morning. morning joe starts right now. it s the top of the hour. welcome to morning joe. it is tuesday, january 2nd. happy new year, everybody. israel s ground offensive in gaza is entering a new phase. the israeli military has plans to pull back some troops and shift to more localized operations. we re going to go through that development and the escalating tensions in the red sea. plus, a damning, new report on the intelligence failures by the israeli military. new york times investigation found there was no battle plan for a massive hamas invasion that they were warned about. also ahead, a look at the long to-do list for congress in 2024 with several crucial items that were simply not addressed late last year. plus, the supreme court has a tight timeline to rule on what would be one of the most consequential cases involving the presidency. we ll get expert, legal analysis on the issue of removing donald trump from the ballot in two states. are there going
it could be the largest expression of democracy in human history. but if democracy is on the march, autocracy appears to be striding right beside it. we re seeing all these elections in 2024. is democracy also on the ballot? democracy is on the ballot. in fact, you have this paradox that defines global democracy right now. you have more elections than ever before in human history, yet the world is becoming less democratic year on year. reporter: some elections like in russia, bangladesh, mexico, and pakistan, will be held in places where monitors say the elections could be compromised or won t carry much weight. africa will be the most elections, but countries there suffered nine coup coups in thr years. in the u.s., india, and indonesia, voters will be asked to choose between democracy or what some are calling a kind of creeping authoritarianism. you have a decline of democracy even as people go through the charade of voting. that s the norm for a lot of
of brutality and repression rather than desperation. this is, as you point out correctly, that caught my eye as well. a shoot to kill without warning issue given to the military. i don t recall seeing one of those for 40 years, fredericka. i mean, that is real throwback to the days of the 1970s with coup coups and countercoups. kazakhstan has always relied on russia as the big brother so it s not surprising that the russians will give their asked for their assistance and russia under putin is trying to reconstruct not the soviet union but the odile czarist empire. you look at ukraine, belarus, kazakhstan, all facing crises of some kind or the other. the russian goal is to say we