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Ashley Flowers
True crime podcasts, there is no shortage to consume. And if you're like me, you've consumed them all. I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, we cover a case in a way that's not like you've heard before because I have built a one of a kind team of investigative journalists dedicated to conducting original reporting, making sure that you get the inside scoop. Listen to hundreds of Crime Junkie episodes now. Wherever you get your podcasts, gifting is hard. But here's a Give the gift of connection from US Cellular. Not sure what that means. Here's a slightly more specific hint. You can choose four free phones and get four lines for $90 a month from US Cellular. Your family wants new phones. How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you're great at getting hints. So take the hint and get them four free phones and four lines for $90 a month US Cellular built for us. She is, in terms of the intelligence community, very unqualified. Plus, she is potentially compromised and could be and has. Is there questions about whether or not she is now a Russian asset? Do you believe that she could be a Russian asset? I think that she is someone who is wholly backing and supportive of Putin and I worry that she will not have America's best interests at heart. That's Democratic and combat veteran, Democratic senator, combat veteran Tammy Duckworth obviously expressing some concerns about Tulsi Gabbard. There was fierce pushback on that and questions of whether there was evidence of it or not. Regardless, there are still a couple of picks as we're moving in here. A lot of picks this weekend. Something for everybody. Something for everybody to complain about or something for everybody to be happy with, however you want to put it. A lot of picks this week. But you look at at Tulsi Gabbard, you look at the DOD pick those right now, from what we're hearing, are the two that people are the most concerned about that are out there. Yeah, we're going to go through all the picks and hear what some key Republicans are saying as well. Also ahead, we'll have an update on the Ukraine war. Now the incoming Trump administration is impacting the conflict right now. Plus, it wasn't quite Barbie, but it was still a really good weekend at the box office. We'll have more about the wicked and gladiator chatting. What would we call that? Wicketator or something? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Good morning and welcome to MORNING Joe, they're doing something with it. We just don't know what it is. That's not what the word is. This Monday morning, November 25th, with us we have the host of Way Too Early White House Fair, chief At Politico, Jonathan LeMere, president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton is with us. President emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass is here. He's the author of the weekly newsletter Home and Away, available on Substack. NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hilliard here with us on the set and co founder and CEO of Axios, Jim Vande Hei joins us this morning. Also author and NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss. So I group I've known Jim vandehei for a quarter century now and Jim will tell you he's a mild guy. They said it. Nice guy, as they say. Now ask about Joe. What do the kids on the street say? The kids on the street say Joe's a uniter, not a divider. Therefore, I'm not going to talk about the New York Giants in front of Richard Haas. I will not do it. I refuse to do it. We also, of course, will not talk about Alabama until we talk about it. Way too much. Alabama humiliated. But I want to talk about the most important football game of the weekend, nay, perhaps maybe of the past decade. It happened this weekend, Prospect park, the super bowl of flag football. And we take it to our Prospect park flag football super bowl correspondent, Jonathan Lemaire. He's we couldn't get through the crowds. We could not get through the crowds. We were trying to come out. Tell us what happened. We're running out of room to hang championship banners at our house right now at the Lemire household. Yes. My oldest, the hall of Champions, like John Wooden, he had his room. It's nothing compared to nothing at all. Prospect park muddy, cold, wind whipped. There's still some smoke in the air from the brush fire last week. But my oldest, his team did in fact defend their flag football championship in a 13 to 6 rock fight a day after my youngest also went back to back. So we have two champions. Two champions in this weekend. This house it was. And I, as you imagine, I'm pacing the sidelines a nervous wreck the whole time throughout. Just couldn't even watch. Both teams pulled it out at the end. They're playing, they are playing the University of Alabama next week. Alabama a seven point underdog. Seven point underdog. I never saw they will beat Alabama. So what's up with the Giants, man. What's up with the Giants? Where do you start? Massive mistake in the quarterbacking over the last five years. Investing way too much in Daniel Jones. No backups for him. They got rid of Saquon Barkley, who had a career game last night for the just gift. Watching a gifted player at the top of his game was actually something else. Xavier McKinney. Look at Baker go playing one of the great, one of the best safeties in football. Terrible general manager and the coach has lost control of the team. The Giants are done. Stick a fork in them. They're done. They need to be broken up and started over. Why don't you hire all of Alabama's coaching staff? Now, listen, here's the problem. They haven't figured out the forward pass yet, but other than that, they will do. They will do you. They will do you proud. All right. Can we do the news? Would you like that was the news. That kind of was the news for a lot of people. Prospect Park Packers. The Prospect Park Packers. We'll talk to Jim Vande Hei about the Green Bay packers soon. Okay. I look forward to talking to Jim vandehei about what he's been doing lately, which I think is amazing, including a speech, a fiery speech. He was mad. Yes. President elect Donald Trump has filled out his core cabinet positions as well as several other top spots in his administration. Trump has chosen Scott Besant as Treasury secretary. He's a Wall street billionaire who's an advocate for deficit reduction and deregulation. He has also supported extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts. Trump named. See, now there's the rub. We got a $36 trillion national debt, and if you extend those tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, that's only going to cause the deficit to spike. So again, there's a challenge there. They're going to have to figure out if he really, if he holds both of those as being important, how to get there. That's going to be a huge challenge. Well, I don't think he can get there with a $36 trillion debt, but we'll see. Also, Trump named Brooke Rollins to lead the Department of Agriculture. Rollins is a conservative lawyer who served as domestic policy chief during Trump's first term. After leaving the White House, she became president and CEO of the America Policy Institute, a group that helped lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration. Former pro football player Scott Turner is Trump's pick for HUD Secretary. Turner ran the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump's first term. He Also is involved with the America First Policy Institute. Trump's choice for labor secretary is Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez Darrimer of Oregon. She's a staunch union ally and one of only a few House Republicans to support major pro union legislation. The president elect also named Russell Voigt, who was co author of the Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget. It's a role he held during Trump's first term. Vought also advocated for the president to have greater control over government agencies such as the F and the securities and Exchange Commission. Trump selected former Republican Congressman Dave Weldon of Florida to lead the cdc. Weldon is a medical doctor who has been critical of the agency and its vaccination program. He has also pushed a long debunked claim that a preservative used in some vaccines is linked to autism. We have a lot to talk about here. First of all, I went to Congress with Dave, known Dave for a long time, but I want to talk first of all. And then we're going to talk about. This is not an ideologically pure cabinet by any stretch of the imagination. Michael Beschloss yesterday told the Times one of the more ideologically, if you want to call it diverse and consistent, whatever you want to call it, Vaughn, we're going to let somebody much smarter than me figure out the best way to describe it. I want to talk though about one pick that conservatives are really angry about and that is the labor secretary pick. First of all, why are they angry? Secondly, why did he select, why did he select somebody that the base would be so upset about? Was it like a payback to the Teamsters? What was it? I think it's a question. Cuz during the campaign, right, he went up to Michigan and he campaigned as, right, this idea of pro, not necessarily union, but pro worker. And this is where Democrats had a field day. They said, well, he's not actually at union shops. Fast forward. Suddenly he's picking a labor secretary from the Pacific Northwest, the former congresswoman who has been much more defensive of labor unions, teachers unions, somebody who turned a lot, by the way, even after he did very well with union voters, correct? Absolutely. And now this is an affront again. This is the reposturing of today's Republican Party that Donald Trump can face the criticism from some on the right, but it's his party now. And this labor secretary, there's no reason to believe that she's not going to pass with Democratic support and microbeschloss, that's the thing. And the New York in the article where they quoted you just basically said, hey, this is not a conservative Republican Party. This is not a moderate Republican Party. This is Donald Trump's Republican Party. It is what he says it is. And you were quoted in there talking about how these picks, you cannot line them up ideologically, talk about it. Well, they're not robots. You know, everything Donald Trump led us to believe during the campaign was that he wanted to be a stranger strong president and a successful president. And a lot of that rhetoric suggested that he would have almost, you know, identical robots in the cabinet and among his aides. But if you look at history, you know, what is the lesson of history? The lesson of history is strong and successful presidents, almost every single one, they have people in their entourage, Cabinet and in their White House who argue with one another, do that in front of the president, tell him what he doesn't want to hear. And the essential quality here is a president who listens to all that. Classic example in history was George Washington, who you would think did not need any advice at all. His Secretary of the treasury was Hamilton, Secretary of State was Jefferson. They argued with each other all the time about things like the size of government, how you finance it. George Washington benefited in modern times, you know, you know, this case, particularly Joe, under Ronald Reagan, George Shultz and Cap Weinberger argued about, is Gorbachev serious? What should we do about the Cold War? Should we increase defense spending or lower it? Reagan hated the conflict, but he learned from it. It made him a stronger president. And Jim Vande Heij Axios wrote a similar. You and Mike Allen wrote a similar article this past weekend talking about how it is hard to see a through line with a lot of these picks, some of them very, very right wing. The labor secretary, left of center, and most conservatives would say very left wing. Then you've got RFK Jr that is just all over the place ideologically. And several other picks that are, again, just, again, just sort of random and all over the place because it's a very different Republican Party. It's not a conservative party anymore. It is, as you said, the Donald Trump Party. He sees a real, I think, opportunity to continue to grow the party. A big part of that is working class voters. Whether or not he agrees with everybody on the specifics of the, the union debate, he went with somebody who traditional conservatives would hate. This person would never make it into a George W. Bush Cabinet per se, but under a Trump world, they will. And he doesn't care if people don't like any of these picks. He doesn't care if you don't like their personality, their background. I think he, unlike most people, enjoys conflict. In fact, I think he often incites conflict. He loves it to play out in front of him so he can ultimately be the decider. It keeps him being unpredictable, which he likes. And he thinks that gives him a stronger governing hand. And so there'll be all kinds of conflict. There will be both, like publicly and privately. That is kind of the nature of the Trump operation. All right, Jonathan. Yeah, so, I mean, I think that's right. First of all, Trump in his first term really almost enjoyed the fight around him. At the Oval Office, he'd bring in aides around the desk and have them pit one against each other. Now, some of that was for simply West Wing jockeying who was up, who was down. But he did. That's what he would make a decision from. He'd hear people and then decide. Often the last voice he heard would be the one that would carry the day. But here with the union pick, this is, this is him trying to remake the party. This is him trying to bring in more of those working class voters, union voters. He, he spent a lot of time courting that vote in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, other places this time around. And, you know, was able to have not just the benefit of union votes, but a couple of major unions did not offer endorsements, which was seen as sort of a tacit victory for him at the time. This is sort of paying off here. And we have seen some extreme, you know, right wing picks and other very conventional ones. His choice for Treas secretary, you point out the inconsistency with the debt, perhaps, but most felt like, well, that's a conventional fix, no mistake. Every banker, every person on all street that we talked to over the past couple of weeks said, this guy will calm the market. So, yeah, so yeah, no, I said what I said only because I'm obsessed with deficits and the debt. And that was a huge decision to make, which I know you'll want to talk about, about tax cuts and how you pay for those tax cuts because we learn time and again they don't pay for themselves. But no, the treasury secretary, Wall street banks, the markets, they're all very happy. Yeah, and we'll sail through. There's no expectation of any concern there whatsoever. And a number of his picks Friday night were in a blitz. We had like a couple dozen came out in a few hours on Friday. Some of the health choices raised a few eyebrows, but for the most part, conventional picks that were met with Some acclaim on both sides of the aisle. So let's talk about Tulsi Gabbard, President elect Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence. That may face an uphill battle when it comes to her confirmation, particularly among Republicans on the Senate Intel Committee. Gabbard is set to visit Capitol Hill next week to meet with senators regarding her nomination. She's expected to face scrutiny for comments she's made appearing to echo Russian disinformation and a 2017 to Syria, where she met with President Bashar al Assad. Take a look at what Republican Senator James Langford had to say about her nomination yesterday. Does anything about her concern you? Well, we'll have lots of questions. She met with Bashir Assad. We'll want to know what the purpose was and what the direction for that was. As a member of Congress, we'll want to get a chance to talk about past comments that she's made and get them into full context. So, sure, there's, there's comments that are floating out there, but we want to be able to know the rest of the story. The pregnant pause, the sigh or a delay, the answer. Now, here's what's funny. So Tammy Duckworth said something off the top. Again, there's no evidence outwardly that what she said is true, that she's an agent, but not that we know of yet. But you talk to one Senate Republican on the Intel Committee after another, they will all say she's way too close with Assad. She's been an apologist for a guy who killed 500,000 people in his country and used weapons of mass destruction against civilians, gassed them. And that, yes, she does. It doesn't appear that she repeats Kremlin talking points. She repeats Kremlin talking points. She can line it up. So again, you heard a Democrat expressing her concern, but what she said is what you hear Republicans say and what you hear past Republican Intel Agency head saying all the time that this woman cannot be confirmed. And I find it very hard to believe that Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and one member of the Intel Committee will not vote her down and say, try again. Let's remember what this job is. The Director of National Intelligence has the coordination function over 17, 18 intelligence agencies. Also, Jo, this is the person who oversees the daily preparation of the single most important intelligence document that the president sees, the Presidential Daily Brief, the pdb. This person, as a result, has to be an honest broker. People have to know that they are getting what the president, to use the old line, what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear. She's not coloring it. She's not shaping it too much. I think she has an uphill fight to persuade people that she will be an honest broker. But, Richard, with all that we're seeing going on with turmoil around the world, Ukraine particularly with the feeling that she's too close at best to Putin, isn't it really a very, very uphill battle for Trump to convince the public, even if he gets by the Senate, and you say there may be a challenge there to bring in God. But when we're looking at a direct confrontation, we're not talking theory here. We're looking at a direct war with Ukraine and Putin's Russia. Oh, you've got that. You've got Ukraine and Putin's role there. The aggression continues. You've brought 10,000 North Koreans there. Talk of more Russia now has become the biggest assistor of North Korea's nuclear and missile program. So we've got that in 2026, this new administration, all the nuclear arms control agreements, the new START agreement expires. We have now got to reset the table with Russia on the future of nuclear arms control. We could find ourselves back in a situation worse than the Cold War. So the ST are enormous here. You know, Jim, most of these picks that we've talked about this morning that have been made are going to sell through. There are a couple, though, that are not. One, of course, is Tulsi Gabbard. The other is the DOD person, Pete Hegsworth. Did I say that right? I'm going to get right. Hexit, Pete Hexit. And it's interesting who you talk to on Capitol Hill, Republicans. One group will tell you that Gabbards would be the most dangerous person to America's national security. Others will tell you that it's Pete Hegseth who would be, simply because, you know, he's in line for nuclear codes and very large organization. One general told me he's the second most powerful man in the world, whoever the DoD sect is. So you better have somebody that knows what the hell they're doing and pass an FBI background check that can pass an FBI background check. So I'm wondering what you're hearing. And again, the math's pretty simple. They can't lose Collins, Murkowski, McConnell and one more, and I find it hard to believe that those three are going to put either of these two people into the most important positions in US Government. I think the concerns are much deeper at the defense secretary level because, yes, when you're Running intelligence, you're doing the pdb. But there's a lot of people involved in that. And I think there's a lot of the senators feel like there's going to be a lot of smart voices that have views that are much different than Gabbard does on intelligence, on Russia. Trump wanted kind of somebody who has different views on Russia that might be closer to his. That's why she's the pick. But when you're running the Defense Department, you're running the military at a perilous time. That's the one that Mitch McConnell cares most about. We're about to have to transform from a land based warfare operating system to space based. At a time when there's a ton of volatility between US and Russia, US and China. My guess is that will get the most attention if I had to. The person who's most vulnerable, I think it's him quite, quite easily. And that's this past week. And that's what I started hearing also because Jim brought up problems with Russia, possible nuclear confrontation there, problems with China, continuing rising China, problems with Iran. Right now they are defenseless, their air defenses are down. If Israel decides they want to start another regional war, wants to start a regional war with them and wants to go after another target after Iran keeps attacking them, you have the possibility of the regional war there. And most Republican senators are like, you gotta give us a secretary of Defense. And there is the feeling, I will say, also following up what Jim said, I have heard from several people, you can contain Tulsi Gabbard in the Intel Committee. I don't think it's that simple. But yeah, I have been hearing what Jim just said time and again. It's the dod, it's the secretary of defense, second most powerful person in the world. So this guy, even without all the baggage, even with the fact that he lied or withheld from the Trump administration and the transition team, they say he's just not qualified to do this important of a job. Yeah. And also I was talking to Republican Hill staffers the last couple of days and with Matt Gaetz withdrawing, that spared Republicans senators having to actually put their name to a no vote. And there's a sense they can only do that once or twice, but they're able to save their fire. And right now Pete Hegseth seems like the most likely candidate to get that no vote from a number of senators. And Von I reported last week on this show there was real questions raising about the Trump transition team not using the FBI for background checks. We had some Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski, expressed concerns about that over the weekend, that they're trying to just do it with private investigators who would not have nearly the access to criminal information that the FBI would. You know, you're plugged in with the Trump team. Is there any sense here they would reconsider their position, bring the FBI in in light of accusations against some of the more prominent picks? I've been asking for three weeks, and the question has been consistently that we're engaging with the GSA about signing these memorandums of understanding, which would open up the capacity to do those security clearances and those FBI background checks. But we're three weeks in now, and there has been a concerted decision not to do that. Of course, as Mika was suggesting questions about Tulsi Gabbard's FBI background file. You're talking about Cash Patel, somebody that could run the FBI himself if Donald Trump were to get his desires and his wishes. And this is where, if you are Donald Trump, there's a concerted understanding, recognition that you may not want to know what is in the FBI files of some of these individuals, because the nucleus of people who Donald Trump trusts and their failty and loyalty to him is so small now here, nine years on. And that's where you see some of these picks. These are individuals who he believes would take his orders in the White House and who he knows would obey those orders. That group of people, it is so small here in 2025. But again, though, if they can't pass the FBI background checks, you do have Republican senators that are saying on the record, kind of carefully, but behind the scenes saying, wait, we're going to have the second most powerful person in the world who's got like the nuclear. We're, we're going to let him run the Department of Defense if he can't even pass an FBI check. So they stop Matt Gaetz, will they stop Pete Hegseth, will they stop Tulsi Gabbard? I mean, that would be the biggest declaration of the Republican Party yet that we have seen that there are some of these senators, Bill Cassidy, Todd Young in Indiana. Will they take a stand? And it's not just legislation, it's a budget. Well, you just named two people right there. I haven't even brought up Bill Cassidy or Todd Young. Todd Young. Both of them very, very serious legislators. Both of them care deeply. Todd Young cares very deeply. Senator Young from Indiana cares very deeply about America's national security. It is sort of his obsession. So there's another guy I didn't even, I didn't even put on that list with Murkowski and COLLINS and Mitch McConnell right there. I don't think he can get from where he is to a yes vote on a guy that can't pass an FBI background check and is not prepared for that position. You said the two key words, national security. For a long time, the Republican Party was the party of national security. And Republicans are all over the place on social issues, economic issues, whatever, national security. So I think this might be a different test and it could be very difficult for these people. And Michael, let's talk about, I wonder when is the last America has been in such a dangerous position globally? And I will say after the election what I said before the election. The United States is the most powerful country in the world relative to the rest of the world at any time since 1945. Right. The election results don't change anything. They certainly are. But that doesn't mean we don't have the country that has the most nuclear weapons threatening to use those nuclear weapons if we push too hard on Ukraine. That doesn't mean we aren't in for a regional war in the Middle east if things don't get cooled down very quickly. When historically, when is the last time the international stage was this fraught? Well, as you're looking at a moment, maybe the late 1940s when the Soviet army was marching through Europe. And Harry Truman, as you have well written, Joe, responded by building NATO and by expanding American defense and also by instituting the Marshall Plan. And that shows that you need a president who's got wonderful advice. Who did Truman have? He had Dean Acheson at his side. He had George Marshall as secretary of defense. Even a great president like Truman needed these strong voices from the beginning of the time that they came into office. And that's the lesson here. The other thing I'm really inspired by is Republican senators seem at least at this moment, a little bit more eager to push back on Donald Trump, where they think that he may have acted too quickly. That's something perhaps we didn't expect. One quick historical lesson. Lyndon Johnson in his entourage had almost no one who had the guts to tell him this expanding war in Vietnam is going to be a loser. It's going to wreck the country, going to wreck your president presidency. That voice came from, of all people, Johnson's party leader in the Senate, Mike Mansfield, who hated the war, thought it was a loser and told Johnson this again and again and again. You really need these dissident voices either in Congress and preferably or combined with in the president's entourage. Well, and like you said, the Senate has already shown that they're not willing to give up the constitutional prerogative of advising inspiringly. And we learned during the first Trump term, an attack against one federal judge is an attack against all federal judges. When he attacked a George W. Bush judge and then he attacked a liberal federal judge, you had conservative judges from the Federalists who were from the Federalist Society ruling against him time and time again. So the federal judges are there as well. So it's fascinating. President Michael Beschloss, thank you so much. Really quickly, I just want to ask Richard. Michael said an interesting thing about that Truman had dissident voices and might be like Mike or other later on, Mike Manson, lbj, rather, the difference in the Trump administration, he's the dissident voice. What you need in the Trump administration is not so much dissident voices. Persistent say you need more traditional voices who will basically say things like, NATO has worked US Foreign policy for the last several decades, has actually succeeded. He brings the dissidents. You actually need some traditional voices who might argue that we've been well served by what we've done in the world. He had that in foreign policy the first term. He didn't like it. Looks like he has some of that. Marco Rubio. Oh, I guess Marco Rubio, yeah, you're right. There's a guy again, head of the Intel Committee that worked very well with Democrats on the Intel Committee. So I stand corrected. Really quickly, Kerry Lake, you've Arizona is your beat. I'm curious, what do you think is next for her? I don't think she's going away. She's not gonna be in the U.S. senate for six years. Do you think she's gonna work in the Trump administration? I would be very surprised because of her loyalty to Donald Trump, if they didn't welcome her in in some capacity. I think if she hadn't run for the US Senate, she could have been a press secretary for him. But I think that now once somebody loses two times like she has in that fashion, it's tough to see where she fits in. And I just have to ask you really quickly about Arizona in general. I mean, always said Americans aren't that ideological. Arizona, which of course, people look at the president's choice. Go, Democrats have lost Arizona. Arizonans have voted for four Democratic candidates for Senate in a row. What? For the first time since the 50s, they've actually sent somebody there. And Ruben Gallego, left of center, and he won. What do Democrats learn from Arizona? You learn the exact same lesson that Kyrsten Sinema learned, that Mark Kelly learned, Janet Napolitano back in the year of 2000 learned, is that if you are somebody that reaches a broad scope of people and you don't alienate them and you have somewhat of this independent libertarian streak to you in which you recognize that you want the successes of all your communities, I think those are the messages that have worked in Arizona. And by and large, you can take that to Georgia. Jon Ossoff, I think that there's examples outside of Arizona. I think Arizona just had some very unique people like Ruben Gallego that demonstrate that better than a lot of others. And I think that one thing, Ron, that has not been discussed a lot on this show and on Politics Nation race, that he had no blacks in his cabinet. He has now appointed Turner, who as the head of hud. But I heard a lot of people calling me over the weekend on the radio show saying, but that's the same HUD job that we had with Ben Carson. Is that Trump's black job? I mean, he is following someone who gave us a black vice president, a black woman on the Supreme Court had a black over the Pentagon, among other things. So he really didn't give anything to the small number of black men that increased his vote. I hope that that's something that he deals with and that people look at. And at the same time, though, I think that what he did with the labor secretary is something that surprised even me, the most ardent Trump critic probably on the show. Just say Tim Scott's absence in this cabinet. And Byron Daniels. Tim Scott, Byron Daniels appeared to be overlooked and they work overtime. All right, NBC's Von Hilliard, always great to have you on the set with us. Thanks for your reporting. And still ahead on MORNING Joe, the latest from overseas as Israel and Hezbollah trade more attacks amid ongoing ceasefire talks. Plus, one Republican senator makes an impassioned case for continued support of Ukraine. Did you see that this, Richard? This was incredible. We're going to play a long portion of this. It's, it's really, really engaging. Pouring cold water on the idea of negotiating a peace deal with a tyrant. Morning Joe is back in 90 seconds. This podcast is supported by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood Federation of America exists so all people can get access to the sexual and reproductive care and education they need. Planned Parenthood organizations advocate for health equity and policies that allow people the freedom to control their own bodies, lives and Future. More than 2 million patients a year rely on Planned Parenthood health Center services like STI testing and treatment, birth control, gender affirming care, abortion, cancer screenings and more. Reproductive health care and rights are under attack from public officials who are out of step with the will of the vast majority of Americans. The constitutional right to abortion has been stolen and politicians in 47 states have introduced bills that would block people from getting the sexual and reproductive care they need. Planned Parenthood knows that equitable access to healthcare, including safe, legal, legal abortion, is a human right. Right now, Planned Parenthood needs your help to protect access to healthcare. Donate today by visiting plannedparenthood.org protect hi, my name is Patrick Adams. You may know me as Mike Ross on the TV series Suits and I'm Sarah Rafferty and I play Donna Paulson on Suits. And we have a podcast called Sidebar where every week we watch and discuss an episode of the show. Because here's the thing, neither of us have really watched it. That's true. At least until so we're going to cover all nine seasons, share behind the scenes stories, and talk to our co stars and friends like Gina Torres and Aaron Korsh. So look, if you love Suits, Amazing, this podcast is for you. And if you've never watched Suits, also amazing. You can join us and we'll watch it together. I think we're going to have a lot of fun. Listen to sidebar wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from US Cellular. Not sure what that means. Here's a slightly more specific H. You can choose four free phones and get four lines for $90 a month from US Cellular. Your family wants new phones? How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you're great at getting hints. So take the hint and get them four free phones and four lines for $90 a month US Cellular built for us three past the hour. Time now to take a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. For seven straight months, the number of drug deaths in America has dropped, thanks in part to education efforts and expanded treatment. Also at play, the strength of the drug seems to be dropping. Fentanyl potency is on the decline as Mexico cracks down on cartels. The US has also expanded the availability of overdose reversal medications like Narcan. A former county treasurer in Arizona admits to embezzling $38 million in taxpayer funds. How do you do that? Federal prosecutors say the money was stolen. 38 million over a 10 year span. The money was used to buy vacation property, Cadillacs, RVs and luxury home furnishings as shown in this government image. Santa Cruz county in Southern Arizona is looking for ways to recoup the millions that were meant for the public's benefit. Richard, how that's a lot of $8 million slip through their 30 day hands. I guess the audits were a little bit lax. 38 million. Also Wicked soared to the top spot at the weekend box office. Universal's adaptation of the popular Musical brought in $114 million. That makes it the third biggest domestic debut of the year and the best opening by far for a Broadway to film adapted. Gladiator 2 opened in a solid second place with $55.5 million. That was a bit behind expectations. The Ridley Scott blockbuster which stars Denzel Washington comes a quarter century after the original. All right, Jim Vande Hei last week he's here, right? Yeah, he's. Last week you were awarded the 2020 Fourth Estate Award by the National Press Club along with Axiom. This is the great Mike Allen. So congratulations. The award recognizes journalists who have made significant contributions to the industry. And you have specifically you and Mikey were awarded for your work that has revolutionized how audiences consume news. And we have some of the remarks you made during your acceptance speech. Let's listen. I hate this damn debate about like oh, we don't need the media. Like it is not true. Think about what makes this. I love this country. I'm a beneficiary of this country. Like some from Wisconsin who can come and start two companies, be up here, win an award, sit next to Mikey. I'm a beneficiary of it. But there's something about the country. There's something about it, right? There's something about freedom, capitalism, the animal spirits of democracy. But at the core of that is maybe transparency, maybe a free press, maybe the ability to do your job without worrying to go to jail. Maybe the ability to sit in a war zone and tell people what's actually happening so they're not just looking at distortion matters. It matters profoundly. It's why it's not like we just love getting up at three or four in the morning doing this every single day. Like we do it because we love it. We do it because it matters. The work that we do matters. Everything we do is under fire. Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day or X today saying like we are the media. You are the media. My message to Elon Musk is bull. You're not the media. You having. You having a blue checkmark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn't make you a reporter any more than me. Looking at your head and seeing that you have a brain and telling you I have an awesome set of tools makes me a damn neurosurgery. Right? Like what we do, what journalists do, what you did in Mississippi, what Al Jazeera does in the Middle East. You proclaim yourself to be a reporter. Like, that's nonsense. Like, being a reporter is hard, really hard. You have to care. You have to do the hard work. You have to get up every single day and say, I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favor. You don't do that by popping off on Twitter. You don't do that by having an opinion. You do it by doing the hard work. Yeah. Come on. Slow clap, everyone. First of all, I've got to say, extraordinary content. It needed to be said. It continues to need to be said. When all of the garbage is flying around on social media, lying about reporters, lying about the hard work they do, lying about the hard work editors do, lying about everything up and down about not only their alternative set of facts, but alternative set of facts about what people like you do. And I love how you connected reporters in Mississippi in the 1960s to reporters fighting for their life to get the story out in the middle. Jim, it was very powerful. Really good. Very powerful. Even if they had. Even if we had to beep you more than we would if we ran a Dave Chappelle concert. I like that. It's still good. Jim's mild manner, and he preached it though the cadence. I mean, I might get him ordained. Well, let me just say why this is so important right now more than ever is because critics of the press are feeling more empowered than ever to lie. More than ever. I've had friends for years going, oh, you know, I'm so overwhelmed, Joe, by the news. I don't read the news. Where do you get your news then? Epic times. I go, oh, God. Oh, oh. You get your news from a website run by Chinese conspiracy theorists in a Chinese religious cult. That is where you get the. No. Or if social media people lying every day, every hour, every minute about the news. What you do matters. What the New York Times does matters. What the Wall Street Journal does matters. What Jonathan Lemire does matters. What the Financial Times does matters. What NBC News and MSNBC reporters do matters. It matters. And it doesn't mean there aren't things that we get wrong. And the reason I guess I was hopped up at that speech was I listen to so many reporters who feel like the industry is going to hell. Nobody trusts them. They're demoralized. And the truth is we don't have time to be demoralized. We don't have time to whine. We have to do our job. Like, there is a information war out there, and there's still tens of millions of people that depend on great reporting. And it's our job to make sure we create viable businesses around it and that we run. Really do try to get to the closest approximation of the truth. Maybe do a little bit, maybe be more curious than condescending, maybe a little more fearless than foaming at the mouth. And I think if we can do those things, I think we can win back people who are skeptical. The entire social media ecosystem, a lot of the things you just mentioned, they feed off of all of us, of us trying to get to the closest approximation of truth. So people just, like, I think they need to calm down. I know there's a lot of your viewers who kind of wish that sometimes everything was just like, boom, boom, boom on one side. But like, like, we have to bring people facts. We have to bring people clarity and hopefully reported insights so they can ultimately make better decisions and understand a very, very complicated world. By the way, we've got great viewers. And you know what our viewers are? They're family. We got a family that understands because they've been around. You have a family that follows you that understands because you've been around. The New York Times has a family, Wall Street Journal, these places that have great reporters, right? They don't need to worry about what happens over the next five minutes or the next five weeks or the next five months, because you print truth all the time. And like you said, this is what gets me, is somebody pops off on Twitter or some other social media and they lie, they make mistakes. You know what the cost of that is? Nothing. They do it again. In fact, it helps them because algorithms are rigged, so you stir up shit. And the more you can get people angry, the more followers you get. But also now it's monetized to help you. Like, the more you hate, the more you make. There you go. I like, like, hey, Rev, thank you. Preach for you next weekend. That'll go viral. I like that. But, Jim, here's the deal that I explained to my friends that go into the gutter and get disinformation. I say there's no cause for them lying to you. But if Jim Vande Hei has a reporter that gets it wrong, well, they're editors. If the New York Times get something wrong or the Wall Street Journal reporters get something wrong, their editor after editor after editor after editor, and they check it and they make sure it's right. They make sure it's double and triple sources, and still sometimes they get it wrong. And so then what happens? They either retract it or most likely they get sued if they don't retract it. Right. So there are checks and balances there that you don't find in the gutter when you're on social media, just following algorithms that lead you to liars. And it's easy to take one case of something being biased or one case of something being wrong and saying, therefore everything the New York Times writes or Axios writes is wrong. And what I tell people is just read the Wall Street Journal or Axios or the Financial Times or the New York Times every day and use your own eyes. Do you feel like they're trying to get to the closest approximation of the truth with every story? And that most of the time, if not almost all of the time, they do. If they do, then you could trust it as a news source. That doesn't mean you. You can't give yourself time to go get riled up because you have ideological views or other passions. But if you take away truth and you take away reported truth or common facts from the equation, I honestly believe the whole damn American experiment goes under. You might love or hate a free press, but there is a reason that this democracy, this country, has thrived in a way that none others have. And I believe and will forever believe that a free press sits at the center of that. And that sometimes reality is reality. In fact, facts are facts. It is. It is. You know, Jim, this weekend, the second greatest thing to come out of Wisconsin. The first. I saw a castle in Wisconsin made completely of cheese. But after that, Jim Vande Hei. Yes. Number two. And you know what I always say is, to my friends who say I don't trust the press anymore because they've been listening to Donald Trump undermine the press and Elon Musk and everybody else, I go, you know what? Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal. Read the Wall Street Journal. You don't want to read the New York Times? I'll read it for you. You read the Wall Street Journal. That's a Murdoch paper. Look at their reporting. I mean, so if people don't. If people think that Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is like a left wing, pro deep state newspaper. They're beyond help. I mean, it's like at some point, at this point, people have to want to know the truth. And if they don't want to know the truth, well, then go ahead and walk around ignorant. But again, if you won't even look at the Wall Street Journal right, then, yeah, there's a problem. Actress co founder and CEO Jim vandehei really quick, Rich, we've got to go. Go ahead. There's a movement in this country to teach kids in high schools media literacy, and they can basically navigate this space. It's an important part of a civics education. Civics education for sure. Jim, you're a hero. Great job. The packers won easily, too. So there you go. Coming up, we're going to take a quick break from politics to recap the biggest stories from college and pro football. ESPN commentator Paul Feinbaum, oh, it hurts. And MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre will take us through all this with their takes. Morning Joe. Back in a moment. Finding the music you love shouldn't be hard. That's why Pandora makes it easy to explore all your favorites and discover new artists and genres you'll love. Enjoy a personalized listening experience simply by selecting any song or album and we'll make a station crafted just for you. Best of all, you can listen for free. Download Pandora on the Apple App Store or Google Play and start hearing the soundtrack to your life. Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from US Cellular. Not sure what that means. Here's a slightly more specific you can choose four free phones and get four lines for $90 a month from US Cellular. Your family wants new phones. How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you're great at getting hints. So take the hint and get them four free phones and four lines for $90 a month. US Cellular built for us at a public urinal. It just feels like you're standing there too long. What used to seem like a high pressure hose filling a bucket, now it's more like a trickle. You notice a weaker flow, an urge to urinate more often. Sleep is interrupted by multiple trips to the bathroom and it has steadily gotten worse. You didn't think about going to a doctor for it. They may call it enlarged prostate or bph. I mean, no one talk about this. We're supposed to suck it up, right? That's what we do. But we know we need to do something or life is going to be different. But what can you do about enlarged prostate? The good news? There is a minimally invasive procedure covered by most insurance called the urolift system. Men 45 and older go to helpbphnow.com to find a urolift system trained doctor near you. Most common side effects are temporary and can include discomfort when urinating, urgency, inability to control the urge, pelvic pain and some blood in the urine. Rare side effects, including bleeding and infection, may lead to a serious outcome and may require intervention. The Urolift System may be an alternative to medications or invasive surgery. Go to help BPH Now.com to learn more and find a UroLift system trained doctor near you. Quiet day for Jefferson. One catch for seven yards. Darnold going up top early. And he finds Addison. And Addison bouncing off a tackler down the sideline. Addison down inside the 10, have the fewest 10 play drives in the NFL. They're going for it all. They've got it all. Jacobs no shot. Barreling forward. Touchdown again, number three for Jacobs in Green Bay. Goff hands it off. Gibbs cuts to the outside. To the end zone. Touchdown. And more consistent, but right, right there. Sealer just beats low for a huge play. Tavan Low gets it to Waddle. Full acceleration. Touchdown. Mayfield steps up. He's going to run it. Mayfield at the 5, trying to get in. And he does. Touchdown. And what a run for Baker Mayfield. Oh, Murray keeps it. Murray being chased by Witherspoon. Floats for Wilson. It off target to Kobe Bryant. And there goes Kobe Bryant with a house call for Seattle. We're down to 47 seconds left. Mahomes out of the pocket. Mahomes on the run. Takes a look around. Oh, Mahomes is still going. Slips away for a huge gain. Line drive to Turpin. And it bounces through his legs. Here he comes. Devonte Turpin spinning three. Here he goes. Fastest man in the NFL. Kevante Turpin takes it all the way. Touchdown Dallas. I just don't get how that one spin just made every single commander fall to the ground. But it did an incredible run back some of the biggest plays across the NFL yesterday, including the 90 yard fourth quarter kickoff return for the Dallas Cowboys. The commanders would answer with the field goal. And then this 86 yard touchdown reception by Terry McLaurin that should have helped send the game to overtime. They're happy. They're happy. They're happy. Wa, wa wa. And then downstroke, one side kick, 43 yards for a touchdown. One of the weirdest endings in a very long Time. There you go. Look at that. Okay, that was a crazy Pablo Torres here. Pablo. I mean, come on. One of the craziest innings of an NFL game in some time. Yeah. Look, I have been telling you guys, I don't know how many great teams there are in the NFL this year, but we have spectacle. You have spectacle. You know, it's one thing to have quality. Are you not entertained? Yes. And look, if you're a commanders fan, right. I think you thought it was safe to watch games like this. Yes. Jayden Daniels, new ownership, new name, renovations to the building, all of it is supposed to feel different. And then you tune into a game in which there are 31 points scored in the last three minutes or so. Yeah. And an extra point for those who. I don't know if I should explain extra points so pedantically to the audience, but please explain the words. It's just dotting the eye. So if you want the statistical rate, 96% of the time, you just drill the extra points. It's the easiest thing in sports. It's crazy. And here it is. And when you have the 86 yard pass, Terry McLaurin, and you miss this, this is when it feels like I need to go back into my borough and not watch for. Exactly. I'm not going to watch for. Now listen, speaking of not watching, let's get a shot of this New York Times. And the question is, I mean, you look at jets fans, Giants fans, sad fans. Let's talk about a tale of two cities, New York and Philadelphia. It seems to me, and you said it before, and I completely agree, that the Giants, Giants and the Eagles connected and at the same time going in two completely different ways. Yeah. So Richard, I think of Richard whenever I watch the Giants just be themselves at this point. And his notes, by the way, it's not Ukraine, it's just fire. People just like fire. Dabol. So to me, the Giants, last week, okay, Daniel Jones gone, they release him, they are in total disarray. And they go into this game against the Bucks, and of course it's Baker Mayfield against Tommy DeVito. And I don't want to again, pedantically explain Tommy DeVito, but he's the guy whose celebration is a little Buon Natale, Right. He is the most Italian man in the NFL. And so when Baker goes and does stuff like this and he mocks, he mocks the backups, backup that is now starting for the Giants, you wonder, how did they get here? How do they get here? At a certain point, you swing the camera Back over to Philly, which was in contrast to this, because in Philly, that's where the guy who was your star running back, who was running into the end zone as Baker is for the Bucks, for your Giants, you used to have the MVP candidate, Saquon Barkley, who was doing stuff like, I mean, this guy should be the MVP winner this year. Couple casual 70 plus yard runs, the franchise record 255 yards rushing, plus another 40 something on the ground. 300 yards casually on offense for you. This is Jonathan over here. I'm an old man. Let him go. When, when I was growing up and when Richard was growing up, it was the running backs who were the stars, not so much the quarterback. And said you had Roger Stalbach, Terry Bradshaw, but running backs were the stars. Right? And that weirdly enough, now it's quarterbacks and wide receivers. Barclays breaking that rule right now. That guy is the difference maker in Philadelphia. Yeah, there's a little bit of a shift back towards the running backs this year. Derek Henry in Baltimore, but most particularly Saquon Barkley, who I think should be the MVP this year because there's not an elite quarterback. Maybe it's Josh Allen after the big play last last week. We also saw stellar running backs in Detroit and Green Bay yesterday. And like suddenly, as wonderful as the Lions have been this year, packers only came behind him. So that division, the NFC north, if you're not. Again, if you're not tracking this as maniacally as I am, these are three playoff teams. The packers are what, 8 and 3 right now? There it is, 8 and 3. In third place, the Vikings just beat the Bears to go to nine. Our preseason picks, not looking bad. No Chiefs, nobody picked the Jets. Here we were, the Lions and the Chiefs. Thank the Lord that none of us were so delusional as to think that the Jets. Hey, Paul Feinbaum, we're not talking college football yet. Let's see how disciplined we can be. Let's talk about the Chiefs and the Panthers. Not a lot for the University of Alabama to be excited about, but tell you what, yesterday we had a lot to be excited about. When we looked at this, this game. We finally saw Bryce look like the quarterback in the NFL we knew we could be. Joe, Bryce Young finally did what he was paid $30 million to do. He led a team to what was hopefully a winning drive. They ended up scoring with about two minutes to go. They got the two point conversion and of course they handed the ball over to Patrick Mahomes. And we saw what happened I mean, you hand the ball over to Mahomes with, you know, a minute and a half left, I mean, you just knew he was going to win the game because that's exactly who he is and that's why he keeps winning Super Bowls. But Bryce, actually, you know, I've never been a fan of letting rookies play in the NFL the first year. Set them at least for half a season. Let him see the pace, let them under. But nobody does that anymore. They draft somebody, they throw them out on the field, and it usually hurts them. You look how Bryce controlled this game, how he controlled the offense. We don't have to watch this. And Bryce, you can tell Bryce, on the sidelines for two, three, four, five weeks, helped him look at the game from the sideline and understand, okay, that's what I need to do in the NFL. That's how things are different in the NFL. The pacing, the speed, the quickness, the skill. I mean, it made a difference, didn't it? It made a tremendous difference. And listen, he was cast aside. They were talking about trading him, getting rid of him, but in the end he showed great resistance. Now, Joe, I have to ask you a question. Are we just filibustering here, talking about a little sad? Let's talk about it was pathetic. But, you know, it's always easy to blind blame the quarterback, right? And I will blame a quarterback who's getting paid $30 million a year. I will not blame a kid. And I'm sorry, I'm old enough that if you're in college, I call you a kid. I'm not going to blame Jalen Milroe. When Oklahoma actually has coaches who are smart enough, they stop the run. They've got to figure out a way to get him confident, to get him. This is the second half after he was shut down the entire first half. The thing we know that J, his confidence goes up when he's running, then he can start passing. Well, the coaches even say that this is an offense, the Alabama offense, that their offensive coordinator doesn't have a theory of the case. Their defensive coordinator incapable of adjusting in the middle of the game. You would think if Oklahoma ran the ball 50 times, their quarterback did, they would actually go, you know what? Maybe we should stop him from running around the left edge. I, you know, Jack and I would watch the game. I go, all right, he's going to, I swear to God, I go, he's going to fake a hand off. He's going to run around the left end, did it time and time again. I'M telling you what, these coaches, especially the assistant coaches. No, I'm dead serious. They will be good coaches one day, but that will not be in time for the University of Alabama. They don't belong there. They're not good enough to be there. We have an offensive coordinator time and again, again that actually doesn't understand that you can throw to your tight ends in the seams like 4, 5, 6 yards down the field, split the seams, spread the defense out, open up the running. I mean, Paul, this is obvious stuff. This is obvious and I don't know how they got this bad. This is. We remember the Mike Shula era. I was at Alabama when they were 5 and 6. Right. We are there again. And Paul, this is a sad thing. It's not going to get any better until you have coaches that know how to play in the sec. Joe, I was thinking back over the years and yeah, Alabama has had inferior coaches, but I cannot remember a time in a big game. And by the way, everything was on the line. Alabama wins in Normandy, beats Auburn, which will be. They were. They were. They're already a double digit favorite. They go to the SEC game, they're in the playoffs, they have a shot at a national championship and they threw it all away. And I just don't ever remember a. A ill prepared team. And I blame the head coach who is Caitlin DeBoer. Yes, we all know what he had to take over, but he was left a gold mine. He was left one of the two or three or four best, most talented and he's throwing. You know, Paul, usually people say don't follow a great coach, which makes a lot of sense. But in this case, and I hate to be this way, this is the best it's going. No, I'm serious. This is the best it's going to be. He has Nick Saban's players and he's getting beaten this badly by a 1 in 5 team in the SEC. And he seems like a really nice guy and he seems real. Hold on. He seems really. That's your heart tight. Hold on. No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. This is the South. Hold on. He seems very Zen most of the time and that's awesome. Guess what? That's what I want in baseball coaches. Right? That's what I want in baseball players, where you have to stay zen because of all the failure. You don't want that in the SA Southeastern Conference. So what's Alabama going to do? Are they going to sit there and be polite and let this program tank over the next two or three years or are they going to make a change this year? Joe, they're not going to make a change. That's pretty obvious. I asked the after. We'll be having the same conversation next year, but go ahead. No, it's not going to happen. And they will go to some good bowl game in Florida that nobody will care about recruiting here. And I think the same thing will happen because it's not fair to compare him to Nick Saban. Nobody is Nick Saban other than maybe Bear Bryant. But this is where we are with Alabama. And again, the problem is I'm not knocking these guys. I'm really not. They're ill prepared. He's not. He was not prepared to come into the sec. I never thought he was prepared to come in the sec. I don't care for Lapons. We're talking about the most important thing in America, the future of Alabama football. Hey, Paul, you guys, let's talk about the other games and let's talk about teams that are actually going to be in the playoffs. Why don't we start with you, Pablo? Let's talk about Ohio State and Indiana. Oh sure. Which one doesn't belong? I like how Ohio State is a palate cleanser for you Sorbet. So Ohio State, the theory of their cases, they have one of the best offenses and one of the best defenses. And sometimes you get a school like Indiana that hasn't really played this level of competition. And so when you, when you evangelize on behalf of the sec, just know that the reason you can do that is because there are teams like Indiana that go up against Ohio State and get exposed immediately. And so the playoff picture, look, sometimes, you know, the Duke's Mayo bowl, you know, that's a delicious bowl for Alabama to be at. I told my son we were going to the Astro Blue Bonnet. Yeah, beef ogre, beef o'gradeys or whatever it is like 40 years ago or something. Paul, let's talk about the SEC and another crazy game, Ole Miss, which we are all sure after. Georgia was the best team in football. Nick Saban said best team in college football. The Gators handed it to him. Let's talk about that game and talk about like who's. Who's good enough in the SEC to take it all the way now. I still think Georgia maybe, maybe the best team. In spite of a couple of losses, Texas has not played a very good scheme. Impressed. So what you're going to get from the sec, you'll get three schools Tennessee has now in the playoffs probably because of what happened the other day. Georgia and Texas. I want to go back to the Ohio State game for just one second though. Did you see Caleb Downs 75 yard punt return? That guy was in Alabama last year. Can you imagine how he would have helped in a situation like that? He's probably the biggest affection. He went from Alabama to Ohio State. But ultimately this great league that I cover and you love Joe. We thought maybe five schools would make it right now. 3. The only possibility of more is if Texas A and M wins this epic game against Texas and then they go to the SEC game and Texas gets in and perhaps Texas A and M winning there. But that's the only way. It was one of the. I have not seen a day with more carnage in the secular and by the way, never penultimate weekend before Thanksgiving. It's usually. We call it cupcake weekend. It's always Mercers and the Georgia. It's usually when nothing happens. But even though Oregon is number one, I think Ohio State will beat them in at the. At the Big Ten championship game. Penn State and Indiana, you mentioned that. I mean, Joe, I think Indiana would finish about 8th or 9th maybe in the SEC. Can we get. Can we keep those games up? Put up this list and now I know this. Last week's Alex, I know what as Neil Young would say, I've done this before. But anyway, I want to go through these and Paul, maybe it's just me. If Oregon plays in the sec, I saw how they played Wisconsin, how they struggled. They'd lose three or four games. Ohio State, they're a good team. Texas, I'm not so impressed. If Georgia gets them in the SEC championship, they're going to lose again. Penn State. Don't get me started on how badly Penn State would do in the. Can't win a big. They can't win a big game. They never won a big game. And they would lose four to five games in the sec. Same with Indiana and Notre Dame. I know I'm going to upset my friends, but seriously, how long must this charade continue? It's been going for 40 years now, okay, stop putting them in the top 10. They humiliate themselves like Alabama does. Miami. You know, I thought Miami was weak until I saw how bad Alabama was and suddenly Cam Ward's a guy that can change a game in an instant. I can't. I can't figure out Ole Miss who can. And so there you go. Pablo, would you like to add anything while they're screaming what I Like is we is clearly hearing all of this for the second time this 48 hours, seven minutes past. I just like how Joe has turned this into an episode of Paul Feinbaum's radio show. He's a caller. He is the next Phyllis from Mulga. God bless her soul. This is Joe's time. Okay. And Paul, final thought. Reclaim your time, Paul. Reclaim your time, Paul. Give us the best two teams in college football that you want to see in the championship game. I think ultimately we're going to see Georgia play Ohio State. That would be a great game. What do you think, Pablo? Yeah, I hate to disagree. That sounds right. Yeah, I would love. Actually, I would love to. Hey, Paul, have fun on your show. Espn. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. And Paul, you have said I was in large part responsible for bringing Nick Saban to Alabama. Yeah. I want you. You to pass along the word if you want to win again, and I know nobody will want to do it. Bring Lane Kiffin to Alabama and we'll win a national champion. The papal enclave is reassembling. No, listen. Let me tell you something. I said this while they were searching, and they got us a guy that didn't know the sec. You may not like Lane Kiffin. You know, Joe is responsible for bringing Saban. I mean, Joe. I've said that. I'm not making it up. It happened. Had you not done what you. So I am appointing you as the voice of the SEC to start the Alabama coaching search today. You bring Lane Kiffin to Alabama. We will win a national championship within three, and he will be at the top. We will be in the championship game for the next six years. It's that simple. You know what? As I said about the ag pick, you can pay me now or you can pay me later, but you better do it now because we're going to keep losing. That's just saying. But other than that, I got nothing. Profound. Thank you very much. Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from US Cellular. Not sure what that means. Here's a slightly more specific hint. You can choose four free phones and get four lines for $90 a month from US Cellular. Your family wants new phones. How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you're great at getting hints. So take the hint and get them four free phones and four lines for $90 a month US Cellular built for us.