Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe.

It is Wednesday, December 29th, a busy morning of news on this week.

A couple of days before a new year with us, we've got MSNBC contributor, bestselling author,

Cathy Kay, the host of way too

early and White House Bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, and former U.S. Senator, now in NBC News

and MSNBC political analyst, Claire McCaskill. We're so glad Claire could jump on with us this

morning to talk about the death of longtime Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,

her former colleague, his wife of 62 years, announced in a statement last night that Reed

passed away peacefully while surrounded by friends following what she called a courageous four-year

battle with pancreatic cancer. Combative but soft-spoken, Reid was elected to the United States Senate in 1986

after serving two terms in the House of Representatives. He held the role of Senate Majority Leader

from 2007 to 2015 and was a pivotal figure on Capitol Hill during the administrations of both

George W. Bush and Barack Obama. President Biden, who worked with Reid for two decades

in the Senate and then eight years while vice president paid tribute to a person he called a

great American and a dear friend. In a statement, the president wrote this, if Harry said he would

do something, he did it. If he gave you his word, you could bank on it. That's how he got things

done for the good

of the country for decades. President Biden also listed a number of Reed's accomplishments,

including helping to pass the Affordable Care Act and economic recovery legislation in the wake

of the Great Recession. NBC's Chris Clackham has more now on Harry Reid's lasting legacy.

But the highlight, at least for me.

Harry Reid was known as a tenacious fighter even before becoming a senator.

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