Morning Joe - 'Incredibly weak claim': Inside Trump's demand for $230M from DOJ for past cases

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

'Incredibly weak claim': Inside Trump's demand for $230M from DOJ for past cases Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As part of his White House ballroom project, he sent out a backhoe to rip off a chunk of the East Wing. That is it. We are not giving him the security deposit back. We're just nine months into Trump's turn, and he's going Hulk smash on the White House. Last time, it took him at least four years to bring a demo crew to the Capitol. This. Stephen Colbert's take on the demolition now underway at the White House. President Trump, meanwhile, is suggesting a new way to pay for his golden ballroom using millions of dollars that he claims the U.S. government owes him for past investigations into his conduct. We'll talk about that new development and why the administration has scrubbed plans for another summit with Vladimir Putin, at least for now.

And on Capitol Hill, the shutdown rolls on as House Speaker Mike Johnson still refuses to swear in a duly elected member of Congress, Democrat, to Congress. Will a new lawsuit change his mind? We'll have that and much more on this Wednesday, October 22nd. Along with Willie and me, we have Politics, Spirit Chief and Senior Political columnist at Politico, Jonathan Martin. MSNBC's senior national security reporter David Rode is with us and writer at large for the New York Times, Elizabeth Bue Miller. So, Willie, start us off. Yeah, let's start with the one you mentioned. President Trump reportedly seeking up to $230 million from his own Justice Department in compensation for past investigations into him.

That's according to the New York Times citing people familiar with the matter. The Times reports Trump filed two administrative claims, which are often precursors, lawsuits. The first, filed in 2023, seeks damages related to the Russia investigation into the 2016 election. The second filed the next year focuses on the classified documents case, accusing the FBI of violating Trump's privacy when it searched his Mar-a-Lago club. According to DOJ policy, only two people would be able to approve such claims. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. Blanche, you'll remember, served as the president's lead criminal defense lawyer, and Woodward represented his co-defendant in the classified

documents case. As the Times writes this morning, quote, it is the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president's former lawyers atop the Justice Department. Any settlement to Trump also would be paid by taxpayers. The president responded to the new reporting yesterday during an event in the Oval Office. The Justice Department, are you asking them to? to pay you compensation for the federal investigations that happened to you? And how much are you asking for?

Well, I guess they probably owe me a lot of money for that. Probably. Yeah, that's true. That's very interesting. I don't know what the numbers. I don't even talk to them about it. All I know is that they would owe me a lot of money, but I'm not looking for money.

I'd give it to charity. Now, with the country, it's interesting, because I'm the one that makes a decision, right? And that decision would have to go across my desk. And it's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself. In other words, did you ever have one of those cases where you have to decide how much you're paying yourself in damages? But I was damaged very greatly. And any money that I would get, I would give to charity. So David Rudd, what is this exactly? It's not quite a

lawsuit. It's an administrative claim. It's a lot of money, taxpayer money, we should say again, $230 million that the president claims he was wronged in these two separate cases. So what is the process from here? It's supposed to be a system. that allows someone who's wrongly prosecuted or arrested, you know, on federal charges and is, I think, somehow acquitted or shown that this was improper, and then they can get some money, some compensation from the government. What's so extraordinary here is that the only finding of anything being wrong was a judge appointed by President Trump declaring that Jack Smith's appointment was unconstitutional, that we're not supposed to have special counsels in this country.

because Trump won the election, that didn't go farther on appeal. But there, for 50 years since Watergate, we've had independent councils and special councils. So it's extraordinary. And then the last thing, just ethically, the lawyers, the people in the Justice Department who will decide this are Todd Blanche and Stanley Woodward. Todd Blanche was paid large amounts of money. I don't know how much as Trump's defense lawyers for the last year. So it's extraordinary that the lawyers who defend Trump get paid a lot of money by him now sort of have the power to pay him back.

In any normal administration, they would have to recuse themselves. They have a conflict of interest. Jeff Sessions did that, and I interviewed Jeff Sessions at length for the last book I did, and he was just excoriated and forced out by the president because he insisted on being ethical and recusing himself from a case. And so the president wants $230 million. one of the claims he's making is that the search of his home was somehow illegal. It was a legal search warrant executed by the FBI after it tried literally for years to get these documents back through the National Archives.

And finally they had to resort to getting a legal search warrant. So does he have a claim here? It seems to be an incredibly weak one. And what's so unusual is that it would normally you'd want to judge to decide this. They asked for the documents back to National Archives. Again, a long-standing law post-Nixon. The president's papers should, you know, go to the people. He denied having these things. They searched the House. Actually, before they searched the House, he said he'd given everything back to them. He had an affidavit. His lawyer signed.

And he said, these are all the classified document. Here's the last 35. They searched the House weeks later. They find 300 classified documents. 300. And again, a federal judge approved the search warrant. Eileen Cannon never found the judge who threw out the charges that the search was improper. She just, again, used this technicality about the appointment of... So is there any recourse here? Or does the president get this money? Okay? So it's politically, Jonathan Martin, this and Willie, this is very loud noise.

But it's not, I mean, there's not, I almost feel like it's in a massive, massive, and effective on the part of the president distraction? Because there's, I mean, can Republicans do anything about this? And one theme here is, again, Donald Trump's version of the power of the president. I control the Justice Department. My appointees decide whether I get paid this money. And it's extraordinary. Just no president has dared do anything like this since Watergate.

Yeah. Yeah, look, the politics of it are pretty clear cut to me. If you're a Democrat, you say, you know, President. Trump, once again, is using the power of his office to enrich himself and his family instead of looking out for you, the voter. It's hard to get more clear-cut than cash money from the Department of Justice being given to the president by his own appointees and Trump himself approving it. I think it's kind of a political gift. Trump, it was fascinated watching that clip, guys, because he did say, of course, I'd give it to charity. He probably understands the

politics of this. His brains sort of sees it. around that corner. But boy, I just think if you're a Republican, you really hope Trump doesn't go through with this. And if he does, I mean, he's got to give it to charity. Otherwise, it's such a political gift for Democrats going to midterms, I think. I don't know. I mean, I think the base thinks he was wronged and this feeds into it. And it wouldn't get distracted. Well, the base is never going to leave him. But for the broader electorate out there, you're saying, I thought you were going to lower gas prices and the cost of milk. There you go. There's where they should live. You're given yourself, what? What's going on here?

By the way, the great part about that piece in the Times today, Willie, was there was, you know, as these stories often have these quotes from, you know, college professors, the ethics expert said, it's so clear-cut, you don't even have to quote a law professor. Yeah, he said, why'd you call me? You don't need me. Don't even bother, man. As going to go at the end of the bar, and they'll tell you. It's so blazing on the audience, right? I'm not shocked. And this is the outcome of installing loyalists all around. Exactly. So you put people in charge at the Justice Department. You put your personal attorney in a position to get you $230,000. million dollars, and he's going to go, sure. Campaigned on retribution, said he would do things like this. That's the important point. Again, not shocked.

Hair is not on fire. Everybody needs to calm down and focus on things that we can actually have an impact on. It's important for folks to realize that, though, the people, the senior folks at DOJ are literally his defense attorneys. Yeah. From last year. He moved them from his defense attorneys to DOJ. And that is wrong.

And it totally undercuts the tradition of the career. folks at Maine Justice who typically would decide this kind of thing because it is a conflict for the political appointees. All right. And the latest push, we'll move on to prosecute President Trump's perceived political foes. The Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, is asking the Justice Department to take legal action against former CIA director John Brennan for allegedly lying to Congress back in 2023. In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Jordan claims that Brennan, who led the CIA during a probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, quote, knowingly and willfully made false statements about

the agency's use of the steel dossier, that is, the largely discredited collection of memos that allege ties between President Trump and Russia. The president has long spoken out against Brennan for his role in the Russia investigation and the former CIA director's continued criticism of Trump and his administration. Brennan is also reportedly under investigation by the DOJ related to the Russia probe and has denied any wrongdoing. We should note that John Brennan is an MSNBC contributor. Elizabeth Bue Miller, yet another focus of potentially Donald Trump's retribution. What do you make of this one? Well, the names just keep piling up. The people he's gone after. It's now, how many is this? About four or five he's gone after. And I don't, you know,

again, it's unclear exactly if there's any kind of a strong case here. But if there's Donald Trump, that doesn't matter. He's just said himself completely openly that it may not end up in any kind of a criminal charge or a conviction. But, It's just to torture his perceived enemies and to put them through it. It's expensive. It's it's a torturous for the person. And that's what he wants to do. He's going to pay back all of his enemies after what happened to him.

And so this is just another, another notch in his belt, really. It's extraordinary, David, the extent to which Donald Trump and his allies are still focused on an election from nine years ago to clear he believes. his name in this Russia probe. Are these investigations going anywhere, whether it's John Brennan or James Comey or Letitia James in a separate matter? Are these real investigations or are these just meant to do what Elizabeth says? They are real, they're real investigation that again, the president now is the new head of the Justice Department, wants them to go forward. But I want to say one very specific thing about John Brennan. I interviewed John Brennan weeks before the 2016 election and I asked him about the dossier. I sat in the office of the CIA director.

in Langley, Virginia, and he, at the time was off the record. He said, I can talk about this on the record. And I asked, is this true, this allegation, that allegation? He said, oh, wait a minute, you know, and he said, I'm not commenting on that. He seemed literally surprised. And he told me to be very careful and to not write about any. He's like, you're going to hear a lot of crazy allegations against Donald Trump in the last few weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Same thing, crazy allegations about Hillary Clinton. Be very careful. Don't write about them. So he told me not to write about the dossier, and that's the truth. That's what he said to me. And so it's extraordinary that now there's this narrative that he was peddling the dossier before the 2016 election. He wasn't. I worked for Reuters at that point. Many news organizations had the dossier. None of us wrote about it before the election. There was, I think, one or two small stories about the dossier before the 2016 election. So this history is just all off. So he thought it was garbage even at the time, the dossier.

He was just, you know, shocked. So there was like a press guy sitting there and, but he, that's, that's his, why I, that is my experience with him right just weeks before the 2016 election. We went to Justice Department officials and asked them, were there these meetings between Carter Page and, you know, officials in the Kremlin? And they refused, that was earlier in the summer of 2016, and they refused to comment. So again, Reuters, much of the mainstream media didn't report about the dossier before the 2016. So this whole narrative, I feel, is largely off. The steel dossier has become kind of this buzz term for people in Maga World about the 2016 election. Some other news. A January 6th rioter who was pardoned by President Trump has been arrested in

charge with making a credible death threat against Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. According to court documents, the FBI alerted New York State police over the weekend that 34-year-old Christopher Moynihan allegedly sent text messages. stating he planned to target Jeffries at an event in New York City, writing, quote, I cannot not allow this terrorist to live, and quote, I will kill him for the future. Those are text messages. Moynihan, seen here storming the Capitol on January 6th, there inside the chamber, was convicted and sentenced to 21 months in prison for his part in the riot before he was pardoned. In a statement on the arrest, Jeffrey's thanked law enforcement and later slammed Trump's blanket pardons of

convicted January 6 rioters. When it comes to these extremists out there, you better watch how you talk when you talk about me. I think the reckless and irresponsible pardons of hundreds of violent felons on January 6th has consequences. The consequences are we've seen crimes committed by people who Donald Trump pardoned. And on the first day, he was sworn into office by folks who were been released back into society all across the country. Some of them violent crimes.

Their consequences when these extremists who are part of the Trump administration label the entirety of the Democratic Party as terrorists. House Speaker Mike Johnson condemned the threat against Jeffries, but then turned to blame the left for rising political violence. Anybody who threatens political violence against elected officials or anyone else should have the full weight and measure of the Department of Justice on their head. I trust that will happen. I hope it will.

We are intellectually consistent about that, obviously. I will tell you this. The violence on the left is far more prevalent than the violence on the right. It's not true, Jonathan Martin. We've cataloged and documented that time and time again, especially when he's talking in the context of January 6th, you might not want to go down that road, given who was storming the Capitol on that day. This should be one of those cases where there's no second clause. You can just condemn death threats against one of your colleagues, Hakeem Jeffries,

without then having to quickly scramble and make sure Donald Trump hears the thing you want him to say. Precisely why he did it. No, no, the first part of his statement I thought was to be commended. This individual should never have been free in the first place. And those images that you showed of him standing behind the Speaker's Dyes in the U.S. Capitol, that same person is now issuing death threats against the House Minority Leader. There it is. It's so appalling. I think of all that Trump has done in this second time around,

freeing the people who all storm the Capitol with no individual discretion at all, I think it's really beyond the pale. Well, Elizabeth Bue Miller, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I mean, all these pardons, I think this is something that's very important not to forget these pardons when Donald Trump returned to the presidency of convicted criminals. And this is what happens when you let a convicted criminal out of prison. Right. And it was, as you could be right away, we have to hear from the speaker that, again, the violence on the left is worse than on the right.

and that is, as we pointed out, exactly the opposite, consistently. I mean, Trump just, he just pardoned George Santos. I mean, he's not at danger to society, but still, but this is, this is very disturbing that all these people are free and roaming about. And the rhetoric from the right about the, you know, about the terrorist Democrats is, it's just, it's very alarming. We have never seen these kind of threats, these threats and this kind of violence. uh in in in recent years as we do right now but on both sides but but it's just you know

everybody has more security now um media organizations do uh it's it's it's it's alarming out there go ahead j marr no his sentence was commuted go ahead the the the the santos thing is extraordinary especially because he really now doesn't you have to pay any restitution to the folks he defrauded but it also raises an important issue here though Cash Patel, the head of the IPI, keep saying no one's above the law after they pursue Trump's enemies, and then doesn't mention the fact that he's pardoned only his allies. I'm still waiting, David, for the moment in which Trump is, Trump's DOJ is actually going to bring charges against a Trump ally. And that's the question.

If you still believe the rule of law exists in this country, okay, let's see, will they bring charges against a single Trump ally in the next three years? I'm waiting. I think that's the right question. And it's extraordinary. It's so much of this is rewriting history. Right. And that the last month or so, Trump grabbed onto this one report that there were 300 undercover FBI agents in the crowd on January 6th. That is just false. I've spoke to multiple FBI agents, one who was very, who was in Washington before, during, and after January 6th. And that's just not true. And it's just this narrative that Trump is the victim. The January 6th rioters are the victims. And that's just false. I mean, people saw that with their own eyes. And as well, and then I just, you know, look, the killing of Charlie Kirk was horrific. And everyone condemned that and should condemn that kind of violence. There's no question.

But in terms of, yes, researchers say there is more right-wing violence and left-wing violence at this point. There's one area where there's still a lot to be revealed, and that's in the Jeffrey Epstein case. And the Attorney General of Arizona is now suing the speaker, trying to get out of Alita Grahalva. put in place so she can have that final vote that gets the files released. So we're following that. We'll have more on that later. MSNBC, senior national security reporter, David Rode. Thank you very much for coming on this morning. And still ahead on morning, Joe, a summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin no longer expected to take place. We'll talk about why it's been shelved and what it could mean for the war in Ukraine. Plus, defense secretary,

Pete Hegseth continues to tighten control over Pentagon communications. First, it was restrictions with reporters. Now, it's members of Congress, too. We'll talk about that significant policy change. And a reminder, the Morning Joe podcast is available each weekday featuring off full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back.

I think Donald Trump tells the Republicans, okay, sit down now and negotiate. Look, they don't do anything without Donald Trump. I'm genuinely, I don't know what's happened to the Republicans in the United States Senate. It's as if they have all had their spines surgically removed. They only do what Donald Trump tells them to do. So if Donald Trump tells them to sit down and negotiate, then they will sit down and negotiate. then they will sit down and negotiate. He claims to be the deal maker.

Okay, tell your guys to sit down and work something out with the Democrats, and then it will happen. Senator Elizabeth Warren wants President Trump to encourage Republicans to negotiate with Democrats to end the government shutdown now at 22 days and counting. Yesterday, President Trump hosted a private lunch meeting with Senate Republicans at the White House to thank them for their unity, while criticizing Democrats for refusing to extend the funding. And I want to just say, from the beginning, our message has been very simple. We will not be extorted on this crazy plot of this. They've never done this before. Nobody has.

You always vote for an extension. Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats need to vote for the clean bipartisan CR and reopen our government. It's got to be reopened right now. We're not doing that. They are the obstructionists. And the reason they're doing it is because we're doing so well. We're doing well all over the world. Democrats are urging Trump to personally engage in negotiations.

Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries contacted the president to request a meeting. But Trump rebuffed the request, telling reporters last night that he would love to meet. but that quote, we want the country open first. Republican Senate Majority Leader John Soon echoed that stance. Well, I think that the president obviously is very interested in getting open. We all agree on that, right? And I think he wants the Democrats to take yes for an answer.

We've offered them a lot of the things they were asking for, normal appropriations process, an opportunity to get a vote on some of the things that they want to see voted on with respect to the expiring Obamacare enhanced subsidies. But that can't happen until they open up the government. So I think the president is prepared to sit down and have conversations with the Democrats. But he knows that before that can happen, we've got to have five Democrats who have a little backbone and a willingness to take on their leadership and do the right thing for the country.

Let's bring in the co-host of our fourth hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, and MSNBC contributor Mike Barnacol. Jonathan, what are you hearing? We're no closer to this ending. The president has, you know, we've been talking in the last few days, sort of obviously been distracted by other matters, in particular what's happening in the Middle East. His aides tell me that he's now more focused on this, but for now, they feel like if long as they can come up with some of these emergency measures to get some people paid, they can

withstand some of the pain of the shutdown. But they can read polls. They know that the Republicans in the White House are taking the brunt of this. People are angry about what's happening. And the real world effects are only going to start. increasing. We've seen it with air traffic controllers, further government services in danger in the days ahead. And Democrats feel like they have a winning issue here. Yeah. Making this, centering this around health care. And it's worth reiterating that a month,

when this started nearly a month ago, at this point, that there was a real concern that Democrats weren't going to be able to say united here, that they weren't going to be able to hang together. But outside of that very first day, when a couple senators peeled off, they have hung together. They see the polls. And they feel like during this first year of the Trump term when they have been flailing a bit to respond. They feel like right here, they have the upper hand. Elizabeth Bue Miller, a breakdown exactly what this is about. And do you think Americans are clued in and understand what the Democrats are trying

to do here? I think people who support the Democrats are clued in on this. The Democrats, the whole issue for the Democrats, the main issue is health care. Right. Because of the subsidies that are being withheld, that are being ended for the Affordable Care Act, people are seeing their health care premiums go up two and three times. And it's, you know, it's sticker shock. Democrats really have a really strong issue here.

And I think what's, you know, right now, again, it's getting worse. But I think come the holidays, if this goes into Thanksgiving with major air traffic delays and, you know, people are not getting paychecks for after two, three, four, or five weeks, then I think the pressure builds. But right now, I don't see any, as Jonathan said, I don't see any urgency right now on either side for the next, next, for the foreseeable future right now. Yeah, Mike, this is taking on a call me when it's over, feel. We're into three weeks now of the government shutdown having real impacts on people's lives, not getting paychecks, but you had the president yesterday. Now kind of gleefully talking about Russ Boat, the OMB director.

While this is going on, I'm having them cut projects to blue states, calling them Darth Vader, saying this is, this is fun for. us. We get to take things away from states that didn't vote for me. You know, the amazing thing about this is we are just nine months into the Trump presidency. And the level of exhaustion that he has provided each and every day is just beyond belief. It's historical. You just can't imagine it. I mean, on this day in 1962, John F. Kennedy addressed the nation in the Cuban Missile Crisis. That was the highlight of his first year in the presidency, maybe the highlight of his first couple of years in the presidency. Now it's every day, multiple times a day that we have to focus on something that happened, whether he's

destroying the East Wing in the White House, whether he's on again, off again with Vladimir Putin. The question on the budget that I have, J. Mart, you would be probably well primed to answer this, given the fact that you're in Washington most of the time. Where is John Thune, who seems to have an element of common sense in him? Where is he on this? I think John Thune was hoping Democrats would fold in the first week or 10 days, which I think was perhaps a conventional thought in Washington and hope that they could peel off six, seven more Democrats beyond the three that I think first, first voted to keep the government open. And it just hasn't happened. And so I think Thune is now basically wedded to the Trump Johnson theory of just trying to

hold out, hold out. He has offered an olive branch promising Democrats that they'll be almost simultaneous votes to reopen the government and then address the health care issue. But I think Thune is running up against something, which is words we don't typically say, democratic unity. And by the way, I think health care is the vehicle, but let's be honest, this is a general strike. And it's a general strike among Democrats against Donald Trump's abuse of power. It's the only leverage they have. They don't control the House Senator White House. The one weapon they have in their arsenal politically is we can shut down the government because it takes 60 votes in the Senate to keep the government open. That's all they got. This is their way of registering their opposition

to Donald Trump's conduct, what you're talking about day in, day out. Health care is good politics at polls well. I understand that. This is more a general. Half the country is up in arms about how this man is running this America. And this is what we're going to do to say, you know what, half of America, we get it, we hear you, we're with you, we're pissed too. Yeah, and you see those protests where they had two million more than last June, so maybe, yeah. Arizona's Attorney General is suing the U.S. House of Representatives over its delay in swearing in Congresswoman elect Adelita Grahalva. It's been nearly a month since Grahalva won a September special election to finish out her father's term after he died in office. Since then, Speaker Mike Johnson has simply refused to

swear her in. He responded to the lawsuit on Capitol Hill yesterday. It's patty absurd. We run the house. She has no jurisdiction. We're following the precedent. She's looking for national publicity. Apparently, she's got some of it. But good luck with that. Um, Jonathan Lemire, I'm sorry. There's been a lot of different reasons why he won't swear her in and, uh, they're all blatantly ridiculous. I mean, we have seen this before. He, first of all, let's be clear that they're denying constituent services here.

And he, he, he, the other day, he's like, well, you know, she shouldn't be worried about swearing in. She should be talking to her voters and to people who live in her district about how they can navigate the shutdown. Well, she can't. She's not in office yet. I mean, and she herself. had her on the show last week, and she said, well, thankfully, the state's two senators have stepped

up to give my constituents some representation. He's talked nonsense about, well, we need to fly in her family. She's made it clear. My family will come in at the drop of a hat. They want to see this happen. I mean, Jamart, this is about, it's about, at least in part, the Epstein files. They know that she's the decisive vote here, would be able to release that. Moreover, I mean, this is also just reflective. It seems to me an own goal. It's a reminder. He's keeping the house out. And that's something, a moment of shutdown. that I think a lot of them, that's contributing, I think, to why the Republicans are faring so poorly in the polls. Yeah, I think it's sobering.

The proximate reason is the Epstein issue, but I think it's sobering because I think a lot about next year and the midterms next year and the lengths that Donald Trump is going to go to to keep the House. And you start thinking about procedural tactics and you start thinking about what can you do to avoid giving Democrats power back in the House if they do, in fact, win back. the majority, or if that's in question, and there are disputed elections, let's say, next year in the House. And we don't know who's going to be in control of the House. Boy, you can see a scenario. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to think about what Donald Trump and the House leadership are going to do to try to at least buy time, at least sort of keep this thing a live question. And this, I don't know if it's a trial run, but this does show that Johnson is willing to violate norms by not swearing.

a dual elected member of Congress, and I just think it's sobering when we think about next year and what could happen in the House. Yeah, I think it's absolute foreboding. You can't look at any other way. Literally, she is waiting to do her job, and there's one guy standing in the way of it for an obvious reason, it seems. We're going to have Dave Aaronberg on later. I want to ask and find out how effective this lawsuit can be in order to potentially have her sworn in a different way. Coming up, we're going to talk to Ed Luce of the Financial Times about what he calls Putin's mesmeric sway on Trump. Morning Joe, we'll be right back.

Past the hour, a White House official now says there are no plans for President Trump to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming weeks. That's a reversal from last Thursday when Trump had posted on social media that he would meet with Putin in Hungary following a meeting between U.S. and Russian officials. The Wall Street Journal reports that Secretary of State Marco Rubio's phone call with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday revealed that Russia remains unwilling to concede any of its initial demands. The journal notes that Rubio briefed officials after the call telling them that it's unlikely that. a summit with Putin would yield positive results in peace negotiations. Asked yesterday about the cancellation, here's what President Trump had to say. No, no, I don't want to have a wasted meeting.

I don't want to have a waste of time, so I'll see what happens. But we did all of these great deals, great peace deals. They're all peace deals. Agreement, solid agreements, every one of them, but this one. And I said, go to the line, go to the line of. battle on the battlefield lines and you pull back and you go home and everybody take some time off because you've got two countries that are killing each other two countries are losing five to seven thousand soldiers a week so we'll see what happens it's we haven't made a determination

joining us now u.s national editor at the financial times ed luce the new piece is entitled putin's mesmeric mesmeric sway on trump we'll read from it in a moment but But, Ed, what do you make of the calling off of the proposed meeting in Hungary? I just, if you look at the state that Russia is in right now, you would think that Trump has a pretty good, strong upper hand to push Putin into a corner, much like he did in the Middle East, where he was able to really pull things together and get a deal on the table. Why is it so hard for him with Vladimir Putin? Oh, you're right, Minka. I mean, Russia, the economist, did a sort of meta-estimate of Russia's death toll this year. 100,000 Russians have died this year, give or take, several hundred thousand since 2022.

You know, that's almost as much as America lost in Korea and Vietnam combined over many, many, many years. This is in one year. So there is acute manpower pressure in Russia. There is also acute pressure on paying recruitment bonuses to get new soldiers because Ukrainians are getting the ability with drones and with their artillery and with their guided missiles to strike hundreds of miles deep inside Russia to strike Russia's oil refineries. And they could soon extend that to their pipelines too. So the sort of spigot that is funding the ability to recruit Russian soldiers into this army with amazingly high casualties, that's being threatened too. So a perfect time for the President of the United States to use real leverage on Putin to get him to the negotiating table. But it's leverage that for one reason or another, and we can speculate probably fruitlessly about what that reason is.

But it's leverage that Trump has still nine, ten months into his administration not being prepared to use and shows no signs of being prepared to use it. And that's kind of the thesis of your piece, Ed, is that Putin actually has a much weaker hand than it seems. Ed writes in his piece, quote, Trump is increasingly impatient. On Monday, he said all the global conflicts, there is just one more to go. He sees Zelensky's government as an outgun recalcitrant that should know when it is defeated, as Trump told the Ukrainian. president in February, you don't have the cards. But Zelensky does hold cards, including the increasingly robust support of the coalition of the willing. What makes Trump so sure Putin is winning, explaining why Putin is so good at sweet-talking the U.S. president, triggers polarized

responses. Some believe Putin has some kind of a secret hold over Trump. Others say it is deep state propaganda. Whatever lies behind Trump's cupidity, we should be long past caring why. The reality is settled fact. Putin has fewer cards in his hand than Trump supposes. One of those cards is Trump. So we've been playing this game for a decade now, Ed, over why Donald Trump seems always in the end to defer to Vladimir Putin, to give Putin the benefit of the doubt, even against a Democratic leader like Zelensky. So with all that in mind, with the failed Anchorage Summit, nothing came of that, despite Donald Trump literally rolling out the red carpet for Putin. Where does this go from here?

I mean, that's a really good question. I mean, I do think that Trump sees, you know, big, big countries, particularly strong men in a more favorable light than he sees small ones. Zelensky, being a leader of a smallish one relative to Russia, you know, is also, in Trump's mind, associated with his first impeachment. He's just got sort of, he's got, he's got a funny blind spot there that, you know, might be part of the explanation for this. where does it go from here? Well, we've seen what's happened in the last 24 hours since that Rubio Lavrov call postponing or canceling this second summit in Budapest, and that is the usual pattern. Putin has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, including civilian targets. This is what keeps happening. He's obviously in the last few weeks

worried America's European allies, particularly ones on the border with Russia, like the Baltic states, by having these drone probes. He shut down Munich Airport for a whole day. He scrambled Poland's air defenses. So Putin is testing NATO resolve. And, you know, Trump just shows no signs of,

just shows no signs of wanting to challenge. is in a Ronald Reagan, which is you get peace through strength. You use leverage. If you give them Tomahawks, whatever it is, patriot defense systems, if you arm Ukraine, you are likely to get the peace talks with Putin that Trump so desperately wants the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026. So there are those who are supporting Ukraine, whether in Washington or Europe, who are heartened that President Trump is backing off of this Budapest summit, which always felt very tentative to begin with, in part because Putin is completely maximalist still in his demands. He's not showing any real willingness to negotiate. And all that summit would have done would have

been given Putin another stage and another chance to convince Trump that he is right. But I don't think we should overstate this in terms of this is suddenly Trump breaking towards Ukraine. That meeting on Friday with Zelensky was pretty heated. And Zelensky was told no repeatedly what he wanted, including on the tomahawks. This is more what I'm sort of hearing is Trump just kind of taking a step back again, like that he's not going to be involved at all. The war is just simply going to continue. And to Ed's point, the only way Putin comes to the table is if the U.S. really does force him to apply the pressure that we saw Trump do in Gaza that got a ceasefire at least for the time being. He's not going to do that now. So my question to you is, let's talk

about the Senate. The sanctions package has been sitting there. We heard from Thune a few days ago saying, hey, I think we might be close to doing this and then back off again. Right. Because Thune is deferring, like they are on everything else, to what Trump's preference is. And then for a while there, after the U.N. General Assembly, Trump suddenly seemed like, oh, my gosh, Russia is a paper tiger. Their military can't cut any ice. This is a joke. And for a minute, Willie, it seemed like Trump had left the 80s and had come to the conclusion that Russia, as John McCain once famously said, is a gas station posing as a country, and had realized that they're not this massive Red Army, Soviet force. They're a depleted country. But now,

we're back to where he's been. And the cue, John, when you hear Trump say two things, when he says Putin and Zelensky hate each other, and then when he says they're just every day, they're killing each other, that's the cue that he's sort of washing his hands of it. Because he's not taking sides. He's being neutral. And he's saying, these guys hate each other. They want to kill each other. He's back to what he said before, which is they're like kids on a playground. He just got to let them fight for a while. And Mike, he even said in that same briefing yesterday, he said, well, that war doesn't impact us too much. Again, he's backing off. The interesting thing about whether he's backing off or whatever he's doing, Elizabeth,

maybe you can sort of get to this. Internally, in the White House, counsel to the president. I'm not talking about a human being. I'm talking about advice that he gets from people. If you look at the battlefield in Ukraine, Ukraine is outmanned and outweaponized by the Russian army. And yet over the long haul, Ukraine has not only held their own, but has pushed back on the Russian strength. So as the president looks at this, you would think that he'd have some advisors, military advisors, who would tell him that's the reality on the ground, that if the Ukrainians had more weapons, they would be doing even better than they are now. But it seems, I don't know. Is he hearing things like that? Do you know?

I lost the end of that. You asked, I lost that. What kind of counsel? Well, I could just say that he doesn't have, he's got Pete Higgs at, he doesn't have really strong military advisors right now. The president is his own military advisor. So, you know, I think that, you know, the president sways back and forth with Ukraine. I think he's pulling back now. What's interesting to me is perhaps the Europeans could put more pressure on Putin right now or on Russia.

Ed, what do you think? Yeah, well, there's a coalition of the willing, so-called, of Europeans who want to get together, Britain, France, Poland, the Baltic countries, the Dutch. By the way, the Dutch have stopped sharing intelligence with the United States on Russia. They announced this week because they suspect it's being used. There's some malfeasance there with the data they're giving people like Tulsi Gabbard. But there is a meeting of the coalition of the winning on Friday in which they will announce new package of aid. And there's also a European Union meeting. There is more money coming.

And they've got that $200 billion of Russia's frozen central bank reserves. And I think are getting pretty close to actually saying we're going to loan it to Ukraine. that would fund Ukraine for the next two, two and a half years of war. Serious money. And I think that's causing deep concern with Putin. And I very much suspect we've had some reporting that in Putin's call with the president last Thursday, he complained bitterly about these. He said they want to steal Russia's assets. So I think he's worried.

U.S. national editor at the Financial Times. Ed Luce, thank you so much. His latest piece is available to read online now. And by the way, Ed headlined an amazing event last night at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. It was for Ed's book on My Dad, Zbig, The Life of Zbig Neff-Brasinski, America's great power profit as part of the school's Brasinski Initiative, featuring in-depth conversations about some of the world's most pressing geopolitical issues. And Ed, my friends and family were there, all the texts I got, remarkable, fabulous, important. So we are going to compile some highlights and show it on tomorrow's show. And thank you so much for being on this morning.

It's good to see you. All right, and writer-at-large for The New York Times, Elizabeth Bue Miller, great job there with the audio problems. And senior political columnist at Politico, Jonathan Martin. Thank you both as well for being on this morning. And still ahead. we'll have a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning, including next year's record expectations for the cruise industry. Plus, the author of more than 50 consecutive number one bestsellers, John Grisham, joins us with a look inside his brand new legal thriller. Morning Joe, we'll be right back.

A few minutes before the top of the hour. Time now for a look at the morning papers as we look at the Statue of Liberty. The Minnesota Star Tribune is taking a look at the sharp rise of guns being seized in schools across the state. Data from the State's Department of Education shows an estimated 200 firearms were found on students since the 2021 academic year. That increase, almost three times the number found in previous three years, comes as schools. They're continue to add safety measures, including metal detectors and student mental health services. In Texas, the Houston Chronicle reports on how the record demand for ground beef has been a windfall for ranchers in the state. In August, ground beef prices at a record high of $6.302 cents per pound. The USDA now expects beef and veal prices to rise nearly 12 percent this year. High demand, Herd Sizes and rising costs for hay and fuel have all contributed to the price hike. The Orlando Sentinel reports a record number of Americans are expected to go on cruises next year. AAA projects at least 21 million Americans will book a cruise in 2026. That's a 4.5% increase

from 2025. The projection would mark the fourth record cruise year in a row following a two-year dip, understandably, during the pandemic. And in Georgia, the Atlanta Journal Constitution looks at the man of steel staying in the state. Filmmaker James Gunn says the sequel to his blockbuster Superman will film at studios in the state begin next spring. The first installment was filmed in Atlanta last year. The move marks a rare big budget win for Georgia as Marvel Studios continues to shift its filming overseas.