on a singular message that this election will decide whether american democracies survives. will those words move voters? plus, the u.s. scrambling today to find partners for peace in the middle east, even as the israel-hamas war threatens to spin out of control. will secretary of state antony blinken s fourth trip overseas break new ground. and a new front in the war of transgender rights. the stakes are high whether trans americans can run for office using the names they choose. i ll talk to vanessa joy who says she was kis disqualified from her race in ohio because of a law she believes could put other trans candidates at risk. we start with the president s massive political gamble, betting that voters will rally around him as the defender of democracy and reject donald trump s dystopian vision of america. that message is at the heart of a big speech he ll give near valley forge this afternoon and is expected to be the framework for his campaign going forward. they d
ghislaine maxwell trial, the indictment of jeffrey epstein, the idea that these were, quote, unquote massages and would often turn sexual, that s where the alleged sexual abuse occurred. when you look at this, he goes through they had a whole process set up to bring in these underage girls. they had no experience. they were recruited. they were brought in, and it matches a lot of the evidence that we heard during the maxwell trial. it just shows the type of machine in a really horrible way that he had set up to be able to get these women in to commit horrible crimes against them. do we have any idea more documents and when? definitely more documents as soon as today. a number of the documents that came out yesterday were some medical files and health files attached to virginia giuffre. going forward here, and it s no surprise following the judge s order, a lot of these names and a lot of the things we re starting to see we ve seen before. they re motions that we have
lawsuits, numerous media organizations have asked for materials to be unsealed since it was settled several years ago. the judge saying that a lot of this information and identities have already entered public domain, either because people have spoken up publicly, or through maxwell trial that she said she was going to unseal all these documents that could have references to about 150 different people. some of them may be some accusers who have gone public and been outspoken about this. there are others from giuffre s lawsuits, she has made accusations of prominent men. she has accused prince andrew of sexually abusing her. they reached a settlement after she filed a lawsuit against him. she s also said epstein made her a sex slave and she was forced to have sex with the former new mexico governor, bill richardson. former u.s. senator, george mitchell. representatives for both of those men have denied they ever knew her, let alone had any sexual relations with her. she also has talked
we had a terrible delta wave in the south and texas, in the southern states, not so much in the northern states and now it s the inverse. okay. thank you for all the information. we ll talk again soon. thank you. so for the first time, the jury in the maxwell trial has asked for transcripts from defense witnesses. what does that tell us about which direction they re heading? and next, the life of harry reid. how do you hope you ll be remembered? i have five children. i want those children, grandchildren to understand what a love affair i ve had. more important than any of your public accomplishments. that s all i want.
reporting on the cdc s decisions to relax guidelines as cases hit record numbers. plus, we ll have the renewed questions of what constitutes being fully vaccinated. good morning, welcome to morning joe, it s thursday, december 30th, i am willie geist, with us the host of way too early, jonathan lemire and susan docille. good morning, guys. first, the verdict of the trial of jeffery epstein s long time associate, ghislaine maxwell found guilty yesterday. reporter: the jury found maxwell guilty including five charges and sex trafficking of minors and carries 40 years