly admitted to investigators that trump was being, quote, dishonest when he falsely claimed that he won the election in a speech just hours after the polls closed. >> despite allegedly saying those things behind closed doors, meadows has repeatedly claimed in public the election was stolen in including in his 2021 memoir. abc news reports speaking with investigators the former chief of staff conceded even he doesn't believe some of the statements in his own book. meadows reported will has been granted immunity in the federal case. he still faces racketeering charges, though, in the georgia election interference probe where he has pleaded not guilty. nbc news has not confied abc's reporting on all of this. in a statement to nbc, meadow's attorney writes, quote, i told abc their story is largely inaccurate. people will have to judge for themselves the decision to run it any way. let's bring in jonathan lemire, ken dilanian, chuck rosenberg and timothy hayfy. good morning to you all. timothy, we should start with you as you're the lead investigator in all of this around january 6th for the committee that completed its work last year. how significant is this development potentially as reported by abc news? immunity deal for mark meadows and remind our viewers, if you would, what he might share about the days of the 6th and stolen election? >> yeah, willie. it is very significant. he is probably the person closest to former president trump throughout the post election period. all day on january fth. he's there for all the discussions about the election. all of the prongs of the multi-part plan to try to disrupt the joint session. then importantly, he's with president trump all day on january 6th at the ellipse. then in that dining room as the violence is unfolding at the capitol. if he is now providing a thorough and detailed account of all of these interactions with president, it could be tremendously significant for both jack smith and potentially for fani willis. hard for me to imagine that a defendant cooperates with case one and then doesn't subsequently not go on to cooperate in case two. >> again, we're assuming that abc reporters have this right, that they haven't retracted it at this point. they have multiple sources on this. donald trump has known for some time. they have been very concerned about mark meadows who went quiet and whose attorney has continued to say bland, generic things to reporters. but in this case, if abc has this story right, just how devastating is it to donald trump? and his claims of fraudulent election? >> extraordinarily so. let's just take a second to reiterate just how close meadows was with trump. when donald trump contracted covid in october, mark meadows rode in marine one with him, accompanied him in the helicopter to walter reed, spent the night in former president trump's hospital room when he was there at the hospital for a couple of days. he was undyingly loyal and in those weeks after the election as the west wing began to hallow out, people were departing, staff departures, another covid outbreak, meadows remained there the entire time and he was in the oval office repeatedly on january 6th trying to get trump's attention. trump holed up in the private dining room just off of the oval watching the highlights, if you will, on television. meadows trying to get him to stop. listening to ivanka trump and others. he was there throughout the process, throughout the efforts to try to overturn the 2020 election results. he was privy to a lot of the memos being circulated. he was right there at the front lines. and trump people i spoke to last night, you know, they of course push back on the abc report. they pointed out the lawyer said it wasn't quite right. we'll see. but there's one thing -- it's one thing if jenna ellis or sidney powell, these attorneys are flipping in the georgia case. the trump team concerned but largely thinks that would be something they can get through. mark meadows would be an entirely different story. meadows, as we can see here, the latest to turn on trump. he could have extraordinarily damaging testimony against the former president. >> there's a headline, they're all turning on trump. obviously, ken dilanian, we have the jenna ellis story out of georgia we'll get to in a bit. i'm curious, though, what you belief the impact of mark me does turning on donald trump would be. and also your reaction to meadows attorneys -- i don't know that i quite call it a nondenial denial. it may have been too clever by half. we have all seen people put statements out like that when they found one or two words weren't exactly right and then tried to dismiss the overall story. but what's your take on all of it? >> that's a great assessment, joe. as you can imagine we all at nbc news done some reporting behind the scenes on this. and the informed speculation about this denial is -- or the question is there some issue around the immunity question. was there some imprecision in the abc news report? there's a lot of different ways that a witness can get immunity. get what's known as queen for a day proffer immunity. use immunity. there may be some inaccuracies there. but the gist of what mark meadows is telling investigators, no one is disputing that including donald trump's lawyers are not publicly disputing that. just think of the impact before a jury of having one of donald trump's closest aides testify that he told the president he lost the election and that he's seen nothing that would suggest that there are any fraud claims that could overturn the election and yet donald trump is pursuing them any way. legal experts have said that prosecutors don't need to show that donald trump believed he lost the election in order to prove these criminal claims against mr. trump. but it sure would be helpful for a jury if they could establish that. juries are human after all. it paints a larger picture of fraud. this also underscores that people with lives and careers independent of donald trump are not going to go down for him. they not going to face millions of dollars in legal bills and potential years in prison to protect donald trump. maybe a few people have worked for him for his whole life who are in lower level jobs have this kind of blind loyalty. we have seen that. but not these major washington figures or minor figures like a jenna ellis. they're not willing to do it. and this stuff is really crumbling around donald trump. >> and i -- willie, this is sort of the christmas story metaphor that i'm sure every great legal mind across america has been thinking, bb gun it's all a lot of fun until it puts somebody's eyes out. while they're running around playing, following trump, thinking, oh look what he's saying, he's getting away with. this is fun. we're getting to own the libs. we're getting to own the press. oh my god. talk about a feeling of immunity. they felt like they had an immunity not only from the law but the truth. they could say anything because this guy was the president of the united states and he was lying everyday and sending out lawyers to lie everyday. say horrible things about federal judges, completely undermine the rule of law, or at least they thought in their mind they could. they thought they could lie their way out of a presidential election. and then they wake up. and suddenly they see the charges are coming. may have been a shock to some of these lawyers. you try to overturn an american election, well, law is coming after you. we are a nation of laws, not a nation of men. so we heard it from jenna ellis a couple weeks ago. listen, i'm not -- i don't have money. i don't have money like all these other people. i'm not going to sit here and blindly defend donald trump. he's a narcissist. he's crazy. i wouldn't vote for him again. suddenly it's all fun and games until it's not. she decided -- i'm sure family members around her had to say, you have to protect yourself. stop lying for this man. same thing for mark meadows. i'm not privy to anything that mark and his family says. but what do you think his wife and children said to him? really? like you've been following this guy around for years and you're going to follow him to prison? ken dilanian said, it's one thing to be making shit up outside of a courtroom, it's another thing to say that in a courtroom. >> you used the right word a game. it was a game to rudy giuliani. it was a game to -- >> not the right word. >> that was the right word. game. exactly. that was the right word. >> good job there, willie. >> it was a game of relevance. rudy giuliani was suddenly important again. cameras were following him and listening to him and jenna ellis, we know her name, sidney powell, we knew her name. they got to be famous and they thought close to power. we said this a million times on the show, the ideal that loyalty is a two-way street with donald trump is so incredibly naive it's staggering that these people thought they were going to get anything back from him when they need him, which is right now. and of course he's running the other direction. so chuck rosenberg, let me ask you first about the distinction between a plea deal, which this is not for mark meadows and an immunity deal and why that might be significant and mark meadows is cooperating on jack smith with this 2020 election case, do we also believe or would it seem logical that he's also cooperating in these many other cases as well? >> yeah. let me take the second question first, willie, tim hayfee alluded to this at the beginning of the show. it would be select i havely if he was cooperating on the january 6th case, logically he would cooperate in the georgia state case. oh by the way, would also have a lot of really important and interesting and compelling information about the classified documents case being prosecuted federally in the southern direct of florida. so, typically, not always, but typically if someone is cooperating on one case, they're cooperating across the board. and federal prosecutors and tim and i both served as federal prosecutors would receive full, cooperate and candid cooperation. we don't tend to cut cooperation deals with the defendant or bad guy or mr. meadows gets to pick and choose on what issues he cooperates. let me talk about your first question. so, the difference between a plea deal in which someone acknowledges their guilt like jenna ellis did and an immunity deal as mr. meadows may have if the abc reporting is accurate is that the second thing, an immunity deal, occurs when a defendant has important information for prosecutors that they need to prove their underlying case. they need a vector into the criminal conspiracy. sometimes the best vectors into a criminal conspiracy frankly, willie, are other criminals. so normally mark meadows wouldn't have to answer a question truthfully if that truthful answer would incriminate him. he has a fifth amendment privilege. we all do if we've committed a crime. most of us haven't. mr. meadows allegedly did. and so if prosecutors want to force him to compel him to divulge that information against his fifth amendment privilege, one way to do that is to immunize him. in other words, mr. meadows. you must tell us the truth because we are now promising not to prosecute you if you tell us the truth. once they've given that immunity, meadows is compelled. he must answer questions and he must do so honestly. if he doesn't, he violates an immunity agreement and can end up going to jail for a whole raft of problems. so, immunity deals give prosecutors the vectors into criminal arrangements, into criminal conspiracies. and prosecutors use it as a tool to work up the chain. >> that's great explanation and important distinction there as we follow this along. joe, it's important to remember as well that we have and the january 6th committee as tim knows had just a trove of text messages, emails, correspondents from mark meadows january 6th and that day. they have a whole bunch on him. as we know from cassidy hutchinson's testimony it was her, a 24-year-old aide who was the adult in the room that day on january 6th as mark meadows sat and said, what do you want me to do? this is what the big guy wants. >> right. we also know that mark meadows just behaved in a very erratic way. dumped a ton of documents on the committee. wrote a book. then started saying exactly opposite of what was in the documents that he gave to the committee. his text messages. then after donald trump said that everything that he wrote in his book was a lie, he said, yeah, it's a lie. don't own the libs. own yourself. and so, yeah. it's going to be -- it's going to be fascinating to see where that testimony goes. but there's no doubt that this is -- if abc news report is right and we have no reason right now to believe that it's not, they are staying on it. this is going to be extraordinarily significant. we're going to talk how extraordinarily significant that is along after this one-minute break, jenna ellis. we'll take you inside the georgia courtroom where she had a tearful confession. and hopefully let the judge know immediately that she was a christian. we also have so much other news. of course, the chaos in israel. the bombing in gaza. of course and ukraine fighting for their very existence. american troops being attacked by iranian proxies. all of this happening while the house republicans continue to allow five or six radical freaks to team up with democrats -- let me say that again. the republicans have allowed five or six radical freaks in the house to team up with the democrats. they walked over -- those five or six radical freaks basically walked across the aisle and became democrats for the purposes of vacating the chair of the speakership. and now here we are weeks later with israel, gaza, ukraine, u.s. troops all of this on fire, the specter of china and they can't even select a speaker. it's not hard. but they're making everything hard. and you know what, it hurts republicans. it hurts the institution. it hurts america. it hurts our allies across the globe. and more importantly, as chairman mccall said, it really tarnishes the u.s. reputation across the globe and makes putin and xi and kim jong-un happy. because those republicans are making the communist chinese party's points for them. we'll be right back in one minute. s points for them. we'll be right back in one minute now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up, i've got symptom relief. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements. skyrizi is the first il-23 inhibitor that can deliver remission and visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. and the majority of people experienced long-lasting remission at one year. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. ♪ now's the time to ask your gastroenterologist how you can take control of your crohn's with skyrizi. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. ♪♪ ♪♪ my lord. >> you know, mika, five, six candidates, in each one of their cases, in each one of their cases in the words of the rutles, all of those potential speakers created memories that will last a lunch time. >> yeah. maybe five minutes. all because of trump. >> at best. >> it appears. we're going to get to the republican farce playing out on capitol hill in just a moment. but first, jenna ellis is now the third trump associated lawyer and fourth co-defendant overall to take a plea deal in the georgia election interference case. she was former president trump's senior legal adviser from 2019 through the end of his term in january of 2021. his senior legal adviser. and yesterday pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. >> in the frenetic pace of attempting to raise challenges including georgia i failed to do my due diligence. i believe in and value election integrity. if i knew then what i know now i would declined to represent donald trump in the post election challenges. i look back on deep remorse. i have taken responsibility before the colorado bar censured me and take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of georgia. >> her deal requires that she serve five years of probation and testify at the trials of the other co-defendants. she will also need to provide documents and evidence to the attorney general's team. ken dilanian, how important is what she has to offer, her excuses seemed rather thin. >> yeah. it's not clear exactly what she brings to the table in terms of a witness, mika. but it's just another domino here. and you can see this pattern developing in this georgia case where a lot of these defendants are looking at themselves and saying, what am i doing here? why do i need to incur these massive legal bills and risk time in prison, especially when there's a deal on the table requiring no prison time. interestingly, though, the prosecutor is requiring each of these defendants to pen a letter of apology to the citizens of georgia which is a sort of political str of genius by that elected prosecutor. but we could see this coming actually a few weeks ago when jenna ellis, reports that she was asking donald trump to cover her legal bills and was not getting any relief in that department and made it pretty clear she doesn't have the money to pay for this legal defense. these lawyers -- a trail like this can cost as much as $7,000 a day for some of these folks. they just don't have the money to do that. and fani willis, the d.a., cleverly offering these deals that allow these people in many cases to retain their law licenses if they comply with the terms of the deal. they can go on with their lives and can become witnesses against donald trump. again, this case appears to be firming up around donald trump. >> and so, tim, let's go back to your experience, your expertise, your investigation with the january 6th committee here. jenna ellis could lead to one rudy giuliani. they were telling lies to try to get the legislatures to flip their votes in their states. how significant is this development with jenna ellis in terms of rudy giuliani and perhaps beyond? >> yeah. the perhaps beyond, willie, is the key. absolutely giuliani. she is part of a team and not just a foot soldier, put forth as a leader, she goes repeatedly on television to spout these claims that were false and authors this one-page memo about the vice president's authority. hasn't gotten as much attention because of eastman's because of the heft she brings in terms of his reputation, but she is not just following directions. she is there shoulder to shoulder with rudy giuliani charting strategy. look, she may have been and likely was in direct communication with the client. the client being president trump. so, she's potentially very significant. if she had direct conversations with president trump, she makes it very difficult for him to rely on this potential defense that he simply relying on advice of counsel. if the counsel is baseless as ellis is admitting and powell also admitted, then it undercuts a very significant potential defense for the former president. >> jenna ellis not just part of the team. she was part of an elite strike force team, chuck rosenberg. let's recall that she stood there with sidney powell and rudy giuliani, the three of them at that infamous rnc conference giuliani had the hair dye dripping down his face. georgia case, nearly two dozen defendants there. we have now had several, four take a deal, three were attorneys. who else? what dominos would you see fall next? how worried should trump be next? >> excuse me. people overwhelmingly jonathan act in their self interest. you see that over and over again in life. let's talk about in the criminal environment. people overwhelmingly act in their self interest. so after you've been indicted and charged by a grand jury, your options narrow. you can go to trial and face or risk being convicted and go into jail or you can take a guilty plea. right now, the district attorney in fulton county is offering no jail plea agreements. and so between those two options it's pretty clear what the better one is, not going to jail. and so, in answer to your question, jonathan, what should we expect to see? will other dominos fall? people will have to assess their own tolerance for risk. they have to weigh the risk of going to trial and being convicted and being incarcerated against the risk of taking a plea deal, cooperating, testifying and avoiding jail. given those options -- and you don't really have all that many other options, so far what you're seeing from sidney powell, from chesebro, from jenna ellis, and others, taking the no jail plea route. should mr. trump be worried about it? obviously. i mean, ellis might be able to give you giuliani. giuliani might be able to give you others although he would probably be the worst witness ever in the history of the planet. but there will be other dominos to fall as people make these risk assessments and try to narrow their own exposure. >> yeah. and their own exposure for a good reason. and the reason is that they're lying. they've been -- everybody knew they were lying all along. even their supporters knew they were lying. they continued to lie. even as 63 federal courts said they were lying. even as donald trump called them trump supreme court. even as the supreme court said they were lying. that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. there was no evidence of voter fraud that would overturn the election. even trump's trumpiest, most loyal supreme court justices, clarence thomas and samuel alito, wrote a concurrence in the pennsylvania case saying we understand, there are not enough votes here to overturn any election. we're not going to overturn an election here. but we should have a good look at what a legislature should do, what a state supreme court should do and who election officials should follow. so that said, it's not only that they're doing this to avoid legal fees. they're doing this to retain their law license. they're doing this because as a matter of law they've been busted about 63, 64, 65 times by federal courts already for being liars. so they do -- anybody up there going, oh -- i've heard this. oh, justice department is weaponizing. they're only doing this because they don't want to be ruined because what these horrible prosecutors are doing to them, making them pay a lot of attorney's fees. no, no. they're doing this because they know they're lying. and much better to walk free if the truth can set you free, take that door, keep your law license, keep your freedom and let donald trump continue this lie as long as he wants. but do it without them. >> as the dominos fall, that might be difficult for the former president. former u.s. attorney chuck rosenberg, nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian and former lead investigator for the january 6th select committee, timothy hayfy. thank you all very much for being on this morning with this big news we're covering. also now, the house is scheduled to reconvene at noon eastern with republican congressman mike johnson intending to seek a full floor vote after last night becoming his party's latest nominee for house speaker. the louisiana lawmaker was nominated after hours majority whip tom emmer of minnesota dropped out. emmer defeated johnson and other candidates earlier in the day but withdrew from the race when it became clear he didn't have enough support to win a floor vote. on social media yesterday, former president trump worked hard to torpedo emmer's bid. asor congressman johnson, he iow the fourth nominee for speaker since kevin mccarthy's ouster three weeks ago. currently serves as the gop conference vice chair. let's bring in founder of the conservative website, the bullwork charlie sykes and nbc news capitol hill correspondent julie circumstancen and msnbc contributor mike barnicle has joined us at the table as well. no leaving, mike, as well. >> okay. >> he'll get up and just walk away. maybe i should get him talking first. joe, how long does this go on? you said very eloquently at the top of the show except for the bad word you used that this is, you know, impacting -- >> i did. i did not say diamondbacks. check the tape. i never said diamondbacks. >> it's way too early. you know better. but you did make a really good point that this is absolutely impacting our national security and respect around the world at a time when things are extremely dangerous. >> no. again, republicans watching don't have to take my word for it. they can take the word of chairman mccall and other republicans who, mike barnicle, come out and say our party is a joke. yesterday, last night somebody said we need to turn this over to the democrats. maybe they can run it better than we can. of course that will not happen. but you do wonder at what point, as american soldiers are under fire from iranian proxies, as israel is fighting for their very life after just savage terror attacks of a few sundays ago. as you see what's happening in ukraine, you see president xi and others celebrate the dysfunction in washington, d.c. and our enemies and the unaligned who are trying to figure out whether they come our way or they go to china, they look at what republicans are doing in the house of representatives, they look at donald trump, and they go, man, i don't know that we can count on america anymore. and the republicans know this is happening. and as willie said yesterday, the five or six people don't mind. that the american reputation is being tarnished across the road according to chairman mccall and other republicans they don't care because their tiktok views will go up and they'll get 25 dollar donations from across america. >> yeah. you know, joe, this is a whole new definition of dangerous self absorption on a handful of republicans in the house. you're right. you don't have to go back that far in history, maybe a year, maybe two years to figure out that in foreign capitals around the world, friend and foe incidentally, they knew what america was. they knew what america stood for. they knew what america would do because we're fairly predictive in what we would do to defend liberty all over the world on behalf of our allies and against our foes. that no longer is true in foreign capitals because of the behavior of a few -- a handful of republicans in the house of representatives who have taken our constitutional government, turned it upside down to the point where we are in business apparently, according to the republicans, not to govern. we're in business to go to -- send people to washington to destroy the efficiency of government. and that's where we are today. >> so charlie, there's actually a connection of what we've been talking about earlier in the show with mark meadows and jenna ellis, which is that it appears these members of the the republican house caucus are rooting out anyone, see emmer, who was nominated and then quickly stepped away, because he dared not support those lawsuits challenging the election results. now he did sign on to one in texas, so he's not totally clean on this. but anybody and they're proudly talking behind the scenes to trump's people saying i stood up for you in the caucus room. we're getting rid of anybody who does not support you. donald trump hangs over this process entirely. >> that's absolutely right. the republicans are now in this doom loop of crazy and absurdity, deep dive into the back benches to come up with somebody who would be acceptable. acceptable in a party that's been enabling and empowering the legislative terrorists for years. this has been a long time coming. you're absolutely right. what you saw yesterday was donald trump facing all of the legal problems that he is facing, reasserted himself as the apex predator of the republican party. he doesn't have the clout to get somebody like jim jordan elected as speaker, but he certainly has the clout that he can destroy anyone who has taken a stand against him on the big lie. and so, what you are seeing is, in fact, the support for the big lie, support for overturning the 2020 election, has now become, you know, not just a litmus test, it hasecome a life or death requirement in the republican party because donald trump has made it clear that if you did not sign on to what he attempted to do on january 6th, that he will kneecap you. he will take you out. he's sitting in court. think about his day yesterday. he's sitting in court hearing testimony about how he -- all the fraud he engaged in. he hears that jenna ellis has flipped. the story of mark meadow, getting immunity and yet what does he do? he basically says, you know, i am still in charge of the republican party. i can extend this chaos. and i can set the standard for the future of this party. it's kind of a remarkable 24 hours. >> and he called yesterday congressman emmer a globalist rhino because he did not support the coup in the 2020 election. julie, you've been covering this somehow for the last three weeks trying to figure out who will be the choice. for the moment, congressman johnson of louisiana. who is next on the world's most boring reality show? >> well, we've had groundhog day never ending for the last 22 days, but today could be different. it's not because some of the hard right conservatives, these flame throwers are necessarily worried about the two global wars or impending government shutdown deadline around the corner. this could potentially work out for mike johnson, four-term louisiana congressman because these hard right conservatives are worried that moderate republicans will get fed up with this entire process and start working across the aisle with democrats to at least temporarily empower the speaker pro tem, patrick mchenry. this could be some of the last ditch effort to get somebody in the speaker's chair that they could potentially swallow. and mike johnson was one of the chief architects, as you know, of that 2020 election overturn effort in the capitol. it's why for so many reasons he has the support not only of former president trump but also he could potentially unite the wide swath of opinions in the conference. he's not necessarily a loud flame thrower like jim jordan was. he operates quietly and seeking this bid i'm told quietly this whole time for the past few weeks but he didn't officially enter until he saw the writing on the wall for emmer and some of the others. potentially at 12:00 p.m. today while we're skipping the ballots behind closed doors johnson feels confident he could go to the floor, current member of leadership, the last current member of the leadership that could get the gavel and get the 217 votes needed on the floor. it won't be easy for him. he has an uphill battle here. this could be the last effort, the last time that some of the hard right, including those who ousted kevin mccarthy from the speaker's chair could get their guy or somebody they could be okay with in the speaker's chair. johnson doesn't support ukraine aid. he has been skeptical in the past. he has to enter the room right away if he wins the gavel with mcconnell, jeffries, schumer to try to hammer out the next government deadline but he is somebody who could be the voice for some of these hard right conservatives. >> so, but charlie, if he doesn't support ukraine funding, he lost chairman mccall and a hell of a lot of other republicans. if he was at the forefront of the january 6th election denying scheme in the house of representatives, then he's certainly lost ken buck from colorado and a handful of other members. so they're not going to get there. at what point, at what point do republicans start looking -- again -- >> come on. >> what i have been saying everyday, is actually for the benefit of the republican house. oh, rhino this or left wing joe or whatever. i've been saying time and time again what would work for the republican party. at what point, charlie, do they look at the 15 or so republicans that won in biden districts and say, we better team up with democrats. get the speaker pro tem in, get our business done and stop making these 15 republicans who are going to determine in the majority or not, help these 15 republicans go back to their districts and tell their people that they're actually doing the people's business instead of just fighting each other because of five or six crazy radicals. >> well, it does feel, joe, lake you and i have been asking the question for the last zen years when are republicans going to come to their senses? and we have seen how that worked out. this is a party that is still about to nominate donald trump. to your question, maybe they will do it when they are absolutely exhausted. because what's happened now is that chaos has become a reflex. dysfunction is the new normal. whatever happens today, whether they burn through mike johnson, whether he gets to 217 -- i'm very skeptical of that, it's going to be dysfunction because this is the party. this is the caucus. this is the moment we are in. you're asking when are they going to put country ahead of these petty squabbles? who knows. they haven't done it so far. they have turned the house of representatives -- this is not game of thrones anymore, this is south park. they're apparently okay with this. so i don't know that there's an end in sight because, as you point out, you have maybe what seven, eight legislative terr wil never allow a normal, moderate speaker who will be able to keep government open and one hoax that you still have 20 normie republicans who will not vote for mike johnson or legislative -- who was one of the architects to overthrow the election. at this point, whatever happens will be a crazy response because this is the party and this is their culture. and again, it doesn't matter whether it gets to 217 or not. this continues. >> it does. charlie sykes, thank you very much. and nbc news capitol hill correspondent julie tsirken. thank you as well for your reporting this morning. amid rising tensions the middle east over the israel/hamas war, the pentagon says iranian proxies attacked american troops in iraq and syria 13 times in the past week. we'll have details on the dozens of u.s. service members left wounded. plus, "the washington post" david ignatius will join the conversation with his new piece on the complicated situation israel faces in its mission to destroy hamas. "morning joe" will be right back. roy hamas. 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personnel were wounded when at least two drones targeted the al-tanf military base in southern syria. on that same day, fouore american personnel were hurt during two separate drone attacks against u.s. and coalition forces stationed at al-asad base in western iraq. all the injuries were minor and all the service members have returned to duty. the pentagon says, since october 17th, u.s. and coalition forces have been targeted at least ten times in iraq and three times in syria. with a mix of drone and rocket attacks. the pentagon spokesman adding they believe the groups conducting the attacks are supported by iran. joe? >> let's bring in right now columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. we were coming up on the 40th anniversary of the 1983 beirut bombing which iranians killed over 240 american marines sleeping in their bar ricks in beirut. we have since 1979, dealt with this terrorist state and allowed them to kidnap, hold hostage and kill americans. is biden administration going to be forced to respond to this -- to these attacks on u.s. servicemen? >> joe, first, i've been watching and seeings close hand this war for all the 40 years i was in the american embassy in 1983 when it was bombed by what we now know is an iranian-backed group. and it continues to stay. the attacks described on u.s. forces in syria and iraq are part of a continuing effort by iran to drive the united states from the region. the u.s. very much wants to avoid a direct conflict with iran now. it feels that israel has its hands full with the hamas. does not want to see a wider war. there's some indications that the iranians would like to fight through proxies. they don't want direct conflict either. but these attacks will draw u.s. response. when you have 20 people injured at al-tan base between iraq and lebanon in the syrian desert, you'll have american reprisals, the same with the attack in iraq. these could easily have killed americans. if an american is killed, it was a contractor who died of a heart attack after a strike several days ago, if an american is killed directly, i think you'll see a significant u.s. response to establish some kind of deterrence with the iranians. what we should take away from this, joe, is that this war is slowly widening. there's now firing at israel across the syrian border, across the lebanese border from yemen and there's firing at israel's key ally of the united states. so, this war is getting hotter. the efforts the u.n. increasingly are critical of israel. so, the information war side of this is also worrying from israel's standpoint. >> right. so, david, i understand the united states doesn't want this war to widen. i would think iran would not be foolish enough to want this war to widen. perhaps i'm wrong. i will say -- i will say -- though, i want to get to your piece and i want to get to israel and gaza and the u.n. and what's going on there, but first i just have to ask a more general question, i no eyou remember this, and mike barnicle remembers this, maybe few others watching right now remember this, but the 1980s, it was bud mcfarland who took a reagan bible where reagan wrote a note to the iranian leaders. and brought a birthday cake shaped like a key that suggested an opening of relationship between the united states and iran. and throughout the iranian hostage crisis, we were constantly looking for iranian moderates. barack obama searched for eight years for iranian moderates. they're not there. they've never been there. do we keep pushing this off to the next president until this country has nuclear weapons and starts using them or threatening to use them? >> well, i don't think for the moment that what we should do is go to war with iran. but, you're right. every administration since 1979 has been trying to do basically the same thing, just to bend the arc of that iranian revolution towards something more moderate, more reasonable, something we can deal with. henry kissinger famously said that iran has to make the judgment that it's a nation with interests not a cause. and it still behaves like a cause. it does operate through these proxies. it doesn't like to go in directly. >> right. >> but the proxies themselves get better and better armed, more and more dangerous, hezbollah and lebanon has an arsenal. >> of course we can't go to war with iran. what do we do? one thing we can't do is just sit back and continue to allow our troops to be fired upon and injured. >> so, i think, joe, the coalition of arab countries that hate iran as much as we do is growing. saudi arabia is opening diplomatic contacts with iran, just to deescalate tension. but it's fundamentally opposed to iranian interest. the idea that saudi arabia could after this gaza war is over normalize relations with israel, that's a dagger in iran's heart. that's the last thing iran would like to see is essentially an end to arab/israeli confrontation, at least on the sunny side. so, that's one reason that israel should behave very carefully in this war so as not to blow up the possibility of this normalization that the u.s. has been helping to negotiate right up to the day on october 7 that hamas came across the fence. that's one way that iran's interest really would be threatened. >> so meanwhile, the united nations is calling for an immediate cease fire in the gaza strip saying there have been clear violations of international humanitarian law. the u.s. is siding with israel saying a cease fire would only benefit hamas. the white house instead supporting a humanitarian pause. at the u.n. yesterday, the international body secretary general denounced hamas. he also criticized israel. here is some of what he said followed by the response from israeli diplomats. >> it is important to also recognize the attacks by hamas did not happen in a vacuum. the palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. they have seen their land steadily devolved by settlements and plagued by violence. their economy stifled. their people displaced. and their homes demolished. their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing. but the palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by hamas and those appalling attacks cannot justify the punishment of the palestinian people. >> it is not only israel right to destroy hamas, it's our duty. for israel it's a matter of survival. the free world should remember and never forget what happened on october 7th today these barbaric hit israel. tomorrow it will be at everyone's doorstep, at everyone's doorstep. >> i think that the secretary general must resign because from now on, everyday that he's here in this building, unless he apologizes immediately today we called him to apologize. there's no justification to the existence of this building. this building was prevent -- was established to prevent atrocities. how can the secretary general with his words justify in any way the terrible atrocities that happened to our civilians, innocent civilians. >> david cig nay shous, there's been this instinct to say, yes, what happened was terrible with hamas. and then there's a comma and a but. we must put that into context which is exactly what we heard from the head of the u.n. yesterday, calling for a cease fire to which the israelis say, if we have a cease fire, how did this play out at the u.n. and really in a broader global conversation right now? >> well, willie, it's an example of just how short short people's memories are. it was a little more than two weeks ago that we were really reeling from the images of salve angry, hamas fighters going house to house, room to room killing israelis in just a barbaric way that was truly reminiscent of isis. somehow that's gone out of the consciousness of the people like gutierrez who are now focussing on collective punishment in his words of the palestinians. to me it's a reminder that israel in a just cause, which is this battle against hamas. to protect civilians as best it can. i think it's trying to. we had evidence that just came from the u.s. intelligence community that a criticism of israel that it supposedly bombed a hospital in gaza was false. it did not come from israel. israel is losing information battles and it's causing increasing trouble. this war is only going to get more difficult. the images are only going to get more violent. that's one of the things that worries me. israel has to convince the world again that this is a just cause, that's it behaving with proportionate force. in the the end this is a result of hamas which imprisons palestinians in this enclave, makes them in a sense instruments of a war that they didn't start. >> yeah. and by the way, it's been an occupation since 2005. and the occupiers have been hamas. the terrorists have been hamas since 2007 there hasn't been an election. they've run as autocratic terrorists. i do want to just -- for people who listened to the u.n. secretary general's words yesterday, i want to put this into perspective for you how an israeli may be feeling about it this morning. just please, please. open your mind. i know it may be hard for some of you who see posters being torn down of israeli hostages and thinking that that's somehow a great answer. that's how decolonization looks. i just want you to open your mind for a second. mike barnicle, i'm curious, how would americans have responded in late september of 2001 if the u.n. secretary general said, osama bin laden's attacks on september 11th did not happen in a vacuum. there was 60 years of american imperialism across the middle east. so it did not happen in a vacuum. or maybe if it were a u.n., if around christmas 1941 you had had as some world leaders saying, you know, the japanese attack on pearl harbor on december 7th of this year didn't happen in a vacuum. after all, the united states continued to expand across the pacific. and was cutting off trade routes and squeezing their oil supply. i wonder how americans would respond. and i wonder if that would stop us from attacking japan. i wonder if that would stop us from doing what we had to do to prevent that war -- from doing what we had to do to defeat adolph hitler. i don't think it would. let me just tell you the horrors of world war ii, the horrors that were visited upon citizens of japan and germany and other countries, allies and ax is powers. horrific and absolutely mind blowing. i don't see that here. i see the israelis doing their best. i see a lot of human suffering. i see a lot of pain. i see a lot of horror. but as i said from the beginning, when an israeli soldier dies, or an israeli civilian is raped or an israeli baby is shot, hamas considers that a victory. they said it. when a palestinian is killed in gaza, when a hospital is blown up in gaza, even by other palestinian terrorists hamas also sees that as a victory. and yet the u.n. secretary general really painted this with a moral equivalence that we certainly wouldn't take in the united states. i'm curious why people in the united states and across europe and across the world think the israelis should sit back, say, oh okay, yeah. a cease fire. okay, yeah. let's let the people who raped our women, who shot our babies, who beheaded our infants, our toddlers, who massacred parents while their children watched, who massacred children while their parents watched. we should just sit back and see what happens. would americans put up with that? >> joe, this is an old story. an old story, an ugly story that's been going on for decades. when it comes to israel and hamas, hamas is in business for one thing, not to kater to the palestinians who they're supposed to govern in gaza. it's to kill jews. that's what hamas exists for. and israel within 72 hours again, history's predictable story, within 72 hours of this incredible attack, this incredible terrorist attack on israeli jews in israel, israel became attacked globally through news media stories. the only country that exists today that gets attacked for defending itself is israel. and david ignatius, i would like to ask you with regard to the middle east itself, back to iran, the principal proponent of violence the middle east, what happens when inevitably, sadly, the first american is killed in action through iranian missile shots or whatever in iraq or syria, what happens when the phone rings in riyadh and the united arab emirates and the president of the united states is on the other end of the line and he says, boys, we have had enough. we're going to saddle up here. what happens then? >> well, mike, when you say saddle up, i don't know whether we have the whole wagon train here or more proportional response. >> proportional. >> i guess the latter. we will strike back if americans are killed. i have no doubt about that. we'll send that message. our ships have already been in action. in a sense we already entered this war shooting down at least two missiles that were bound from yemen toward israel. those were shot down by an american ship. so we're moving toward being involved in this. this could be a big catastrophic war that would leave everybody worse off than before. so being careful, being cautious is appropriate. you want to ratchet up your responses carefully. i think for israel, as i talked to israeli officials in israel, the reason they're moving slowly, that this ground invasion hasn't started yet is they want to be careful. they want to the extent possible to focus on hamas and not be targeting palestinian civilians. one israeli told me we would like every bullet we fire to have an address. so, that precision is crucial. but the basic question that you and joe are raising, what do we do about iran in the long run i think continues to be the vexing question at the bottom of all this. it's iran is the backbone of this terror network. israelis often say you have to cut off the head of the snake. i think we need to think more carefully about what that would look like in reality in a way that wouldn't lead to a war that would be devastating for everybody. >> and if you look at the front page, david ignatius, thank you so much. if you look at the front page of the "wall street journal," blinken warns iran as militia's backed by teheran stage attacks on u.s. forces. i'll just read the lead here, u.s. secretary of state antony blinken warned washington would react swiftly and decisively, his words, if iran or its proxy forces attack u.s. personnel and that's exactly what they are reporting this morning, mika. so, i would expect a proportional response. >> it makes sense. and your comments were really strong on a very, very difficult issue. it is six minutes past the top of the hour. our other top story this morning is donald trump's final white house chief of staff, mark meadows, reportedly has been granted immunity in the federal election interference case against the former president. sources familiar with the matter tell abc news that meadows has met with special counsel jack smith's team at least tee times this year, including once before a federal grand jury. in those conversations, meadows reportedly shared that in the weeks following the 2020 election he told then president trump multiple times that allegations of significant voter fraud were baseless. he also reportedly admitted to investigators that trump was being, quote, dishonest when he falsely claimed that he won the election in a speech just hours after the polls closed. despite allegedly saying those things behind closed doors, meadows has reportedly claimed in public that the election was stolen including in a 2021 memoir. but abc news reports that when speaking with investigators, the former chief of staff conceded that even he doesn't believe some of the statements in his own book. though meadows reportedly granted immunity in the d.c. case, he still faces racketeering charges in the georgia election interference probe where he has pleaded not guilty. nbc news has not confirmed abc's reporting. so far they are sticking with their story. in a stent to nbc, meadow's attorney writes, quote, i told abc that their story was largely inaccurate. people will have to judge for themselves the decision to run it any way. >> let's bring in the former director of the department of homeland security, cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, chris krebs, now a partner in the cybersecurity firm krebs, stamos group. chris, good to see you this morning. i want to remind people that your organization after the election said that this was the november 3rd election was the most secure in american history, a subgroup of your organization. then when you were fired for saying that, you said, honored to serve. we did it right. defend today, secure tomorrow. what is your reaction to this news from abc that we're still working to confirm here at nbc that mark meadows may have been granted immunity and now is going to tell everything he knew? >> there's been a bit of a flood of good news on the 2020 election deal. number of defendants pleading guilty to various claims and the prosecution going on down there that was just mentioned. it's frankly things that we all knew. it's things that those of us knew in 2020. it's things that the thousands of election workers across the country knew when they put their blood, sweat and tears to ensuring the american people could vote in the middle of a global pandemic, vote safely and secure, these are all things we knew. at a minimum it's heartening to see that these folks that lied and pushed these false claims around the 2020 election are finally being held to account. it's going to be critically important going into the 2024 election that we do have a series of guardrails in place that ideally, hopefully, it will not happen again. >> so chris, i know you stressed the importance of the integrity of the election, but let's weigh in on a little personal level. you were fired on the basis of a lie. you were fired because donald trump and his top advisers including mark meadows disputed your accounting of what happened with the election. now we're learning that meadows himself privately agreed with you. >> you know, i kind of think of some claims we heard a little while ago from the former president maybe we're getting tired of winning. isle not getting tired of winning. we need to continue exposing those that sought to undermine the public's confidence in our public institutions, in our very elections. if we do not have confidence in our elections, then to a certain extent what's the point? >> so, what is the state of election integrity? obviously it's been a rocky ride since 2020. what should we fear going into 2024? >> well, we have to continue making the appropriate investments in election systems around the country. that's ensuring that virtually every vote that's cast has a paper ballot associated with it so you can go back and recount and audit the election in the run-up to the certification. that's what happened to georgia in 2020. they switched to systems that had paper ballot for every count and counted and recounted three times so we could have confidence in the outcome down in georgia. beyond that, we have to keep our eye over the horizon. in my conversations with national security officials right now, they're graefly concerned about the deterioration of the information environment particularly as you think about some of our adversaries, the bad actors between russia, china and iran, that have access to ai tools. and so the quality of information we're going to see over the next year plus is going to significantly degrade and be very hard for the average person to really be able to determine and discern what's real and what's not. so if you think it's bad now, it's probably going to get worse. >> oh, boy. all right. chris krebs, thank you very much for joining us this morning. it is 12 minutes past the hour. joining us at the table we have molly john fast joins us. and jim messina, white house deputy chief of staff to president obama and ran his 2012 re-election campaign. so the house is scheduled to reconvene at noon eastern. are we supposed to take this seriously? someone help me out here. with republican congressman mike johnson intending to seek a full floor vote after last night becoming his party's latest nominee for house speaker. the louisiana lawmaker was nominated just hours after majority whip tom emmer of minnesota dropped out. emmer had defeated johnson and several other candidates earlier in the day but withdrew from the race when it became clear he didn't have enough support to win a floor vote. on social media yesterday, former president trump worked hard to torpedo emmer's bid. molly, your latest piece for vanity fair is entitled, it's not like republicans were doing the people's business any way. and in it you write in part, republicans took control of the house, they've barely governed at all. if anything, they spent more time trying to gum up the works, fighting with the biden nistration, harassing federal employees and being what they are, obstructionists. dn doing the people's business, the house gop has prioritized the interests a smal right-wing minority in america. it was clear as soon as the republicans won the majority last novber that the far right would be emboldened. we're nearing another government shutdown next month as republicans nearly drove the country to one last month. these people don't want the government to work. they want the government to not work. so they can say they told us so. they don't want to really provide oversight or accountability. and they want to shrink the deral government down so they can drown it in a bathtub. perhaps we're all better off with them fighting amongst themselves. are we, though? >> well, we want them to pass the cr and we want them to pass an aid package, but i do think it's good for the american people to see that this dysfunction is real. right? this is not a democratic view of republicans. this is what they're doing. >> right. >> i think it's interesting that the trump wing cannot really -- they don't have the votes to install a speaker, but they do have the votes to ruin a speaker's chances. so we do see, right, jim jordan was not speaker. he did not have the votes. but again, we saw trump destroy tom emmer's chances yesterday. so, i do think it will be interesting. i think this candidate may be their sort of last best shot. and so they may decide to do that. but again, he's very new. he's only been in congress since 2016. and he has to raise money and be a peer of people like chuck schumer. >> okay. >> again, i just don't know he gets the votes. he's an election denier. ken buck and others said they aren't going to vote for him. he's against pushing back and fighting vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine. so, mike mccall and other leaders would be against that. it doesn't take a whole lot to stop him from being speaker. and at some point, republicans are going to get wise, at least the republicans that want to win re-election in biden districts. they'll figure out how to have a coalition with democrats or else they're going to lose. they're going to lose the house. i do want to ask you this, though, and i'm so glad you're here, jim messina. you can make us feel all better. it's usually my job to tell everybody it will be okay. i need re-enforcements right now. i'm getting shaky. i need re-enforcements. when you see something like this happen, which really encapsulates just how incompetent and chaotic and radical the republican party of donald trump is, you would think that the ballot, generic ballot, would show a wide gap between the two parties. it doesn't. it's basically the latest i've seen show about 50/50. donald trump selling nuclear secrets and wants to destroy the constitution and all the things donald trump wants to do, you would expect that guy's approval ratings to be in the low 20s. they're not. they're hanging around where joe biden's are. why should we not all be very concerned that americans just don't care how dysfunctional and radical trump's republican party is. >> well, joe, you and i love rock n roll and there's a great song saying everything's going to be all right. i think it is going to be all right next year. elections are about choices. i think molly has it exactly right. right now american voters are looking at this choice for the first time and being very clear, you have joe biden being the president that the country needs, his address to the country last week was as good as i've seen him, laying out a very clear case of what we're doing and why we're doing it and the at the same time the gop melting down in front of voters. voters are reassessing what their views are of this entire process. look, swing voters, you and i talked about this a bunch. they think about politics four minutes. they get these signals. right now this -- we had three weeks of a signal that republicans just can't govern. for the first time starting to affect them. and let's say johnson wins this election after he'll be the fourth time. what does he get to do? in 23 days he gets to deal with joe biden and chuck schumer to keep the government open. in that moment? can they elect a speaker? can they keep government open. very doubtful. this guy has only been there five seconds is suddenly speaker because he doesn't offend anyone and he is supposed to cut a deal that no one else can cut. the gop dysfunction will continue to play into joe biden's hands as voters start to think about this choice. >> what a stark con strast we have seen since this terrorist attack in israel where you had joe biden getting praise from republicans, getting praise from fox news analysts about the way he handled this unequivocal america support for israel and donald trump completely erratic blaming bibi netanyahu. praising hezbollah. does that stuff a matter from a year ago? >> i think it matters that it shows that trump is starting to lose it. why voters picked joe biden over donald trump. they want a normal president to do normal things. it just begins to feed on itself. trump is playing right into that narrative at exactly the right time. again, the numbers aren't going to move. you're not going to see huge numbers fall for either party, but voters are starting to get the signals that are really important as they make this choice. >> it's hard to imagine the race not being really, really close one way or another. molly, to trump's point about reminding us that he's not a normal president, those around him are, too. just this week we have guilty pleas from members of his legal team in georgia and now this news of a reported immunity deal struck by white house chief of staff mark meadows, which if true, would certainly jeopardize trump's legal freedom next year. >> it's important to read that trump is distracted. jim jordan was not able to become speaker because trump is either not as powerful as he once was, which is possible, or he's so distracted by his many, many legal trials and tribulations. he is in a courthouse couple days a week. >> he's choosing to be in the new york courthouse, though, because i think it could cost him a lot of money that he doesn't have. >> right. he's 77 years old and running for president and in court all the time. i think he's somewhat distracted. >> not just a tad. >> that's an understatement. willie, as we're talking about donald trump and his people seeming erratic and him seeming erratic, i mean, you look at what this guy said the other night telling his voters, his supporters, they didn't have to vote in this next election, you see hm attacking israel and praising hezbollah and, of course, you see him constantly confusing joe biden for barack obama, thinking he's running against barack obama. by the way, side note here, chuck rosenberg had trouble remembering jonathan lemire's name earlier this morning, started to call him willie. then he started to call him obama. i think that's what we all need to do if we forget -- you know how phil griffin would walk around the building and when he didn't know anybody go, hey, buddy. hey, buddy. >> if we're still buddies to phil. >> hey, obama. that's what donald trump does. it's his default. he goes right back it to. i thought chuck was going to do that for a second, too. >> finger guns and obama to everybody. that's what we want to do when you see people you don't know. it is -- jim, it's worthy of mockery, but donald trump when you watch him, he told his voters not to vote in the next election. don't worry about voting. we have to make sure we count the votes correctly. but on the other hand, that's baked into his supporters. it leaves those people somehow made up their minds about donald trump at this point. at the end of the day, if they get in the ballot box, they just say, i can't go back to that. i can't do this again. >> that's exactly right. and for his party, to molly's point, what are you running on if you're a republican member as new majority in the house. you've done nothing. maybe donald trump who again only cares about himself, starting to look if you're a republican congressman saying this guy does not have my interest at heart. they're feeding on themselves. they're fighting all over the place. trump is distracted. and it is a huge problem for the republican party as they get ready for next year. they're fighting with themselves. they're distracted and have a suddenly strong biden who is pulling the country together the middle of two wars. >> molly and jim, thank you very much for being on this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe," state department spokesman matt miller will be our guest. we'll talk to him about the efforts to free american hostages in gaza. and the delayed ground invasion by israeli forces so far. also ahead, we'll be joined by minnesota governor tim walz, his state supreme court is hearing a case that could keep donald trump off the 2024 ballot. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. we'll be right back. we had that all set to go. then we had a little election that went astray. so we have to be careful. you have to get out there and you have to watch those voters. you don't have to vote. don't worry about voting. the voting. we have plenty of votes. you have to watch election night. used to be election day, election night. now it's election month. now it's election period. some of these things go on for 53 days. it's terrible. on for 53 days. it's terrible. i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up, i've got symptom relief. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer 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in the end, everyone is concerned it just gets wider. >> so i will say that in our conversations with the government of israel, we continue to emphasize it's important they have clear, definable goals in launching this military operation, they have a plan to meet those goals and that their plans take into account the need to protect civilian lives for the to the maximum extent possible. we're cognizant of the fact that they're operating in an area where hamas continues to use civilians as human shields. we do think it's important that they try to protect civilians. we made that clear to them. with respect to humanitarian pause, we don't think a cease fire would be appropriate. the secretary spoken to this on a number of occasions. it would just give hamas the ability to rest and refit. they launched more rockets against civilian targets in israel just yesterday. one of the things that should be considered is humanitarian pauses to allow the delivery of relief into gaza. in effect, that's happening to some extent already. you obviously have seen convoys moving into the rafah crossing. israel is allowing them to come through. we think it's important that there be sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance into gaza for innocent civilians who are also the victims of hamas's activities. >> so, in the conversations about making sure israel has a strategic goal, what's on the table? what is being envisioned to be put in place of a destroyed hamas? >> so, that's one of the things that we begin to talk with about our partners in the region. we have made clear a number of things. number one, it's important that hamas not be allowed to continue to operate and administer ga sand use it a as a safe haven. we have made very clear that israel should not occupy gaza and the israelis have said they don't want to occupy gaza. they don't want to administer gaza at the end of this conflict. one of the things the secretary did start initial conversations with partners in the region when we were there last week and those conversations have continued is what comes next. and those are conversations that we will have with allies and partners in the region as the days and weeks -- in the days and weeks ahead. >> matt, good morning. one of the partners negotiating with to try to get the release of some of these hostages is qatar. they of course are harboring the heads, the leadership of hamas who live lavishly in that country. what are those negotiations like? have you suggested they give up those hamas leaders? >> so, when we were in qatar as part of this trip that the secretary undertook, he made very clear that there can be no more business as usual with hamas. a number of countries that had relationships with hamas. at the end of this he was very clear that all of those need to be reassessed and can't continue to behave as we did before october 7th. no country can continue to behave that way. at the same time, qatar played a very valuable role in being able to send messages to hamas since the outset of this conflict, since the terrorist attacks. and we have that work by qatar bear fruit in the release of two american citizens held hostage and two israeli citizens starting on friday and continuing over the weekend. qatar continues to play an important role in sending those messages to hamas, talking directly to has. it's been useful they had that channel and will continue to encourage them to use any influence they have with hamas to get these over 200 hostages released as soon as possible. >> matt, the relief convoys, one way in. one way out. and it's been a stop and start from the beginning. what are the obstacles here? why is this such a stop and start effort? >> it is an extraordinarily complicated situation. you have at the rafah terminal, it's like a lot of border crossings where you have an egyptian side that is ministered by the government of egypt and gaza side governed by hamas the governing authority for the last number of years and no man's land in between. we have been able to get the gates open with the agreement of the government of israel to allow these trucks in. what we continue to work on and have not been able to achieve yet is to get the infrastructure opened on the gaza side to allow american citizens and other foreign nationals to come out. we have seen a number of different things. on some days hamas, which i said, administered those gates, administers that area before october 7th was processing people that would show up to go through the crossing. at some times hamas hasn't been there and the gates have been shut and nowhere for civilians to go and processed and exit into the no man's land and eventually to egyptian side. militants there, actively preventing people from accessing the crossing. so you can imagine the difficult puzzle that we're trying to unlock here when you're dealing with the government of egypt that has real concerns about a massive outflow and crisis and surge of people. and when you have hamas on one side with which we don't have direct communications, we have an ambassador on the ground, special envoy david satterfield who the president appointed to handle humanitarian issues the middle east who has been in active conversations with all the relevant parties. on the one hand, to your point, mike, we can see sustained delivery of humanitarian assistance going in and on the other hand, united states citizens and other foreign nationals coming out. >> all right. state department spokesman matt miller, thank you very much for being on this morning. lack of fuel could bring the humanitarian aid effort in gaza to a halt. the very small amount of aid that made it into the gaza strip this weekend did not include fuel. and yesterday a spokesperson for the israeli dense forces said no fuel will be allowed into gaza after reports that hamas has set a condition for the release of 5 dual nationals being held hostage on israel allowing fuel into the strip. that's according to a report by the times of israel. now, relief agencies in gaza are saying they have no choice but to end their aid efforts tonight if they don't get the fuel they need to operate. yesterday national security counsel spokesman john kirby detailed how complicated it is coordinating a humanitarian effort in a war zone. >> if it was easy, my goodness, there would be hundreds of trucks flowing in everyday. it's a combat zone, peter. it's a war zone. that greatly complicates the ability to move safely and to the right rerecipients, the customers that kind of humanitarian aid. so there's lots of players involved here. hamas is a player, israel is a player, egypt is a player and the u.n. is. we haven't seen any trucks go in today. we'll see what the hours to come bring. the executive director of the world food program, cindy mccain, who just returned from a trip to the united arab emirates jordan and egypt. tell us, if you can -- welcome back to the show. it's good to see you. >> thank you. >> what the world food program has been able to do? what are the challenges it's facing given this dynamic of the inability right now to supply fuel. >> well, first of all, thank you for having me. we ran into the same problems and issues that many other agencies have and that is very complicated on the ground. one request that we've had all along is to be able to make sure we could have complete, unfettered access that was also safe. that has not occurred so far. the few trucks that did get in, there was some food on board those trucks, the initial trucks that went in. but that was on enough for a night. it was a very little bit. the more we wait, the mores do pratt the situation gets and right now it is catastrophic as to what's going on. so, we keep asking our egyptian officials, our officials in israel, everybody, please let us get our food in, in quickly and in a safe manner so we can keep from starvation and disease spreading. >> sidney, good to see you this morning. there's also of course a lack of usable water there and no electricity. and at least to this point, fuel has been stopped from being allowed to come into the area. talk to us a little bit about how dire that situation, how that complicates things further. >> well, the fuel is very important in our case we have bakeries on the ground that are inside gaza because we have been operating there for quite a while. and we can't operate the bakeries now because there's no fuel. and with that, as you know, they can't desal nate water. there's all kinds of problems that have erupted as a result of this. we need the access, humanitarian access, is extremely important. i know it's complicated. i'm not the politician nor am i the negotiator here. i'm just pleading for people who cannot feed themselves. and we need to get in there. >> mrs. mccain, people who cannot feed themselves, there are literally hundreds of millions of people who can't feed themselves. there are a couple of different wars going on, one that we're focussing on right now this morning the middle east but there's also ukraine and it's not exactly on the back burner. ukraine is in the pivotal position geographically to ship out grain which they're having difficulty. how does the world -- how do you cope with these issues? they're enormous. they're global. and they're underrated i think. >> well, i appreciate you bringing that up. world food program is, as you know, is a very large organization. this is what we do. but we can't do it in the case of ukraine, the sahel, sudan, south sudan and more -- plenty more out there as well. we can't do it without money. quite frankly funding is running low. and we want to be able to not only keep feeding but make sure the folks with places that we can get grain out, we're able to do just that. the world is on fire. and the only thing i can say as a humanitarian organization leader is that we need help. we need the world to pay attention and to demand that humanitarian access be given in every area but for right now in gaza. >> cindy, good morning. great to have you back on the show. one of the many benefits is that you have friends in very high places in washington. what kind of pressure are you applying there? what kind of phone calls are you making? and what response are you getting what role should america play in all of this? >> well, arrived in washington yesterday evening and will be up on the hill today and tomorrow for just that reason. i want to encourage our folks particularly maybe the nay sayers or skeptical that this food that we're going to distribute, hopefully soon and in a safe manner, will be given to the correct people. that who you think the food is going to go to will go to. we have checks and balances in place. we have the ability to do this. but again, this is a war zone. and it is very difficult to say 100% the food will go to the right places. but in the meantime, you have the choice. do we not feed those who are starving or should we do it for national security? there's two choices here in my mind. i would like to say that i hope we would feed them because they're starving. >> executive director of the world food program, cindy mccain, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> thanks for what you're doing. we appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, legal battles in a number of states to keep donald trump off the 2024 ballot. among them in minnesota. we'll ask the state's governor tim walz about that, and much more. "morning joe" will be right back. h more "morning joe" will be right back why didn't we do this last year? before you were preventing migraine with qulipta®? and look at me now. you'll never truly forget migraine, but zero-migraine days are possible. don't take if allergic to qulipta®. most common side effects are nausea, constipation, and sleepiness. qulipta®. the forget-you-get migraine medicine™. ♪♪ y. welcome back to "morning joe." beautiful sunrise over washington. live look at the white house. former president trump's actions on january 6th may not keep him from dominating republican primary polling, but it may cost him a place on the ballot in several states across the country. what would that mean? multiple lawsuits cited section 3 of the 14th amendment, claiming it disqualifies trump from being added to the ballot. section 3, the insurrection clause, was drafted after the civil war. and states that anyone who has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution and then attempts an insurrection is barred from ever holding office again. the case in minnesota will be the first to test this theory. state law allows petitioners to directly reach out to the supreme court to disqualify a candidate. the case is scheduled to begin next week. joining us now, democratic governor of minnesota, tim walz. thank you very much, governor, for being on this morning. do you think this case has the chance of being successful? >> well, good morning, mika. first and foremost in minnesota we believe very strongly no one is above the law. and i think folks should know one of the petitioners who brought this forward is an election expert not just in minnesota across the country. yeah, this is a serious case. it will be heard. but i want folks to know, too, the other way we hold donald trump accountable be at the ballot box. we are preparing to do that, too. this needs to go forward. if you ignore the law and something americans get caught up in their daily lives. the case in georgia is trying to overthrow a democratically elected government. this is stuff you thought you heard about elsewhere in the world but it's right here. yeah, this is serious. and it should go forward. >> what do you think should be revealed in court and to minnesotans through this case? and also do you know of any other states doing the same w. yeah. i know colorado is. i know there's others out there. it's on the judicial side of things, so our administration doesn't have a lot to do with it. but i think the point on this is again, what you're seeing coming out of these plea deals in georgia and with former chief of staff mark meadows looking for immunity, this is serious. this is serious because it happened. the president stood on the mall down there, told folks to go up and disrupt the counting of electors, false electors and some of those. it needs to be heard. the one thing is keeping our focus in minnesota is we need to be prepared to let folks legally cast their ballot. i think there are numerous reasons that donald trump is disqualified from being the president. this will simply, i think, test the legal case on the 14th amendment. >> so governor, on that question about the 14th amendment, do you worry about the balance of, okay, maybe this is legally accurate, legally correct and he could win a conviction or keep him off the ballot, versus keeping donald trump off of the ballot in minnesota, in other words, giving him and his supporters to fuel, look what they're doing. they won't let people vote on me. >> yes, i do. i think that's exactly been my point on this. this will not matter what happens in court. he will lose in minnesota as he should because his policies are bad. i do worry about that. it comes up against that idea, is that a reason to ignore the law. is it a reason to let this slide, if you will. in the long run, i think there's a danger of that. well, if he would have been on the ballot, he would have won. that's not true. he will not. i don't think you can ignore the law. i don't think this is -- thinking this is no big deal. this was insurrection against a united states government. that's what they're proving in georgia and people around the former president are admitting it. they're pleading guilty. they don't plead guilty if you didn't do it. i do worry. i think it's a very valid point. but i think you still need to go forward with this. we'll be ready on election day. >> governor, with all due respect to the people who are bringing this ballot question to court, you're a governor. so you see people on an ordinary, daily basis. you're not like the president, isolated. you see people. so what do you think most minnesotans, who you represent, think is more important, the vikings against the packers this sunday, this ballot question that we're talking about this morning, the price of gas and groceries? what's on their minds? >> you know, actually this is a really good point. i said people are people are going to daycare today, and i was at the game when we defeated the 49ers, and i am a former member in the house, and 91 indictments, all the things that are happening, and there's a danger this becomes background noise. joe biden is delivering on the things that make a difference. all of this is circus. what matters to them, we are moving towards a clean energy economy, and expanding access meals to children in school, and this is why this question is really good. this case needs to go forward and needs to be heard because the law matters. let's not be distracted. it's a very good point. people don't want to be absorbant, and we need to bring insanity back to this. joe biden weeks up in the morning and gets the job done. that's what they are thinking about. >> keep us post on all this. thank you for coming on the show this morning. >> thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," we will speak with the maryland governor, wes moore, about the program that builds bridges between the black and jewish communities. and stamos will be in the house, and we will find out what he's revealing in his new memoir about his time in hollywood. you are watching "morning joe." ? 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(♪♪) you were talking before about trump knowing that he had lost and there was that rose garden moment after the supreme court decision. he said to you, i don't want people to know i lost, right? >> he said that to mark meadows. i was standing catty-corner to mark meadows. the president was going back to the residence from the oval office, so i was with mark steps behind mark and this is a conversation between the president and mark meadows. >> that was part of our interview with former white house aide, cassidy hutchison. almost a month ago. now her former boss, mark meadows, may have flipped on the former president. and now another member of the strike force legal team takes a plea deal in the georgia interference election case. we have more on the cases tied to donald trump. we will go through the ongoing republican-led chaos on capitol hill. still no speaker. mike johnson of louisiana is now the party's fourth nominee for speaker. we will tell you more about him and look at his chances of actually winning the gavel. we will have the latest out of the middle east where israel continues to attack. good morning. mark meadows has been granted immunity in the federal election interference case against the former president. sources familiar with the matter tell nbc news meadows met with jack smith's council, and in the weeks following the 2020 election he told then president trump multiple times that assertions of voter fraud were baseless, and despite allegedly saying those things behind closed doors, meadows repeatedly claimed in public the election was stolen. when speaking with investigators the former chief of staff conceded that even he doesn't believe some of the statements in his own book. meadows reportedly was granted immunity in the federal case and still faces racketeering charges in the georgia interference probe. the statement to nbc, meadows attorney rights, quote, i told abc their story was largely inaccurate. people will have to judge for themselves the decision to run it anyway. let's bring in our guests. good morning to you all. timothy, i guess we should start with you as you are the lead investigator for january 6th and the committee that completed its work last year. how significant is this development potentially reported by abc news, mark meadows with immunity? >> it's very significant. he's probably the person closest to president trump throughout the post election day period and all day on january 6th, and he's there for all the discussions about the election, and all the prongs of the multi-point plan, and he is at the ellipse and then in the dining room as the violence is unfolding at the capitol. he is now providing a detailed account of all of the interactions with th president, it could be tremendously significant, for jack smith and fani willis. >> jonathan, lemire, again, you wrote a book, and we are assuming abc reporters have this right, they have not retracted it at this point. they have multiple sources on this. donald trump has known for sometime -- you have reported for sometime they have been concerned about mark meadows, who went quiet, and whose attorney has continued to say bland generic things to reporters, but in this case if abc has this story right, just how devastating is it to donald trump and his claims of fraudulent election? >> extraordinarily so. let's just take a second to reiterate just how close meadows was from trump. when trump contracted covid, mark meadows was loyal and was with him in the hospital. meadows remained there the entire time. we know he was in the oval office repeatedly on january 6th trying to get trump's attention, and trump holed up in the private dining room off of the oval watching the highlights, if you will, on television, and meadows trying to get him to stop listening to ivanka trump and others, and he was there throughout the process of trying to overturn the 2020 results. he was privy to a lot of memos being circulated. people i spoke to last night, they, of course, pointed out the lawyer said it was not quite right. we'll see. there's one thing, and it's one thing if jenna ellis or sidney powell are flipping, and that's something they could get through, and meadows would be somebody who could have extraordinarily damaging testimony against donald trump. >> the headline, they are all turning on trump. ken dilanian, we have the jenna ellis story out of georgia that we will get to in a bit. i am curious, what you believe the impact of mark meadows turning on donald trump would be, and also your reaction to mark meadows, and we have all seen people put statements out like that when one or two words were not right and tried to dismiss the whole story, but what is your take on all of it? >> we have done reporting behind the scenes on this, and the informed speculation about the denial or the question is is there some issue around the immunity question, was there some imprecision in the immunity, and there could be some inaccuracies there, but the gist of what mark meadows is telling investigators, and think about the impact to a jury of having one of donald trump's aides testify he has seen nothing that would suggest there are fraud claims that could overturn the election and yet donald trump was pursuing them anyway. prosecutors don't need to show that donald trump believed he lost the election in order to prove these criminal climbs against mr. trump, but it should would be helpful for a jury to establish that. juries are humans, after all. it paints the picture of fraud. and people independent of donald trump are not going to go down for him and face millions of dollars in legal bills and potential years in prison to protect donald trump. maybe those who are in lower-level jobs have a blind kind of loyalty. we have seen that. not these major washington figures or minor figures, like a jenna ellis. this is crumbling around donald trump. >> let me ask you about the difference between a plea deal and immunity deal? why you might think that is significant. and would it seem logical that mark meadows is cooperating in the many other cases as well? >> well, tim hathy eluded to that at the beginning of the show. if meadows is cooperating on the january 6th case, likely he would cooperate in the georgia state case, and would have a lot of important and interesting and compelling information about the classified documents case being prosecuted federally in the southern district of florida. typically, not always, but typically if somebody is coop rating on one case, they are cooperating across the board. federal prosecutors, and tim and i both served as federal prosecutors, would require full, complete and candid cooperation. we don't tend to cut cooperation deals in which the defendant or the bad guy or mr. meadows, perhaps, in this case gets to pick and choose on what issues he cooperates. let me talk about your first question. so the difference between a plea deal in which somebody acknowledges their guilt, like jenna ellis did, and an immunity deal, as mr. meadows may have, if the abc report something accurate, is the second thing, an immunity deal occurs when a defendant has important information for prosecutors that they need to prove their underlying case, they need a vector into the criminal conspiracy, and sometimes the vest vectors into the conspiracy are other criminals, so mark meadows would not having to answer truthfully if it incriminates him. if prosecutors want to force him to, compel him to divulge that information against his fifth amendment privilege, another way to do that is to say, mr. meadows, you must tell the truth because we are promising to not prosecute you if you tell us the truth. once they have given that immunity, he is compelled to answer truthfully, and if he doesn't he can go to jail for a whole wrath of problems. prosecutors can use that as a tool to work up the chain. >> jenna ellis is now the third trump associated lawyer and fourth codefendant overall to taking a plea deal in the georgia election interference case. she was former president trump's senior legal adviser from 2019 through the end of his term in january of 2020. his senior legal adviser, and yesterday pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. >> in attempting to erase challenges to several cases, i failed to do my due diligence. i believe in election integrity. i look back on this whole experience with deep remorse. i have taken responsibility already before the colorado bar who censured me and i now take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of georgia. >> her deal requires that she serve five years of probation and testify at the trials of the other codefendants, and will need to provide documents and evidence to the attorney general's team. ken dilanian, how important is what she has to offer? her excuses seemed rather thin. >> it's not clear exactly what she brings to the table in terms of a witness, mika, but you see the pattern developing in the georgia case, and a lot of defendants are saying, what am i doing here? why do i need to risk time in prison especially when there's a deal on the table requiring no prison time. interesting, though, the prosecutor is requiring each of the defendants to pen a letter of apology to the people of georgia, which is a stroke of genius by the prosecutor. we could see it coming a few weeks ago when jenna ellis was asking trump to cover her legal bills and made it clear she doesn't have the money to pay for the legal defense. a trial like this can cost as much as $7,000 a day for some of these folks, and they don't have the money to do that. and fani willis, the d.a. is cleverly offering the deals for many to maintain their law licenses if they comply with the terms of the deal, and they can become witnesses against donald trump. this case appears to be firming up around donald trump. >> tim, let's go back to your experience and expertise and investigation with the january 6th committee here. jenna ellis could one to rudy giuliani, and they were traveling together and they were trying to get the legislators to flip their states. >> perhaps beyond, willie, is the key. absolutely giuliani. she's part of the team. she's not just a foot soldier, she was put forth as the leader of the team. she goes repeated on television to spout these claims that she now admits were false, and she goes to state legislators, and she offers a one-page memo about the president's authority and did not get as much attention as eastman's, but she's not just following directions. she's there shoulder to shoulder with giuliani in terms of the strategy. she was in direct communication with the client, the client being trump. she makes it very difficult for trump to rely on this potential defense that he is simply relying on counsel, and if the counsel is baseless, it undercuts a significant defense for the former president. >> jenna ellis is not just part of the team, but she was part of the elite strike team, chuck rosenberg, and she stood there with sidney powell and rudy giuliani and now those two are taking deals. the georgia case, there's more than two dozen defendants there. we have had four take a deal, and three of whom were attorneys. who else can you see as the dominoes that could fall next? how worried should trump be about this? >> well, people overwhelmingly, jonathan, act in their self interest. you see that over and over again in life. let's talk about, you know, in the criminal environment. people overwhelmingly act in their self interest. so after you have been indicted and charged by a grand jury, your options narrow. you can go to trial and face the risk of being convicted and go to jail, or you can take a guilty plea. right now the district attorney in fulton county is offering no-jail plea agreements. between those two options, it's pretty clear what the better one is, not going to jail. what, what should we expect to see? other dominoes falling. people will have to weigh the risk of going to trial and being incarcerated against the risk of taking a plea deal, cooperating and testifying and avoiding jail. given those options. you don't really have all that many other options. so far what you are seeing from sidney powell and jenna ellis and others is taking the no-jail plea route. should mr. trump be worried? obviously. ellis might be able to give you giuliani, and giuliani could give you others, although he would be the worst witness ever in the history of the planet, but there will be other dominoes to fall as people try to narrow their own exposure. coming up, a report from israel as the ground invasion of gaza has not started, but the bombing is intense. we will get the latest straight ahead on "morning joe." safelite came right to us, and we could see exactly when they'd arrive with a replacement we could trust. that's service the way we want it. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ ♪♪ with fastsigns, brew signature flavor into every sip and sign. ♪♪ fastsigns. make your statement. ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ( ♪♪ ) with the push of a button, constant contact's ai tools help you know what to say, even when you don't. hi! constant contact. helping the small stand tall. liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. with the money i saved, i started a dog walking business. i was a bit nervous at first but then i figured it's just walking, right? [dog barks] oh. no it's just a bunny! calm down taco. sit duchess. stop! sesame no no. archie! walter don't, no, ahhhh. ahhhhh! you're lucky you're so cute. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ the house is scheduled to reconvene at noon eastern wh republican congressman, mike johnson, intending to seek a full floor vote after becoming the latest nominee for house speaker. the louisiana lawmaker was nominated after tom emmer of minnesota dropped out. emmer had defeated johnson and several other candidates earlier in the day and withdrew after it became clear he didn't have enough to win a vote. former president trump worked hard to torpedo emmer's bid. as for congressman johnson, he's the fourth nominee, and he serves as the consequence's vice chair. let's bring in charlie sykes, and mike barnicle. no leaving, mike. >> okay. >> as well. >> he will get up and just walk away, and maybe i should get him talking first. joe, how long does this go on? i mean, you said very eloquently at the top of the show, except for the bad word you used, that this is impacting -- >> i did not say diamondbacks. check the tape. >> it was way too early and you know better. but you did make a really good point that this is absolutely impacting our national security and respect around the world at a time when things are extremely dangerous. >> republicans watching don't have to take my word for it, they can take the word of chairman mccall and other republicans, who, mike barnicle, come out and say our party is a joke. yesterday and last night somebody said we need to turn it over to the democrats, maybe they can run it better than we can. of course, that will not happen. american soldiers are under fire from iranian proxies as israel is fighting for their very life after a savage terror attack a few sundays ago. in ukraine, you see president xi and others celebrating. our enemies are trying to figure out if they come our way or go to china. they look at what the republicans are doing in the house of representatives and look at donald trump and, go, man, i don't know we can count on america anymore. republicans know this is happening. as willie said yesterday, the five or six people don't mind that the american reputation is being tarnished across the globe. again, according to chairman mccall and other republicans, they don't care because their tiktok views will go up and they will get $25 donations from across america. >> joe, this is a whole new definition of dangerous self absorption on the part of the handful of republicans in the house. you are right. you don't have to go back that far in history, maybe a year or two years to figure out in foreign capitals around the world, they knew what america was. they knew what america stood for. they knew what america would do, because we are fairly predictive in what we would do to defend liberty all over the world, on behalf of our allies and against our foes. that's no longer true because of the behavior of a handful of republicans in the house of representatives who took our constitutional government and turned it upsidedown until we are in the business, according to the republicans, not to govern, and we are in the business in sending people to washington to destroy our government. that's where we are. >> well, it appears these members of the republican house caucus are rooting out anybody, see emmer, who was nominated and then quickly stepped away, because he dared not support those lawsuits challenging the election results. he did sign on to one in texas, so he is not totally clean on this. anybody -- they are proudly talking to trump's people behind the scenes, saying i stood up for you who does not support you, and donald trump hangs over this process entirely. >> you are absolutely right. the republicans are in the loop of crazy and uncertainty, and no deep dive to come up with somebody that would be acceptable, and acceptable in a party that has been enabling and empowering the legislative terrorists for years. you are absolutely right. what you saw yesterday was donald trump facing all of the legal problems he's facing, reasserted himself as the apex predator of the republican party. he doesn't have the clout to get somebody like jim jordan elected as speaker, but he has the clout to destroy anybody that has take 18 stand against him on the big lie. what you are seeing is support for the big lie and support for overturning the 2020 election how now become not just a litmus test, but a life or death requirement in the republican party because donald trump made it clear if you did not sign on to what he attempted to do on january 6th that he will kneecap you, he will take you out. he's sitting in court. think about his day yesterday. he is sitting in court and hearing testimony about how -- all the fraud he engaged in, and he hears jenna ellis flipped, and the story of mark meadow with immunity, and what does he do? he says i am in charge of the republican party, and i can extend this chaos and set the standard for the future of the party. it's a remarkable 24 hours. >> he called yesterday and said emmer was a rhino because he did not support the attempted coupe in the 2020 election. you have been covering this somehow in the last three weeks, and who is next on the world's most boring reality show? >> we have had "ground hog day" never-ending, and these flame throwers are not worried about the two impending wars or the government shutdown. these hard-right conservatives are worried moderate republicans will get fed up with the entire process and start working across the aisle with democrats to temporary empower the speaker pro tem, and these could be the last ditch effort to get somebody in the speaker's chair that they could potentially swallow, and mike johnson was one of the chief architects of the 2020 election overturn effort in the capitol, and that's why for so many reasons he has the support are not only president trump, but he could also unite the wide swath of opinions in the house, and he's been seeking the bid quietly for the whole time in the past few weeks but didn't enter until he saw the writing on the wall for emmer and some of the others. today while we are skipping the secret ballots behind closed doors, johnson feels like he can go to the floor, the last current member of leadership to get the 117 votes he needs. he has an uphill battle, but this could be the last effort, the last time that some of the hard right, including those that ousted kevin mccarthy from the speaker's chair could get their guy or somebody that they could be okay with in the speaker's chair. johnson doesn't support ukraine aid and has been skeptical of it in the past, and he will try and hammer out the next government funding deadline. coming up next, tom nichols joins the conversation, straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ( ♪♪ ) constant contact's advanced automation lets you send the right message at the right time, every time. ( ♪♪ ) constant contact. helping the small stand tall. the associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. we were coming up on the 40th anniversary of the '83 beirut bombing where there were marines killed in their barics in beirut. we have dealt with this terrorists state and allowed them to kidnap and hold hostage and kill americans. is the biden administration going to be forced to respond to this -- to these attacks on u.s. servicemen? >> joe, first, i have been watching and seeing close hand this war now for the 40 years. i was in the american embassy in 1983 when was bombed by what we now know was an iranian-backed group. it continues to this day, the attacks described on the u.s. forces in syria and iraq are part of a continuing effort by iran to drive the united states from the region. the u.s. very much wants to avoid a direct conflict with iran now. it feels israel has its hands full with hamas and does not want to see a wider war. there are some indications the iranians would want to fight through proxies and don't want direct conflict either, but these attacks will draw a response. when you have 20 people injured at a base in the desert sand between iraq and lebanon in the syrian desert, you will have american reprisals, and the same with the attack in iraq at the air base. these could have easily killed americans. if an american was killed, and there was a contractor that died of a heart attack after a strike several days ago, and if a american is killed directly you will see a significant u.s. response to establish some kind of deterrence with the iranians. what we should take away from this, joe, is this war is slowly widening. there's firing across the lebanese border, from yemen, and firing from israel's key ally at the united states. the efforts of u.n. are increasingly critical of israel, and that's also worrying from israel's standpoint. >> i understand the united states doesn't want this war to widen, and i would think iran would not be foolish enough to want the war to widen, and perhaps i am wrong. i will say -- i want to get to your piece and i want to get to israel and gaza and the u.n. and what is going on there, but first i have to ask a more general question. i know you remember this, and mike barnicle remembers this, and maybe a few others watching this might remember this, but in the 1980s it was bud mcfarland who took a reagan bible and brought a birthday cake shaped like a key that suggested the opening of a relationship between the united states and iran, and throughout the iranian hostage crisis we were constantly looking for iranian moderates. barack obama searched for years for iranian moderates. they are not there. they have never been there. what do we do? do we continue stumbling forward and just pushing this off to the next president until this country has nuclear weapons and starts using them or threatening to use them? >> well, i don't think for the moment that what we should do is go to war with iran, but you are right, every administration since 1979 has been trying to do basically the same thing, which is to bend the arc of the iranian revolution towards something more moderate and reasonable, something we can deal with. henry kissinger said iran has to make a nation -- it likes the proxies and doesn't like to go indirectly. the proxies are getting more and more dangerous. >> david, what do we do? of course we can't go to war right now with iran, but what do we do? one thing we can't do is continue to sit back and allow our troops to be fired upon and injured? >> i think the coalition of countries that hate iran as much as we do is growing. saudi arabia is opening diplomatic talks with iran to de-escalate the tension, but the idea that saudi arabia, could essentially put an end of arab and israeli confrontation, and so not to blow up the possibility of the normalization that the u.s. has been helping and negotiations right up until october 7th, when hamas came over the fence. we will go live to washington, coming up, where republicans will try to again pick a house speaker today. will this time be any different? "morning joe" is back in a moment. breztri gave me better breathing, symptom improvement, and reduced flare-ups. breztri won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. it is not for asthma. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. don't take breztri more than prescribed. breztri may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. ask your doctor about breztri. you want to be able to provide your child vision changes, or eye pain occur. with the tools or resources they need. with reliable internet at home, through the internet essentials program, the world opened up. fellas, fellas. that's how my son was able to find the hidden genius project. we wanted to give y'all the necessary skills to compete with the future. kevin's now part of this next generation of young people who feel they can thrive. ♪ ♪ when i looked back at my life, if there was anything that i am most proud of, and even when i am dancing with the angels, just to know that i had an opportunity and took advantage of it to help young people emerge with a broader insight, a greater appreciation for the israeli people, i think is worth it. >> the program, the late maryland congressman, elijah cummings was talking about is something he created back in 1998 along with leaders of baltimore's jewish community. since its inception the organizations has sent baltimore high schoolers to spend the summer at a youth center in israel. >> the bonds that were built in this program was beyond me. one of the people i met in the village, we could get along and we had a lot of things in common, and even though we had not seen each other in months, we still text and talk every day, and he facetimes me to show me the goats in the village. the bonds are beautiful. i feel like when i go back to israel again, i can call up them and spend time with them because they are my second family, and they may not look like me or be the same color or culture or religion, but they are family and i would not trade that for nothing. >> tonight the organization will celebrate its 25th anniversary in baltimore. joining us now to discuss that, the board member for the elijah cummings youth program, his daughter, and the governor, wes moore, who will give the keynote address at tonight's event. this is special for mike barnicle at the table, and joe and me, and her father married me and joe. we chose him for many of the reasons you just saw, his incredible inspiration and his belief in people and his belief in democracy, and his defense of democracy even in the final years of his life, and we miss him, but his legacy lives on through the program. jennifer, i will start with you, because when you were speaking with joe on the phone with this the war had not broken out, and you were working so hard on trying to build the program. tell us more about it. >> sure. absolutely. so just at the outset, thanks for having us on. the elijah cummings youth program turning 25 this year. it's a really important part of my dad's legacy, and something that i am committed to helping ensure lives on for generations to come. was mentioned, the war, the october 7th terrorists attack against israel had not occurred, and as we were in the planning phases, we do have partners on the ground at the youth village referenced in the video, but the video. but currently no student on the ground. and that is because they travel to israel for about a month in the summer between their junior and senior years of high school. and it is all focused on dialogue, curriculum is very much focused on helping these young leaders develop their voices, develop their world view. and leave the program prepared to serve as ambassadors in this very diverse world that as we've seen when that doesn't happen, there is conflict. >> exactly. and governor wes moore, if we could talk about not just this as part of elijah's legacy but the importance of the legacy right now today globally as well as here at home. >> i love this family. and i love that man. you know, elijah cummings was a mentor, was a friend, someone who i consistently went to anytime that i was hitting a turning point or a fork in the road in terms of my career. and it is not lost on me at all that i was inaugurated as governor of maryland only third black governor in the histories of this country. and that was on january 18th which is his birthday. i think about what his impact means to all of us because he was a peace maker, a bridge builder, he was someone who made sure that communities worked together and got to know each other. because service will save us. and i'm so thankful for jennifer and the whole family because when you think about the impact of this program, 100% of the participants in the program have graduated from high school. 95% have graduated from college. this is making a marked impact not just on baltimore and the state of maryland, but also on our society and how our society continues to view each other. >> reverend al just joined the table. jump on in. >> well, hearing her talk about the program reminds me the conversations that i had with congressman cummings. and i think he saw it as one of his greatest contributions to society. i remember in 2001 after 9/11 and i went to israel as a guest of perez and i talked to arrest are a fat, and elijah cummings said expanded your view, didn't it. and the magic of what the family has done to keep the program going. and you couldn't have a better governor to endorse it than someone like wes moore who has done that august of his life and would really always fight for justice but say that we have to be xnd expanding it. and governor, how important is it in this time that we are seeing all of this in the middle east, that we raise programs like elijah cummings and raise voices like your that talk about balance. justice on all sides, but balance. >> that's right. and i think about so much of the posture and the philosophy that maryland is moving in in this time and our administration is moving in where it really is led by the legacy that elijah cummings laid out for us. we have spent the past few weeks meeting with faith leaders of all faiths. imams, rabbis, ministers. and being clear that hate has no place in maryland and that in this time that we both did things like putting together $16 million towards making sure that our homes of worship with secure, but also in our first legislative session putting $5 million to making sure that we're preventing hate crimes, education for our young people so that they can get to know each other. we have to make sure that we are going to fight for and we'll preserve peace. we mourn the lives and victims of both israeli and palestinians of is what is happening overseas. and in maryland, hate does not have oxygen. and we are going to fight to make sure that the people can feel safe and secure in their own skin regardless of their backgrounds. >> and governor moore and jennifer, after the governor, this program, part of it, seems to be modeled on the old phrase role models. it doesn't involve celebrity athletes. and governor and then jennifer, could you please talk to the point of role models in real life? role models meaning that here is a person who is a father, who goes to work every day, who does what he does for his family and talks about peace in the family and peace in the neighborhood. the importance of those kinds of role models. >> and mike, what i think of is how is this a program that my dd didn't simply just put his name on, but he truly lived it and breathed it like his work in congress up until his passing. he would interview every single student. and i think that, you know, having that opportunity for those young people to have a powerful congressman sit down and ask them questions, ask them about themselves, what they're passionate about, what drives them, what makes them want to be a leader, i think that he was a leader by about example. and so even though he is not here with us physically, definitely his imprint is all over the program. and our fellows look to him as one of their hole models. >> ultimate role model in real life was elijah cummings. and i loved his laugh too. he would say something incredibly important and searing and then kind of bring it home and then that laugh. wow. wes moore, final thoughts. >> and he laughed with his whole body. >> oh, yes. >> when elijah cummings laughed, you knew that he meant it with love. and you knew he meant it with love. that is the beautiful thing about him. he helped us all to remember that public service doesn't have to be an occupation. but it has to be a way of life. and it is this beautiful bond that we all share in this measurement of humanity that god, when god introduces us to the world, he introduces us all perfect, all of creations of him. and that is how he wanted us to live our life. and if we're all god's children, by definition we're brothers and sisters. so he just asked us to live that way. and to live accordingly. and so this program and the two, we're trying to do in the state of maryland is an honoring of him and what he hoped for and what he fought for. >> jennifer cummings, i still hear that laugh and i still am inspired by your father every day. and maryland governor wes moore, thank you both so much for being with us this morning. >> thank you. >> thank you. and coming up, donald trump's former lawyer expected back on the stand today in new york city. michael cohen is testifying against the ex-president and we'll have the very latest in that $250 million fraud trial. that is next. that is next l struggling with your bra? it's time for you to try knix. makers of the world's comfiest wireless bras. for revolutionary support without underwires, and sizes up to a g-cup, find your new favorite bra today at knix.com this is a short time frame and an elite strike force team working on behalf of the president and campaign to make sure that our constitution is protected. we are a nation of rules. not rulers. >> that was jenna ellis after the 2020 election. yesterday she became the third trump lawyer to take a plea deal in the georgia election interference case. just one of several big developments. we'll get into the new reporting in a moment. it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast and 9:00 a.m. in the east. mike didn't leave. >> he stayed for the fourth hour. a little surprised. we begin with new airstrikes overnight this gaza amid calls for a ceasefire. this is qatar's prime minister says talks with hamas on release of the more than 200 hostages are moving along. he is hopeful that there soon will be a breakthrough. but meanwhile the humanitarian crisis in gaza continues to worsen as hospitals in the area now are warning that they may just have to shut down all together. joining us from jerusalem is richard engel. what is the latest there? are. >> reporter: we're hearing from u.s. officials, they are not calling it a ceasefire, but they are saying maybe a humanitarian pause in israel's air campaign against gaza. but as far as a full ceasefire is concerned, u.s. officials and israeli officials reject that saying that it would only benefit hamas. the power is flickering and fading at hospitals in gaza as medical officials say generators are on their last drops of fuel. the health system run by hamas is in a state of collapse. just as casualties are flooding in from hundreds of israeli airstrikes a day. israel says that it is bombing hamas fighters and leaders hiding in tunnels below apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals. last night our crew caught the immediate aftermath of what witnesses say was an israeli strike on a three story building. first you see a hand. she's alive. other children were not. we counted five children pulled from the building, three living, two appeared to be dead. and this is kahn yunis in southern gaza where the military again this morning urged palestinians to go for their safety. our crew this morning visited another building in the city hit overnight. the u.n. secretary-general says what is needed now is clear, a ceasefire. israel is objecting and the united states is backing it. saying that no ceasefire thousand with the pentagon saying small tactical pauses in airstrikes can be useful for civilian protections. >> that is not the same as saying a ceasefire. again we believe a ceasefire benefits a hamas. >> reporter: and bodies continue to pile up and the risk of the war escalating and drawing in the united states grows. israel this morning accusing iran of helping hamas with the money, training and logistics before the october 7 attack. hamas militants crossed in to israel and killed 1400 israelis and took more than 200 hostages including elderly and babies. and one photograph this morning seemed ominous. the shadowy lead of hezbollah meeting with top officials from palestinian islamic jihad and hamas. behind them, photographs of iran's supreme leader. >> and we'll pick it up there, richard, with the news we're getting just this morning that american troops actually suffered injuries in attacks in syria and western iraq as well, presumably from iranian backed factions there. what more do we know about that? >> reporter: so this is one of the factors why there is so much risk here of the war escalescal, so much concern that this could quickly become a regional war and draw in the united states. the united states still has troops in syria on a long mission there to fight isis. still u.s. troops in iraq also coordinating the fight against isis, also supporting the kurds. a variety of protecting u.s. interests in iraq, trying to keep shia militias at bay. iran has often launched harassing attacks, missile attacks, drone attacks on u.s. troops both in iraq and in syria. and those attacks have increased over the last several days and now u.s. troops are saying that some of these attacks have caused american casualties. there is a great concern that if the situation continues to escalate, that axis of resistance is what it is called in the region of the iranian factions with hamas, hezbollah, iran, houthis in yemen, that it could be activated not only against israel but also against the united states. so on a military side just one more reason why there are these calls now for -- i think that you could call it a ceasefire. u.s. calling it a humanitarian pause for semantic reasons but at the end of the day, it would be potentially a slowing down of the conflict and a way to contain it at least for now. >> and for the audience to be clear when we talk about american casualty, we're talking about injuries. no soldiers have been killed. but clearly fired upon by these groups in an act of provocation. so let's talk more about the hostages inside of gaza. we saw the two elderly women released, their husbands are still being held. what is the best hope to get more hostages out? >> reporter: well, best hope is that these mediators, qatar primarily but also egypt, will be able to convince hamas that it is in mhamas' interesting to let more people go. and as we've been reporting for a couple weeks now, hamas has expressed a p willingness to release what it calls civilians among its hostages. that is the elderly, women, fo dual nationals. not necessarily israeli soldiers. it seems that hamas is keeping them in a separate category potentially for prisoner exchange. hamas says that it wants to hold the soldiers in order to free palestinian prisoners held in israeli jails. so best scenario would be that there is another hostage release potentially much larger release, dozens of people, and that this release comes with some sort of deal. some sort of agreement that can be built upon that reduces the level of tension. as you saw in that package, yesterday there was carnage in gaza. they are inflaming tensions and there is a real sense if this continues much further, we could enter into that regional war which would be devastating for the people of gaza who are not hamas, who are being targeted because hamas hides among them, has tunnels underneath buildings and hospitals and schools. and it would be devastated for the u.s. troop presence in the region and spiral further out of control. so we'll watch to see if we can get progress today. >> let's hope so. richard engel, thank you. and turning now to the latest in washington where in less than three hours the house is set to reconvene and possibly hold a vote on republican congressman mike johnson's nomination as speaker before last night the louisiana lawmecame the gop fourth nominee for speaker after tom emmer dropped out of the race earlier in the day. just hours after he won the nomination. and here is new video from capitol hill where three weeks to the day since kevin mccarthy was ousted, his name plate that had been hanging ave the speaker's office has now been removed. but whose name is going to be there? and when? let's bring in ali vitali. is this vote going through? >> reporter: it is quiet here right now, but this is the first time we've seen kevin mccarthy's speaker sign brought down. and so now mike johnson up for the speaker's gavel. a lot of this happened in the late hours of last night after a full day of meetings, republicans huddled behind closed doors for the larger part of yesterday. they had one nominee at the start of the day in tom emmer. quickly that shifted in the evening to becoming mike johnson. and it happened as members were fatigued, they were frustrated, and i do really feel like those were key pieces of the puzzle that maybe hasn't reached enough of a fever pitch to get lawmakers to coalesce behind someone, this time the four term congressman. and important to note yesterday after they had put him up as speaker elect, they did something we haven't seen them do, which is invited reporters into the room that they had been huddled in all day, held something of a press conference, but the speaker elect said no policy tonight after he was asked these questions by one of our colleagues. watch. >> we're not getting into policy tonight. any other questions. >> virginia fox and others telling her to shut up as she was trying to ask key questions about how he acted in the aftermath of the 2020 election loss, we know he was a man with a constitutional background pushing members here in the building to sign to do the texas brief that would have pushed to overturn the election results. also someone in my conversations the last overnight period, last few hours, one person with a democratic advocacy group, human rights campaign, described him to me as jim jordan with a jacket and a smile. and as much as that person has reason to say that, many of the policy pieces that we know about him, his hard line position against trans care, hardline position on lgbtq+ rights, hardline position on abortion and certainly the votes we've seen him take going against shutting down the government as recently as four weeks ago, they are things that put him in line with the more conservative parts of this conference. so he might not have the publicity ash it, but is he in lockstep with those members. >> wow. new lows, you can always find them on capitol hill. trying to laugh off legitimate questions. ali vitali -- how very trumpian. i don't say that in jest. joining us now, tom nichols. one of your recent article for the "atlantic" is entitled the house mess is what gop voters wanted. and you write in part this is when we're focused on the drama inside the cato the disorder in the gop caucus is not some incident or glitch triggered by a handful of reprobates, rather a direct result of choices by voters. the house is a mess because enough republican voters want to be a mess. reblican voters would demand changes from the party if the gop lost eno elections. t en losses don't seem to matter in a party that is clearly more comfortable with performance art centered on imaginary grievances thanl governing. the shenanigans of the pastwo weeks might even cost the republicans control of the house in the next election, but tha political collapse might n matter to right wing voters. they'll get another episode of their favorite show and for them, maybe that is enough. tom, that moment there that ali vitali showed was sickening to me in a lot of ways. i mean, where do we begin with the twisted thinking and what their definition i guess of humor is, but ultimately the fact that there is no speaker of the house? >> yeah, really was a shocking moment. did you try to overturn the 2020 election? oh, pish posh, enough with your silly questions, enough about your hodge-podge of questions about overturning the constitution and destroying our democratic form of government. and then we move on to what about aid for our friends and allies. oh, these are -- shut up. this is not a party that is interested in governing and voters i think part of the reason that the voters are getting what they wanted is that the voters don't really make a connection between what happens in washington and how anything works around them. they have absorbed had trumpian cynicism that nothing really matters, that their live, you know, that you could have a complete shutdown of the government, no speaker of the house, a collapse of policy making, no legislation and their lives will just go on as if nothing happened. because they don't see the many steps between what happens in the house of representatives, they don't know how a bill gets passed, they don't understand how things that they care about get funded or maintained. for them it is tv. it is just tv. >> tom, we've been talking about donald trump a lot this morning with the jenna ellis news and mark meadows news as well and the thread goes right through what we've seen the last three weeks particularly the last 24 hours which is that members getting up and making their case to be speaker emphasizing how close they are to donald trump and then back channeling and texting donald trump saying i stood you up for you, could you back me. he couldn't get jim jordan across the finish line but he basically torpedoed tom emmer. so all these years on, donald trump still pulling the strings even in these back rooms. >> in part because those representatives know that trump can make their lives miserable in a primary. they don't -- i'm sure many of them actually wish that they had never to speak to donald trump again. but to survive the primary process that brings them back to washington. and let's remember, the ultimate goal, you know, i suppose take congressman johnson at his word that he came to washington do certain things that are very conservative, but you look at most of the people in that group shot that we just saw, you know, elise stefanik and others, their goal is not to go home, it is to stay in washington. and if they have to call donald trump and say please don't let me get primaried out of my seat, here i am, i'm supporting you, you know, i'm putting -- i'll put an election denier up, i've got your back, if that is what it takes to stay in washington, that is what they will do. and again, the voters react to those cues because voters -- i think that it is partly a problem of genuine discontent between what they see in front of them and what happens around them in their lives. by the time they figure this out, it will be too late. >> so tom, in terms of it being too late, we seem to be on the verge of having a speaker of the house potentially, this mr. johnson from louisiana, who if the question were posed to him, do you believe joseph r. biden is legitimately elected president of the united states, he might say no that he didn't believe that. and he would be third in line to the presidency if he attains the speakership. so he is the head of a party, potential head of the party, the republican party, that is filled with a lot of crazy stuff. we saw some of it on tv. but the bottom line of this party seems to be their reliance on violence, violence to history, violence to the history of this republic, and a physical violence to people who oppose their candidate donald trump or jim jordan or anyone else. and that is a theme that seems to be strong within this party right now. where do we go from here? >> i don't know. i wrote about this the other day and i said that for republicans, forget about the rest of the country for a moment, for republican this is unsustainable. you can't have members of congress saying i'm voting while my wife is sleeping with a gun by the bed. and i think one of the things that we should be more shocked about but that we've become numb to in the age of trump, that these threats of violence are now routine. they are just part of governing. they are part of, you know, as i said in the piece, you know, i think millions of americans shrug and go what do you do, this is just how republicans are now. we don't have to accept that. and i'm hoping that the people whom most strongly reject it are the republicans in congress who should be saying that your constituents are threatening my kids. they are threatening my wife. and you would think that that should cause some kind of revolt in the ranks because the call is coming from inside the house. this is not, you know, random -- this is not a random moment. these are republicans. we should say jordan repudiated the tactics on his behalf, but i think that his colleagues blame him anyway. and understandably so. so i'm not sure where it goes. you can't have a party within itself saying that we are governed by, you know, who is going to threaten our family. i think some of this is, you know, the cost of making threats to people has become so low. because of the internet, smartphones, so on. but we've also developed a culture particularly within the republican party where it is okay to do this, where it is just part of the cost of doing business. and how republicans are not having a rebellion in their own ranks, i should say i'm shocked but, you know, like most americans, like most of us here, i'm losing my ability to be shocked. but you would think the republican legislators behind closed doors would say enough is enough. >> you just got to pray. i mean, this is -- the "atlantic's" tom nichols, thank you very much. rev, tom says he doesn't know where this is going. it is not going in the right direction for our country. whether you are a democrat or republican. >> and when we are now normalizing violence and normalizing people that are members of congress that have their wives sleeping with loaded guns in the bed and we act like that is all right, that is just politics and just performance, i mean, it is absolutely unthinkable. and it challenges people in this country to rise up and get these people off the stage. if tom is right that all they want is a show and performance, we need to close the show. we need to bring the curtains in and get the people off the stage. because they are making it just part of the process and use violence to engage in politics about and this is common. these people running for speaker are not people in the normal life of america even people know. so it is clearly people that are inside the parties and we've got to really take the power from them. i think that that is what the democrats ought to be campaigning on. >> it is wild, many people think whether or not you believe the 2020 election was fair and that joe biden's presidency is a litmus test, these republicans in the house are working that the other way. if you actually believe that, and you get run out of the race. tom emmer was not enough of an election denier. meanwhile former president trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election, his chief of staff mark meadows reportedly granted immunity by the special counsel in exchange for his testimony regarding the former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. this according to abc news. and this is a another trump former legal adviser pled guilty in the case. and also michael cohen will be back on the stand today in the civil fraud trial. and laura jarrett has the latest. >> reporter: this morning federal prosecutors reportedly have a new top witness in their election interference case against the former president. his own former chief of staff. abc news reporting mark meadows cut an immunity deal in exchange for his testimony citing sources familiar with the matter. and adding meadows told mr. trump that his repeated claims about widespread voter fraud -- >> frankly, we did win this election. >> reporter: -- were baseless. the former president denying that overnight in a series of posts. nbc news has not independently confirmed that reporting, the justice department is not commenting. while meadows' attorney said in a statement he told abc that their story was largely inaccurate. meanwhile in state court the list of cooperators against mr. trump is growing. jenna ellis, former legal adviser accused of helping push lies about voter fraud in front of the georgia state senate -- >> american people deserve to know what we have uncovered. >> reporter: -- tearfully pleadingsing guilty. >> if i knew then what i know know, i would have die kleined to represent donald trump. >> reporter: she is now the fourth co-defendant to strike a deal with prosecutors in georgia. all of this as the former fixer heads back to court. michael cohen who once said that he would take a bullet for mr. trump now testifying against him as the state seeks $250 million in a civil fraud suit. the former president and his name sake company already found liable for inflating his assets to get better loan terms. the judge now hearing evidence to determine the penalty. something mr. trump is fighting. >> this is not about donald trump versus michael cohen or michael cohen versus donald trump. this is about accountability. >> reporter: the pair coming face-to-face for the third time in five years. >> heck of a reunion. >> and laura jarrett reporting there. joining us outside the courtroom in lower manhattan, lisa rubin and also reporter tamar holler ran. and also gwenn keefs. lisa, let's tart with you. this is a buffet of topics to choose from here, but let start with mark meadows and the abc news report that he has struck a deal for immunity which the special counsel on the federal election interference case. what does that mean exactly? >> i think a lot of us are struggling to what that means. and as other legal experts have explained, there are different kinds of immunity. immunity doesn't necessarily equal cooperation. mark meadows could have been given what is called limited or use immunity which just means prosecutors can't use what he tells them in testimony to prosecute him. that doesn't mean that they can't prosecute him for other crimes outside the bounds of what he shared with them in his testimony. and that may be the heart of why mark meadows' lawyer did tell kristen welker that that abc story is largely inaccurate. so i think it remains to be seen. the bigger question for me is why is that revelation coming forward now and what does it say about mark meadows' capacity to do a deal with fani willis. i'm really interested in seeing which domino may fall next. and in particular, given that three of theour people who have pled are themselves lawyers, and a couple of them have a lot of information on rudy and john eastman, it is sort of a race to the courthouse now to see who can cut the most advantageous next deal. is it going to be rudy, eastman or is it going to be mark meadows who already has some form of immunity. >> and on that dominos falling, what is the thought that once one, two, three, four -- what number is this? we're at four. it f. more dominos fall, does the trial move quicker? >> that is not necessarily the case. time line is still unclear. there are deadlines in terms of defendants' attorneys handing over discovery to prosecutors. that won't come until december. there is a pretrial motions deadline in january. so we're already looking in to 2024 before any sort of potential trial begins. but you are right, we're closely following the potential for any additional plea deals flight, we're down to 15 defendants. we know that d.a. fani willis has a strategy of indicting widely. and then hoping that folks plead out so that they are able to give her additional information so that she can focus things. and as lisa mentioned, there is any number of names we're watching especially given the latest plea deals. a lot of people could be implicated by those people's testimonies and we'll be closely watching folks like ray smith who is a local attorney here who worked alongside jenna ellis, rudy giuliani of course, and folks who worked with sydney powell not only nationally but in coffey county, georgia. >> and jenna ellis pled to a felony. does she lose her right to be a lawyer in open court? >> no. i believe both parties made the agreement that this was not a crime of moral turpitude so she can keep her license. >> so spell that out more. why doesn't she lose her license? >> in georgia you would lose your license for a conviction of a crime of moral turturpitude. something so offensive to society or the morals of society that it means that you should not be able to practice law anymore. and as egregious as the whole investigation and now indictments have been with respect to overturning the election results, this particular charge by agreement with the prosecutor and the defense is not a crime of moral turpitude. and so because of that, she would not per se lose her license. it is my understanding from reporting though that she has been censured and there may be additional efforts to try to have her disbarred. but that would not happen simply because of the wording of the indictment. >> important to remind people jenna ellis was right in the middle of all of this. she ran all over the country with rudy giuliani. she was at there that press conference doing his bidding. they were lying to state legislatures trying to get them to overturn the results of the election. and as we were saying, this is how it ends. you are standing alone weeping in an empty courtroom begging for forgiveness. >> she was in the thick of it, she was a very forward spokesperson for this, this is not just some bystander who happened to be in the room. and i think that that is why her flipping as we'd say is so significant because she was an advocate, she was -- and we talked in the last segment about this being a show. she was one of the co-stars. she wasn't just somebody in the background. but gwenn, i want to ask you this, as a prosecutor, we were talking about the list will increase, the list goes on, there will be more. but isn't it so that as you build evidence like ellis, the least you may need some of the people like giuliani? if they give enough evidence without certain people, wouldn't defense lawyers be telling their clients that if you don't cut a deal soon, they won't need you and you'll suffer the consequences if you are in fact convicted? >> that is absolutely right. this comes down to a timing question. those that approach the prosecutor first will get the better deals. and as she builds evidence from those deals, it is less likely that she will need others. but there are several dates that most defendants will want to explore all of their pretrial motions, get decisions on those motions before they have to make any decisions about going forward to trial. and we know that in december, court of appeals will be reviewing judge jones' decision on removal with respect to mark meadows. so he may be waiting to see what happens there before making a decision whether to plead to these charges or not. so a lot of factors that would play into a defendant's decision including time and waiting to see who else may be rushing to the prosecutor's door in this matter. >> where do you see it headed, what will you be watching for in the days to come? >> well, any additional plea deals for sure. at this point, all remaining 15 defendants have discovery from the d.a.'s office. eight terabytes of understanding i understand or up to, so they have a lot to sift through. they have a good sense of what prosecutors have on their clients. so now i'd be watching to see who is looking around at that information and looking at the other pleas thinking that i would do what jenna ellis did, those terms aren't the worse to me, so maybe now is the time. >> all right. lisa, now back to the $250 million trial happening there and the drama in court with donald trump and michael cohen being in the same room together. what is the dynamic that you are seeing there, and how is this case moving along? i'd like to point out a lot of people think that this case gets trump all upset and he shows up because it reveals him. it ultimate puts him in the press as a shyster. he is always in the press as a shyster. but i think he is financially challenged in this in a big way. am i wrong and tell us about the dynamic with michael cohen. >> reporter: let's start on the second question which is does this cut to the heart of donald trump's finances. absolutely. you might remember the judge gave judgment to the attorney general on the most important claim before the trial ever started, that there was repeated illegality in the statements of financial condition. but the thing that the attorney general didn't try to get pretrial judgment on is the question of intent and whether donald trump, allen weisselberg and other defendants and the company as a whole intended to defraud their insurer, their banks and other potential institutions with which they interacted. and that is what this trial is really about. and the attorney general is going to trial because it is their playoff if they can show that this was an intentional crime, penalties will increase. so what is at stake here as you noted is $250 million at least in remedies to the attorney general. but also more dramatic penalties like possible dissolution of the trump organization and its literal taking apart and selling it piece by piece. that is why we see donald trump in court as often as we have. and the capacity to stare down people like michael cohen. to go to your first question, for the most part they both behaved themselves. we didn't see the upset donald trump shaking his head, gesturing loudly, objecting to what michael cohen said. but elena hobais proxy. and during her cross-examination, that was dramatic because she got michael cohen to say that when he pled guilty to certain crimes in 2018, he was lying under oath to a federal judge. and so it is the old were you lying then or lying noup an a if either is true, that really damages the credibility of a witness. they are hoping to get the judge to question whether michael cohen is a credible witness and the attorney general needs cohen on the question of trump's intent. why is this because trump famously limited the group of people that he communicated with. and so when he was trying to reach certain net worth values and then, you know, debt to certain valuations, who did he communicate with directly? only allen weisselberg and michael cohen. weisselberg said the meetings never happened but cohen testified to what the meetings were about and how they reverse engineered the value of trump's assets for years. so that is what we have to deal with today. remainder of trump's -- sorry, michael cohen's cross familiar nation and we'll see how trump behaves himself. >> all right. lisa rubin and also gwenn keys, thank you both for being on. and our thanks as well to the tamar hellerman. coming up, states attorneys general are teaming up in a new lawsuit against meta. here it goes, everyone. we'll be joined by the a.g.s from colorado and massachusetts to talk about why they say that features on facebook and instagram are hurting america's children. and a little later this hour, stamos will be in the house. actor john stamos live in the studio, he will join us with his revealing new memoir. trelegy for copd. ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze driftin' on... ♪ [coughing] ♪ ...by, you know how i feel. ♪ if you're tired of staring down your copd,... ♪ it's a new dawn, ♪ ♪ it's a new day... ♪ ...stop settling. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy makes breathing easier for a full 24 hours, improves lung function, and helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood 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longer and repeatedly coming back. meta did this via the design of its algorithm, alert, notifications and so-called in-if i scroll through platform fields. and it impacts mental health with likes or photo filters. the states are seekingen end to what they see as the social media giant's armful practices as well as penalties a restitution. in an emailed statement, a spokesperson for met take wrote thate share the attorneys general commitment to providing teens with safe positive experiences online and have already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families. we're disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear age appropriate standards for thean apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path. joining us now, two of the attorneys general who are part of the lawsuit, phil wiser of colorado who co-led the investigation into meta, and also andrea joy campbell of massachusetts. thank you both for being with us. i'll start with phil. mr. attorney general, i always likened this building problem that social media was facing giving to young people like the cigarettes, tobacco lawsuits. is there any similarity to sort of the widespread damage that is being caused by tech and social media to our young people and does this lawsuit even begin to wrap its arms around that damage? >> let me take both those points. big tobacco, you may remember, an effort to get young people hooked and i'm quoting what meta said about young people in this case, a valuable and untapped market. joule is another case where you think people are ensnared in dangerous behavior that harmed their physical and mental health. young people not getting enough sleep, exhibiting behaviors like suicide because of the black holes. and this is a serious issue. your question is can we do something about it. we're committed to it, we'll be vigilant. we'll make sure that we do all we can to protect our kids. >> and attorney general campbell, if you can talk about exactly how this suit will intend to prove that, what is the damage that you will be bringing to the table to try to -- and what would the restitution be? >> so it is a bipartisan coalition which is remarkable in this time when democrats and republicans at least in congress don't seem to be able to work together, we are. and there are over 40 of us, some have brought federal claims, some have brought state claims. massachusetts brought a state claim under the consumer protection laws. and we've been crystal clear that this is about deception and not regulating content but regulating bad conduct by this company that took significant research of our young people and used that research to develop a product, to design a product that they knew would make these young users addicted and that addiction has led to more addictive behavior by young users and of course an uptick this anxiety, depression, self harm and so much more. and they could have designed it. so we're going after them for the deception and lies. and as my colorado colleague has said, this is significant. all of us are seeing the mental health crisis in our states and of course across this country and we're taking action to address it. >> boy, this is an almost impossible time in 2023 to be a parent. worried about school safety, you are worried about playground safety, you are worried about your child each and every day. and now you have to worry about what they are doing in their bedrooms with their iphones. could you specifically tell us, meta says that they are interested in safe positive experiences online. could you spell out specifically what dangerous elements are you talking about here? >> let me give you a couple examples. one is as you know, kids in their bedrooms staying up very late, having access to the content and having these at addictive features means that they are not getting a good night's sleep. our kids are suffering and hurting as a result not able to learn. and also the addictive futures are problematic because that means that people can't stop when they are going down a dark hole with darker and darker thoughts, this is something that we see on all sorts of statistics. over the last decade while instagram has become the go-to platform of choice, our young kids are not okay, they are suffering more, experiencing these conditions that are being worsened. and there is no question about it, there is a connection here. meta knows the connection is there and they are telling people it is safe. that is the deception that agent campbell is talking about. >> one thing they could ask the in meta executives is if they let their kids on social media. >> that would be a good question to ask. general campbell, let me ask you this, will this lawsuit -- and i certainly congratulate everyone coming together in a bipartisan way. but will this lawsuit not settle for me or anyone to say here is a certain amount of damages and ten in the same way that they are doing? how attached to real reforms and redirect difference behavior on the parts of these companies are attached to the lawsuit before it is settled assuming that it moves forward? >> so all of us who are participating in this, we're bringing every resource and every tool in our office to bear because we get the magnitude of the effect this is having on generations, frankly this generation of young people and more to come if we don't do something significant and have a significant response. and the company, you know, is attempting to almost put the onus on parents and users to change something when really we're telling them, no, it is you guys. you designed this app in such a way that you knew it would make young people addicted and that it would cause them harm. and instead you are saying you are looking to promote the well-being of young people and we're saying no, you are lying about that. all the tools exist with the company to redesign their platform, to redesign their 57s apps, to lessens notifications and do other things that will reduce or frankly eradicate the harm that is t. has caused to our young people. so we're looking for major injunctive relief, a shift in position by the company to change the way in which they have designed this product and these platforms. and of course where people have been harmed, restitution and other civil penalties. and all of us are committed to taking it as far as we can to hold folks accountable for these actions. >> thank you both. and we'll definitely be following this. coming up on "morning joe," you know him as uncle jesse. right, mike? >> yeah. >> actor john stamos is joining us live in the studio with his revealing and emotional new memoir. memoir (vo) in three seconds, janice will win a speedboat. 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(vo) get your competitive offer at opendoor dot com. going to like it, all right? >> it's the way my whole stinking life has been, my whole life. every time i get close to something, it gets yanked away, and i can't take it. i can't face it no more, all right? >> you have to. >> why? give me one reason why. >> the character blacky parish, a street urchin with a heart of gold was the first gig that actor john stamos landed in 1982 on the hit soap "general hospital." mike, i watched it in high school skipping class. that's how old i am. five years later he would take on the iconic role of uncle jet see in the sitcom "full house." his friendship with saget, the other legends he met along the way and his journey to sobriety part of his new memoir entitled "if you would have told me." it's a good title. it's a great book, i'm reading sections of it, and i have a lot of thoughts. >> i'm sure you do. just don't touch my hair. i said finally i'm working with real journalists and i get in there and she starts playing with my hair. >> who touched your hair? >> it's her. touch joe's, he's got good hair. >> he's got great hair. >> i do. >> i fix it for him. >> at home. >> is it? >> mike. this is -- you know, you really put it out there here. >> i didn't want to. >> i know. so tell me about why you did because i mean, there's some really humorous parts of this book, great stories, but there's a lot of heartbreak, a lot of mental anguish and some bad decisions. >> a couple of those. >> and you do put it out there. >> i never thought i'd write a book, i can't spell. it's not my thing. i was asking my friends, how do you write a book? i became a father at 55. if you would have told me that, it's something i always wanted, my friend bob died, and i said let me try -- my mom wrote these beautiful notes to me and left them all. >> do you write notes to your kids? >> mm-hmm. >> i still have them, i cherish them. and i started to write i did this and she said i have to write a human story. i kept saying, i don't have a book, but i looked for the human side first, like you said, like some of these things that i've -- hopefully people will look at it and not make the same mistakes but it's been a -- you guys have already written books. it's cathartic, but it's been a whole thing. >> a lot, yeah. >> i thought about when i was writing these things, not that this is going to get click bait, now that it's coming out the last few days, it's hard. it's heart breaking some of the stuff, you know. >> gut wrenching. >> yes. >> flirting with death, drunk driving, rehab. >> mm-hmm. you talk about what you learned in rehab. you were told to put a list of grievances down on the table, everything that bothered you. >> and then what happened? >> and then they said in the next column, what part did you play in this? at that moment i said without truth there's just paralysis, and it felt so good to get all of it out really. and there's a lot of fun stuff, and obviously there's a lot of -- >> i don't know if you consider trying to get the olson twins fired fun, but did you do that? >> click bait. i thought this was a news show. >> they made a big story out of it. the girls were screaming through every scene, you're doing great, mike. they were screaming through every scene, and i said let's find some other kids, it was like an hour. i love those girls. they visited us when bob died, they came to his funeral and said all the things -- we weren't really in contact with them much. they said we loved our childhood. we were so happy to be on that show, so it was nice. >> so you said to mika a couple of minutes ago, you said i didn't want to, but you ended up obviously doing it, and it's a roller coaster of a ride. >> yes, it is. >> i mean, it's deeply emotional, deeply personal. >> yes. >> so how many times during the course -- first of all, did you write with a pen and pencil? >> i did write on the computer. >> so how many times during the course of putting this together did you stop and say to yourself, oh, my god, i can't believe i did that. that was so bad. >> a lot. >> and you put it in still! i can't say this, because my dad -- i came from a very conservative orange county family, which is like by disney land. my dad was like don't talk about politics, religion, he's passed away now. sorry, dad. he was great too. of all those things, there's those moments and there's so much celebration in this book. it's a love letter to my parents. to the people who have made me who i am over the years. i had a lot of great mentors. don rick l was like my second father, garry marshall, i wanted to talk about those guys as well. i've done a lot of theater, which people didn't know, i got that out. my mom had enough love to fuel a small country, and i just wanted to talk about her. i know that the books you wrote were beautiful empowering women. i think there's a quote -- >> i'm looking in chapter 4, you say i prefer -- there's two things, i prefer women to men bosses any day of the week. i know will that most women in high profile positions have to put in twice the work to get there, work doubly hard to maintain it and consistently outperform to overshadow some of the mediocrity -- >> not these guys. >> of their male counterparts. because of my upbringing i learned that no unequivocally means no. while my mom stays at home to care for the family, my dad never hangs money over her head. he perceives her work equal to or above his job. she can stay home to be a mother, to have the time to get involved with various charities and spend her days taking care of the family she loves. she's proud of that. >> yeah, yeah. >> you should have done my audio book, or britney's. >> no, definitely not, yours maybe. >> john, let me ask you this, as you started writing the book and you had to come to terms with some of the mistakes you made, bad decisions you made. how hard was that to put in writing to share with the world and what made you have the courage to say i'm going to put this out there. i know you're committed to mentoring and helping kids, the become that you felt you had to do this to help others do that because it's not an easy thing to do to expose yourself and say i was wrong here? >> yeah, it's hard to say i'm wrong, but i admire people who can do that. i think it was that and you know, i hope that people can learn something from it, you know, and say i'm not going to make that mistake. also just human things. i was bullied. i was dumped. i was cheated on. i think people think that people like us, that never happens, stamos, no one would ever cheat on him. they do. maybe to make people feel better about themselves, we're all just human. >> if there's one thing you learned about yourself in the process? >> if there's one thing? >> yeah. >> that, that to be honest and truth, otherwise what's the point, you know? this stuff eats you up as you go, and the more you stuff things down it comes out in other ways, relationships, disease, whatever it may be. i just turned 60. i'm happier than i'vever been. thank god i'm a father is and a husband now. >> the new memoir "if you would have told m." that does it for us this morning, show's over. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. this hour on "ana cabrera reports" growing calls for a cease fire between israel and hamas. the situation in gaza now so dire the u.n. is warning they could be forced to halt humanitarian work today. more on that and the talks now underway to free more hostages from gaza. these developments overseas coming as the president prepares to host a world leader here in the u.s. for