Good morning and welcome to Morning, Joe. It is Tuesday, February 18th. We've got a lot to get to this morning, including the diplomatic talks between U.S. and Russian officials happening now in Saudi Arabia.

NBC's Keir Simmons is there and standing by to bring us the very latest.

Also ahead, we'll go through yesterday's plane crash in Toronto where miraculously everyone on board survived after a Delta jet flipped over on the runway.

It comes as the Trump administration continues its move to gut the federal workforce,

including employees at the FAA.

Plus, we'll bring you an update on the fallout inside the New York City mayor's office over the Justice Department's move to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams.

With us, we have the co-host at the fourth hour and contributing writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire.

The host of way too early, Ali Vitale, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, an associate editor of the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, the host of way too early, Ali Vitale, Pulitzer Prize winning

columnist, an associate editor of the Washington Post. Eugene Robinson is with us. MSNBC political

analyst, Anand Girid Artist. He's publisher of the newsletter, The Inc. available on substack.

And columnist, an associate editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius,

is with us here in Washington.

And we begin with the diplomatic talks between U.S. and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is meeting right now with a Russian delegation led by

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The group is supposed to discuss options for ending Russia's

invasion of Ukraine, but the talks have drawn criticism for not including any Ukrainian officials.

This is a first face-to-face meeting between a U.S. Secretary of State and their Russian counterpart

since January of 2022.

Meanwhile, leaders from across Europe met in Paris yesterday to align their position on Ukraine after being excluded

from the talks between the United States and Russia, hosted by French president Emmanuel Macron.

The leaders of the UK, the EU, and Germany were in attendance, among others.

Macron spoke with President Trump before the meeting.

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