Morning Joe - i have never seen numbers like that: Joe reacts to Trump’s cratering poll numbers

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

i have never seen numbers like that: Joe reacts to Trump’s cratering poll numbers To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mr. President, were you aware that Secretary of Commerce visited Epstein's Island? And do you continue to have to... No, I wasn't aware of it. No, I didn't. I actually haven't spoken about it. I wasn't. But from what I hear, he was there with his wife and children. And I guess in some cases, some people were. I wasn't. I was never there. Somebody will someday say that. I was never there. All right. President Trump yesterday telling reporters he has not talked to Howard Luntnick, who admitted this week, that he took his family, nannies, kids, to Jeffrey Epstein's Island in 2012. And that was years after Lutnik claimed to have cut off contact with the convicted sex offender who he called

Gross, who also, it turns out, was his neighbor. The fallout from the Epstein files is just one of the stories that continues to dominate Washington. There are also a number of other developments surrounding the Trump administration's immigration policies, including a federal judge's sharp criticism of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota will go through that ruling, what it means. It comes as thousands of immigration officers are now set to leave the state after six weeks of aggressive immigration enforcement and, of course, the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens of which the feds are investigating and they took the evidence away from the state, not allowing the state to do a complete investigation. Many feel both of those killings were

pretty much execution-style murders. And new polling showing people don't like it. President Trump's approval rating is sinking in large part because of ICE operations and deportations. Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, a partial government shutdown seems likely after Senate Democrats yesterday blocked two funding bills for the Department of Homeland Security. And then there's this, a disturbing story about a man accused of sexually abusing children. Seems there is a theme here. A man accused of sexually abusing children after he was pardoned for participants. in the January 6th insurrection. Good morning and happy Friday.

You can have seen that coming. Everybody could see that coming. It's going to keep coming too. And I will tell you, you look at that. You look at all the other news that's out right now. You look at the numbers. Ice, again, we said it. This was not politically viable for them to continue doing what they did in Minneapolis.

So that's leading to the drawdown. You look at a lot of the other policies, though, just devastating for the president. We're going to show the numbers, the loss of support among independence, the loss of support among 18 to 29-year-olds. I mean, think about this, a 51-point swing. I've never heard of that in American politics before. A 51-point swing. in a year's time, which means...

On an issue that predominantly on an issue that he campaigned on. This is just overall. Yeah. And these polls where a year into the president's term, voters are saying Joe Biden was better, and there's a spade of them out this week. Young voters have cratered the U-gov Economist poll found Donald Trump minus 42 net approval among 18 to 29-year-olds. That's a 51 point swing from plus nine at the start of the presidency.

Now, Jonathan Amir, if the president was actually listening to anybody, maybe you could trim the cells a bit here and there. But every day, it's another act in a shock opera, which I don't know. I don't know. Maybe there's this belief. I know there's always been the belief shock people, own the libs, and gain your power from their overreacting. But we're not, we understand this. And it's not owning the libs, as I've said before, if you're hitting your forehead with a ball peen hammer.

That's owning you. And that's what we're seeing in these numbers. It's just like Pam Bondi. Everybody I've talked to. Trump supporters, Republicans who are sort of Trump curious, independence, of course, Democrats, saying that the Bondi testimony was probably the worst they've ever seen on Capitol Hill. Does that end up affecting Pam Bondi in her next election? No, because Pam Bondi's not going to have a next election.

It does impact Republicans that are going to be running this fall. And you just wonder, with a 51-point drop, With the political bleeding in Texas among Hispanics on his strongest issues, when in the world, are they going to start behaving a bit more rationally? Because right now it just doesn't seem like anybody in the White House cares. Yeah, it's a mix of stubbornness and existing solely in your own bubble, your own echo chamber. And right now, President Trump, despite please, grow louder and louder pleas from Republicans. to change course, he simply won't.

And, you know, he is doubling down on the, you know, the deportation policies. Yes, eased up in terms of agents out of Minneapolis. Okay, that's a nod to how poorly things went there. But the quota system for deportations still in place, still pushing forward with the tariffs, still refusing to engage on the Jeffrey Epstein matter, and sticking by members of his staff who, frankly, a number of Republicans will be happy to see him jettison. that includes Howard Lutnik, and then you're right about Pam Bondi.

I am told that, you know, her performance on the Hill this week, not well reviewed in the West Wing. But President Trump himself appreciated her fight. She was out there defending me. He has told people and does not seem inclined to make a change. In part, that's a point of pride for him this time around, the no scalp's policy. Don't give Democrats the media a win by firing somebody. But you're right. The polls just keep getting worse.

But at least for now, President Trump, who Joe, we talk about it a lot, has a pretty good political antenna, can read the numbers. But at least for now, he's refusing to budge. I think that's what I don't understand. She wasn't defending him yesterday. She made a fool of herself. And that hurt him. Hurt him badly. All of these things hurting him badly.

We're hearing Stephen Miller wants to do this or that. Donald Trump's letting it's hurting Donald Trump badly. if Donald Trump has the great political instincts that we've seen him have through the year's years, he should recognize that what Pam Bondi did yesterday is going to make his numbers even lower. I mean, and you've been from the very beginning of the ICE operations in Minneapolis, you've said this is going to really damage the White House politically. Well, what's interesting is this turns out to be so far, and I'm not sure all the American people, even parts of the base, are with him on.

this is the no-consequence presidency. Nobody gets fired, whether it's shielding child predators or being child predators within this administration, potentially, or whether it's execution-style killings in Minnesota, whether it's this ice raids gone wild, all these things that he campaigned on that are turning upside down within his administration, but no accountability, none at all. And he seems completely detached from it. Like I wasn't at Epstein Island, so that's all I really care about. There is a no consequence aspect to this presidency that I think might be frustrating to some people. And Pam Bondi was literally sitting with her back to victims. That picture will go down in history as her legacy. Yep. The female attorney general, a woman who makes history by nature of

having that job, turning her back to victims of sexual predators, child predators, and refusing to address them in any way, refusing to agree to meet with them in any way, refusing to even confirm that they are still looking for these predators out there. Predators in our midst, in her midst. They're covering up for the predators. They're redacting all of these lines. And yes, Pam Bondi, the defining picture of Pam Bondi's term, will be her keeping her back turned to those women who were victimized by rich, powerful men and who they're covering for right now. It certainly seems that way. And just like with Christyneum, the picture will be her sitting there posing in front of human being stacked like cattle, many of them innocent, as we're finding out.

And there's news on that. And there's news on that today, too. So, you know, the reason why, and I know this would be offensive for capitalists, I mean, for our socialists, the reason why a lot of us believe in capitalism is it's a free market. And when it's not rigged, the way it's rigged right now, so monopolies get to get more and more powerful and billionaires get richer and richer. When there's a level playing field in capitalism, there's competition. And if you do something smart, work hard, you get rewarded. if you do something really stupid, you get punished. Well, here, because this is sort of being run more like an autocracy and a strong man's

government, there is no sort of capitalist instinct inside this administration. You use something really stupid. A lot of times you get rewarded for it if you're loyal. Now, that may work in Russia. That may work in Belarus. It does not work in the United States of America. And that's why those poll numbers have collapsed by over 50 points among young voters, among independence.

There have to be consequences to stupid actions inside the White House. And if not, the buck stops with the President of the United States. And that's what we're saying. Also with us, we have the host of Politics Nation on MS Now, Reverend Al Sharpton. He's the president of the National Action Network,

former Obama White House Communications Director Jen Paul Mary is with us. And MS Now, National Affairs analyst, John Heilman, he's partner and chief political columnist at Puck. So let's get right into it. Let's go to more details on the polls that you were talking about, showing President Trump's approval rating, taking a hit amid overwhelmingly unpopular immigration and deportation operations. At some point, we need to talk about these so-called detention centers, which may have another word to really apply.

They're not detention centers. They're internment camps. And they're building these internment camps all over the United States. And if anybody in the White House is stupid enough, stupid enough to think people are going to allow internment camps in their communities and that it's not going to call, you know, you think you can stop people from taking pictures, from visiting. It's just going to make the situation worse. These internment camps will end up being another devastating blow politically to Republicans. And I'm just wondering who's running things in the White House that they would put internment camps

or try to put internment camps all over America. Roger Wicker, powerful Republican from Mississippi already said, we don't want internment camps in our state. We'll see. We're covering a lot of stories of people who are getting stuck inside those. Nobody can find them. People pregnant mothers, not getting the care they need, abuse. And a lot of lawmakers being denied.

access to be able to see what's happening in there. So this is another piece of this ice puzzle. It all feeds in to this. There need to be changes in the White House or these numbers will continue to collapse. So according to the latest AP NORC poll, his approval rating stands at 36%. That's down four points from just last month. A year into President Trump's second term, three new polls show more voters now say Joe Biden did a better job as president than Donald Trump. A Harvard Harris poll found 51% of registered voters say Trump is doing a worse job than Biden versus 49% who say he's doing better. The latest Russ Musen poll found 48% of likely voters say Biden did a better job as president

compared with 40% who chose Trump. First of all, Joe Biden is absolutely loving. this. Donald Trump's absolutely hating this right now. And again, it's self-inflicted because there are so many of these policies that are being pushed end up accruing to the president's detriment. And a new U.Gov economist poll found that 46% of U.S. adults say Trump is doing a worse job than Biden compared with 40% who say he's doing better. So Axius frames it this way, quote, Trump's net approval on the economy is 26 points lower than it was at this point in his first term, and 53 points lower among independents.

I've never see numbers like that. According to CNN polling analyst Harry Enton, young voters have cratered. The U-Gov economist poll found Trump at minus 42 net approval among 18 to 29-year-old. A, get this, 51 points swing from the start of his presidency. Is that a big swing in a short amount of time? Well, I'm not really good at politics. I just sort of stumbled under the show this morning because I can't get a gig at the MLB Network to talk about spring training.

But yeah, from what I've gathered by listening to podcasts, that's a lot. John Heilman, I've never, I've never in 32,000. 33 years following this very closely on the hill and all around. I have never seen 50 point swings. Here we have a 51 point swing on the economy, a 51 point swing among Gen X voters. Just in that's in the past year. In the past year. And we could talk a lot about why that's happening.

We could talk about the policies that are being conducted on ice and people getting gunned down in the streets. We could talk about Epstein. We could talk about Pam Bondi's performance. But you and I were talking. You brought up a great point about Pam Bondi's performance. It's not just how bad it was yesterday. And it's the same thing with Howard Lutnik. It's not just that he got caught red-handed.

lying. It's every time people see that Pam Bondi testimony, what does it do? It keeps the Epstein Files story alive. In fact, it turbocharges it. Every time people see Howard Lutnik, what are they going to be thinking? Oh, this is a guy that lied through his teeth about his relationship with Epstein, said he stopped in 2005, actually took his family to rape Ireland five, six years later, moved in next door in New York. So every time you see Howard Lutnik, it's a billboard that says, ask me about the Epstein files. Every time you see Pam Bondi, it's a billboard that says, ask me about the Epstein files. I don't know how this could be managed any worse.

Sometimes you just got to cut people loose from your administration. Well, right. I mean, so much is in that, all of that, Joe. And I'll say the thing you and I and Mika have been talking about and everybody on the show has been talking about now for, I guess it's like seven months since the Epstein story became one of the most important central driving, animating stories in our politics, is that everything that the administration has done, and I mean that the administration, President Trump, Pam Bondi, everyone, everything they've done, has prolonged and exacerbated

this scandal and prolonged and exacerbated and given more power to this political issue. My pal Jim Paul Mary is on there, and you could ask her, like, what the right communication strategy would have been seven months ago, eight months ago, nine months ago. Can you imagine like a textbook that's more the opposite of whatever the right communication strategy would have been in this circumstance than to have Pam Bondi way back a year ago, invite right-wing influencers into the White House and promise them full disclosure on the Epstein files and then not give it to them, say it was on her desk, the Epstein dossier, and then not put that forward. And then in every turn from now, and this is to bring it up to today,

they have only acted guilty. That's the, most Americans are not watching Pam Bondi on Capitol Hill. They're sane. They're not like us. We watch these things live. You will see, I'm certain, a cold open on Saturday live this Saturday, making fun of Pam Bondi. But, but, and so that will get it out into the culture. But for anybody in the political class, for a Republican, a Democrat on Capitol Hill,

for the survivors, for the media, everything that Donald Trump has done and that his people around him have done throughout this period, and it's only made worse by the way Pambani behaved like a lunatic on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, is to make them look like they are hiding things and make them look guilty. We still don't really know what, if anything Donald Trump did, that might be illegal, that might be criminal, it might just be immoral. But the reality is, does anything that they've done make us want to see the two million documents that have not been released less, or does it make us want to see them more? It makes everybody want to see them more because Pambani's behavior, Donald Trump's behavior,

makes it look more and more like they are hiding stuff and that Donald Trump is guilty of something. That has got to be like the most perverse political communication strategy I have ever seen in covering politics over the course of the last 30 years. We've said it over and over again. We've said it day in and day out. Everything that they have done, has done nothing but keep this story going. Any, any White House would have dumped it. Any smart White House would have said, here it is, here's a document dump, you know, drop all the documents on a Tuesday, people go crazy over it, like two weeks for two weeks, and then guess what? It's over. It should have been over six, nine months ago. Instead, it's drip, drip, drip,

Here, it's hard to imagine Pam Bondi. It's hard to imagine the White House doing any worse, John Lamere. Pam Bondi said, I have a list on my desk of these Epstein people. We have documents, all of these documents and trucks ready to release. And then Susie Wiles several months later ago, that's a lie. Pam doesn't have any of that stuff. And so they can't even get their stories straight inside the administration. And it seems to everything she's done.

And especially this last, this, when you won't answer any questions, when you talk about the Dow being over 50,000, when you talk about all, which is not anymore, we talk about all of those other things. And you don't want to talk about women being raped or women being sexually trafficked or women being abused going to Rape Island. You can't talk about that. when that's what the Maga Base wanted, then yeah, you're just, all you're doing is fanning the

flames and all they've done is fan the flames over six months instead of getting this story behind them. Yeah, Bondi made the claims that she had the material on her desk and they presented the binders to these sort of right-wing influencers. That was a year ago. That was last February. And then the story did fade for a couple of months and it came roaring back over the summer. And I was just looking up. I talked to a Republican operative who said, they're handling this and paraphrasing just slightly, about as badly as you can in terms of extending the story. That was in July. That was in July.

And here we are in February. You know, it has gotten that much worse. And Jen Palmeri, it's not just, you know, the horrors that are in these emails. And first and foremost, of course, we keep our thoughts with the victims. But it also reinforces what a lot of people think about this administration. And I want to talk to you briefly about what Senator John Ossoff said. over the weekend, where he called it the Epstein class, which is a sort of a shorthand for, yes, this perhaps predatory behavior, but also these elites who are looking down on you,

who are mocking you, who are doing well when you're not. And this is part of, I think, it's not just bad on its own merits for this administration, but it reinforces everything else, too. Yeah, it's like the chumminess of it all, right? I mean, Howard Lexington, like, really like I stopped by, I stopped by, I stopped by his island on the, you know, on the way of my, presumably on some other yacht, I guess, on his summer vacation with his kids and all of their nannies. You know, and that's the explanation. And, you know, I, the, it is, I mean, I'll say one thing, you know, John's like, I don't think a lot of people talk about Pambandi. I've been, I spent a lot of time out in America and was in the South last few days. And people were talking about Pambandi.

I mean, you hear, you hear it at rest, you know, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, restaurants and these are not, you know, these are not, you know, these are not Democrats that are expressing concern about it. And I think it is, you know, when we talk about the incompetent, in terms of how they've managed it, you know, John said, you know, John asked for my input earlier on that, so I'll follow up, John. It's bumbling incompetence from Bondi and Cash Patel and like we've talked about last year, right, and how they're like, we're, you know, we have it and been showing it off when they don't actually know what's in there. And then the weird thing is the behavior from the president, right? Because it's that it's just you, you, even that little

clip you showed about him reacting to Howard Lutnik, that guy is never prepared. He was clearly on a script when he said, I haven't talked to Howard Lutnik about it. You know, somebody told him, it's important that you say that. Because I, you know, maybe that thing that triggers, you know, congressional questions or something. But he acts. in a way he does with no other issue, guilty and scared. And when the communications strategy doesn't make any sense, look to the person at the top to understand, like, why the bad, you know, why it's going that, why it's going that way.

And I think you just have to look at Trump. Yeah. You know, Jen, I always tell, I've always told my children that when something doesn't make sense, there's a reason why it doesn't make sense. And yeah, none of this makes sense. The way they've handled this just doesn't make sense. I want to ask you and then have Rev respond to this. And then John, a number that Heilman and I keep talking about that standout is his collapse of support among really Donald Trump space.

And that is non-college voters. He's down 20, 25 percent with non-collects. voters. I connect this to the Epstein class. Also connect this to calling affordability a hoax. So many, many of these voters are the same voters that can't afford their rent, can't afford their health care, can't afford to send their kids to college, can't afford the things that they thought they were going to be able to afford to pursue the American dream. And when you start seeing non-college voters support for Donald Trump and Republicans cratering, that's the five alarm fire, right? Right? Well, because there's something at the base of that, too, right? It's that because non-college voters have been moving to Republicans for a while now. And if it's, if they see that there is nothing underneath, that their belief that that Donald Trump and the Republicans were on their side and that the evidence is very much to the contrary. And, you know, I'll add some into your list, how about canceling the gateway project, right? There are, there are hundreds of workers that got layoff notices that said don't report to work on Monday because Trump is just holding the money.

because he wants an airport in Virginia named after him. All of the clean energy projects that were underway, the wind projects that were underway, people have lost their jobs because of this. And this does not go unnoticed among that, among working class voters. So I think that it's not just bad news for the Trump administration. It suggests something larger is collapsing in how they're looking at the two parties. I also think that people do. not realize it is natural for people to identify with something that reflects them.

You know, I've been in civil rights all my life. People would fight saying that could be my kid if it's Trayvon Martin or some delight. We look at these victims. These victims are young children that look like some of the people in the base of Donald Trump. And they're saying, wait a minute, that could be my daughter. or the two victims in Minneapolis, that could be my daughter. So I think the fact that they can relate to the victims here, that you can't other them, is hurting Trump and Trump's base.

The other part of this, you know, there's a scripture in Proverbs, 6th chapter. You are ensnared by the words of your mouth. They made Epstein and bring the Epstein files out. They made that an issue. So they're being ensnared by their own issue. They put it out there. They campaigned on it. Now they're coming back to reap what they sold.

And I have a fellow preacher now in Reverend Mika. We can preach this on Sunday because, oh yeah, you preached on yesterday. I was jumping up and down. But clearly, they made this an issue. And that's what's come to haunt them. And how do you tell people that you got excited about this Epstein issue? That all of a sudden we're not answering. We're stonewalling.

I don't know anything. And the Epstein class is all over my cabinet. Yeah. And it's not just that they made it an issue. It was one of the issues. You kept talking about sexual trafficking, child trafficking. You kept having conspiracy theories. People showing up at pizza joints, shooting places up.

You had movies out about a guy. And I heard this like a year. or so ago, oh, there's this guy who's a hero and he went out and they made a movie about him for breaking up, you know, child trafficking rings. Ends up. He was charged with improper behavior. Our people were saying that he conduct, but there was just this obsession, rightfully, on child trafficking, rightfully. But what happened to it? Where did it go? MTG still cares about child trafficking in the MAGA base. Who else does?

I don't get it. Thomas Massey still cares about child trafficking. But are you really telling me that people that were obsessing about child trafficking and just making up shit every day about Hollywood stars? About famous people being like aliens and child predators and all of this other stuff? they suddenly just go dark, go quiet, because now they don't want to know the truth. And we've actually got the truth right there. It's out there.

It's in the hands of Pam Bondi. But have you lost interest? It's suddenly sexual predators. Is that all right with you now? Because it sure as hell wasn't before. And just to remind you, friends, is started talking about this in 2015, 2016, asking why Jeffrey Epstein was still on the streets. Saying it made absolutely no sense to me. How did he get that sweetheart deal? So just

save your old. No, we cared. Yeah. We cared about it. We talked about it. We were confounded by it. I guess you decided to start talking about it, not because you cared about children. but because you just cared about politics. And all the reason I would say that is because you don't seem to care now. Where are you? Because all these people that were talking to me about it, they're not talking about it anymore. Maybe that's because you know.

It's up. The truth's out there. And you got an attorney general that doesn't want that truth out. It must be hard to live that way. All right. We're going to cut. We're going to continue this conversation. It helps if you're always against child predators, always against sexual exploitation, always against the rich and the powerful using their position to exploit younger women.

I don't know. Still ahead on morning, Joe. The Trump administration's deportation crackdown. We're going to talk about that with Steve Ratner, who's standing by with charts, looking at the important role immigrants have played in the U.S. economy. Plus, the latest from Capitol Hill, as the Department of Homeland Security appears all but certain to shut down ahead of a funding deadline at midnight tonight. And as we go to break, let's talk to Bernie. A quick look at the travelers forecast this morning from Accuethers Bernie Rayno.

Bernie, how's it looking? Mika is looking tranquil on your getaway Friday, your Accuather forecast. How about sunshine in Portland, Boston, New York City, 39 degrees, Washington, D.C., partly sunny. 42, 51 in Chicago. Southern tier of the U.S. It's bright and it's sunny. It's pretty nice. 63 in Atlanta.

Thunderstorms late in the day, Oklahoma City toward Dallas, but I'm not projecting any weather-related flight delays across most of the country. Our weekend storm will be a rain producer in the southeast, limited impacts in the northeast. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Ague Weather app today.

Enjoy the weekends and the view. Judge you turn back, they've all come to the former men. Is yelling at ICE officers or Border Patrol, is that a form of domestic assault on the officers? No, sir. Mr. Lyons. No, sir, it's not. Go ahead. Is filming of ICE or Border Patrol either an assault or a crime in any way, Mr. Scott?

No, sir. Mr. Lyons? No, sir. So there were people who said, and they were part of the government, I don't think they were in a view, but part of DHS and part of the administration said that, yes, the officers were using de-escalation tactics. Nobody believes that. I'm just going to stipulate that. I don't even need your opinion on that. No one in America believes shoving that woman's head in the face in the snow was de-escalation. But your officers need to know, they had a verbal encounter with them. She did not place her hands. hands on the officers. She wasn't trying to get their weapon. It's not great. I mean, I don't, I don't like to see these encounters either, but is it appropriate for the officers to respond to a verbal barrage of words or whatever? Is it proper to physically throw a woman down or to throw anyone down? If the only action is verbal, no. Okay, that's what I want to hear. Yes.

Correct, sir. Same answer. Did you provide Secretary Nome with an assessment of what Mr. Pretti was engaged in and that he was engaged in domestic terrorism? Is that why she said that is because you told her? That was your belief at that time, even though you need an awful lot of investigation. I don't know exactly what happened. Are you the ones that told her that? No, sir. No, sir.

Did anyone who reports to either of you provide this assessment to Secretary Nome that this was mass casualty, or he was attempting to inflict mass casualties and domestic? terrorism? Does someone in your staff tell her that? Not to my knowledge, sir. It's remarkable. A ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Hold on. Hold on. Christy Noun may have lied. And just out of the blue decided to

alert out domestic terrorist. That's what she does. Yeah. And she's still there. Gary Peters. And before that, committee chair, Rand Paul, questioning the acting director of ICE and the CBP, Commissioner about the use force and the killing of Alex Pruddy. Again, both of these victims

of what appeared to be execution-style murders immediately defamed by the head of Homeland Security and others. Alex Prady being called a would-be assassin was it

even within an hour? Absolute lies. And she was sitting in her cowboy hat, standing her cowboy hat after Renee Good was assassinated, or not, I guess you can't call it assassinated, but shot at point blank range. And she sat there and just lied through her teeth. Didn't know anything. Again, I have no idea how she still has a job in any other administration, including

Donald Trump's first administration, she would be out. There she is. She's there, and she just starts lying about a woman whose last word. were, I'm not mad at you, turns her car sharply to the right and tries to leave, and then gets a bullet through her brain from her side window, from her side window. And then the feds try to clean it up. And I will tell you something, Mika. They took the investigation away. I will tell you something. They're cleaning it up.

It's a damn good thing that Rand Paul is where Rand Paul is right now. You know, as a guy, as a small government conservative who always looked to conservative slash libertarians as allies and trying to balance budgets and trying to bring down the debt and trying to bring down the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy, I've seen all of those people just cower. It's good to hear Rand Paul actually talking like a small government conservative slash. libertarian, even... But just like a human being. Well, I would say like a human being, but again, so many other people that have been screaming about small government

their entire life, now are sitting back and justifying federal officers killing Americans in the street because they were yelling at them. Think about that. Most Republicans are justifying this where federal agents

killed two Americans in the streets of America. because they were being yelled at. That's how far we've come. And now you have Rand Paul, who's actually calling everybody to account. And I'll tell you what, these two gentlemen that were testifying yesterday are not going to allow Christyneone to set them up. It's her straw men.

That testimony came after Bordersar Tom Holman. Yesterday declared an end to what the White House called Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. And hours after that announcement, a federal judge, ruled the Trump administration has violated the constitutional rights of ICE detainees in that state. U.S. District Judge Nancy Brazel, a Trump appointee, ruled that during the recent immigration surge in the Twin Cities, detainees were held in overcrowded conditions and denied access to attorneys. This is, again, the whole detainment process was a whole other part of the story. She also questioned how the government could deploy thousands of agents, but claim it lacked resources to protect detainees' rights.

Grisel wrote in part it appears that in planning— Now, is this a Trump appointee who's writing this? This is the Trump appointed judge. This is a Trump appointee. Okay, so it's not some lefty hippie. It appears that in planning for Operation Metro Surge, the government failed to plan for the constitutional rights of its civil detainees. the government suggests with minimal explanation and even less evidence that doing so would result in chaos. The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard

their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights. You know, Mika, I know a lot of people have been lied to, and they now believe that because somebody is a migrant or somebody has a green card or somebody's not a U.S. citizen. They've been lied to enough by politicians on the right to now believe that constitutional rights do not apply to those people in the United States or when they're in these internment camps. Well, let me tell you, they do. And none other than Antonin Scalia actually said, sorry, you may not like it. The United States Constitution applies to American citizens in the United States, anybody who's in the United States and any American, wherever they are, across the globe. That Scalia, the godfather of conservative jurists saying that,

and that's not saying anything radical. That's just the reality. So if you're in these internment camps, whomever you are, your constitutional rights could be violated if it's on American soil. I know there are a lot of you out there that think the Constitution should be shredded and only apply to the people that you want the Constitution to be shredded applied to. I'm so sorry for you. So sad. Too bad. So sad.

It doesn't work that way. Yeah. The Constitution applies to all these people that are in all these internment camps where members of Congress are not even able to visit on a regular basis. This is bizarre as well. Just bizarre that these internment camps are actually like being hidden in plain sight. Alligator, Alcatraz, Florida. We have to have to have more transparency.

Back to Minnesota, let's just, it's important to point out the two people who were killed in what many are calling an execution-style murders are American citizens. So what a mess. And now this, a federal judge has blocked the Pentagon from punishing. Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona for participating in a video reminding service members of their duty to refuse illegal orders. Defense Secretary Pete Hagseth has been pursuing steps to reduce the senator and retired Navy captain's rank and pay over that video. But the judge, a nominee of President George W. Bush, said those actions violate Kelly's First Amendment rights. quote, this court has all it needs to conclude that defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly's

First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees. It's obvious, but important that it was written. A lot of these things are obvious. It's so obvious. The judge goes on to write, quote, after all, as Bob Dylan famously said, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, to say the least. our retired veterans deserve more respect from their government and our Constitution

demands they receive it. Secretary Heggseth is vowing to her appeal, writing on X, quote, Sedition is sedition, Captain. Cedition is sedition, Captain! What a child! Series, what a child! Captain! And yet, wait.

Absolute child. And not that voice, Pete Heggseth himself was repeatedly saying the same exact thing. His voice is changing right now because he's actually getting younger. He's being more adolescent than ever before. He said the same thing back in 2016 that the military will not follow unlawful orders. Military leaders saying you could not possibly kill the families of would-be terrorists and they would not follow the order.

And is answered, Donald Trump's answer, and what if the generals won't listen to you? When you say take out the family, they'll listen. That's really not the answer. I got some response from vets on that saying you're not just going to follow that order if it's unlawful. Military's not going to follow illegal orders. And so the Trump campaign was forced to change their position and say, we're going to try to change the law so that the military can operate within the law. That's a tall order also.

But then when pressed on it, he's an armchair tough guy. I hate to say it. But this is a guy who said that John McCain is not a war hero, yet he sought his own five military deferments. But he goes way too far. And then when the military says, we won't follow illegal orders like, torture or killing families, which is not loosening the rules of engagement, he suddenly realizes, wait, I might actually be Commander-in-Chief. And the problem here is that voters don't know whether you get the bluster Trump, which is

the armchair tough guy, or you get the one who walks it back on a statement now and says, no, no, I'll follow the law. Here's the problem with Trump. He says, go ahead and kill the families. Go ahead and torture. Go ahead and go further than waterboarding. What happens when people follow those orders or don't follow them? It's not clear that Donald Trump will have their back.

Donald Trump is oftentimes about Donald Trump. I do think there have to be consequences for abject war crimes. If you're doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that. That's why the military said it won't follow unlawful orders from their commander-in-chief. There's a standard. There's an ethos. There's a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do. Yeah, I mean, he literally says the same exact thing.

The captain is saying. And, you know, you listen to what Pete Hex had said before he was trying to impress Donald Trump. And he's now assumed many of the things that he was mocking and ridiculing Donald Trump for. He said, you know, sometimes you've got blustering Trump. Well, this is blustering Pete. And he talks about Donald Trump is an armchair tough guy. And that's exactly what he's playing. I guess that's the role that he thinks Donald Trump wants him to play.

But this is, again, it's so bizarre that he's trying to punish United States senator for saying the same exact thing that he has said himself. Well, and for saying something that's true. Well, and for saying something that the U.S. military has also. always told their troops. Also this week, a federal grand jury, of course, in D.C. declined to indict Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers over their message to the military and with us now. John Heilman, before we go, I just want to circle back on the poll numbers because there's a part of it that I know you think is really critical. And that is, you look at those working voters that have turned against Donald Trump. The big story may be, and this is usually

usually is fools gold. I used to always call Pennsylvania fools gold for Republicans. Now it seems that Texas has always been fools gold. They got to five points and then Donald Trump did extraordinarily well this pastime. But there are a lot of political observers that are looking at the special elections, Fort Worth, Senate campaign went dark blue. You look at Ken Paxson, who's just a political wreck. If he wins the nomination there, then you look at have this massive shift among Hispanics for good reason because of the ice tactics. And suddenly, that's a bigger problem for Republicans nationwide. Talk about that.

Well, you know, we were talking before about that 23-point swing with non-college voters, Joe. And, you know, a large part of that is driven by the collapse for support for the administration and for Republicans more broadly with Hispanic voters. you pointed out, largely due to ICE, although there's probably some other factors as well. That's where Donald Trump gained, he's always had working class voters as the core of his base. He made the most dramatic gains in shoring up and strengthening that part of the coalition in 2024 with Latinos. And, you know, that's now collapsed. And you look down at Texas, and I agree with you, you know, we've, there's been a lot of fools gold in Texas.

And a lot of times when people have said, Texas is about to turn blue. and then they fall either a little bit short or even more than a little bit short. But you do have this insane Texas Republican primary happening in the Senate right now where John Cornyn is facing not one, but two challengers from his right. One of them, Ken Paxson,

who was seen as the real threat to Cornyn. So the Cornyn people boosted a third candidate who they thought was going to come in and take votes away from Ken Paxson, turns out that now both of the right-wing challengers to Cornyn are running ahead of Cornyn. He might not make the runoff, Joe, and you're going to have potentially then two where Ken Paxon is the more mainstream candidate, and I can tell you that there's not a Republican in Texas who doesn't think that Ken Paxon,

as the Republican nominee in that Texas Senate race, is eminently beatable statewide, and that brings us back to that collapse in support with Latino voters. You know, a Texas Republican without any support or with the negligible support of Latinos in Texas, that is, if not a slam dunk for Democrats at all, certainly a case where it might not be fools gold anymore. You could have a very, very, very, very competitive Senate race in Texas this fall. Yeah, I mean, you look at the fact that, so just look at the shifting demographics in Texas. Texas. First of all, Barack Obama lost Texas by 13 points in 12, in 16. Hillary Clinton lost it by 9 in 20. Biden lost it by 5. They're moving in that direction. And then because the Hispanic vote, especially along the border and other areas, went right with Donald Trump. Everything got thrown back up in the air again. Now, things have settled down Donald Trump's numbers and Republicans' numbers have collapsed. You went from just having the Dallas suburbs, which used to be the reddest place in Texas,

now turning dark blue. Same thing now with Fort Worth, Texas in that Senate race turning blue. Hispanic voters moving blue, working voters, moving blue, young voters moving blue. Suddenly that 5% in 2020 that Joe Biden won by, suddenly if Republicans, end up selecting. Ken Paxson, Democrats just have the best shot ever of actually winning the state of Texas

in a Senate race. Yes, and that's, and that's, and that is a huge thing. You know, it still is very an uphill fight for Democrats to retake control of the Senate. But if they could snatch Texas away, it is suddenly very much within their grasp. Yeah.

All right, John Harmon, thank you so much. up, we're going to get reaction from the ground in Minnesota following border czar, Tom Homan's announcement that federal immigration officials will withdraw from the state. Plus a January 6th rioter, pardoned by President Trump, is back behind bars. We'll explain the new crimes he's convicted of. Again, sounds like the pages of the Epstein files ahead on Morning Joe. Mr. President, have you fired your work discipline that staff? or he posted a video from your account that included the Obama's?

No, I haven't. That was a video on, as you know, voter fraud. And fairly long video, and they had a little piece and had to do with the Lion King. It's been very well, it's been shown all over the place long before that was posted. It is a video. Not fired. Who gets fired? Nobody. Nobody gets fired. Literally the no accountability presidency.

And again, because I'm a capitalist. I'm believing the free market. I believe that when you do really stupid things, you should be fired or at least punished politically. As far as if you, like, let's say, we're going to pretend that this was a staff member. Right. Who said, sir, I put this up about elections, sir, and it ends up having one of the most racist and bigoted memes you could put out there. In the middle of the night. Former president of the United States.

Yes. In the middle of the night. He's doing that at 1 a.m. for him. Former president of the United States and his wife, former first lady of the United States, being characterized as apes. And Reverend Al, not only does he refuse to apologize, Bill Cassidy, you're listening. Not only does he refuse, thank you Mr. President. Not only does he refuse to apologize, even a way.

week, thank you, Mr. President, for taking the video down. Thank you, sir. And then Donald Trump the next week later. It sounds just like Bill Cassidy, doesn't it? And then like an hour later, Donald Trump, of course, cuts him off of the knees like Donald Trump always does when people try to act like he's acting rational. And he immediately goes, oh, there's nothing wrong with that video. It was a good video. And so here you have the president. You know, they change your story so much. It's hard for a simple country lawyer like me to keep up. But if I were in front of a jury and have a board that first of all, they'd have it and then would have him saying, oh, as a staff member, then would have Carolyn Levitt saying, how dare you, this is about the Lion King. Haven't you

seen the Lion King? Simba and, yeah, Mufasa. By the way, that's a great, that's a great movie. Got to be kidding me. Got four kids. I've seen the Lion King about 873 times with my kids. But that said this, I've seen the Lion King. This was not the Lion King. Nope. This was a clan-inspired racist video, Rev, and here we are

like a week later. No apologies. No problem with it at all. Saying it's a very good video. And where are the Republicans? Like, where are they? Where are

our right-winged podcasters? when they have the president of the United States. They're too upset about bad bunny. Putting out a Klan-style video. Yeah, they're focused on bad bunny. They can't take it. And I believe, Ralph. And this is all I'm going to say, is the last thing I'm going to say, I promise, until I say something again.

I really do believe we have defining moments in presidencies. We really do. Many people would say for Jimmy Carter was the Malay speech and the Iranian hostage crisis. I really do believe this past weekend is going to be a defining moment in this presidency for this Republican Party, because this Republican Party did not stand up to what happened. Number one, a clan-style video making Barack and Michelle Obama characters, characterizing them as apes, number one. And no apology from the President of the United States, not enough blowback from Republicans. And number two, that insane reaction to bad bunny.

And I say it's insane because here again, these people who are supposed to be capitalists, they are shocked and stunned and deeply saddened that the biggest cultural institution in the United States of America selects the biggest music star in the world to go on the biggest stage on the planet. And make it bigger. And make it even bigger. And do all of that for the very capitalist. reason that Hispanics are a demographic the NFL wants to grow. That's why they're playing games in Mexico City.

It's why they're playing games in Spain. Hispanics underperform financially with the NFL, as far as when they're looking at their demographic charts, they want more Hispanic. So this was the most capitalistic, most conservative thing in the world, and yet the right melted down because he was a Hispanic. He was an American Hispanic, and that was more deeply offensive to them than having foreigners coming and singing where the streets have no name. Absolutely.

Where you see the thread, it's always race with Donald Trump, whether it's trying to act as though it's all right to depict the former president and First Lady of the United States as apes. and then you make up that it was a staff member, then you act like it was something else, and then we never even know who the so-called staff member was because there probably was no staff member, particularly working that late at night on his truth social. And then you come to a Latino who has risen up and created a huge amount of capital for the Super Bowl,

which the Super Bowl is supposed to have. have and you forget all about your outreach to Latinos or Hispanics. You demonize him. You even say he's not an American citizen when he is. He was born in Puerto Rico. He's an American citizen. And I think the combination takes any drift that they had. They only won by one and a half percent. If they had done this before, Kamala Harris would have been president. So I think they're running their base away. And I think Donald Trump really doesn't. care because he knows he's not running again. I think the Republicans that are facing the midterms, I don't understand where they are not

standing up in their own interest because he's chasing away the margins that they did gain, smaller as they were, they were decisive. Yeah, a serious case of bad bunny derangement syndrome on the right when we have such serious issues to address. So also during this conversation, we have contributing writer to the Atlantic, Eugene Robinson. He's out with the new book titled Freedom Lost, Freedom One, A Personal History of America. We'll get to our top story now. The Justice Department dropped criminal charges against two men accused of assaulting an ICE officer during an incident last month in Minneapolis, resulting in the officer shooting one of the men in the leg. As Politico reports, an FBI agent previously told the court that the men took part in a melee,

in which ICE officers were struck with a shovel and a broom handle. After the incident, Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Knoem accused the men of trying to kill the agent. Is there a theme here? But in a one-page filing yesterday, the government backed away from that story. Quote, newly discovered evidence in this matter is material. inconsistent with the allegations in the complaint affidavit, prosecutor said. All of this comes after an effort by prosecutors to keep the two men locked up, even after a federal judge ordered their release, as well as another witness to the incident who was detained

by immigration officials and sent to Texas. On top of that, the 19-year-old partner of one of the two men was also ordered to be released from ICE custody, but not before she was abruptly transferred from Minnesota to facilities in El Paso and New Mexico. What are these facilities? Where are these people going? Jonathan? Where are they being taken? And what happens in there? What do we know about what happens in the, I mean, they're called detention facilities? What are they? Well, we do know that conditions and places like alligator alcatraz were deemed dismal and inhumane. We also know that DHS has signed leases to warehouses, a number of them across the country that they say they're going to use to hold migrants before they are deported, members of Democratic members of Congress,

raising objections there. And this comes here yet another moment, Mika, where the administrations had to walk back claims about incidents involving ICE, shines a fresh spotlight. on Secretary Kirstie Noem and DHS. And we should take a moment to note the Wall Street Journal last night put out a blockbuster story about Secretary Noem, dealing with, I would say,

both the scandalous and the substantive about her tenure. You know, the high, what matters here the most is after the Alex Pretty shooting, Noam tried to blame Todd Lyons, who's the acting ICE director.

We saw him in that video clip with Rand Paul earlier in the show, trying to suggest that he was responsible for the misinformation that she received saying that Prattie was a domestic terrorist and a threat to these officers and saying that urging him that we need to have more targeted enforcement. Well, that's what Lyons had been suggesting all along. That's what Tom Holman had suggested all along.

And the Nome-Homan rivalry is very real. We should also note this story gets into details how Nome is flying around on a $70 million plane. The government is the purchase of buying for her, a private plane. They request that she and her top aide, Corey Lewandowski, either. First of all, questions about their relationship. The two are, you know, the open secret in Washington are very cozy, shall we say, even though they both deny anything romantic. Others have other thoughts on that. But they tried to get Trump's pollster, Tony Fabrizio, to cut an ad helping her in the wake of ice. He said no. And that perhaps, I mean, the anecdote that's gotten the most buzz of all is that apparently they were flying recently and they had to change planes to a mechanical failure, Secretary Nome forgot her blanket on the original plane, and when that blanket wasn't transferred to the new plane, they got so angry. They fired the Coast Guard pilot, who was responsible, they said, for bringing the blanket to the new plane, only they had to

rehire him a short time later because they had no one else to fly them home. So that's in the Wall Street Journal, if people want to read that. Meanwhile,