Morning Joe - Joe to Mike Johnson: Tell Trump he’s wrong, the federal government doesn’t run elections

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Joe to Mike Johnson: Tell Trump he’s wrong, the federal government doesn’t run elections 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.

What the president was referring to is the SAVE Act, which is a huge common sense piece of legislation that Republicans have supported that President Trump is committed to signing into law. But to be clear, he does believe the state should oversee the law. The president believes in the United States Constitution. However, he believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections. And again, voter ID is a highly popular in common sense policy that the president wants to pursue and he wants to pay. passed legislation to make that happen for all states across the country. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt trying to explain what President Trump meant when he said on Monday that the federal government should take over elections in several states.

But the president would undercut all of that a few hours later, ranting in the Oval Office about false claims of election fraud and telling reporters that the federal government should get involved. I can't do that. Yeah. So there's this little piece of paper called the United States Constitution. And somebody in there should read it. Little Mike Johnson should read it as well because Mikey now is starting to kind of feed into this brewing sort of scheme.

The White House is getting engaged in and talking about trying to overthrow elections in the fall by. shredding the Constitution. Details, details. We'll get into it in a little bit. Yes. Plus, we'll hear from people whose lives have been forever changed by the Trump administration's aggressive ice operations. It comes as new analysis shows immigrants have had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the American economy. You know who said that was actually Ronald Reagan. It's leftist Lib Ronald Reagan at last statement that he made to the United States. to the United States public when he was president, said it was immigrants that kept us forever young, forever strong, always growing.

Also, I had the latest in the back and forth between the Clintons and the House Oversight Committee chair, James Comer, tied to the panel's Jeffrey Epstein investigation. The Clintons are just coming. They're great to do this. They just come to meet Arnold the Pig. They have heard he is very, well, he's the best legal mind on the panel. That's a president for others to come forward.

And we'll bring you a live report from London, where there is new fallout from the latest release of the Epstein files. We'll get to all of that. Good morning. And welcome to Morning, Joe. It's Wednesday, February 4th. And with us, we have the co-host of our 9am hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire. And the co-host of The Rest Is Politics Podcast, the BBC's Caddy Kay.

Good to have you all with us this morning. Willie, we have a lot we're going to be getting to today. I just want to, just to clarify for our friends, on Capitol Hill and on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue. The Constitution, Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1. That one. The Constitution, just in case there any questions with Mike Johnson or Donald Trump or anybody in the Senate.

Now, you don't think there is in the Senate. Locals, the state governments, they run elections. It's black and white. it's in the United States Constitution. This has been the way it has always been in the United States. Oh, there we go. Clause 1. I'm going to read it slowly for our friends on Capitol Hill.

Clause 1, elections clause at times places a manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed by each state, by the legislature thereof. But the Congress may, at time, by law, make after such regulations except for places of Cushing's senators. So if Congress wants to get involved and pass something, they can pass something. But it is the states who at the end of the day run this, not the President of the United States.

And you have Steve Bannon saying they're going to swarm, you know, ice is going to swarm, polling locations. No, they're not. No court's going to allow that to happen. And you have Mike Johnson actually playing into it. Mike John, I mean, how low can he go? I actually am very disappointed. Mike Johnson now playing into these conspiracy theories going, well, you know, you know, one candidate was ahead and then he fell behind. And that seemed to happen up.

That's elections. Ask everybody. I've been behind early in elections. And they're saying, how you doing? Well, doing really well. We're going to win. I mean, when we project sometimes, you'll look and it'll say, a candidate. may be behind by a percentage point or two, and NBC or ABC or CBS will project the other candidate

the winner because they know where the votes are all coming in from. I mean, this is such garbage and nonsense, but they keep doing it. Speaker Johnson is a constitutional lawyer, we should point out. That was his practice. Wow. He deployed that skill around the 2020 election to help overturn it, but that's an entirely different conversation. But the point is, Speaker Johnson, of course, knows better. I think most, maybe not all, because we're familiar with some of the players here in Congress, but most understand what you just explained as we start the morning with civics class about the role of the states, about local municipalities in running elections for a reason. We don't nationalize elections. And you saw there, Donald Trump was

very clear in that interview with Dan Bongino and then later yesterday about what he meant. the federal government should run the elections. Caroline Levitt did her best to try to turn the conversation to say, no, he's talking about the Save Act, which is voter ID. That is explicitly not what he was talking about. He made that clear when he came in on the other side of it. So Mike Johnson and others enabling as ever, no better here. But as you say, feeding what is a dangerous conspiracy.

Yeah. And, you know, we're going to have, at the top of seven, I believe Chris Christie, Chris and I had a conversation years ago where he said, starting in March, April of 2020, Donald Trump started fearing he was going to lose the election. So he started talking nonstop about how the elections were going to be ripped off, how he was going to be cheated. And we'll talk to Chris later. But he said it was really something that he was already planning ahead in early 2020.

knowing that he was going to lose, he was already planning ahead to claim it was ripped off. And now with polls showing Democrats further ahead than ever before in the generic ballot test, Willie, he's doing the same thing again, saying the federal government should run elections. No, they should not. No president elected has ever said that that has never happened and it never will. And he gives away the game. He just says it out loud, and then you twin that with the raid by the FBI in Fulton County, Georgia.

You twin it with the requests by the Justice Department that exchange for revised ice tactics in Minnesota. We want your voter rolls. It all adds up to what you're describing here. Fear among Republicans, fear from the very top of the president that they might lose the election. And of course, maybe Donald Trump doesn't get it, but Mike Johnson and others understand that, yes, sometimes it takes a minute. and it's frustrating to all of us, and we've talked about ways to reform it, to count mail-in votes. So you might be behind when the polls close, or you might be ahead when the polls close, and you might still lose the election.

They all know that. So why they're going along for the ride, for the benefit of the country, they shouldn't be doing it. But I understand that they want to stay close to Trump and stay close to power. And apparently it's worth giving all this away for that. No. I mean, I've said time and time again in following elections. you know, and sometimes when I was sitting with the candidate himself, you know, I'd say, you know, they'd be panicking and go, your absentee votes haven't come in yet.

When they come in, you're going to win those four to one, and you're going to go ahead. This happens all the time again. Mike Johnson knows that. And the fact that he claims to be a constitutional lawyer and also claims, I mean, I would love to see the Bible he reads from because, I mean, he claims it he's put, he's like driven by the Bible. that's his sort of philosophy and governing. No, it's not, Mike. No, it's not.

Stop lying to the American people. Stop lying and stop letting the president say what he's saying. You're the number three ranking authority in the United States of America. You're number three. You need to tell the president of the United States he's wrong. The Constitution, Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1, says states run it. The federal government does not. End this now.

the truth. All right, those are all great points, and we're going to get to more of this later, but to our other top story this morning, authorities in Arizona are continuing to search this morning for Nancy Guthrie, mother of today's show co-host Savannah Guthrie. The 84-year-old was last seen at her home near Tucson on Saturday night. Officials believe she was taken against her will in a possible kidnapping or abduction. Local police said yesterday, they do not know where Guthrie is, but are pouring through hundreds of leads, adding, they are aware of reports circulating about possible ransom notes. Two news outlets say they have received apparent ransom messages, which are being investigated by law enforcement at a news conference yesterday.

The Pima County Sheriff said it is not yet known if Guthrie was targeted. And DNA samples taken from the home have not resulted in anything to indicate a suspect. He repeated pleas for help from the public, saying, please help us bring Nancy Guthrie home. Let's bring in retired FBI's special agent Rob Domeco. He was a member of the FBI's hostage rescue team and is an MS now, national security, and intelligence analyst. So go ahead. Oh, thanks so much for bringing with Trump.

Listen, I, you know, I'm curious what your thoughts are. I've read over your notes. And you say something in there that I first said to Mika I was fearful of. We know nothing. Obviously, we know nothing about who the abductor, possible abductor may be. But I said to Mika early on, boy, this sure does sound like an inside job. It really, in every way, it does. And it seems as we've gotten further and further into this,

and we found out that the cameras were disabled and other things happened. that it just may be. Is that usually your first thought when something like this happens? When you see a crime scene like that, when you start analyzing it, that the cameras, multiple cameras were supposedly smashed, what knowledge did it take to do that,

to understand? So when you're looking at the crime scene, how haphazard it was, how did they really gain access? Did they use a door that wasn't known about? Did they do something that, indicated that they had prior knowledge. Anytime someone tells me, oh, my house was robbed, they always say, when's the last time you had a subcontractor and they're doing work?

Or who has access? Is it a health care worker? And it might not be that person, but it may be someone tied to them. A lot of these things happen. And it was, turns out it was the person who worked there that had access to the house and it was a boyfriend that was in financial trouble. They're also going to start looking at, unfortunately, family members who had access to this. And part of it is there's starting to be a lot of leaks now, and you have to be really careful because the police are going down as they're trying to figure this out. They're also going down to eliminate who had direct access. So it may be that they're going down a route to just get someone out of it, why they're still looking for it,

and then police start leaking things that, oh, this is a prime suspect. You have to be really careful because sometimes they're just trying to eliminate things so that they can move on. But there are things that are coming out that her supposedly pacemaker did. disconnected from her eyewatch and her phone at 2 a.m., which really narrows it down. Now they can follow leads on those times. So, Rob, I think one of the frustrations from people on the outside is just this lack of information, even at the press conference yesterday. With the sheriff, there wasn't a lot of new information that we didn't know a couple of days

ago, but that doesn't mean there aren't things happening behind the scenes. Can you speak to that from an FBI point of view about what they may know that they don't want to share for perhaps strategic reasons? Absolutely, because we see this quote, one ransom note that was sent to a local station and then TMZ unfortunately came out nationally on it instead of just passing it behind the scenes, which now throws something else into it that the police have to deal with. So they say that in this note, there were facts that from the scene and supposedly what she was wearing, but I don't even know if the police know what she was wearing, little things like that, the police want to hold back so that when something does come in like a note, they can verify it because

if they start talking about something that's never been released that was in fact true, it gives them a clarification that this note or this person may have information may have been there. We've had things where someone's come forward about a kidnapping overseas and we weren't sure about it. And they said a small tattoo in this exact place. And we knew right away that that person had actually seen that person. So little things like that that they don't want to release. It doesn't add anything. I know everyone wants information,

but it allows the police to really start sorting through this. Once this went viral, now you have all kind of, I call them sickos that want to come in with these notes and they want to help. And the police have to sort that out. So they don't want to give details away. They don't want the suspects to know what they know. But they also want to be able to verify certain things, proof of life, things are going to come into play.

if they, in fact, have her should be able to answer questions that only she would know or some type of picture. How did this note come in? I heard it was email, so they're going to run down those things. But it could be just something that distracts investigation. Yeah, and we want to point out importantly, NBC News has not been able to authenticate that note. Even the FBI says so far it has not been able to authenticate it. So it remains open if that there's anything to that alleged ransom note that came in. We've gotten so used to, Rob, in this day and age, because of cameras and social media to these things being solved pretty quickly, that somebody saw something or somebody's ring camera and neighbor, so there's a suspicious car, or somebody posted something suspicious on Facebook or they told something to a friend who came forward to police.

Are you surprised by at least publicly the lack of information and leads that we have at this point? There's two things I think that's preventing some of that. The lots in this neighborhood, I'm hearing, are one to four acres, which has a lot of separation. So a ring camera on a front door and lots that are that big may not see the street. The timing of the investment, supposedly when it happened in the middle of the night, you obviously don't have as many people out. If the cameras, in fact, were smashed, there's two things that the police are now doing. The one, if they are physically smashed, they're looking for an SD card. Even if an SD card is broken, I know the FBI.

can take that SD card and still get data off it. But it's got to go back to Quantico. It's got to go back to the national level folks that do that sort of thing. They're also now engaging the company because a lot of times these are uploaded to the cloud. The problem is with the company, if it's uploaded to cloud, they have to go through a bunch of things to get that. I always say, like, especially an elderly adult, share that account information with your sibling so that if something like this happens, you can access that account, you can download a

video without having to wait for the process of a company trying to get it. Things like that happen. So they're looking for that. And again, it's one of those things that we're so used to it. And all these crimes, we start seeing all these ring cameras, the shooting in Massachusetts. They start looking at that. But in this neighborhood, it's a lot harder when there's that much spread between the houses and the access. You have cameras out there. I actually made sure I had cameras that were facing the street, if anything happened, but it was very purposeful in looking at that, knowing that you've got to get there by

the street. So I'm not surprised when you start hearing the details of this that there's not as much flood of information coming in. Rob, Savannah is somebody we all know personally, but of course she's also very well known right across the country. What are the challenges and the opportunities? in terms of the investigation, when you have somebody so well-known as Savannah, who's at the heart of this? Well, one, you always want to get the public involved, but then sometimes too many people get involved.

And then you also have, again, the crazy people out there that want to bring in notes or evidence that really doesn't come in and you get all the psychics coming in. But I think in this one, the police really don't have many clues and they want clues, but it also then starts, all the information coming in. And now the FBI's involved. The new use of cases that have a lot more information coming in and how to sort out really what's credible, what's not to give that to the investigators. But it takes time. The sheriff is now being inundated. He's doing podcasts. I think that's going to cut back a little bit because I think it's throwing some straight voltage into the investigation. He wants to help. But the more and more people that get involved, the more sees it, I think it's going to come with the lead, but it's also going to take a lot more resources to sort

through all the tons of leads that are coming in. So it's a plus and minus. Retired FBI Special Agent MSNMIS now National Security and Intelligence Analyst, Rob DeMico. Thank you very much. We're going to stay on this story and bring you any updates as they become available. And still ahead on morning, Joe. The Clintons are now set to testify as part of the House Oversight Committee's Epstein investigation after a back and forth fight with Chairman James Como, we'll have the latest from Capitol Hill on that. Plus, Ed Luce will join us with his new piece for the Financial Times entitled The Epstein Rot Goes Deep. Also ahead, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly is our guest on the heels of a judge criticizing the administration's efforts to

penalize him for a video where he and other Democrats reminded service members of their due. to refuse illegal orders. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Accuethers Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, it's a little wet this morning around Atlanta toward Charleston, Charlotte, your exclusive acuether forecast does show some snow tonight in Charlotte and Raleigh. Dallas some sunshine 53 degrees. Still cold in the Northeast, but today three days in a row with high temperatures out or above freezing in New York City, just a few flurries across interior sections in the Northeast. Other than some minor delays in Atlanta this morning due to rain,

we're looking AOK on the travel forecast. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Accuether app today. Welcome back. It's almost half past the hour. People impacted by the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics. Testified at Capitol Hill at a forum yesterday. No Republicans attended the hearing. Those who spoke included the brothers of Renee Good, the Minneapolis woman, fatally shot by an ICE officer last month. They described deep grief and frustration that their sister's death has not led to meaningful change despite national outrage. In the last few weeks, our family took some consolation, thinking that perhaps Ney's death would bring about change. in our country.

And it is not. Other witnesses included a Chicago woman shot several times by a customs and border protection officer last fall during a protest. Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia shared text messages from the officer who shot her. Ms. Martinez, these are images of texts sent by the agent who shot you. And they're actually disturbing to read, but I think it's important for the public to see this. The agent linked an article about your shooting and texted, read it. Five shots, seven holes. I fired five rounds and she had seven holes.

Put that in your book, boys. Oh, well, it is what it is. It happens. This is someone that works for the United States government. I fired five rounds and she had seven holes. Now, he was talking about you. And it's our understanding that he was actually bragging about his aim shooting an unarmed American citizen. Is that right?

Correct. Gunning down unarmed Americans in the street. Let me say that again. A paramilitary type force has been created by the DHS that guns down Americans in the street. streets of America. And here, an unarmed woman, American citizen, shot five times left with seven bullet holes in her. And what are they doing? They're bragging about it.

The shooter brags about it on text saying, I shot her five times, fired five rounds, and left seven bullet holes in her and then brags about it to his other. This is, this is so beyond. Yeah. So beyond control. This would never be permitted. I plead with Republicans who still think this is okay.

Or turn away. I plead with evangelical Christians who are among some of the biggest supporters of this sort of savagery on the street. of America. What would Jesus do? Not this. Not even close. Other people celebrating in the media are mocking or ridiculing the shooting of these American citizens in the street. Gunning them down and nothing apparently is changing. We're going to continue taking it through what happened yesterday on Capitol Hill, but then we're going to show you what's still happening in Minnesota

with these Keystone cops that haven't been trained that are killing Americans in the street and continue drawing their guns. It's crazy. And you know, Mika, they will present charges. And federal judges, one after another will basically say, get out of my court. Stop wasting my time. And now, and now they're making the argument lawyers on Capitol Hill, lawyers in the White House. The Fourth Amendment, what Fourth Amendment? We, we, we don't need judges to get involved. We can just kick down doors of American citizens. This, this is such an egregious breach of the most basic civil rights, constitutional rights of Americans. This is what the Republican Party, the small government party, was supposed to be against. This is what we fought against all the

time, a creeping, a creeping, growing federal government that could take away our property, that could take away our guns. That might even, oh, I don't know, shoot us because we had guns. as the director of the FBI, as the Treasury Secretary, as the President of the United States, as Janine Piro. Yeah. Said a couple of days ago, if you come in to my district with, if you're coming to D.C. with a gun, I'm going to arrest you. What?

That way, in 2008, there was a case called Heller. It was the first time the Supreme Court said, you know, the Second Amendment says what it actually means. Yeah. That Americans have a right. to keep in bare arms, even in the District of Columbia. Janine Piro says no. She tries to clean it up. No, no, not too late.

Too late. You let us know in a press conference what you believe. Donald Trump, Cash Patel, Scott Besson. These people are talking like left-wing freaks. Do any of them, especially Ms. Piro, remember January 6th? A lot of weapons were brought into D.C. Well, and do they remember one state house after another state? House after another state house where there were people that came with AR-15s and lined the halls of state legislature.

Nobody shot them. The Biden administration didn't shoot them. And yet, a Republican administration is saying, if you have guns, we have a right to kill you. If you legally have guns, we have a right to kill you. If you are in your house with your family, we have a right to kick the door down without a judicial warrant. Do you know how screwed up that is? If little Johnny wasn't there eating Cheerios, I would use another word. But Johnny's having as Cheerios, and I hope you're enjoying it, Johnny. So I'm going to say screwed up instead of the word that actually fits here. Do you know how screwed up that is that we have a federal government.

And now, after they're taking over corporations, after they're taking over chunks of tech companies, after they're deciding what the hell they're going, you know, what else they're going to take over? oil in foreign countries. Now they're saying they have a right to take away your guns or kill you if you're carrying a gun. They're saying that they have a right to kick down the doors to your house. If the DOJ writes on a piece of paper that they can know, judicial warrants, fourth amendment, Second Amendment, First Amendment, Constitution. You know, we are, we, we Republicans just always carry around Constitution in their pockets. Yeah. And you know, people would make fun of us. I didn't care. I carried around the Constitution right pocket.

I was very proud to do it because I actually believed in the United States Constitution. I want to know how long Republicans are going to allow themselves to be pushed around and pushed away from basic, basic constitutional principles. Like, for instance, states run elections, not the federal government. A person has a right to keep and bear arms. Yes, Janine, even in Washington, D.C. Even at protests. But these judges say they have these people come to court. They throw it out immediately because it is such an abuse of power by an ever-growing federal government that right now, by the way, has the federal debt up to $39 trillion.

When I left Congress, it was $4 trillion. We balanced it four years in a row. Bounce budget four years in a row. $39 trillion. Biggest spending administration ever. Biggest deficits ever. Biggest federal debt ever. This government keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And they're Republicans on Capitol Hill doing nothing about it.

They will pay at the polls. They just will. Because as we always said, when we were fighting to balance and budget, If you give Americans a chance to vote for real Democrats, are Republicans that are acting like Democrats, they'll vote for the Democrats every time. And I'm speaking now only to the big spending ways of this Republican Party. So, hey, guys, you're just sealing your own fate.

Wake up. Wake up. The First Amendment means what the First Amendment means. Second Amendment means what Second Amendment means. The Fourth Amendment means what the Fourth Amendment means. and make again, this is why the judges are like, say, get out of here with your stupid cases. Saying it to the government time and time again. By the way, a federal judge later dismissed the DOJ's charges to your point against that Chicago woman.

What a surprise. Also at the hearing, Alia Rahman, a Minneapolis resident and U.S. citizen with autism and traumatic brain injury. She testified about how she was dragged from her car. by immigration officers you see here during an enforcement operation. That incident was caught on video, which... Are you proud of Republicans? She's disabled, and she's trying to communicate. Are you proud of this? She said she was a citizen.

She also said she was disabled, but nobody was listening to her. On her way to a doctor's appointment. Rough her up. On her way to a doctor's appointment. Good job, Republicans. Are you proud? She was detained. She says she was denied medical care at the detention center.

and lost consciousness. I was carried face down through the street by my cuffed arms and legs while yelling that I had a brain injury and was disabled. Willie, I mean, it's really, it is, all of this is unspeakable. And, you know, we thought a couple of days ago

they'd gotten the memo that this is heinous. It's still happening in Minneapolis. Yeah, it's still happening in Minneapolis. And to your point about the search warrants, too, constitutional attorney, Speaker Mike Johnson said, yesterday, well, we couldn't get warrants to get all these people out. It would take decades. So we've got to throw that to the side and just kick indoors and drag women like we just saw out of their cars right there. The guys, I know they're cutting seatbelts, but with knives flying around, they get three, four guys to take a woman out of a car and throw her up against the car.

What is that? That's not, that's an untrained workforce of people perhaps drunk with power because they couldn't make the cut on a police force or something like that. But these scenes are ugly, and as you say, politically not helpful to Republicans. Yeah, you're right, me because they're meeting quotas. Meanwhile, immigration officers with guns drawn, arrested activists yesterday in South Minneapolis after several vehicles followed federal agents through residential neighborhoods. Witnesses say officers ordered people out of the car at gunpoint, handcuffing at least one person faced down on the ground.

Homeland Security says the activists were detained. obtained for hindering an immigration arrest. An Associated Press photographer witnessed the scene. The arrests come amid the heightened tensions following warnings from federal officials that protesters could face consequences for interfering with enforcement. So another day, John Lemire, another case of ICE agents pulling out their guns without hesitation because somebody is following them around. We saw the hearings.

We've heard the personal testimony from people. who have been through some of these incidents, that we have video of all of it. And for all the talk of a little bit of a walk back, and Tom Homan's in and Bongino's out, or excuse me, Bovino's out, and we're going to scale back a little bit. We're going to get body cameras. As we said yesterday, a lot of that is very cosmetic. It gives the impression that something has changed, but in the streets of Minneapolis and other places, they have not.

Yeah, so much for de-escalation. I mean, there have been some very small steps, body cameras coming in. you know, Holman has suggested that he's trying to put in some new tactics as to how they do this, but they haven't taken the effect yet, clearly. I mean, that's a horrifying moment yesterday. Guns drawn, coming in the wakes of the deaths, the shooting deaths of two American citizens in the last few weeks. Other incidents, we played the video of the woman who was pulled over, like, you know, by armed officers who came at her car, one agent standing in front of the vehicle, gun drawn.

She eventually was released when she was able to call local police officers. officer who was able to intervene. But this is, you know, this is a White House that continues to push this. Yes, there's some cosmetic changes, but Caddy, we've been reporting in recent days, those quotas still exist. Stephen Miller is still driving how this does. TheHS has now purchased gigantic warehouses outside a number of major cities believed to, will be turned into detention centers. So even if, and again, it hasn't happened yet, you know, they deescalates somewhat, the overall purpose is still the same. And if that's happening, and there's this culture of confrontation in a highly big budgeted agency knowing that the President of the United States is got their back

and they can act with impunity, more scary altercations like that are going to keep happening. Yeah, partly because these officers aren't trained to do what they're doing, which is trying to deal with crowd control effectively when you have protesters coming up and filming incidents. And it's evident that these, you saw it with the video of that young woman. There was no need for four guys to be pulling a young woman who says she has a brain injury and is on her way to a doctor's appointment and is an American citizen. This doesn't, none of this needs to be happening. Barack Obama deported lots of people who were in the country illegally.

We never saw scenes like this. This is being done by people who aren't trained to do it. When Alex Prettie was killed, there was a feeling that maybe the White House was going to grow back. But these scenes and the bravery of the people filming them, these scenes coming out of Minneapolis, suggests that actually the president is happy with having these scenes play out on American television. Otherwise, you can be sure the message would have gone down to these officers that it had to stop. That's right. These officers are drawing guns.

these thugs are drawing guns on people because they are following them. That's it. You hear, when they come out of the car screaming, you hear them drawing guns and saying, just look at it. Look, look at this. That is what happened to Renee Good. Is that called de-escalation?

And I think of this video, some idiot stepped in front of the car. Again. But look look who they're throwing to the ground. They're throwing these unarmed, helpless people to the ground. And they think they have a right to pull guns on American citizens. Look at that. On American citizens simply because they're following them. documenting in many cases. Would that happen? If the NYPD knew that somebody was in a car and posed no threat to them, would they come out with four people

pulling guns? No, John Lemire, have you ever heard of that in your years working as a beat reporter for the daily news? The NYPD ever acting like this when they knew that somebody was in a car, maybe you're recording them, but posed no threat to them.

Not that I can recall. I mean, certainly, NYP, there's no shortage of training NYPD officers. And of course, every police agency makes some mistakes. There are questionable decisions, but not consistently like this. These are officers who are trained, police officers, the NYPD, I'm saying, are trained to handle crowds. They're trained to handle people filming them. They're trained to handle crowds gathering and watching what's going on. And there's not a sense of escalation like we keep seeing here. These are people, and that's part of the heart of this from the beginning. Where's the drawdown?

These are ICE agents and Border Patrol agents who have no experience in urban environments, not like this. And that they don't know what they're doing. And the limited training, as they're rushing these new agents to the field, is yielding consequences like this. What's Tom Homan doing? Where's the drawdown? Where's the difference? Where are the changes? By the way, who's been fired? No one. Absolutely no one. So to Caddy's point, this is, unless

something changes exactly what President Trump wants to be happening on the streets of America. We'll be following this coming up the latest release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein is causing fallout in the UK. We'll go live to London where questions are being raised about a former British ambassador to the United States. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. House Republicans yesterday canceled a planned vote to hold the Clintons in criminal contempt of Congress after the former first couple agreed to be deposed later this month as part of the Oversight Committee's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Former President Clinton, former Secretary of State Clinton, sought to negotiate the terms of their cooperation with the probe,

arguing the congressional subpoenas were invalid, accusing Republicans, of targeting them. In a statement, Republican Committee Chairman James Comer said, quote, once it became clear that the House of Representatives would hold them in contempt, the Clintons completely caved. In agreeing to testify, the Clinton's requested the proceedings be made public. Comer did not acknowledge that request in his response. Hillary Clinton now is scheduled to appear for an all-day deposition on February 26, while President Bill Clinton is scheduled to appear on February 27th. President Trump yesterday responded to those developments. Mr. President, today we heard that the Clinton set deposition dates to testify before the House

Oversight Committee. Any reaction to that and related to the same? I think it's a shame, to be honest. I always liked him. Her? Yeah. She's a very capable woman. She was better in debating than some of the other people. I will tell you that. She was smarter, smart woman. I hate to see it. anyways. President Trump just says he hates to see it that they're being brought before this committee. Now, James Comer of gleefully saying they cave, they completely caved. They say

let's have this in public so you can't release clips of a deposition and make this advantageous to you or political for you. But also, Joe, as Democrats immediately have pointed out, this is good news. Thanks for the precedent James Comer will be calling Donald Trump, whose name

appears more than anyone in the Epstein files. Yeah, and exactly. Again, it is so short. I'm really, I'm really, it kind of takes your breath away. You remember when when Mary Loretton, like, you on one leg did all the, and then she lands, you just, you take your, how, how could she do that, right? That's a reaction. Every time James Comer and this committee does something even more stupid than I think is humanly possible, and you're like, oh my God, I wish I had Jim McKay. Like, and that voice in the background talking about like spanning the globe to find the dumbest committee chair people ever. Because that's exactly what's going to happen. By the way, anybody over 80 knows exactly who

I'm talking about. I got you. Anyway, that's going to happen, Willie. And it's going to happen not only to Donald Trump, it's going to happen to Howard Lutnik. Get your subpootts on, Howard, because you're going to be going, thanks to James Comer to the Hill after Democrats, take control. Howard Lodnick, Commerce Secretary, who lied about his connections with abstain. Elon Musk. Same there. He's going to be subpoenaed by Congress because he lied about his contacts with Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump, as you said, going to be brought in because none other than Elon Musk said

that Donald Trump was all over the Epstein files. And that's, quote, the real reason they've not been released. Thank you for that Elon Musk. So, yeah, Comer has laid the president for Donald Trump being called up. there. The man who's been nominated to be the next Fed chair. Also, contacts with Jeffrey Epstein showed up in the Epstein files. He's going to be called up to the Hill because of James Comer, because of the president James Comer said, I keep talking about all this. And Pam Bondi, I would love to hear how Pam Bondi could explain how she was Attorney General for the state

of Florida from 2011 to 2019. And she never raised a question in a serious, meaningful way. about the resident of her state, Jeffrey Epstein, from 2011 to do that. That's going to make an absolutely fascinating, fascinating, government oversight, or judiciary hearing. And the thing about that also is, say, it's not like anybody could act shocked. Oh, I just didn't know. We were talking about it in 2015. We were talking about in 2016.

I kept asking, why is this guy out? I don't understand. Why is this guy walking the streets of Florida right now? So, again, what James Comer has done, and really, what I've been warning you, Republicans, all about really over the past year is when you set precedents like these, really bad precedents, they're going to be followed by the next people who replace you. You're not going to be in power forever. This is just bad. It's just bad to be doing this because, again, the precedents that are being set.

All right, with us, U.S. national editor and columnist at the Vidential Times. Ed Luce, his new piece for the Financial Times is titled, The Epstein Rot Goes Deep. And in it read, Ed, you write in part this, on the basis that politics is downstream of culture. Today's public moral outrage will further corrode faith in U.S. democracy. How can you throw the bums out when they span the system? By that measure, Donald Trump is a short-term beneficiary of the latest 3 million or so page release. Though he, his wife, and his Mar-a-Lago club are referred to 38,000 times, Trump is in sufficiently broad company that others are taking as much time of the

air, as much of the airtime. His pitch has always been that everybody has their hand in the proverbial till. In that respect, Trump can claim a diabolical kind of vindication. But his relief is likely to be fleeting. The pressure on Trump's Department of Justice to release the rest of the files will be sustained. And that's the issue. There is more. There's still more. There's more. There's going to be pressure to, there's so many things that were redacted that should have never been redacted. And then other things that were not redacted. And then, of course, they did, it seems like they were protecting the rich and powerful by redacting the rich and powerful and the famous while they didn't redact basic information about these young women who were

victims. But you know, you talk about the rot going deep. And I wonder if it actually may end up going even deeper than what we're talking about right now, which is, yes, crimes and morality, also national security issues. You have right now the prime minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, who is beginning an investigation. The Polish government is beginning an investigation. Obviously, they've been invaded by Russia enough times that they're concerned, but they're afraid that Epstein may have been connected with the Russian security services. And they're beginning a deep, deep investigation. And we've had other people asking the question, was the KGB involved?

Or was the follow-up to the KGB involved in Epstein and helping with money, with all of these, just a wildly broad connection of people that he knew? Now the Polish government is asking those questions. Yeah, the web that Epstein spun, the Extraordinary Web has a large number of Russian points on it, and that seems to grow with each data dump, with each file release. This goes back to Robert Maxwell, the father of Gilaen Maxwell, a British media tycoon who was an intelligence source for the Soviets during the Cold War.

This goes back that far, and you see in the communications that Epstein has with people, like the late Vitali Cherkin, who was Russia's ambassador at the United Nations. Deep coordination. It's not necessarily proven that, I mean, this is evidence, not proof that he was meeting his handler. But he met Chirkin for lunch, along with Peter Thiel, the day that the emails, the Clinton emails, were dumped. This is an extraordinary sort of coordination that was going on. and knowledge that imply at least prima facie evidence, if not proof yet, that Epstein was very intimately involved with the KGB.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I need to underline this. Are you saying it, Ed, Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Thiel met with Russia's ambassador to the United Nations on the day of the document dump of the Clinton emails. Actually, it was the day when the tape, the grabbing her by the, I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say on breakfast time. Yeah. But it was the day that occurred. And then Peter Thiel, a few days later, was the only person who donated money to Trump after that those tapes were released. And the knowingness about the Goosepha 2.0, progosians, various operations that were hacking the email server. The knowledge that Epstein betrays about that is pretty strong evidence that he was involved.

It's not proof, as I say, because this is sort of fragmented. But the extraordinary numbers of points of contact. Yeah, and the Russians come up a lot in the Epstein Files. One of the points that Donald Tusk is making is that the concern for Poland and for other Western countries is how much of the information that Epstein had on powerful people is now in the hands of the FSB sitting in Moscow. To get back to your piece, I think there's something also really interesting here, Ed, and talking about the rock going deep,

because it seems to me that some of the political liability, the broader political liability of these Epstein files, and people are not going to trawl through all of the millions of them, and it's confusing, and we don't know exactly who's in them, and what's redacted and what isn't. But what emerges is an idea of a system in which there were rules for powerful people, and there were no protections for vulnerable people.

And I wonder if that plays into something broader in American society at the moment, particularly in this area of the Trump administration, that the power can get away, as Steve Miller have said, the strong can do what they want, and the wheat must suffer what they must. And that actually, and I wonder how that plays out politically at the moment. It's quite extraordinary that 18 years after he was first convicted in a Florida court, that this data dump last Friday could not have the victims front and center of their methods,

that they can expose dozens of women who were going to, girls when they were abused, who are frightened, who've been through and are still going through terror, that he can make that the Department of Justice, having spent another whole month and it should have, according to the law, doing all the necessary redactions, could have been so sloppy that it exposes these women to a whole renewed terror. This proves to me, and I think the American people out there are watching this very closely, the two-tier nature of the justice system. The victims are the last thing on their mind. We've learned nothing.

We've forgotten nothing, but we've learned nothing. And I think this is a major cultural event in American history. And as I said in that piece that you kindly mentioned, politics is downstream from culture. This will deepen cynicism, that the rich and the connected get away with it. And his network is an MRI of the... establishment. Trump's at the center of that, but it's an MRI of every walk of elite in this

country. And there's only one person in jail, that's Gilane Maxwell. She deserves to be in jail, but there is a missing culture of shame that it seems to have just disappeared.