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.
by an out of state organization. at issue is the state s trigger law that bans most abortions after roe v. wade was overturned last summer. a group of anti-abortion physicians say the law might not be able to take effect unless a 1998 high court ruling that recognized the right to abortion under the mississippi constitution is also overturned. abortion activists say the organization has, quote, no practical stake in this case. and the republican herald in pennsylvania had a front page feature on the amount of time students lost during the height of the pandemic. a new global analysis shows children missed about a third of the school year, leading to learning deficits. that time has still not been made up. researchers believe this has worsened existing racial and wealth disparities. not to mention, adding on here myself, the social issues and
rashbaum, thank you for your reporting. two more officers relieved of duties. two additional officers were initially placed on leave the day after the traffic stop. one is confirmed to be officer preston hemphill. he was also part of the now defunct scorpion unit and used a taser on nichols. the police department would not answer questions yesterday about the senate officer. hemphill s lawyer confirmed video was on his body camera, and he was the third to arrive at the initial stop. but says the officer never went to the second scene where the beating took place. hemphill is cooperating with the investigation. the memphis fire department also fired more personnel as a result of the nichols case. two emts and a lieutenant, quote, violated numerous mfd policies and protocols.
the top when he could have. merrick garland always says, well, we start at the bottom and build up and up and up. you don t have to do it that way. there s no reason merrick garland couldn t have gotten to, say, cassidy hutchinson or mark short in late 2021. he was beaten to the punch by the january 6th committee. yes, he s moving slow, but i think it is fair to say speed matters. at this point, he is moving too slowly. i think that s going to compromise his ability to make this case someday. all right. now, the former president is suing bob woodward, speaking of cases, claiming he never gave his consent to release audio recordings of their interviews. woodward interviewed trump 20 times from 2019 to july 2020 for his book, rage. the conversations were released in october as an audiobook entitled the trump tapes. the former president released a statement saying he only agreed for the recordings to be used, quote, in the written word. he also claims that woodward and
officials over the last two months after losing his bid for a statehouse seat. he claimed voter fraud in the election. never provided evidence. no one was injured in the shootings. pena will remain in jail as he awaits trial, mika. starting today, the washington post is launching a new year-long column, leading up to the presidential election, addressing the flaws in our current system of democracy. the first is entitled living through a great pulling apart, can america pull together? it reads, quote, our nation is in desperate need of democracy renovation. we need to bring this old house we all share up to date and fit for purpose in the 21st century. to some extent, our challenges are simply that our family is bigger now. systems are straining under the scale and complexity of our family s needs. but there s also the fact that