welcome to morning joe at 6:00 a.m. in the morning willie geist not with us today, trying to relive some of the more exciting mornings of the 70s yes, that s him on chopper 5 going across it is not. see the little chopper 4, i m sorry. get it right. in the 70s, we didn t really numbers didn t count channels didn t counfreelancersi and i were. you were just there. beautiful look at new york city over the morning. it s friday. yes thursday was a very rough day for elon musk. oh, i don t know about that $3 billion rocket exploded. i m going to question that framing. they get a lot of great data out of that. it exploded. but it was a planned explosion. no. it was they got what they wanted they got massive data. it was a step forward. it was an unscheduled disas disassembly, as they call it. i have had many of those. exploded. i ve had many of those. then he planned to make people pay for twitter verification his plan to do that bl
remember the wheelchair over the cliff? democrats used it. the wheelchair over the cliff commercial, very effective that was about him ryan, paul ryan is a bit reason mitt romney i m not a big fan of mitt romney lost his election to be honest with you, ron reminds me a lot of mitt romney. so i don t think you re going to be doing so well here, but we re going to find out. but those are the facts. oh, if ron only reminded us of mitt romney, i think a lot of people would be less worried there s donald trump doing what democrats love to see donald trump doing. shredding the republican party attacking the republican party tearing to pieces the republican party. it s not enough that he led to their te defeats in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 now, he s determined to do it in 2024 going after republicans and creating a civil war that was just part of donald trump s rant about ron desantis last night in iowa the former president had a lot to say yesterday about the florida
hush money scheme. it may very well also be a court appearance that proceeds an indictment of a former president of these united states michael cohen, donald trump s former attorney and fixer went before a grand jury in manhattan today in what may be alvin bragg s end game a years-long investigation based on hush money payments made to porn star stormy daniels payments made nearly seven years ago. here s what cohen had to say earlier today before he went in for his grand jury testimony this is not revenge, right? what is this is about accountability i don t want to see anyone, including donald trump, indicted, prosecuted, convicted, incarcerated, simply because i fundamentally disagree with them this is all about accountability he needs to be held accountable for his dirty deeds. new york times reports this, quote, the manhattan d.a. s office has already questioned at least seven other people before the grand jury, hearing evidence about the hush money deal that s accor
money payments to stormy daniels. remember that? now, that could come back to haunt him. his former attorney and fixer, michael cohen, says trump can t hide from the paper trail. calling the new grand jury convened by the manhattan d.a. his biggest legal threat yet. and there are many. meanwhile, the former president is suing journalist bob woodward for $50 million. we ll explain what that is all about. plus, more fallout and firings in the aftermath of tyre nichols death. we ll go live to memphis for the latest in that case. for the second time in three years, lawmakers on capitol hill are talking about police reform following a high-profile murder case involving officers. we ll look at whether these discussions have a real chance at being successful. and president joe biden announces a major policy shift on covid in response to strong opposition from house republicans. good morning. welcome to morning joe. it is tuesday, january 31st. joe will be back tomorrow.
Trumps criminal trial. The judge late today denying another attempt by trumps lawyers to just run away from this thing. Indeed, the judge admonishing trumps lawyers for insinuating that actor Stormy Daniels changed her story while rejkting the mistrial request. The judge said, i disagree with your narrative that theres any new account here. Daniels wrapped up her testimony. She spoke under oath for hours and rhetorically stood her ground during the reports we have we dont have the cameras but we have a lot of reporting from people inside the room that it got very tense with the questioning from trumps Defense Lawyers, trying to make a bet the jury wouldnt be as offended by the line of questions as they would be concerned about the potential questions raised around her credibility. You wanted money. That phrase repeated multiple times by Donald Trumps lawyer today, as she grilled Stormy Daniels during crossexamination. It bordered on, i think, shaming a sex worker. Of course Stormy Dani