Morning Joe - ‘Insulting his own base’: Joe highlights hypocrisy when Trump calls Epstein files ‘Democrat hoax’

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

‘Insulting his own base’: Joe highlights hypocrisy when Trump calls Epstein files ‘Democrat hoax’ 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.

As many of us who are looking at our phones know that the Senate has passed the bill under unanimous from death. So we're going to have a moment of silence, but I think we should just have a moment of celebration. Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking rings celebrating the Senate's passage of the bill, forcing the release of more files connected. to the late sex offender. Now, the question will be, will the Justice Department actually provide all of the documents or will it hold some back, citing ongoing investigations? We'll dig into that. Plus, we'll show you the big moments from yesterday's White House visit for the

Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. That meeting came despite his ties to the murder of a Washington Post columnist prompting a response from President Trump, quote, things happen. Plus, a Trump-appointed judge has blocked the Republican-drawn congressional map in Texas. We'll look at whether the Supreme Court will decide on the case in time for next year's midterm elections. There is so much going on. Good morning. Welcome to morning, Joe. It's Wednesday, November 19th, along with Joe, Willie, and me.

We have the co-host of our 9 a.m. hour staff writer at the Atlantic, John Pen Lemire, Politics, Bureau Chief, and Senior Political Collinicist at Politico, Jonathan Martin, just rolling in right on time. MS now, senior congressional reporter and host of way too early, Ali Battali stays with us, and CEO and co-founder of Axis, Jim Van de High is here as well. Good to have you all. We've got a lot of talk about. I mean, just too much, you know, as it's saying, in Northwest Florida, trying to fit, you know, 10 pounds of sugar and a five-pound bag.

It's hard to do that. Sugar. Really hard to do that. I just, first of all, I just, just going down the list, here you have a Trump-appointed judge in Texas being part of a panel that throws out the Texas redistricting, right? And this is what they write. I think it's very, very telling. According to Judge Brown's opinion, quote, it's challenging to unpack the DOJ letter because

it contains so many factual, legal, and typographical errors. Even the attorneys employed by the Texas Attorney General who professed to be political ally of the Trump administration described the DOJ letter as legally unsound, baseless, erroneous, ham-fisted, and a mess. But besides that, it was fine. Other than that, it's fine. And that's a Trump judge. Trump-appointed judge who's writing that. And again, it goes to the sheer incompetence up and down the appointees this term.

People didn't say that about a lot of people appointed. by Donald Trump. The first term, but he's deliberately gotten people who are lackeys, who aren't talented, who don't know what they're doing. And we see this time and again, and what's the impact? When he's building a skyscraper, he gets people that are going to build a skyscraper that doesn't collapse. Why does he think he can get the worst people, the least talented people, to run the most complicated and most powerful government in the world? I mean, because of consequences, who does he hurt? Here, the Democrats are cheering that he's got one incompetent lawyer after another incompetent lawyer, after another incompetent lawyer running things at the Justice Department,

and it hurts him in the end. I keep saying this. I'm so tired of saying this. Getting stupid people hurts you in the end. The litmus test is loyalty in this second term. Are you loyal to Donald Trump? Period. Full stop. That goes if you're running the Department of Defense or now, these lawyers that are appointed across the Justice Department. We talked yesterday about Lindsay Halligan and the mess of the Comey case, where James Comey now has a list of options to get himself and get that case thrown out because of the way it's been prosecuted. And now in Texas, as you say, this isn't just about being good for Donald Trump or being bad for Donald Trump.

This is bad for Republicans who put so many eggs in this basket invested so much in Texas to reshape the map and thereby reshape the House of Representatives, setting off this kind of arms race now in California. across the country. If that falls apart, what's going to happen to their other cases across the country? They lose five. California picks up five. Utah picks up one. Again, this whole incompetent exercise ends up blowing up in their face politically. And again, it started by a misreading of a prior decision. Again, the incompetence. You know, there are actually more important things and just 100% loyalty, and that's actual competence. And you're seeing it up and down

the administration. And Jim Vandehi, I mean, let's go over a checklist. So who did he have last night? He had a guy. Then again, he doesn't like talking about it, but a guy who chopped up, you know, called for the chopping up of Washington Post columnist Washington Post didn't take his things happen, comment very kindly last night. And the head editorial headline is, things happen, which is what he said when was asked, well, what do you think about the fact that, you know, he's been found to have chopped up this

journalist? Things happen, he says. But you look at that at a time when Marjorie Taylor Green is calling him a traitor, saying he's worried about, you know, foreign governments, he's worrying about himself, but not worrying about the people. And here you have, I think,

worst timing ever, a state dinner with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, while the one piece of legislation that's passed with bipartisan support that he will sign is a piece of legislation. Oh, my God. He didn't want passed,

and files released that he doesn't want released. Yeah, it's, I want to get back to confidence in a second, but the, if you're America, so if you're in MAGA and you're America first. What the hell are you thinking today? You're watching the fact that you have the White House and Congress. The only thing that they've done in the last two months is vote to release the Epstein files over the objection of the president who doesn't, didn't want any of the files to be released in the first place. Nothing else.

Then you put next to that the fact that you have a quasi-state dinner with the Saudis. Now remember, it was the Saudis who were on the airplane that crashed into our towers killing 3,000 Americans. That's just a fact. It is also a fact that the journalist that he was deriding when he was talking to the press yesterday was sawed into pieces, and the CIA under Trump had a report that linked it pretty directly to at least the Crown Prince being aware of. of it. And you have him talking to the Saudis about getting deals from us where we're going

to let them have our F-35s on their soil. We're going to get them access to our AI technology when the Saudis themselves have said, hey, listen, what we don't get from you, we're going to get from China, which might mean that if we give you something, you might be able to backdoor it to China yourself. Those are not disputable things. They are just absolute facts. And so one of the reasons that you have the activist wing of MAGA so upset is they're like, this isn't what we paid for, this isn't what we voted for, this isn't what we asked for. And your competence thing is another thing that if you're a Republican, you've got to start to boil at some point because you've got nirvana, you've got as much power as I've ever seen

vested in one party at one time in one city. And yet if you look at the number of laws actually being signed, the things that will outlast the short-term deals, very few of them. And then you look at the polling and you look at that working class white voter who put you into office and they're frustrated, top to down. We've talked about this every time I'm on the show, every issue that they care about, including things being really expensive and then being very worried about whether they're going to get a job or their kids going to get out of college and enter the worst job market that we've seen in five or ten years, not even really discussed. And it does come down to

competence. If you have the right people doing the right work at the right time, you get really good results. That's like the trick of leading anything, running a company, running a government. Well, and John Lemire, I mean, let's talk about when Mary Bruce of ABC asks a question that feeds off of what Trump's own CIA concluded in his first term. that Khashoggi was chopped up, tortured and chopped up at the knowledge or direction of the guy that he was praising yesterday. Now, listen, if you want to say, we work with very bad people and it's time to move on, people have made that calculation.

They just have. Maybe people don't like that that calculation's been made. But to attack a lawyer and tell her, now, get this, get this, get this. he's sitting next to a man he was responsible for the sawing up of a reporter and then he calls an ABC News supporter

reporter insubordinate think about that there was a time when the American president whoever it was no matter which party would try to be an example for the rest of the world in terms of human rights in terms of freedom of the press and that is something that this president has never been interested in doing.

He's cozing up to power, authoritarians, and the like. And yesterday, his response to that ABC reporter was, as noted, things happen. A bone saw happened. That's what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. He was chopped up with a bone saw at least the knowledge and perhaps at the instruction of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. He then went on to say, there's some people who didn't like Jamal Khashoggi, sort of suggested that maybe he had it coming.

that some people disagreed with him. And then to fed him at another opulent state dinner and all but name last night, described as the glitziest event that he has thrown for any leader so far this year. The most lavish event the White House has held so far this year, and we're seeing images of it now, was last night in the honor of MBS,

you know, a problematic ally to say the least. And we have, again, this president using a moment, with the eyes of the world on him to side, to turn away from what would be considered traditional values of the office. And, Jay Mart, this all comes with the background. Amika is going to get into the news in a minute here of Donald Trump being rolled for the first time, an extraordinarily dramatic way by Republicans in the House and the Senate. And by backbenchers, frankly.

I mean, look, no offense to Thomas Massey, but he's somebody who's sort of been a bit of a bomb thrower, you know, not somebody who was sort of the, modern Sam Rayber in there necessarily. And he basically said, I got the votes, man. And once that was clear, Trump had no choice but the fold. Think about the timing of this. So two weeks ago, up and down the ballot, coast to coast, the Republican Party loses every election decisively.

Even the White House gets the message. Okay, inflation's still a problem. We got to do something. Let's have DOJ go after the meatpackers. Maybe we got to rescind the tariffs on coffee and bananas and some other stuff. We're going to have Trump talk about it, but more promise. Two weeks later, to the night, two weeks later, they got one more foreign leader coming through Washington for one more grip and grin.

And then they have this lavish state dinner. Talk about not getting the message, right? The voters say, why aren't you focused on us, man? And two weeks later, what are they doing? They're once again focused on foreign policies, some other country. Who are these folks here? Who is this guy? The Saudis.

I mean, it's not like. We're the 9-11 country or the Brits or the fringe, one of our allies traditionally. I just think it's so, it is so, it is so, it's so contradicts the message from two weeks ago. And it shows that Trump is going to do what he wants to do. And what does he want to do? He wants to sort of buddy, buddy up with these folks. He wants to enjoy the trappings of the office. And as long as you can't change that, you can't change the fundamental political challenge this White House has.

Well, it's quite a parallel yesterday while the White House was preparing for that dinner with overwhelming support in both chambers of Congress, legislation that will require the Justice Department to release all of its records related to Jeffrey Epstein will soon land on President Trump's desk where he has said he will sign it. The measure moved quickly through Capitol Hill yesterday, starting in the House, where lawmakers approved it in a near unanimous vote for 27. to one. The lone no vote came from Republican Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana, citing privacy concerns for people who may be identified in the documents, specifically witnesses, people who provided alibis, and victims' family members. House Speaker Mike Johnson has echoed those concerns despite voting for the bill himself. Just a few hours later, the Senate unanimously agreed to pass the legislation once it arrives in the upper chamber, which is a few hours. expected this morning. A senior White House official tells MS now, the president will then sign it

whenever it gets to the White House. But as the Epstein files bill makes its way to President Trump's desk, he continues to brand the issue as a distraction and a hoax. Shortly before the Senate lined up to back the legislation last night, the president posted on social media that he did not care when the chamber passed the bill as long as Republicans don't, quote, take their eyes off all the victories we have had. And earlier yesterday, in the Oval Office, he once again sought to distance himself from his former friend and highlight Jeffrey Epstein's ties to Democrats. You just keep going on the Epstein files. And what the Epstein is, is a Democrat hoax to try and get me not to be able to talk about the $21 trillion that I talked about today.

It's a hoax. Now, I just got a little report, and I put it in my pocket, of all the money that he's given to Democrats. He gave me none, zero, no money to me, but he gave money to Democrats. Well, of course, every time he says that, all he sees is evidence of his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein of things him saying positively in, you know, in magazine articles about his good friend Jeffrey Epstein,

of him dancing and hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein. So again, even him doing that invites blowback that he doesn't want. So I'm not exactly sure why he keeps saying things when, again, his own mac of base isn't going to go, that's a left-wing media hoax. They can't do that. Why can't they do that?

Because they're the ones who've been pushing for the release of the Epstein files while Democrats during the Biden term were going, duh. What? Didn't say a word then. It was the mag of folks

who have been pushing this. So when he insults people for pushing for these files to be released, he's insulting his own. base. Yeah, look, the call has always been coming from inside the house on this one, right? It's why the White House is about face in the first place. When they first started saying they wouldn't have more transparency on the Epstein files was so stunning and landed like a rock

on Capitol Hill among people like Marjorie Taylor Green who are like, wait a second, what? I've always been part of this movement. I thought that this was part and parcel to what we were doing here, draining the swamp, lifting the veil off of the cabal that they've so long talked about in Washington and in the powerful echelon. of society. This cuts so counter to the Trump movement from the very day that Lemire and I started covering it in early 2015. The idea that these were the outsiders coming in to shine a light on all of the insiders and the insidiousness of Washington and powerful circles, this really cuts against that. But I think the thing that I'm most interested in is when this bill

actually gets transmitted, because the Speaker of the House was very clear that he had issues with this bill. Thune really cut him off at the pass and said, well, with a vote like 427 to 1, why would we do any amendments. We talked to the lawyers. Doesn't sound like we have any privacy concerns. So that's him bucking the speaker. But then the speaker after he came back from that non-state state dinner last night said that he talked to the president about this bill. And this is what he told our team. He said, we both have concerns about it. So we'll see if Trump is supportive. And then he says, I was standing there with the Crown Prince. We couldn't talk. But he doesn't take off the table the idea that maybe there's a veto or something in here. So we have to see actually what the day

unfolds with because the White House has said that Trump would sign this bill, but it hasn't been transmitted yet. And the speaker is clearly still very angry about the changes he wanted that weren't made by the Senate. So this is a bit of a live ball for us to see what actually happens. It could be it's nothing. It also could be that there's a bump in the road. And Congressman Massey actually echoed his concern again last night that at the 11th hour, you could have the president or someone else saying, wait a minute, we can't release the files because there's an active investigation. So that That is still in play and still out there, despite that overwhelming vote we saw last night. So Jim Van de Haie, you look at President Trump yesterday, the moments when he, as the kids would say, really crashed out, talking to a reporter, Mary Bruce in that case, and another on Air Force One the other day.

What did the kids say? He's crashing out right now. He's in a tailspin. Yeah. He crashed out. When I hear that, it's like 925. It's not good. It's not good.

And then we heard Jim. Banda hide the president a few days ago with just a despicable exchange with a reporter on Air Force 1 when asked about the Epstein files and some of the emails that were made public the other day. This obviously is something that Donald Trump didn't want to be made public, saw the writing on the wall on Sunday night and said, okay, I've got to get behind this and pretend I've been behind it all along. What do you think is the impact? We don't know what's going to be in these files, but what happens when they are released? Yeah, I'm a little skeptical that we're going to see a lot new information that gets released. Remember, the Justice Department, both under Biden and under Trump,

has been sitting on all of these documents. And there's a lot of people internally in both administrations who had a heavy incentive to get the worst stuff out, particularly if they wanted to move the investigation along. And, by the way, I think there's a lot of innuendo in there, and there's going to be a legal justification to black out a lot of information that might be very tawdry, but is not illegal. So I wouldn't think you're going to suddenly get this amazing new portrait of all the grossness around Epstein and the people who affiliated with him. On the question about

Trump and reporters, again, we do become immune to this a little bit, but give me a break. You're the President of the United States, and a woman asked you a question and you call her a frickin piggy? Like, in what world is that okay? If I did that as a CEO of my company, I should probably lose my job.

I certainly should not be trusted by anybody around because it's so damn disrespectful. And that question, and if you go back and roll the tape on the question where he said, that's so rude, you're so insubordinate. It wasn't even that interesting of a question. It was a question anybody would ask. It was asked in a totally neutral tone. There was no anger in it. Anybody who's skeptical who just, oh, I hate the media, just go watch it yourself. Your eyes aren't going to lie. Look at it. And did that seem like a reasonable

question? And then did it seem like a reasonable response? If it was a reasonable question and it was an unreasonable response. Why? Well, I'm guessing that those questions are starting to get under the president's skin because it's basically a controversy of his own making. He created the Frankenstein that created the Epstein obsession and they won't let it go and he won't let it go. And now it continues to haunt him and it makes it almost impossible for them to do what J-Mart was talking about, which is right. You don't have to be some political spengali to look at what happened two weeks ago and say, geez, what should I do? I don't know. Maybe you should focus on prices, the economy, jobs, get an anxious public feeling a little bit more confident, feel like

you're putting your emphasis into getting the economy in a good place where if AI comes as quickly as people think it is that everybody could benefit from it. When you're not doing that, people sour on you. And when people sour on you, broadly, it's a signal to your base that little by little, they can start to question you. They can start to maybe put a little pressure on you. And that's what you're seeing happen within MAGA. And that is a very, very significant change. This was a 100% total loyalty movement that is no longer 100% total loyalty.

And that has political consequences. And by the way, for anybody that does go back and looks in the MAGA base at those questions, they will see that Mary Bruce and the Bloomberg reporter were only asking the question. questions that they have demanded be answered for years now. Right. I do want to say, John, Lemire, I agree with some Vanda High that I'm skeptical, and we've said it here for months now. I'm skeptical that when the files are released, there are going to be any massive revelations,

which really raises the big question for me, which is, why is Donald Trump fighting something so aggressively that Ken Delaney and other... of our reporters have said for years, like Donald Trump's not on the list. Why is he fighting so hard to keep this information out when the Biden administration and people in the Justice Department had a look at these files for four years? Now, I'm not saying that people at the top would have leaked bad information, but we know how bureaucracies work. Stuff, I mean, stuff slips out during war, war secret slip out.

if there was a smoking gun in there, it would have already been released by now. And Epstein probably destroyed all incriminating evidence after he got arrested the first time. So again, the real mystery here is, if all of that is true, why has he even fighting this so hard against his own political best interest and declaring a war on his own MAGA base? Well, it's not just a mystery to us. What's perhaps so. startling is it's a mystery to those closest to him. As I wrote last week about the Epstein matter, his inner

circle at the White House, they don't know. They don't fully know. They don't know what? Why he's fighting it? Why he's so upset? Like, what possibly could be in there? There's a chance that Trump himself doesn't totally know. There's no client list, per se. That's what MS now reporting has been all along. But there is, you know, a trove

of materials, pictures, documents, letters, whatever it might be. And it's not quite clear that Trump himself knows everything that's in there, partially because the estate has had some of It's not all just been in federal custody. So that's part of it here, but it clearly angers him very much. And maybe it's, there's no suggestion there's something criminal about Trump, but potentially embarrassing about him or someone very close to him, J.M.R., and it is something that he simply

can't shake. And it does, to Jim Vanda High's point, it is given Republicans an opening. And look, let's not call Donald Trump a lame duck just yet. But it does also feel like here, Republicans suddenly have the permission structure to question him, to rebel a little bit. And for the first time, maybe, just maybe, start to look beyond him. Yeah, it's the first hair fracture you can see on the MRI, right? You can barely make it out.

But if you look closely enough in squint, you can see a slight little fracture there, right? And guess what happens to those fractures? They don't get smaller, man. They only get wider and wider, right? And so I think that's the challenge he has. And guess what? The reason he's so cranky when he gets asked about it, because the reporters who ask him those questions,

That's the only intrusion of reality he has on his life. Everybody else in his world, his staff, congressional allies, the friends in New York he talks to on the phone, Sean Hannity, whatever. It's all people who are reinforcing him and bucking him up. They're all sick offense. The only non-sick offense he comes into any interaction with on a day-to-day basis are the folks asking questions. That's it. Wait, that's why Fox didn't cover the press conference yesterday, that I guarantee you everybody in Washington, was watching. And if you look at the hosts last night on that network, they were all basically

calling it, first it goes from being a Democratic hoax to now it's a democratic scandal. And so they can do whatever they want to do. But that's all the president's watching. That's all the president's hearing. So again, when somebody actually asks them a question that punctuates that reality, he gets really angry. He does. We covered that press conference live yesterday in our 9 o'clock hour. We're so striking that Fox did not. And it's a really good point because the intrusion of reality is so rare. Even his social media feed, he's not on Twitter anymore. He's on true social. That's his own site. That's all he's seeing. And even the way the White House has sort of hijacked largely the press pool that it's mostly friendly faces. He doesn't do large

news conferences anymore. He doesn't take questions often from sort of mainstream media reporters, and it only, and he doesn't allow reporters who ask tough questions into the pool very often. So it's even then, in those settings, it's rare that he gets a tough question. And the last couple of days, he's reacted poorly when he does. And now he's asked ABC to have their license pulled, and Brendan Carr, what a guy, retweeted it. Okay, MS now senior congressional reporter and host of way too early, Ali Vitale. Thank you very much for staying on with us. And still ahead on warning Joe will show you the moment the president appeared to dismiss U.S. intelligence that found the Saudi Crown Prince likely had some culpability in the killing of Washington Post

columnist Jamal Khashoki. Plus, we'll be joined by Democratic Congressman Rokana, one of the lawmakers leading the charge to force the Justice Department to release all of the Epstein files. And as we go to break, a look at the Travelers forecasts this morning from Ackyweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, little wet snow this morning. The Ackyweather exclusive forecast calling for some slip-free travel. Northeast and parts of Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey. Rain, New York City, and Philadelphia will break for some sunshine in the afternoon.

Chile in Boston. In the southeast, the Ackyweather says it is warm and it is sunny if you're doing any traveling. Just some minor delays this morning with that rain in New York City and Philadelphia. To help you make the best decision, and be more than to know, make sure to download the Accuether app today. They said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin.

He just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that. As President Trump siding with two strong men over U.S. intelligence, specifically, his intelligence leaders, one who interfered in American elections, according to Marco Rubio's

Intel Committee, and the other who ordered, according to Trump's own intel officers, the murder of a Washington Post columnist. On that happy note, let's bring in President Emeritus, the Council on Foreign Relations. Richard Haas, Richard, the Washington Post today. lead editorial things happen, the president getting angry when basic questions are asked that I think everybody would want to ask. But step back a little bit. Beyond that, talk about this visit and the importance of this visit. Saudi Arabia made the calculation years ago that it could wade out essentially being seen as a pariah, and they were invited back to the, you know, they

began the process under Biden. Yesterday was the complete rehabilitation of Saudi Arabia. And what we see, Joe, is... Why are they so strategic to America, explain to viewers? Still one of the most important producers of oil in the world. Also, the center of gravity in the Middle East has moved away from the old Middle East, the Egypt and countries like that to Saudi Arabia and the U.S. And by the way, again, just to keep this moving, a lot of times people are, it's like they're stuck at 1991 and they go, oh, it's all about the oil. No, it's not about the oil. It's about the strategic location. It's about a lot of things. And it's also the economic clout. That Saudi Arabia, a major investor in the United States, the United States can sell a lot of

things to Saudi Arabia. And you've got a leader of Saudi Arabia who wants to economically develop and politically modernize his country. In some ways, Joe, what was interesting about yesterday was the, this is in some ways emblematic of the Trump foreign policy. A lot of emphasis on economics and a total de-emphasis of anything to do with human rights and democracy. So in some is this captured a lot of where the administration is comfortable? And in a sense, is that in part, his emphasis on money, his emphasis on finance, his emphasis on these sort of trade relationships, isn't that what moved the peace process in the Middle East forward where the Qataris and a lot of other people finally said, why do I want to keep

fighting this losing battle? I want to get in on the action. That was the other thing that was also interesting about yesterday, how little emphasis was on Saudi Arabia's role in the region. You barely heard the word Gaza and so forth. What the Saudis are basically saying is we don't want our future to be linked or hinged to what happens with Palestinians or anybody else. We're really concerned. It's almost, give you another way of thinking about it. America first, met Saudi Arabia first yesterday. These are two leaders who were really interested in the economic development of their countries more than in other issues. You know, you were talking about moral leadership a minute ago. When you sit next to NBS, the

Crown Prince, who has done what the CIA says he has done to a Washington Post reporter and you excuse it and you say, well, he was extremely controversial, Jamal Khashoggi was. A lot of people didn't like him as if that justified what happened to him. Why is that an important moment? I think people say, as long as we get along well, we trade deals, the economy looks good. Why was that moment important, the failure of the president to stand up to him there? I thought actually the leader of Saudi Arabia there stood up a little bit more in the way he I actually thought it was quite interesting. Willie, an important part of American foreign policy over the decades has not simply been the

pursuit, if you will, a narrow interest. United States has stood for something in the world. There's values, democracy. Our example, we said at home, what it is we promote abroad. And essentially, one of the big departures between this administration and literally every other administration, beginning with Harry Truman, the first of the post-World War II presidents, is that we no longer are focused on that. We shut down all the radios.

We shut down AID. We're no longer promoting democracy abroad. We no longer give special preference to democratic countries. And we overlook, quote-unquote, transgressions and so forth. President essentially absolved the leadership of Saudi Arabia, as Joe is pointing out, contrary to what the U.S. intelligence community reported during Trump's first term as president. It's basically a narrowing of American foreign policy. And again, it's a promotion of hard, narrow economic interests rather than something long.

So Jim Bandai, we want to ask you about new reporting from Axis that says the U.S. is drafting a new plan to end the war in Ukraine. The peace reads in part the Trump administration has been secretly working in consultation with Russia to draft a new plan to end the war in Ukraine. U.S. and Russian officials tell Axis. The 28-point U.S. plan is inspired by President Trump's success. push for a deal in Gaza. A top Russian official told Axis, he is optimistic about the plan. It's not clear yet how Ukraine and its European backers will feel about it. So if you could fill in the blanks here, Jim, how do you end the war in Ukraine when you're only working with Russia on it? Yeah, there's meetings today actually in Ukraine with U.S. officials, not at the Trump

level, but below him, they basically have laid out this structure as a 28-point plan. It's very much modeled after what they did in the Middle East, which to Trump's credit was quite a success, being able to do what they did in being able to release the hostages. They think they have a similar template. The same people are very much involved in negotiating this. The first piece was making sure that they feel like Russia is on board. They've always been very deferential to making sure that Russia as the antagonist and the one that has more power in the equation between the two countries is on.

on board. They're now taking it to the Ukrainians who are aware of it. They don't know the specifics. The Europeans don't know the specifics yet. What we don't know in the 28-point plan is, what do you do with the hard stuff, right? What do you do with the land that Russia invaded and took and is not actually theirs, but they're now claiming it should be a part of their empire. That's a huge sticking point. It's clear Russia's also asking for a lot in terms of their investments and our investments with them so that they can rebuild their economy. So I think the good news is, like, listen, if there is a template and if the Ukrainians could get comfortable with it, it'd be a hell of a great thing if you could bring peace to that region.

I think this one's harder than the Middle East. We just don't have the leverage over Putin that we had over Netanyahu, but nonetheless, I think that Russians and the Americans do seem to be somewhat optimistic. We've been optimistic before, and it's turned out to be nothing, and we got played by Putin. We've talked about this on the show many times. I'm deeply skeptical of murderous thugs, right? And so especially murderous thugs who lie routinely to us. So I always be dubious about anything the Russians say. But with that said, like the Americans feel some optimism.

You know, I've done some reporting on this. And Willie, what person I was speaking with, what I pressed him on was was the land trade that obviously Ukraine is going, this would be part of the deal, where they would give up land, which, by the way, the Biden administration was saying two and a half years ago they were going to have to do. But the thing I kept pressing on was security guarantees, security guarantees.

And this official told me, yes, there would have to be Article 5 like security guarantees. So nobody could say this was like Munich. 1938, that Putin, if he got the Dunbos, if he got other, the land that they took actually in the war, that in exchange, Ukraine would get an Article 5-like guarantee, and an attack against Ukraine would be an attack against the United States. Well, that would be a big step. Right.

The facto NATO membership is what you're talking about there. So if they got that, Richard, I mean, look, there, the U.S. Ukrainian feeling is we've basically fought these guys against the odds to a stalemate for three and a half years. Why are we going to give up something that's not theirs? Just for your first blush reaction to this idea of a 28-point plan, negotiated with the Russians before we hear from the Ukrainians. What is the possibility, though, of peace here? Again, the process leaves me uneasily. Normally you do it the other way around. You negotiate with your friends and then you deal with your adversaries. peace? No, I think that's too much. It's almost a little bit like the Middle East. We signed the peace agreement. What we really got was a hostage and political prisoner thing. A lot of things were left very vague, very down the road. The real question here is how is it structured, really? How much is the beginning steps? How much are they linked to the final steps? And the more ambitious, the more link the plan has become all or nothing, the risk is nothing.

To the extent it becomes, well, we'll do these things up front and maybe we'll get to other things down the road. That's a more realistic question. The real question here then becomes, when does the ceasefire kick in? How much has to be agreed to before the fighting steps, stops? And that's one of the things we don't know yet about this plan. And Jamart, one of the problems right now is you have two weak sides. The Russian economy's battered, oils around 60, a barrel on the other side of it. Ukraine's population is probably shaved in half since the beginning of the war, the average age of the person fighting now. Higher and higher.

I think right now it's like in the upper 40s, maybe even the low 50s. It's a nation that right now, because of drone warfare, they're able to continue fighting this. But again, you have two battered sides. And I'm just wondering if Ukraine gets the Article 5 security guarantee, whether they'll say, okay, we'll give up some land, but a red line will be drawn and Putin can never cross. I just don't think that they trust Putin, but I'm curious for Richard's view that there's this pattern of when Putin seems to believe that the U.S. is about to impose different sanctions

or about to offer long-range missiles for the Ukrainians. He always finds a way to get Trump on the phone or call for a summit or something. On Sunday, Trump is taking questions from the press on the tarmac, and he's asked about the secondary sanctions bill that Senator Graham has. And he says, yeah, I think they're going to pass that. Do you think that this new peace plan is in part connected to the fact that two days ago Trump was sounding open to a new tougher package of sanctions? In a word, probably not. Because again, we'll see how comfortable the Russians are with the plan. The real thing that's missing, and Joe mentioned Article V's commitments to Ukraine.

The other would be what kind of commitment there is to provide Ukraine with the military and intelligence wherewithal it needs, because you need to get to ceasefire, and then you need to have a ceasefire last and become permanent. So we would have to persuade Ukraine, and that, you know, what you're describing is a grand bargain. We all ask you to give up something that is rightfully yours and legally yours. We're going to reward aggression in exchange. We would be prepared to give you, as well, he said, tantamount to NATO membership. Which is, which is only, you know, Bush didn't push back after Georgia in 2008. Obama didn't after 2014. this would be an extraordinarily important step.

A lot that would depend on the details, what kind of arms commitments? And also, what kind of limitations might there be on the stationing of foreign forces on Ukrainian soil? I mean, there'll be a lot of devils, if you will, in the details. But that's an interesting conversation for the United States to have with Ukraine. That would put us in the middle of European security for an administration, quite honestly, that's trying to move away from that. It'd be out of character. This is an administration that wants to focus on the Western Hemisphere.

The idea that we would get that involved permanently against the thing is, I would suspect that the United States would play a big role in rebuilding there, right? So we would, I can't imagine any grand bargain that doesn't create American jobs for Donald Trump, number one, and number two, I can't believe that the Europeans wouldn't be able to be the peacekeepers. I mean, that would be a deal killer if Putin said, oh, nobody can be in there. I'm saying it's a really big idea. It would be hard for Ukraine to swallow. Major change for this administration, really for American position. Because remember, Putin's goals in Ukraine are not just territorial. Right.

He wants to eradicate Ukraine as a Western-oriented country on his border. So one question is whether Putin would accept this, not simply as a waste station, but he accept this as a permanent peace. Big, big question. All right, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas. Thank you. And CEO and co-founder of Axis, Jim Vandahai, and Politics Spirit Chief and Senior Political Communist at Politico, Jonathan Martin.

Thank you all very much for being with us this morning. And coming up, we'll look at the life and death consequences of extreme restrictions on abortion, including a tragic case of a Texas mother who was denied the procedure despite clear signs her health was rapidly deteriorating. We'll speak with the reporter who's been digging into that story next on Morning Joe. Our abortion health care advocates in Texas continue to highlight how the state's restrictive abortion laws are putting women's lives at risk. ProPublica is out with a new piece this morning highlighting the case of Tierra Walker. The 37-year-old mother was denied an abortion despite suffering from severe health complications.

As her condition worsened, Tierra repeatedly asked doctors if she should have an abortion to save her life. More than 90 doctors reportedly saw Tierra during multiple hospitalizations for the risky pregnancy. But according to medical records, no one counseled her on terminating, and she was told there was no emergency. Tierra's teenage son found her dead on her bed just after Christmas last year, a day that happened to be his birthday. Joining us now is one of the co-authors of the piece, ProPublica reporter Lizzie Presser. She's a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist covering these issues. And this is a pretty extreme case, but it really highlights the problem about these strict bans. I guess I first want to ask you about the 6,500 pages of medical records that you and ProPublica went through.

What was the takeaway when you look at them? I mean, it seems obvious this woman needed something more than she was getting. And it's not just obvious to you. It was obvious to the more than dozen OBGYNs who looked at this case and evaluated the care she got. And they were all alarmed to see that she was never offered in abortion when that was clearly what would have saved her life. That was clearly the only option for her to have a life. Okay. So what about contacting the hospital?

Did you reach out? Did you hear from them? We did reach out to the hospitals and we reached out to many doctors. who were involved in Tierra's care, and they did not comment on her care at all. I mean, what we see in this case is a woman who believed that these abortion bans would provide an exception for her. Her health was clearly deteriorating. She suffered from severe preeclampsia. She had in the past. She even had stillborn twins previously. There was a lot of a track record here that this woman's life was in danger.

That's exactly right. She was at very high risk of preeclampsia. This pregnancy-related. blood pressure disorder. She was suffering from seizures. She had a blood clot that could have killed her. And as her health deteriorated and she kept asking doctors for help, they brushed off her concerns and said there was no issue with her pregnancy. Is there a sense that these restrictive laws acted as a sort of intimidating effect for the doctors? Like what would have been the consequences for them or the medical staff if they had counselors or to terminate the pregnancy? It's a really good question. And yes, intimidation is the word that we're here. from more than 100 OBGYNs we spoke to across the state that people are afraid to even

talk about abortion. In Texas, it's against the law to aid or abet an abortion, which means talking about an abortion that could be illegal. You can face, if you provide that abortion, up to 99 years in prison. So, but Lizzie, even the most restrictive abortion laws in Texas is right up there. Do they not provide at least a sliver of an exception for the life of the mother? And if it doesn't, if it does in Texas, why wasn't that taken into consideration here? Yeah. I'm really glad you asked that question because I think that's what Tierra believed as well, right? We think that these abortions provide exceptions exactly for what you're saying, the life of the mother. In reality, the laws are written so narrowly that they really give exception

if a woman is facing a life-threatening medical emergency. That generally means that a doctor believes that a woman is going to die if they don't intervene. That's extremely rare. What is far more common are these women with these chronic health conditions with high-risk pregnancies at much higher risk of developing lifelong complications or death. What's the big takeaway from this reporting? And what is her family saying? The big takeaway here is that women who are sick like Tierra, and women are getting sicker in pregnancy and they're getting pregnant later in life. There are no health exceptions in these laws for women like Tierra.

They do not exist. And anti-abortion activists have fought hard. to keep these health exceptions out of the loss. And so we believe there is this exception for the life of the mother, when in reality, there is no exception written for women like Tierra with chronic underlying health conditions.

And her family? Her family is devastated. I mean, as you mentioned in the beginning, we have a 15-year-old son who is now motherless. They were best friends, and we can never take away that pain for him. So I know all these doctors

who worked with her didn't respond to you for comment, but is it your sense? that given their medical training and what they know about her condition that they would have liked to have intervened and performed an abortion? Everyone we spoke to, who looked at this case,

said that it was abundantly clear that this woman needed an abortion. If that's what she wanted, right? Women can choose to continue high-risk pregnancies. Tara did want that termination. She did not want to risk her life. She did not want to leave her 15-year-old son motherless. But no one even talked to her about it.

And that's what you start to see with these cases, too, that the counseling is gone, when people are afraid to even mention abortion. Lizzie Presser, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. Her story, the reporting is available online right now at pro-publica.org. Thank you. Thank you. Very much.