Morning Joe - Joe: A majority of Americans support what King Charles said in his address to Congress

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Joe: A majority of Americans support what King Charles said in his address to Congress 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.

You recently commented, Mr. President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German. Dare I say that if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French. Thank you, Mr. President and Mrs. Trump, for your splendid dinner this evening, which, may I say, is a very considerable improvement on the Boston Tea Party. First President, George Washington, and my five-time-trial-grandfather, King George III. King George, as you know, never set foot in America.

And please rest assured, ladies gentlemen, I am not here as part of some cunning rearguard action. 250 years ago, or, as we say, in the United Kingdom, just the other day. King Charles bringing some comic relief to Capitol Hill as he honored the long-standing ties between, Britain and America. We're going to have much more on his speech to Congress, including a warning about NATO and the risks of isolationism. He also weighed in on Ukraine, which has made some remarkable moves on the battlefield, despite fading support from Washington. The U.S.

Ambassador to Kiev just stepped down in an apparent break with the White House. Plus, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. The Justice Department, Department is whipping up another case against James Comey, this time over some seashells. So here we are. We're worried about assassination attempts, which of course, that story keeps unfolding. We're worried about Iranian terror threats, and they're doing a seashell case, nine, ten months old, and it will never go anywhere. But again, it's just another example of the administration doing whatever they can to look even more stupid. at a time when they really need to get their 33% approval ratings up. This won't do it. It will

have the opposite impact, and they'll get laughed out of court. Well, also made the King Charles words yesterday all the more impactful. Also, Jimmy Kimmel pushes back at the government's attempts to punish him for a late night joke. We'll show you what he said about that. Well, that's another example. I mean, the absolute sheer hypocrisy, Willie, over the past several years, you've had these right-wingers going, you know, writing columns, the free press going, oh, this is about free speech. We are free speech absolute. It's yesterday you find out the free press is like employing like members, uh, people that were connected to Orban's government, funded by Orban's government. And you now have Brendan Carr and all these other people

trying to pull ABC's license because of a joke that Don Rickles would have told at any roast over the past 50 years about an older husband and a younger wife. It's just, it's just, it's just the, the hypocrisy and the insanity, it just, it just, it always backfires against them. Again, a joke made two days before the White House correspondence there, not a joke about what happened at the correspondence there. Should we pointed out too, again, that the head of the FCC, Brendan Carr was once a free speech crusader. He spoke out in defense of the the First Amendment time and time again. But something happens to these men and women when they get in the government and they view their jobs, frankly, as being errand boys for the president of the

United States. And that's what you see here. That's what you see in the prosecution of James Comey for putting seashells in the shape of a couple of numbers. As you say, that's likely, unlikely to go anywhere. And the director of the FBI yesterday bragging that the FBI spent nine months looking into one Instagram post before it concluded that charges should be brought against the former FBI director. It's really, it's so embarrassing. Some things happened also, Mickey, yesterday. You know, wait a second. I think the world's axis may be sort of retilting and getting back almost a normal. You looked yesterday at a joint session of Congress where American politicians acted like American politicians

should act. They gave standing ovations to the king an extraordinary speech. There would be cable news hosts in primetime saying, today it's that day that Charles became king. But we'll get past that.

But it was an extraordinary speech. Exactly. It was an extraordinary speech. I liked it. It was unbelievable. But the king actually got American politicians to stand up and cheer for what they should be saying.

What they should be saying, Madisonian checks and balances that go all the way back to the Magna Carta, NATO, which freed Europe from the slavery of the Soviet Union, Ukraine, who is fighting the future of warfare right now and pushing back against Russian hordes, invaders that are killing their grandmothers

and kidnapping their children, and yet Republicans sit back as their president sits on their hands. He cheered this special relationship. That was great. And in something completely different, Mika, last night, and we're going to play the clip later, the Buffalo Sabres. As Canada's National Anthem stopped playing the microphone, American fans gave it just a beautiful, strong, loud rendition of Oh Canada and say, we got you. We're here. You're our neighbors. You're our friends, you're our allies. You have been and you will be. We love you. It was beautiful. Along with Joe Willie and me, we have the co-host of our 9 a.m. Hour, staff writer at the

Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, co-host of the Restis Politics Podcast, the BBC's Caddy Kay, opinion calmness for the New York Times, David French, and CEO and co-founder of Axis Jim Van de High. And now we hear the King's speech. Yes. No stuttering. It was beautiful. Charles delivered a historic address to Congress yesterday in a moment used to highlight the 250 years of U.S.-UK. relations and the importance of democracy. The King, now the second British monarch ever to address the chamber reflected on the long and sometimes turbulent relationship between the two nations, emphasizing the partnership as one of the most consequential in history. He also called for continued support for Ukraine and praised NATO. Take a listen.

Today I am here on this great occasion in the life of our nations to express the highest regard and friendship of the British people to the people of the United States. Ours is a partnership born out of dispute, but no less strong for it. We can discern that our nations are in fact instinctively. like-minded, a product of the common democratic, legal and social traditions in which our governance is rooted to this day. Drawing on these values and traditions, time and again, our two countries have always found ways to come together. This, I believe, is the special ingredient in our relationship. As President Trump himself observed during his state visit to Britain last autumn, the bond of kinship and identity between America and the United Kingdom is priceless

and eternal. It is irreplaceable and unbreakable. This year, of course, also marks the 25th anniversary of 9-11. This atrocity was a defining moment for America and your pain and shock were felt around the whole world. During my visit to New York, my wife and I will again pay our respects to the victims, the families, and the bravely shown in the face of terrible loss. We stood with you then, and we stand with you now, in solemn remembrance of a day that shall never be forgotten. In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time,

and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror, we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security. Today, Mr. Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine, and her most courageous people. From the depths of the Atlantic to the disastrously melting ice caps of the Arctic,

the commitment and expertise of the United States armed forces and its allies lie at the heart of NATO, pledged to each other's defense, protecting our citizens and interests, keeping North Americans and Europeans safe from our common adversaries. The US Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.

I pray with all my heart that our allowance will continue to defend our shared values, with our partners in Europe and the Commonwealth and across the world. And that we ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward-looking. You know, Caddy, Kay, we discussed yesterday by phone the fact that my wife remained unmoved through the greater part of my hero, Queen Elizabeth the Second's extraordinary reign. Who would have ever known? She would have fallen for the monarchy because of Charles. But that she did. She made me replay the speech time and time again.

First of all, and there are a lot of hardened Brits that I talked to yesterday afternoon who said Charles' speech was nothing short of extraordinary. After mocking this man throughout most of his adult life, I heard people, first of all, how courageous it was. He said things that most foreign leaders and politicians were afraid to say, bringing up Article 5, talking about checks and balances to a Republican Congress that forgot about checks and balances. But it was, it really was. It was an extraordinary performance. And what was most extraordinary about it is, if you look at American polls, the majority of American support everything he said. The majority of American support everything he said.

the majority of Americans support Ukraine. 62% in the latest polls say keep helping and supporting the Ukrainians. The overwhelming majority of Americans support NATO. The overwhelming majority of Americans support the special relationship. And so these things that he brought up that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance may have been offended by, well, they're in the minority. Actually, King Charles, the third. What he said yesterday is what the majority of Americans feel.

And I think that's what gives so much power to his speech. Because Republicans, as Willie said, who are playing errand boy to one man, Republicans are scared to state the obvious. Yesterday, the king of England did just that. Well, first of all, Mika, welcome to the Club of Monarchists. We'll give you a passport that doesn't have the face of the president on it. it's been remarkable to see all of Washington and to watch last night, Joe in Congress,

Republicans and Democrats alike, stand and applaud things that normally Republicans would be pretty horrified by at the moment. I mean, the fact that they stood and cheered when he said, talked about the polar ice caps melting and protecting our planet and protecting nature. When he talked about those checks and balances, it wasn't just Democrats who stood up in Congress.

it was Republicans as well. And part of me started thinking is, are they listening to what he's saying? Are they hearing what he's actually saying, which is you were set up to do your job. You were set up to put checks and balances on the executive. I did think I saw J.D. Vance's face grow a little more scowly during the course of the speech.

But generally, it went down incredibly well. And you and I spoke afterwards. I thought it was more political than I expected it to be. I thought, I did think he would focus on NATO and the transatlantic alliance. I didn't necessarily expect him to bring up the British Navy, which Donald Trump has dismissed recently as a bunch of toy warships. I didn't expect him to bring up nature. Maybe I should have done as much as he did.

And I did think that line of checks and balances in that closing line about America's words and actions matter, I think was another of his not particularly coded references to, this. Listen, if you're going to go out there and trash all of your allies and do things like in, you know, bomb Iran without allied support, you have to be careful because the rest of the world is watching. I thought he managed to pull off that amount. And I did check in with a few members who had been there, Republican and Democrat, and I kept getting all of these emojis back of crowns. One Republican did say to me that he enjoyed watching the Democrats stand repeatedly for a king. Look, king came and conquered Washington. Who knew?

250 years after you could be sad. He did. You're welcome. You know, Will, thank you. You're welcome. I'll tell you, I didn't see this coming. And it's more the entire dynamic, Willie. He throughout the day into the evening was received really well.

He used humor at times, but he cut to the truth, generating applause from Republicans, saying the things that needed to be said and getting applause from Republicans. and still carrying through, I mean, it was statesmen, diplomat, and king all at once. And I think there has been a hunger for a person who can actually come to the table and say these things in the public sphere and be received in what is the normal way. And we got that. Yeah, you almost saw, I don't know if it was relief or something from even Republican members of Congress that someone was saying these things out loud in that chamber and then they could stay. and applaud for it in a way they don't feel comfortable or too afraid to say themselves. But you're right.

The masterful part about that day was that he was charming. He flattered President Trump and all the ways President Trump needs to be flattered, but embedded in all of that, those critiques that we just heard, David French, of isolationism, reminding President Trump and everyone in that room with the importance of NATO, of 9-11, checks and balances. I mean, the fact that he cited the Magna Carta in 800. year old document as checks and balances and got Speaker Mike Johnson to leap to his feet, who was completely abdicated that role in the United States government.

It was just an extraordinary thing to watch. Well, you know, it was a masterclass in persuasion when you think about it, because what he did is he walks in and he expresses affection and also a degree of self-deprecating humor. Yeah. And so when you do that, when you walk into a room, a tough room, perhaps, and you express affection, you're funny. You open people's minds.

you open people's hearts. And then once their minds and hearts were open, he kind of had a tough message to deliver something very unusual from a king now. This is a much more ceremonial position. This is not a substantive position the way that it used to be. But he came in and delivered a substantive message, one that I think the American people, not just many of them wanted to hear, but also needed to hear and to show this transatlantic bond it still exists,

why it's so important. but he did it in a just almost a perfect way for the moment. People were hungry for this humor. People are hungry for like maybe a degree of dignity in public discourse. And I think he just really did rise to the occasion. I mean, John, Republicans on their fee for support of NATO, supportive Ukraine, support of checks and balances, and climate change.

That's the power of the king. Yeah, not the Trump agenda. No, it was. It was the word was masterclass. Exactly right. He rose to the moment. He delivered. He exceeded.

expectations, I would think. And the reaction I heard from a few people yesterday was just, it was a rare return to normalcy. That it was like, this is the kind of speech that if a king came in, you know, whether it was Barack Obama's administration, Joe Biden, George W. Bush, or his father, they would have gotten this sort of reception. This is how it used to be. And I think for some, perhaps fleetingly, this was, this was something that they were happy to have, even though somewhere George Washington is shaking his head. Jim Vandahi, I mean, he, this was remarkable to see Republicans in Congress

House Senate alike cheer some of these sentiments, which as Willie just noted runs so contrary to what we hear from that party, from the White House over this last decade. You covered Congress for a long time. Was this indeed? I assume this was just a

fleeting moment in time, and today they'll be back to doing the president's bidding, but perhaps, just perhaps, is it a sneak peek as to what it could be like post-Trump? I think sadly it's probably fleeting. I don't mean to be a cynic. Listen, I think someone uses humor. If someone uses levity, if someone has moral clarity, people respond to it. I think that's what you saw in those speeches yesterday. I thought the speech was both sad and delightful.

It was sad in that why did it take a king from a foreign land from a country we fled to remind people of what we've done in what we do and what we can do? And I think that's why it resonated because he did speak to those things. And do I think Congress changes because of it? Absolutely not. But I do think I've been picking this up talking to college kids and just talking to people around the country. There's something out there. The response to politics right now could be, you know, we just go to the other side and we go to socialism or something like that. It also could be that it awakens this yearning, I think, that sits even inside of hardened members of Congress to do something with meaning, to have.

have dignity to be what the king talked about America being. And maybe that's a flicker of that. And it certainly did resonate. And I think it's very discordant when you do have Republicans standing up for things that they've been against. But it was a beautiful speech, regardless of what your politics are. You know, Jim, though, and I do agree. I think that what follows the Trump administration is going to be a return to respect, I think, for other people for politicians more. I don't think it continues down there. There is an exhaustion and there is an exhaustion even among my Trump supporting friends who say, you know, especially after Easter. We've just had enough of this. Can't he just be normal? That's what I keep hearing.

Can't he just stop? Can't he just do his job? And so I think you're right. I think there's going to be an understanding as there wasn't hungry. There will be understanding. There's a reason. There's a We have institutions. There's a reason why we have people who are actually experts. There's a reason why we have people who study things their entire life. And when they tell you, you better not go into Iran, because if you go into Iran, then they're going to close the Strait of Hormuzh, which experts have been saying since 1979, or, you know, RFK Jr. Oh, I'm not a doctor or a scientist, and I don't know anything about what I'm talking about, but let me try out this conspiracy theory. We're seeing the effects of all that, just like Hungarians saw it with Orban.

And there's something else that lies underneath this, Jim. One of the reasons why the king's message was so receptive and Republicans shouldn't fool themselves. They're not Republicans. Maga people shouldn't fool themselves and say, oh, it's just because it was the king. No, it's because he touched upon things that most Americans believe in. But Republicans are afraid to say, as they run Washington, D.C. 60% of Americans support NATO. 60% of Americans think America gets a lot out of NATO.

62% of Americans support the United States defending and fighting for Ukraine with economic support. 62%. We've talked about this before. Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, the people who hate Ukraine, who prove every day that they hate Ukraine, who hate NATO. who prove every day that they hate NATO, who hate our European allies that helped us take down the Soviet Union, who prove that every day. They are on the wrong side of American history,

and the overwhelming majority of Americans are against them. So let us hope. Post-Trump, there's more of a Marco Rubio reset, who unfortunately has coward. times on his long-held beliefs. But what the King was saying yesterday is what Republicans have always believed, but are now afraid to say because of Donald Trump. I think you're, you know I think you're right. I think that this is a great country full of good people. 60% of people are more agree on almost everything topically. And it just gets

lost in politics. I'm going to use some Wisconsin slang to explain what I think's going on right now. I think people are waking up. It's like we went on a bender. Everybody drank. too damn much. And now they're a little bit of shame. They did things they didn't think they should do. And I think they want to sober up. And they want to think about, you know, maybe I should be a little bit of a better person. Maybe I should show a little bit of self-restraint. And again, I think it's just a flicker. And polls aren't going to pick this up. And we're really not going to know for another year or two when we start to see the next political campaign kickoff. But you're starting to see that. And I would encourage everyone, if you have any time,

go listen to that extended version on 60 minutes of Ben Sasse's interview. It just listen to how he talks about community and how he talks about humanity. This is a guy who's dying, who's seen it all. He's been in politics. He might have a couple weeks, a couple months left. He speaks so lyrically, so powerfully, so beautifully about what we could be and how close we are to being what we could be. And it's just such a beautiful reminder. Listen to that. Listen to that King's speech. Turn off social media and get a life. Yeah, that's really good point. And still add on Morning Joe, David French's new piece is titled,

Meek, the new leader of the free world. We'll find out who David says that is. Plus, we're going to get a legal breakdown of the charges brought against former FBI director James Comey. It's about seashells. And as we go to break, here's the moment Joe mentioned at the top of the show from the Stanley Cup playoffs, where the crowd in Buffalo stepped up last night during the singing of Canada's national anthem. filling in for the performer after her microphone went out ahead of Game 5 between the Sabres and the Boston Bruins. Oh, Canada, our home and native patron love with glowing peace see that the ship was strong and from foreign wives and on.

The Department of Justice has indicted former FBI director James Comey again. The second round of charges includes threatening the life of the president. It stems from a picture, a photograph. Comey posted last year of seashells in the form of the numbers 86-47. It's most of you know, to 86-something slang for the restaurant industry to throw it out. get rid of. We're out of it tonight. 86 it. And Trump, of course, is the 47th president. Comey quickly took the image down after receiving backlash when he put it up last year, saying, quote, I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence and took the

picture down. The DOJ now will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. The message was intended as a threat. You are not allowed to threaten the president of the United States of America. That's not my decision. That's Congress's decision in a statute that they passed that we charge multiple times a year. The government will have evidence. I am not going to talk about the evidence that we have. That's unfair to him. It's unfair to the prosecutors, but it's enough to say that the grand jury returned in a dive in. You just saw the evidence. Seychelles on a beach and a photograph on Instagram. Comey responded quickly to the new charges and a video posted on substack. Well, they're back. This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina beach.

a year ago. And this won't be the end of it. But nothing has changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. So let's go. This latest case comes just months after Comey's prior indictment for lying to Congress was dismissed due to an illegally appointed prosecutor. Let's bring an MS Now Justice and Intelligence reporter Ken Delanian and former U.S. attorney and MS now legal analyst, Joyce Vance. Good morning to you both. Ken, I'll start with you. You're reporting on this story. A lot on the plate, the Department of Justice right now for the acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who'd like to take the term acting probably away from that job. The Epstein files, chief among them perhaps. So how did they come to this prosecution?

Good morning, Willie. Well, this pretty clearly seems to be part of Todd Blanche's campaign to become the permanent attorney general. He and his aides have made no secret about the fact that he is accelerating many of these retribution cases that Donald Trump cares very much about. This three-page indictment makes the claim that any reasonable person who saw that photo would interpret that as a threat to the life of the president of the United States. That's obviously manifestly false. Some legal commentators have called that the most embarrassing paragraph they've ever seen in the Justice Department document.

You know, I attended that news conference yesterday with Todd Blanche and the FBI director Kash Patel. And, you know, everybody in the room knew what was going on there. Even Todd Blanche knows what's going on here. No one, unfortunately, asked Todd Blanche the question of, wasn't he doing this to please Donald Trump, especially in light of that truth social post that Donald Trump issued last September that many people believe he meant as a private message to then Attorney General Pambani urging her to indict a number of his enemies, including James Comey. And he said, Our credibility is at risk here. We need to move forward as quickly as possible.

After that, Pam Bondi posted that no one is above the law seeming to refer to Comey. So this is exactly the kind of political weaponization of the Justice Department that Donald Trump and his allies baselessly accused the Biden administration for doing. Joe Biden never called on anyone to be indicted. He never directed the Justice Department to do anything in terms of a criminal prosecution. Donald Trump has done that and his Justice Department is heeding his. instructions and this is the result. And the FBI director at that press conference proudly saying that his agency had spent nine, ten months investigating that one Instagram post to get to these charges.

So Joyce Vance, is this going anywhere? I'll just ask you bluntly. No, this isn't going anywhere because at the end of the road for this case is the reality that the government will have to convince a jury that it has proof beyond a reasonable doubt of this case. And look, there are two charges, as Ken has alluded to, both of them center on this notion that Comey made a threat to inflict bodily injury on the president of the United States. And that's just not here. Now, we heard Todd Blanche and Cash Patel talk a little bit yesterday about, oh, we spent 10 months looking at what was in Director Comey's phone. But if they had a smoking gun here, something that was stone-cold, we would know about it. They would have fronted

that out yesterday in this press conference because this case looks so weak that had they had the ability to buttress it, they certainly would have. No jury will find that beyond a reasonable doubt, the director meant to inflict bodily injury on the president. He was on vacation, strolling the beach, posted on Instagram. Was it good judgment? Reasonable people can debate that. Was it a threat to harmed the president, clearly not. And David French, we should just remind viewers that Comey didn't even arrange the seashells

that way. He says he found it. He just took a picture and put it up. And then later said he didn't know quite what it meant. But you know what it meant. Yeah. So tell us, as someone who's worked in restaurants, please, please explain, reiterate what this is for. And I just have to know it comes at a moment when obviously there was a security situation this past weekend at the

correspondence there. There's been a lot of talk the last couple days about safeguarding the president, the need for a ballroom. And that, to me, seems like that's for Todd Blanche, who is auditioning for this job, the moment to press forward with this. Right. I mean, look, I'm a former waiter, like a lot of people in this country. And when you say 86 something, you mean get rid of it. So, you know, you would hear 86 the chocolate lava cake. It means we're out of chocolate lava cake. It doesn't mean brutally murder the cake. I mean, it's an absurd analogy to say that this is somehow, or it's an absurd stretch to say this is somehow a threat. And by the way, there's actual Supreme Court authority here. So there's a case

called Watts v. United States. It goes all the way back to the 60s where somebody said if they were inducted into the Army, which the draft was a very live thing at that time, the first thing they would do is get LBJ in their sights. So they're referring specifically to a rifle there. They're referring to putting a president in their sites, so much more explicit than anything in 8647. And the Supreme Court said, no, this is political hyperbole. This is protected by the First Amendment. So there you had a case with a more explicit reference to violence by far than anything here. And the Supreme Court said, no, that's political hyperbole. That is not going to be punishable. So we're already in an arena where the Supreme Court has spoken very clearly to this. So you look at this, and I don't know that this

will even ever get to a jury because a judge may well just decide as a matter of law, this thing totally fails. And can we also say, you know, I remember about a year ago when J.D. Vance went to Europe and scolded the European nations about their approach to free speech. And here we have a criminal prosecution around what is unquestionably free speech. And that's not the only free, you know, not the only censorship event of the day. You had Brendan Carr threatening to pull broadcast licenses because of a joke the administration didn't like. So the hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of this administration lecturing. Also, the phrase 8645 was used by many on the, 8646, I should say, was used by many on the right about Joe Biden. Yeah, you had Matt Gage, had Jack Posobic, others.

I mean, there's, you know, people are selling merchandise to 86, Joe Biden. This is not a threat. This is saying get rid of them, that it's over. Their term should be over. This is not that they should be killed. And everybody, you feel like what they're doing is almost sort of, testing the good faith of their own supporters, because this is a very good test of good faith. If somebody's going to look at this indictment and say, yeah, that's about right, you can start to write them off as hopelessly partisan. Yeah, it is crazy. You have, again, the hypocrisy of J.D. Vance, hypocrisy of all these so-called free speech warriors.

I await the reams and reams of stories that will be coming out of the free press. about indicting somebody for seashells or are trying to pull ABC's license for somebody telling a joke that has probably been told in the cat skills and comedian clubs for 100 years about an autumn spring romance. But one good thing that did come out of this,

is David French talking about 86, meaning brutally murdering the chocolate cake. The lava cake. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, man, no. I mean, that's why I show up in the first place. But Willie, it is, yeah, it was ill-advisable.

It's probably a stupid thing for him to do. But at the same time, again, the Supreme Court's already spoken on this issue. And all of these hypocrites in MAGA world that have just clutched their pearls and fall in on their fainting couches time and time again about, oh, the left doesn't respect free speech, which I will say, we said the same thing on college camps as we agree. But their response to that is to not respect free speech and arrest, literally arrest people, literally arrest people for taking a picture of seashells and putting it up on Instagram. That's how hypocritical, and trying to pull

the license of ABC because of a late-night comics, a cat skills joke that Don Rickles probably told a hundred times. Yeah, and how about all the howls during the Biden administration about lawfare and weaponization of the government? I mean, here it is right in front of you. Such hypocrites. Not to mention just the abject waste of time to have the acting attorney general, the head of the FBI investigating this, holding press conferences, go work on the Epstein files, after the important things are happening in this country. It's just, it's preposterous. There are also this morning, by the way, our questions about the event, the incident that took place at the White House Correspondence Dinner on Saturday night, and whether the Secret Service

agent hit by a bullet there was struck by the alleged gunman or by friendly fire. It's still an open question. MS now has learned FBI investigators have not been able to find the fragment that pierced the Secret Service officer's bulletproof vest after suspect Cole Allen rushed security at the event. That's according to two people briefed on the investigation. Officials say they believe Alan fired a single shell as he breached that final checkpoint at the Washington Hilton. But investigators have not been able to confirm whether Allen's shotgun blast struck

the officer or how the injury occurred. That officer was treated at the hospital and release, thank goodness. The FBI declined to comment to MS now. Here's what acting attorney general Todd Blanche said earlier this week about questions surrounding that gunfire. I just wanted to clarify, you said the one officer fired their weapon five times. Was that the only officer who discharged a firearm? I want to be very careful in answering that question, because this is, when you do ballistics

evidentiary collection and research, it is very complicated. So when you fire a bullet, the bullet ends up somewhere. Sometimes you find it, sometimes you don't. And so with that qualifier, we, believe right now that there was five shots fired from the same from the same firearm. But this is, there's a team of folks looking at this that are experts and the evidence collection team that were in that area of the hotel where the shots were fired at work all night. They have the evidence they collected. But it's not an exact science from the standpoint that, for example,

the buck shot, when that shots, it scatters everywhere. So Joyce, when you were a prosecutor, you worked on several ATF gun cases. What questions do you have around the confusion here? I spent a lot of time prosecuting ATF cases and gun cases, enough time to know, Willie, that this isn't just any case. This is a case involving a threat to the president of the United States. So all of the best investigative resources are out there. And what agents routinely do in a case like this where you're looking,

for physical evidence is they have the ability to create a formation and to sweep the room, to find evidence, because with firearms, it's very important to understand the trajectory, right? That helps you understand which guns fired, which ammunition, which spent rounds. Because you can, in addition to matching up the caliber of the ammunition to the firearm and doing other sorts of testing to identify it, you then have a better picture of the action. The government has a real problem here. They've charged this shooter, one of their three charges against him, is discharging his firearm during this incident. And if they can't prove that, then that charge will be dismissed in advance of any additional proceedings in this case.

Former U.S. Attorney MS. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to clear this up. Joyce, Joyce, I don't get it. I don't get it. It's a pretty confined space. And you, you got Todd Blanche talking about a magic bullet disappearing. And you also have still frames of the shooting where, again, if you go frame by frame by frame by frame, a lot of journalists and experts have looked at this and they don't see the alleged shooter ever in a position where he fired a shot. They also have frame by frame by frame by frame. The police officers, lined up in a position that certainly makes it look like Sky News reporting and others reporting, it could be friendly fire. How in such a small, in such a small confined location, does a magic

bullet disappear? First of all, and I'm sure it could. I'm sure that has happened. But this hasn't really, Todd Blanche's explanation of this hasn't really made a lot of sense. This one charge about firing a weapon hasn't really made too much sense from the time he started talking about it. Help us understand better why they even brought that charge before knowing whether he actually discharged a weapon. This is a great question, and they likely brought it because of the penalty. carries. It's a 10-year penalty. The statute 924C is something prosecutors have an easier time proving, perhaps, than some of the other charges that carry an intent. But, Joe, your point is absolutely correct. Look, they can check the agent's guns. They will know who fired guns and who didn't. That's something

that's relatively routine in a situation like this. And so we're forced to confront the notion that after Donald Trump went out Saturday, and praise the Secret Service, there may be a lack of willingness to have to walk that back and say that this was, in fact, a friendly fire incident. Jonathan Lemire, consider this for a moment. If, as some analysts who are experts, if their conclusion is correct, and we don't know, Todd Blanche obviously doesn't know. The Justice Department obviously doesn't know. The FBI doesn't know because they're focused on seashells right now.

But think about it. If the person, the suspect that ran through the security perimeter never fired a shot. And right now, Todd Blanche can't tell us whether they did, then all of the panic that went on downstairs, all of the screaming, all of the shut down. All of the everything happened, perhaps, if the shooter didn't fire the weapon because of friendly fire. And it certainly changes the entire justification instead of a shooter coming in. And he had guns, mind you. It was a very dangerous situation. And the Secret Service did an amazing job. God bless him for doing that. But all of these ideas that this guy came through

and was firing weapons and everything else. If it was friendly fire, it certainly changes the dynamics of so much about how we view that night. So what have you heard from the White House? What have your sources told you about whether this was friendly fire and whether, in fact,

this guy that was trying to storm the ballroom to hurt administration officials didn't fire a weapon. So a couple of things here. So what I've heard, people I've talked in last couple days, it is an open question. They don't know yet if it was friendly fire or not. That in the immediate aftermath of the shooting,

the investigators wrote and even put in a shooting report, that the suspect did get at least a couple shots off and they believed it had hit the agent. Since then, that has, there's called, couldn't have some question. They're not, they haven't concluded one way or the other, but it is still being investigated. That's what's happening here.

Now, you're right, Joe, that this guy still, clearly, he was armed, he posed a threat. You're also right, Joe, that if he never got a shot off, that does change the dynamic somewhat as to what happened that day, that this perhaps was just friendly, it would have been friendly fire. And obviously, we have seen how the administration has seized upon this moment to renew their calls for the ballroom and to change security procedures around the president. That is part of this, too. And I think that leaves two outstanding questions. One is simply is another moment. There's Secret Service's conduct in last since Butler has come under question a number of times. I think, you know, obviously they performed bravely here, but still there will be things that will be looked at.

I think that's number one. And secondly, more than anything, it could just be another example of the administration refusing to ever contradict anything the president says. He said Saturday night that an agent was shot by the suspect. So therefore, that has to be gospel. Instead of just saying, well, the investigations actually led us another way. And again, we don't know that it will. but even as a hypothetical, they can't acknowledge that things could have changed, that Trump could have been wrong, and I keep even in a far less weighty matter. Let's remember they even changed a map of a hurricane to prove that he was right. This might be another example of that.

Wow. Former U.S. Attorney, MS. Now legal analyst choice fans. And MS. Now Justice and Intelligence reporter Ken Delaney, and thank you both very much. We'll stay on this for sure. Thank you with your help. And coming up, we'll explain. why Ukraine is accusing Israel of helping Russia. Plus, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell is calling out the Pentagon for holding up Ukraine funding. And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Acqueweathers, Bernie Raino. Bernie has it looking. It's looking wet today, Mika, Ackyweather says rain arriving late today, Boston, New York City this afternoon in Philadelphia. Gusty thunderstorms around Washington, D.C. and Charleston. rain ending this morning in Atlanta,

leftover thunderstorm this afternoon. Watch out for severe weather, Houston, toward New Orleans. It's a cool day in Dallas. There will be some delays in Philadelphia, also Washington, D.C. this afternoon, not until tonight in Boston and New York City. They help you make the best decisions

and be more in the know. Download the ACUweather app today.