too early" with us. "morning joe" starts now. biden signed an executive order to control a.i. there is no one i trust more to save us from the rise of the machines than joe biden. as long as none of those machines is a bicycle. he's fine. he's fine. >> "the late show" having fun with president biden's executive action earlier this week on artificial intelligence. we'll have a lot more to get to on that this morning. including donald trump jr. taking the stand. >> how did that go? >> we'll get legal analysis on his testimony, which i think will continue now. plus, the latest out of the middle east. more wounded palestinians and foreign nationals are leaving gaza. it comes as there is a new threat from hamas. and on capitol hill, republican george santos survives an effort to expel him from congress. that's thanks to some help from democrats. meanwhile, it appears republicans are finally getting fed up with senator tommy tuberville's antics. we'll show you what his colleagues had to say on the senate floor. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, november 2nd. does this week feel long, just a smidge? >> i was sure today was friday. do i have something on my jacket? >> just breakfast. anyhow -- >> it was going to be brunch. >> no. joe and me, the host of "ay too early," jonathan lemire. and special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay. the host of the podcast "on brand with donny deutsch," donny deutsch. and contributing columnist at "the washington post," george conway joining us this morning. good to have you. >> i have to say, willie, we're obviously going to go to israel and gaza and everything that's happening there, but, my gosh, last night, senate republicans just finally had it with tommy tuberville. >> yeah. >> you had military veterans like joni ernst and others getting on and just eviscerating him. held him on the floor for five hours. you know, at one point, a republican said, he goes, "how dumb." he didn't say, "how dumb can you be?" he said, "how dumb can we be? president xi is loving this, tuberville. vladimir putin is loving what you're doing. you are aiding and abetting the enemy" is what, basically, his own republican party was saying. >> yeah. you had senators -- senator tuberville suggested that military is bloated and these are desk jockeys. you had one of the senatos we'll hear in a second walking through who exactly who the men and women are. to quote the great alex khorasan, our executive producer, quoting "die hard," "welcome to the party, pal." where have these senators been the last several months? they've been saying privately, sometimes in public, that they don't like it but doing nothing about it. last night, senator tommy tuberville of alabama faced backlash from members of his party who challenged his blockade. they attempted to approve 61 military promotions by voice vote for more than four hours. tuberville rejected each nomination, as his colleagues' frustrations grew. >> we have done the best that we can to honor the request of a fellow senator, that these nominations be brought to the floor and voted on individually. and i really respect men of their word. i do not respect men who do not honor their word. >> no matter whether you believe it or not, senator tuberville, this is doing great damage to our military. i don't say that lightly. if this is the norm, who the hell wants to serve in the military when your promotion can be canned based on something you had nothing to do with? >> simply, in my opinion, an abuse of the powers we have as senators, to say if there is something we vehemently disagree with, we're going to use that power to hold up the promotion of over 350 men and women in our military. >> these are the people who are kicking in doors in fallujah, shooting terrorists in the face, and we have people saying they're desk jockeys and not warriors? that's just ridiculous. it's ridiculous. it's insulting. the chinese admirals and their military, they're probably watching this debate right now going, i can't believe my luck. i can't believe our luck. maybe we should attack taiwan tomorrow. we're going to look back at this episode and just be stunned at what a national security suicide mission this became. >> senator sullivan served in the united states marine corps for years. joni ernst served, as well. you see the frustration. we've been hearing it privately. sometimes you'll hear mitch mcconnell say politely, i disagree with what tuberville is doing, but it's how the system was set up. for some reason yet, the dam broke, they came out against tuberville. >> i think a lot has to do with the fact, jonathan lemire, you had an episode with the marine corps commandant. i guarantee you every one of the senators were, first of all, angry behind the scenes all along. >> yeah. >> i guarantee you, every one of those senators got calls from the pentagon, going, what in the holy hell are you guys doing? we've got guys being sent to the hospital now because -- like, one job is enough to just absolutely rip somebody apart. you're making them do two, three, four jobs because of this clown from alabama, that even people in alabama don't support? you know the pressure coming from the pentagon with one of their own being sent to the hospital on a health issue, i mean, you know it is getting intense now. >> yeah. that marine corps leader hospitalized over the weekend. he'd spoken openly days previously that he is working two jobs and simply couldn't do it. it was too much. now, we saw him have this health episode. my understanding is, talking to a few republicans involved with this yesterday, that played a role. as, of course, the escalating crisis in the middle east. this is not a moment where the u.s. military cannot be at anything other than full readiness. we have two aircraft carriers in the region. of course, there are still the war in ukraine and concerns about china and taiwan, as well. we saw from lindsey graham, who, of course, is a hawk and always been pro military, he was very firm. dan sullivan from alaska, the strongest voice there. mitt romney and others, all taking shot after shot after shot at tuberville, who says he is staying with this despite the onslaught. >> joni ernst spoke quietly but gave one of the harshest digs when she finished, by saying, "i don't respect men who don't keep their word." >> yeah. well, i mean, it really is an absurd situation. somebody -- maybe they have been telling the guy, you can't play football without a roster, but he is sitting there and blocking everything. partly, it's the senate rules we've all heard about. also, i've wondered why it is that all of these officers have to have their commissions -- they have to be confirmed by the senate. it does not make any sense. as i understand it, the constitution, the appointments clause of the constitution only requires principal executive officers and, essentially, cabinet heads, to be confirmed by the senate. by law, congress can say that everyone else can be selected by just the president alone or even by the courts of law, depending on what it is. here, you have thousands of people up for nomination, and it doesn't make sense. it opportunity add up with the senate rules that say one senator can insist on debate on every single one of those. i mean, the rules as they're set up now depend on good faith, and what we're seeing here is not good faith. >> absolutely no good faith whatsoever. it has nothing to do with the military. it is gutting readiness. >> it is not an exaggeration. >> senator sullivan said, we're going to look back on this, and it'll be a catastrophic suicide mission we've put on military on. unfortunately, you have that happening in the republican -- with the republicans in the senate, with tommy tuberville, and then in the house, you've had house members who constantly eviscerate and attack and beat down the united states military, hate the united states military, hate the generals that run the united states military, hate mark milley when he was chairman of the joint chiefs, was so disrespectful to him, it was sickening. it made me sick. nobody, nobody, not even the most left-wing radical when i was on armed services, ever treated a general or an admiral with such little respect. then you add on top of that, you actually had republicans in the past saying they wished the united states military was more like the russian military. the same russian military that tried to bum rush us in syria. minutes later, 200 were dead. guess what? you know what the specialsir? welcome to the party. do we want our troops to be like russia? let me answer that, hell no. ask any general. not only in america but anywhere across the world, do you want your troops to be like the russian troops or like american troops? you know, i remember, i remember way back, 40, i don't know how many years ago i was in college, maybe it was, what was it, aut 6 or 7? i don't know. i remember then, it was a political science course on soviet history. you know, we were talking about cold war and everything. this professor happened to have a lot of experience dealing with the soviets and goes, "they lok at our soldiers, regardless of what you hear, they think they're 7 feet tall. they'll never say it. they're scared to death of american marines. they want no part of it." do you know what's changed in all that? nothing! nothing. the chinese are scared of our military. the russians are scared of our military. the north koreans are scared of our military. the world is scared of our military. they quake in fear. the only people that don't seem to respect our military right now are republicans on capitol hill and the guy who is going to be the next president of the united states if the republicans have their way. it is grotesque. they stand alone in the world in their disrespect for the strength and the power and the might of america's armed services. >> put a brand on that. >> well said, sir. beyond the grotesqueness of it, the stupidity of it. there's one thing that pretty much everybody agrees on, republican, democrat, of course, not these knuckleheads, is a respect and a love and a reverence for military. i can go forward to 2024 and basically think about an entire campaign, military for joe biden, military for democrats. have a campaign called, generally speaking, where i have every general to come forward. as we already have, just come forward and said, "i understand the importance of readiness. i understand the importance of defending our country." >> by the way, i understand better than you, because as the senator said, we were in fallujah. >> yeah. >> we were fighting across afghanistan and in iraq, tommy tuberville, while you were sitting there playing appalachian state. >> while you have the military supporting democrats, that's about as strong as an endorsement. >> by the way, no disrespect to appalachian state at all. some of the best people i know. >> yeah. >> i know. >> they beat north carolina. >> the point is, it's not military. >> right. >> i love appalachian state. some of the best people i know are from appalachian state. just saying. >> good program. >> from auburn, you know, it is a different level, blah, blah, blah, it's not fallujah. go ahead. >> that's the campaign i would run, generally speaking. have generals talk, here's one side and the other side. because if the republicans lose military, and they've lost law and order, what do they have? they don't have much left. they have nothing left, if i think about what they've been talking about lately. >> overthrowing the government. >> the other thing -- >> they get that. >> -- tommy tuberville is, i don't know where the republican university of stupid performative art is. >> josh hawley. >> whether you're -- >> calling a guy whose mom survived the holocaust an anti-semite and whose family, a great number of them, were lost in the holocaust, calling them an anti-semite yesterday. >> yeah. >> or tuberville. >> matt gaetz, here's the formula. be really stupid, obnoxious, completely off your rocker, get exposure on television, raise money. >> put it on your instagram but only cut the part where you're insulting the person. >> i don't know where the school is teaching them these things. >> yesterday, josh hawley insults -- >> mayorkas. >> -- a man whose mother survived the holocaust. i think auschwitz. he's so proud of it, he puts it up on his instagram. he is that shameless. >> yeah. >> you know, he should have gone -- if he had any humanity at all -- >> issued an apology. >> any humanity at all, he would have apologized. no humanity. no shame. this is your republican party. >> that's one of the key rules, to donny's point, never apologize. >> yup. >> never apologize. lean into it even when you insult the son of a holocaust survivor. raise money off of it. we had people asking us, how can this be? how can one man hold up the legislation, the promotions in this case? in the united states senate, one senator can hold up anything. now, they usually go around them quickly or the senator has made his or her point and they move along, but here now, tommy tuberville is standing alone, as we saw yesterday, even among his republican colleagues. the question is, as he makes this stand, choosing against the united states military and its readiness and for abortion, you know, being against abortion so members of the military cannot go state through state to have health care, what is the world thinking as it watches this? what does it look like from london, from europe? what does it look like in the middle east with the crises that are exploding? >> okay. it reminds me of something bob gates, when he was defense secretary, said to me, under president obama, america faces three threats in the world. it faces a rising china, declining russia, and the tlets threat of itself. he meant the dysfunction in american politics. when he was talking to me the beginning of the obama administration, it seemed mild compared to what it is today. tommy tuberville shows no signs of backing down. you now have the consequence of that, people in military positions who are extremely tired. they are working, as this general who was hospitalized, was working from 5:00 a.m. in the morning until 11:00 p.m. at night working two jobs. you don't make the right kind of decisions in america's best interest working those hours. it's all part of this questioning of america's -- whether america is governable. is this a country that works still? joe and i were talking about this. does it work on guns? work on security? work on a senate level? does it work on being able to keep itself open? on being able to pay its bills? the dysfunction, you know, is something that is slightly, sadly, being baked into the equation amongst america's allies, and i'm sure amongst america's adversaries. that's not a good place to be. you don't want them to say, yeah, this is just more washington dysfunction. we're getting used to it. that's not a great position to be in. >> it is so strange. you usually have -- george, you'll have countries begin to fall apart, and that'll be leading indicators of a political system starting to collapse because it can't keep up. here, you have the united states military, stronger than any military in the world. if you look at it relative to the rest of the world, this is the strongest position we've been in since 1945, end of world war ii. look at our economy. katty talked about it all the time. we can have rattner talk about it. compared to britain's economy, europe's economy, china's economy, we are light years ahead of everybody right now. fed is doing everything it can do to tamp down and to beat down this economy. can't do it. we just keep growing. i mean, you can look at the education and, yes, woke and you have all these other problems. you've got administrators that won't stand up to ananti-semiti. at the same time, best colleges and universities on the planet. there is not a close second. everybody across the world sends their kids here if they can because they want them to come to america. we have a crisis on the southern border, and even on the northern border now. why? not because america sucks. not because america is ungovernable. because if you talk to any of those people crossing the border, if you talk to people, you know,migrated here, legally, which is the way we have to do it, get order and do it that way, what will they tell you? they'll tell you what they've told me. they really do believe america's streets are paved with gold. they really do believe america is the last hope for a dying world. they believe it. because compared to what they're living in and where they're living, we still are. yet, why is it, with all these indicators, with teen pregnancy at the lowest rate in 70 years, with childhood poverty going down, why is it that we have a washington, that we have politicians there that are so unworthy of the nation they govern? >> because people vote for these politicians. that is, to me, the big mystery. we live at a time where the standard of living we have today is as good as any group of human beings has had in human history. >> better. >> i mean, everybody out there, including people who don't live so well, have their fancy google phones and whatever. we have it so good that some people just are looking for something to gripe about. we develop this -- i'm trying to express it -- a form of nihilism. they want institutions torn down because they don't feel they have enough. they don't have satisfaction in their lives, so they vote for these people. these people cater to them and raise money by catering to their anger and their -- i don't understand the dynamic, but there's a psychology here, a sickness that pervades the country. >> the way it works is, these people that are talking about tearing down institutions because they're not fair to working americans, then get their money, run for office, get elected, tear down america, and -- >> then complain about it. >> -- pass tax cuts that help the billionaires, the multibillionaires. that's insane. all these $25 donations going to all these nihilists that say, "we're going to tear down the government," they don't do anything but help billionaires get even richer. >> yeah. >> it's crazy. >> george santos. >> it's crazy. it is almost like they're all watching something that's brainwashing them. >> yes. we have a lot more to get to. we're back in 60 seconds. donald trump jr. will be back on the witness stand today in his father's civil fraud trial. we'll go through the testimony he gave yesterday. plus, the voters of new york will ultimately decide how long george santos stays in congress after his fellow republicans -- >> did you see that picture -- >> -- failed to expel -- >> -- of don jr. -- >> -- him from congress. >> -- looked like johnny depp from "blow." >> we'll be back in one minute. >> i love that movie, but there he goes. like a character from the movie. >> we're back in a minute. mr. secretary, what is going on here? is this typical of people who work at dhs? this is an asylum and immigration officer who is posting these, frankly, pro genocidal slogans and images on the day that israelis are being slaughtered in their beds. what have you done about this? >> mr. chairman, may i? >> if you'd like to have a minute to respond. >> oh, i would. i'm not sure i'll limit it to 60 seconds. >> that's fine. >> number one, what i found despicable is the implication that this language, tremendously odious, actually could be emblematic of the sentiments of the 260,000 men and women of the department of homeland security. number one. number two, senator hawley takes an adversarial approach to me in this question, and perhaps he doesn't know my own background. perhaps he does not know that i am the child of a holocaust survivor. perhaps he does not know that my mother l