Morning Joe - Judge dismisses cases against James Comey and Letitia James

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Judge dismisses cases against James Comey and Letitia James 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.

I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again, and my attitude's going to be the same. I'm innocent. I am not afraid. And I believe in an independent federal judiciary. The gift from our founders that protects us from a would-be tyrant. Former FBI director James Comey reacting to a judge dismissing the indictment against him, ruling. The prosecutor in the case was unlawfully appointed. New York Attorney General Letitia James also had her indictment dismissed. We'll bring you expert legal analysis on that decision and how the Justice Department is responding. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is now investigating Democratic Senator Mark Kelly after he appeared in that video urging service members not to follow illegal orders.

Can we just stop right here for a second? How stupid? Like, really, Willie, this is, and I have even Republicans saying, I can't believe how dumb we are. We continue to fight over the president's right to issue illegal orders. And we're putting military heroes from the Democratic Party constantly on television, thereby branding the Democratic Party as a party of veterans, of CIA agents, of all the things that Republicans don't want Americans to know about. the Democratic Party.

Mark Kelly, not only had a long career of service in the United States Navy, but also has been to space four times. Right. He's an airman and an astronaut. And the Secretary of Defense, Pete Heggzeth, who served himself as well, earned two bronze stars, is going to the mat to attack General Kelly for his suggestion that members of the military should not execute illegal orders. Illegal orders.

The Secretary of Defense is calling Mark Kelly seditious for telling people in his military, Hegsos military, to defy illegal orders. Is that the ground he wants to stand up? No, it's not. And it's not the ground the Republicans want to stand on. And they're making fools of themselves, pretending the American people are so stupid. They don't see the word illegal. Hold on.

Illegal in that video. And let me tell you, we're talking about a president. who, going back to 2016, said in a debate, when the moderators, Donald Trump, you can't order your troops to do that. That's illegal. His quote was, they will do what I tell them to do. They will not disobey me. That's what leadership is about.

Believe me. And then he wanted to shoot people in the legs. And his military said, you can't do that. fired all of those people who told him no there. And of course, now he's saying he wants to use American cities as training grounds for the military, which is illegal. And what we've learned over the years and what we've said all along on this show is when he says he's going to do something, believe him. What this whole thing has done, though, is highlighted for the American people. And I think this is a pretty smart move on the part of the Democrats who coordinated and

created that video, and it should be really perhaps a blueprint that they use, they're putting this out there for people to see. And the very extreme reaction by Trump and any of his supporters is only highlighting the problem that this country might be facing. And I just want to say, Jonathan O'Meer, there has to be somebody in the White House understand how stupid this is. Because a lot of Republicans understand how stupid this is. that actually Pete Hegzeth, Pete Hegzett,

is going up against a war hero and an astronaut for simply telling troops the most basic of things. This is basic civics, and that is follow lawful orders. Don't follow illegal orders. This is basic stuff. And for saying to troops, only follow legal orders?

As Mark Kelly said last night on Rachel's show, for me saying what is basic, Donald Trump's saying I should be lynched. Yeah, I mean, President Trump has always perceived the idea of loyalty as to the man, the president, rather than the Constitution. And we're seeing that again now, the way he's demanded blind loyalty

from his military in this sense. And there is, to your question, and we say this frequently, there is no one in the office in the White House to say no, and that's by design. There were a lot of people around in Trump 1.0 to say no. He was, some of his most outrageous impulses were checked. There were guardrails in place. Those don't really exist now.

But this is just bad politics. Like, where are the political people? Where are the pollsters? You do not take them on. This is Trump derangement coddling. And Trump derangement, like, like capitulating. Trump derangement cowtowing. Trump.

TDC. Trump derangement idiocy. It is Trump derangement political malpractice and the Republicans will pay and pay and pay for, again, fighting for Donald Trump's right

to say what he would do in 2016, which is ordered troops to do things that were illegal and they would do it anyway. And Secretary, just think about the position of Secretary of Defense.

James Mattis, even Mark Esper, told him no. back in the first time around. Secretary Hegseth, eager to do it. While it's his deputy, mind you, Dan Driscoll, who's the one who's overseas, dealing with Ukraine and trying to negotiate.

Hegsteth's sideline from that. This is where he's spending his energy. So we're going to get to the Mark Kelly story in just a moment, all of this. Also with this managing editor at the bulwark, Sam Stein, who did way too early for us. He was quite jovial during the show. I was watching.

Happy warrior. Happy warrior. Senior legal reporter for MS Now, Lisa Rubin is back with us. And MS now justice and intelligence reporter, Ken Delanian is here. Great to have you all. Let's get to our top story. Federal judge has ruled the charges against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Both targets of President Trump be dismissed. The U.S. District Judge concluded yesterday that the prosecutor who secured the charges against them, interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully unlawfully. Who could have seen that coming, Will? The Attorney General's authority to appoint an interim U.S. attorney lasts for a total of 120 days. The judge concluded that Halligan has been unlawfully serving since September 22nd. Comey was indebted September 25th, and James charged October 9th. Halligan is a former Trump aide and personal lawyer with no prosecutorial experience.

She secured the indictments of Comey and James over objections from career prosecutors. Comey had pleaded not guilty to lying to Congress and obstruction, while James pleaded not guilty to bank fraud. One key caveat, though, the indictments were dismissed without prejudice, which means they could theoretically be refiled by a lawful prosecutor. Attorney General Pam Bonnie vowed the Department of Justice would appeal the ruling. There is response this morning from different news organizations like the Wall Street Journal. The editorial board there has a new piece entitled The Gang That Couldn't Indite Straight. It reads in part, quote, President Trump's Lawfare Revenge Tour has gone bust. This is what happens when officials don't follow legal procedure.

They lose cases. Mr. Trump was so eager to indict his enemies, and Attorney General Pam Bondi was so quick to go along that it all unraveled at the poll of one legal thread. The Trump administration could refile charges, though the statute of limitations may have expired in Mr. Comey's case. If Mr. Trump tries again, he might end up with cases that are two-time legal losers. And Willie, the judge yesterday, proving Alexander Hamilton proud, who said an independent judiciary may be the weakest branch of government, but in the federalist papers, he said its independence was absolutely crucial to being able to do its job. And yesterday, Hamilton would have been very pleased. A federal judge

ruled the executive branch unconstitutionally exceeded its power. And its independence has been in question lately, as President Trump puts in loyalists to big positions, big jobs, like Lindsay Halligan, into this job. But now the judge herself stepping in to say, no, this is not how it works, Lisa. So Judge Curry didn't even really get at the fact that the case was presented, perhaps incorrectly, to put it mildly, basically said Lindsay Halligan should not have been there in the first place. Therefore, the charges are thrown out. This is perhaps, And I know this is going to be shocking, the least embarrassing way that these cases could have gone away for the Department of Justice. Because if you think about Comey in particular, he had multiple other pending motions, all of which stem from some alleged misconduct by the Department of Justice.

I was curious. Why do you think Judge Curry decided to give them, let's just say, the most tactful procedural route out the courthouse doors? Well, you know, Judge Curry is not the judge. in either of these cases, she was deputized by the Court of Appeals to handle these particular motions because the district judges under the statute have a role to play themselves when there's a vacancy in a U.S. attorney's job. So Judge Michael Nachmanoff has the Comey case. Judge Jamal Walker has the Tish James case. And Judge Curry sort of stepped in, I think, Willie, in large part because she wanted to show people this is not about embarrassing the Department of Justice. This is black and white. This is procedural. Couldn't do it. Correct. But I want to say one other thing,

which is that the Comey and James cases are differently situated here in a way. In a footnote, she is suggesting you cannot rebring the Comey case because it's not just a function of the fact that Lindsay Halligan was unlawfully appointed. If she was, in fact, unlawfully appointed, the Comey indictment was void from the outset. The statute of limitations passed, and there's nothing to correct. There's nothing to be done. I wanted to ask you about this. because we had had a conversation earlier in some cases, if there is an error by the Justice Department, before the statute of limitations runs. You get an additional 30 days or so, even after the court throws that case out to get what

our law professors would call a second bite at the apple. In this case, though, there is the suggestion that that may not happen. Explain further. So you're right to say there is a statute. that gives the Department of Justice a six-month grace period where a case is thrown out for reasons other than statutes of limitation. But that assumes that there was a proper charging instrument in the very beginning. Here what she's saying is Lindsay Halligan was the sole prosecutor

to make the presentation to the grand jury, the only person to sign the indictment. That is the fatal flaw here. Had, for example, career prosecutors done that work on behalf of the U.S. Attorney's Office, we would not be talking about the same solution, I don't think. But again, going back to the Comey case, if you think that both of these indictments are void from the outset, because the Comey Statute of Limitations passed on September 30th, that means that they let that door swing shut, as she notes in a footnote. There's also a bad faith argument.

I mean, an argument of bad faith here, right? and Donald Trump has, as he usually does, has laid it all out on acts saying, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. You're better prosecuting fast. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. Because the statute of limitations is running out. Time is running out, Donald Trump says. Everybody refuses. Donald Trump fires them. Brings in somebody new. Illegally. And then she files it for that purpose to beat the statute of, limitations. I just don't know another judge that would look at the set of those circumstances and just say, we're sorry, but basic fairness would not allow us to extend the statute of limitations when you acted in such bad faith to beat the statute of limitations in the first place. And this all comes from the truth. And illegally doing it. The true social post, it was meant to be a DM that he sent out to everyone to see where he is urging the attorney general to push forward on this. And it's connected. This whole idea.

of retribution, the same with the Mark Kelly matter that we'll speak to in a moment. So Ken Delaney, I wanted to go to you now. Take us behind the scenes at the Justice Department, how yesterday is being received. We heard from the Attorney General suggesting she obviously disagrees with what happened. Give us your best reporting as to what DOJ's next steps may be, or are they going to take another bite at the apple in both cases. Yeah, this is a devilish problem for Pam Bonnie, Jonathan, because, look, the biggest question here how much more embarrassment can the Justice Department stand in courtrooms as this retribution campaign falls apart? Because, of course, this is only the beginning. If somehow this is reversed,

as you guys alluded to, there are many more, even more embarrassing things to come along the lines of this case in terms of a judge ruling potentially that this was a vindictive prosecution or that the indictment was improperly presented by Lindsey Halligan. And so the question is, does the is the DOJ learning any lessons from this? And the reaction in MAGA World, though, is pretty defiant. And Lisa Rubin and I learned last night that after briefly taking Lindsay Halligan's name off of some of the indictments that were coming out of the Eastern District of Virginia or intending to do that, a decision was made to restore her name, almost in defiance of the

court's ruling. It hasn't been appealed yet. And so some people inside the DOJ looked at that as kind of a middle finger to the judge there, putting Lindsey Halligan's name back on the document as the U.S. attorney. And so that gave us a little clue that in some corners of the Justice Department, there remains a determination to continue to pursue these cases at their peril. Willie, Willie, it's just, again, the short-sightedness. If they took her off, that would maybe be an admission?

Yeah, but they're going to keep losing. I know. It's kind of a problem. These people are the Washington generals of basketball. They lose, like, they just keep losing. I think they're hoping that one time the generals won by mistake and got into trouble for it. They're hoping for that one victory. Sam Stein, I mean, if you look at where this is right now, I know that it's sort of the Trump-Maga ethos to not admit defeat, to never apologize, never walk away.

But at some point, do they come to their senses and say, okay, this is a fight we're probably not going to win, whether it's on procedural. matters or on statute of limitations, whatever it's going to be. Do you sense that this campaign of retribution, they might take a loss on this one anyway and walk away? No, not really. That's not in their DNA, honestly. They're going to get a lot of pressure from different factions of their base to get some conviction of someone at some point. And remember, they've been promising to lock people up for years. And if you follow the sort of online rumblings, there is real anger. in frustration that this stuff is not happening, people wondering whether Pam Bondi should lose her job over this, for instance.

But I go back to sort of the main point that Joe is bringing up, and it ties all this stuff together, which is at some point you begin to look back and step back and you say, there's a bit of an amateur hour element to this. I mean, they're chasing shiny objects, obviously. But if you just tie the Pete Higgs-Suff around Mark Kelly, if you tie the rush process to put Lindsay Halligan in the interim appointment and then follow these. already dubious charges against James Comey and Letitia James. And the story we haven't even discussed yet, but a third one, which is the introduction over

the weekend of an Obamacare subsidy deal that they hadn't even briefed House Republicans on, that they then had to take back because there was so much revulsion in the House over it. I mean, if you look at those three things, in each case, the through line is that they're doing things in an unprofessional manner in a way that's blowing up in their faces. and this was supposed to be the White House, the version 2.0, that was a more professionalized operation that had learned their mistakes. And you're starting to see some of that,

you know, you're starting to see some chinks in the veneer, basically, here where it's like, maybe this White House actually doesn't have its stuff together. So Lisa Rubin buttoned this up for us in the case of Comey and Letitia James. Where do these go? Well, we're waiting to see when the Department of Justice

is going to appeal. Caroline Levitt promised yesterday that was coming. I was hitting refresh as, we started the show this morning to see if that appeal is yet been filed. And it hasn't. In the meantime, as Ken noted, we have evidence that Lindsey Halligan is insisting on continuing to call herself the United States attorney, not a special attorney as Pam Bondi has designated her, and not any other sort of interim title that would allow her to maintain control of the office, but defiantly continuing to call herself the United States attorney, even in court filings.

That is the directive to career prosecutors in that office well before the appeal is filed, well before any stay has been applied for from the Federal Court of Appeals. Okay, we'll be watching MS now senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Thank you very much. And still ahead on Morning Joe. We'll show you what Senator Mark Kelly is saying about the Pentagon investigating him after he and five other lawmakers urged troops to defy illegal orders. Which of course.

They took an oath to not follow. We'll also walk you through some of the examples Senator Kelly gave of the troubling ideas President Trump has proposed in the past. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning. Yes, he is. From Accuethers, Bernie Raino, Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, we have some wet weather today. The Accuether exclusive forecast calling for rain in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago. Rain arrives in New York City in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. this afternoon, not until,

tonight in Boston. Watch the thunderstorms in the southeast from New Orleans toward Atlanta. Florida, Texas on the dry side. There's going to be some travel delays Atlanta this afternoon, New York City and Philadelphia, as well. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, make sure to download the accurate with the app today. I think I believe they broke the law very strongly.

I think it's a very, I think it's a very serious violation of the law, you know. I know Todd Blanche seems to be looking into it, your assistant, your assistant, uh, your assistant, uh, deputy or you're deputy. Well, I think Pete Hankseth is looking into it, too. I know they're looking into it militarily. I don't know for a fact, but I think the military is looking into it, the military courts. President Trump on Friday there saying Defense Secretary Pete Higgsith is looking into the video of Democratic lawmakers telling service members not to follow illegal orders. Now, days later, the Pentagon doing just that, announcing it is investigating Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona

for, quote, serious allegations of misconduct. That message from lawmakers mirrors military law. But President Trump has been actively pushing for consequences for that group of lawmakers, calling them traitors and dubbing their behavior seditious and punishable by death. The Defense Department says Kelly, who served as a U.S. Navy combat pilot and retired as a captain, could be recalled to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures. Whatever. Secretary Hagsith referred to the group of lawmakers, all of whom served in the military or intelligence committee

as the seditious six for this video, calling their message, this is the defense secretary, despicable, reckless, and false. The secretary singled out Kelly as the only member who was formerly retired and still under the jurisdiction of the Pentagon. Senator Kelly responded online,

writing, if Trump's trying to intimidate me, it won't work. I've given too much to our country to be silenced by bullies who care more about power than the Constitution. And last night on MS now, Senator Kelly, framed it this way. I said something that was pretty simple and non-controversial, and that was that members of the military should follow the law.

And in response to that, Donald Trump said, I should be executed. I should be hanged. I should be prosecuted. He even went on and said something about go get them. I guess sending a mob to round me and the other folks. up. So this is, I think it says a lot more about him than it says about me. Senator Mark Kelly is also explaining in detail why he and his colleagues felt compelled to remind service members about their sworn duty not to follow illegal orders.

Here's more of what the retired Navy pilot said last night. If you go back to 2016, Donald Trump on a debate, stage talking about, you know, some action that he was going to take. He was reminded by the moderator that that would be illegal, that the military wouldn't be able to follow those orders. And his response, Donald Trump's response was the military would not refuse my orders. And then as president, he talked about shooting people, citizens of this country in the legs, protesters. Now, thankfully, Mark Esper, Mark Millie, explain to him that that would be not be a good idea.

Now he's talking about the Insurrection Act, sending troops to more cities, using U.S. cities and as training grounds and U.S. citizens for training of the United States military. So let's expand on those examples the Senator provided. Here's the moment back in 2016 when Trump was questioned about his campaign promises to target terrorist families and the use of interrogation methods more extreme than waterboarding. Fox's Brett Baer asked the candidate, what would happen if the military refused those orders? So what would you do as commander-in-chief

if the U.S. military refused to carry out those orders? They won't refuse. They're not going to refuse me. Believe me. But they're illegal. So let's fast forward. Whoa. But they're illegal.

Illegal orders. Brett Baer said. He said it before, that clip. And then he said, but they're illegal. Trump continued to insist that they would obey him. They continue to insist they would obey his illegal orders. The loyalty to the president, not the Constitution. Let's fast forward now to 2020, when then President Trump reportedly inquired about shooting protesters amid the unrest in the wake of George Floyd's murder.

According to former defense secretary Mark Asper, quote, we reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at Joint Chief Chairman Mark Millie and said, can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something? It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air. And then just two months ago, President Trump ordered hundreds of the military generals and admirals to gather on short notice where he suggested using American cities as training grounds for U.S. troops. I want to salute every service member who has helped us carry out this critical mission. It's really a very important mission.

And I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, national guard, but military. Because we're going into Chicago version. That's a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor. And of course, also, Ken, he said flying back on Air Force One, from overseas that he could use the Marines, the Army, the Air Force, the National Guard, any military branch he wanted in any city he wanted for crime control, and the courts couldn't do anything to stop him.

I mean, of course, that's been illegal since 1878. So what's happening with Senator Kelly is really frightening because, This is a use of a military power that has profound implications, if they go through with it, the ability for the military to recall retired officers and enlisted folks back into service to court-martial them, whether in fact he's convicted or not, that is a significantly onerous power to hold over two and a half million retired military. So Senator Mark Kelly, obviously, is not cowed by this. He's famous. He's a hero. He's an astronaut. But what about the rest of the retired military cadre, I talk to people every day who are afraid to go on the

record and criticize this administration because of things like this. And so it's just a reminder of how fragile the rule of law is in this country and how it relies in some part on the good conscience and the good faith of people in mid-level government jobs who are being asked to do these kinds of things. It will be really interesting to see how far this goes within the military apparatus, whether they actually do recall him to duty and initiate a court marshal. If that happens, that is really, really frightening, guys. And obviously, Sam's time we know for even the defense secretary. The first job is loyalty to the president of the United States. But let me quote again what Mark Kelly said in that video. Our laws are clear, you can refuse

illegal orders. For that, the Secretary of Defense called Kelly and the others, despicable, reckless, and what they claim to be false. So the Secretary of Defense has now put him on the side of, yes, you can, as long as the commander-in-chief or a commander tells you you can defy illegal orders. Where do you see this going from here? Well, a couple directions, right? I mean, one is, obviously, it's important to restate how ridiculous this is. What Mark Kelly and the other five were saying is just a reflection of the law. And, of course, this is going to end up in a way back firing on them because it's going to elevate Mark Kelly. I don't know why they would want that.

it's going to happen. But I also don't want to get lost in the fact that even prior to this, you know, Trump was posting on True Social about how, you know, this was insurrection, seditious, and it was punishable by death. Look, we're all very familiar with how heated political rhetoric is leading to instances of political violence and threats of political violence. And some of these lawmakers have seen bomb threats already. Some have seen doxing. I talked to Mark Kelly, after Trump posted that, he, more than anyone else, is painfully familiar with the consequences of political violence. Obviously, his wife was shot in the head, thankfully survived. But this is just going to ratchet up those threats. He's not backing down,

obviously. But at a time when we need to be lowering the temperature, this is just raising it up in a way that I don't think is productive at all. To Sam's point, Joe, it was just a couple a couple months ago, we were having a national conversation around the horrific public assassination of Charlie Kirk. Right. And yet conservatives and Republicans rightly saying, we got to turn down the temperature. We've got to cool the rhetoric. But then when it comes to the President of the United States, amplifying a post that says Mark Kelly and others should be hanged for saying that you can defy illegal orders, you have people like Speaker Mark Johnson saying, well, the president's just stating a fact about what sedition is. And so if it's Donald Trump,

It's okay because they're so scared of him that they won't live up to their own rhetoric, which is correct, which is we've got to turn down the temperature. And here it is being ratcheted up and none of them saying it worked. Let's be very clear. He is called military heroes. He's called former members of the CIA. He's called the United States senators, traders. Yeah.

And said they should be hanged. He called Marjorie Taylor Green, a traitors. a traitor. And she told people that all the death threats on her and her family had really, I think, probably moved her to make the decision that she made. I would just say just politically, though, this is so stupid. You are now making Mark Kelly, astronaut. the face of the Democratic Party. You are, you, you, a, a, a Navy pilot, a decorated, uh, a Navy pilot, an astronaut,

you, you're making him the face of the party. And I will say, too, I think he's afraid of a lot. What, what is, what is, yeah, what is extraordinary to me is how stupid Republicans, and I will say some people that are sucking up to, Donald Trump, with Trump derangement fealty, they think we're so stupid. Americans are so stupid. They can't see the word illegal. And as I've said before, and I'll say it again, the Democrats' biggest problem wasn't

that they said you don't have to follow illegal orders. That's too passive. You cannot follow illegal orders. Your oath to the Constitution, your oath to the country, your own. to the country. Your oath under God does not allow you to follow illegal orders. And the Republicans are now the party that are fighting for the right of military people to follow illegal orders. Why? This is so short-sight. Everything about this is short-sighted, just like Lindsay Halligan was short-sighted, just like going after a war hero, an American hero, an astronaut, short-sighted.

It makes no sense. It's the question you've been asking now for a couple of months. Is there nobody in there in that White House? Is there no political genius who can say, I know this feels good, but it's going to end up being bad for you, Mr. President. No one apparently is saying that. And what Mark Kelly is saying, by the way, is to the service members, it's not going to be Donald Trump or Pete Higgseth, who's in trouble in court-martialed if you do something illegal

It's going to be you in the dock, not them. So think about yourself. Well, it's also simple communications math. Thanks to Donald Trump, that video has been seen around the world many times. That video has been amplified by his own sort of ecosystem. And on top of it, these sort of moves toward Mark Kelly in the legal realm, military legal realm, further amplifies that video, which is exactly what the Democrats wanted for people to see what could, be coming and for people to fully

understand the law of the military. And Sam Stein, you said it. They're making the mistake of putting this guy out front. Eric Erickson, conservative commentator, said, What are they doing? What are the Republicans doing? Why

are they, they're just lobbying a softball down the middle of the plate for Mark Kelly and these other former service people who were Democrats, to knock it out of the park every night. They have set up a stupid fight.

They can't win. And I wish somebody in the Republican Party would be smart enough to understand it, Eric Erickson, saying the kids are the executive branch working on behalf of the president, push the president, and then elevated the stature of Democratic Senator Mark Kelly.

As Democrats, they've been flirting with Gavin, knew something he talks about putting out a plan on Ukraine that nobody likes. So you're right, Sam. This, this, this action is just hurting the White House. It's just hurting the president. It's just hurting Republicans. And they're so, they have this derangement, like Trump derangement syndrome, this cowtowing to Donald Trump that won't allow them to understand it's hurt. Donald Trump. Oh, yeah. Eric has a great list there. I mean, this is the point I was making earlier, which is it's, there's a, it's been a series

of fairly head-scratching decisions from a political perspective for a couple months now, right? Just you can even add to that list just how they handled the Epstein matter in such a sort of guilty fashion that inevitably would lead to this discharge petition that embarrassed the president. Now he's got to deal with the disclosures. You could talk about the health care plan that we talked about in the prior block, where they put out a plan that they then had to retract because they didn't do their due diligence with Hill.

You could even look at the Mamdani meeting, which was so obviously predictable that Mamdani would use a little flattery, and then Trump would praise him in the Oval Office, thereby defaying all those Republican attack ads that are to come saying that he's the face of the Republican Party. Again, time and again, they're making these weird political decisions. And look, Trump might be fine. He's not running again necessarily in 2028. We don't assume he is.

But if you're a Republican lawmaker and you look at all these decisions, time after time after time, at some point you've got to say what is going on here. And that's what I think is contributing to all this reporting we're seeing over the past couple days of House Republicans getting fed up. We have Marjorie Taylor Green retiring, other anonymous Republicans saying, look, life in the House is miserable. We don't do anything. We just take whatever Donald Trump does and we try to pass it. And we're thinking of retiring. I think all these things, Joe, are very much interconnected. All right, MS now, Justice and Intelligence reporter, Ken Delanian, thank you very much for your reporting this morning.

And coming up on Morning, Joe, we're going to bring you the latest on the negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. As officials say, they have made significant changes to that peace proposal. Morning, Joe is back in a moment. we really see the engine of the economy start to take off? Well, some of it's already started, Sean, but some of it is going to take a long time because we inherited a disaster. We inherited the highest peacetime debt and deficits in the history of the United States of America. We inherited the worst inflation crisis in at least the last 40 years, and I think probably longer. I know that there are a lot of people out there, Sean, who are saying things are

expensive. And we have to remember they're expensive because we inherited this terrible inflation crisis from the Biden administration, but you've already seen signs that things are getting better. The price of eggs has gone way down. The price of energy has gone way down. The price of gasoline has gone way down. And as we know, when the price of energy goes down, that starts to filter out into the entire economy, but that also takes a little bit of time. Vice President J.D. Vance, Fox News earlier this month, blaming the Biden administration for the country's current economic issues, particularly on affordability. But a recent Fox News poll shows almost two-thirds of voters surveyed say President Trump is responsible now for America's economy.

Join us now, former Treasury official, Morning Joe economic analyst, Steve Ratner, with his charts on the state of the economy. This is a triumphant return for Steve Lattner. Yes. The Prodigal Sun returns. Steve, you worked here, what, 45, 50 years ago? I started here almost exactly 50 years ago. years and a couple months ago, I came here as a cub reporter. That's so cool. Covering Metro down on the third floor.

For the New York Times. For the New York Times. Yeah, this is old New York Times building. And you were here and you worked on the same floor as Willie's dad. Yeah, I worked on the same floor as Willie's dad. And, you know, when I was 23 years old and it was a cool experience, you came in, you typed your copy on an old-fashioned typewriter, you yelled copy and somebody came and got it, but you could only submit it one page of the time,

so you couldn't go back and change anything. And then it got set in type on the fourth floor, which was the composing room in what we called Hot Type, you know, the little line-of-type machines. Then it went down to the basement and got printed on presses down in the basement. Meanwhile, we would finish our stories around 6.30 or something like that because we had a deadline.

It wasn't a 24-hour newspaper. And then we'd go downstairs out the back door, go to Sardis, hang out at the bar. Now we get to the good part. the bar for a couple hours and then we'd come back up around 9 o'clock and get the first edition so we could see our names in print and we can see what the editors have done to our stories because you never got to see your stories again once they sent them up to be edited and wow that was our that was that was New York back in the 70s yeah the New York Times is so cool

in the basement of this building it's where they printed the papers and it would come up through yeah then and the papers would come up yeah my dad took the job he worked at the suburban triv in Chicago, took a job to write the about New York column with the New York Times when I was five years old. In 1980, he first walked through those same doors that we've been coming in now for the last week or so. This is pretty special. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. The doors were quite different. Physically, yes. But if you ever watch this great old New York movie, the sweet smell of success, it opens, which is about a Walter Winchell kind of character in New York, it opens, the opening scene is the press trucks coming out the back door of the New York Times

from the papers that were put on it in the basement. Wow. That's so cool. After we do these charts, let's go out the back door and go to sorts. Let's do it. Okay. All right, Steve. We are officially relics.

Let's talk about this economy with your first chart, starting with the weak labor market. What do you see in there? Well, the point I'm making is that Vance can say that they inherited a bad economy, but the problem is the economy is actually getting worse, not better. You can inherit a bad economy, but then you're supposed to do stuff to make it better. And virtually every statistic shows it's, in fact, worse under Trump than it was under Biden in his last year. So if you take a look, for example, at payroll's growth, you can see under Biden, we averaged about 170,000 jobs a month. And under Trump, it's dropped to something like 77,000 jobs per month.

And so we're actually going the wrong way. And if you read any story, look at any statistic, any survey, and there was a big one in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, everybody is talking about how this is one of the worst job markets since the Great Recession, especially for young people. What's striving that, especially for young people who, I'm telling you, this is such a growing crisis, young people in college at great universities, even at great universities, getting out to no jobs. What's going on there and what is making the labor market so weak right now? There's a, it's a 9.2% unemployment rate among people 20 to 24 who are looking for jobs. And I think there's a couple of factors. You have to say that AI is a piece of this. I don't know how big of a piece of it.

A lot of it is because of all the uncertainty under Trump, the tariffs are on, the tariffs are off. We don't really know. Companies are just cutting back. they're just becoming leaner. The economy is slower, as I'll talk about in a minute. And so they don't need as many people. And they've just really started to reduce their hiring in a dramatic way for these various reasons, from worries about the economy, AI, and so forth.

All right, let's take a look at your second chart, and that is affordability and growth challenges. This is the issue. President Trump has called the affordability crisis, a hoax, a con job, but then rolling back tariffs to address just that affordability. Well, again, affordability comes down. in a large part to economic growth. You have to have economic growth

in order for people to have more income and therefore to be able to buy more stuff. And economic growth is also going the wrong way. You can see under Biden, it averaged 2.4% in his last year, and it was steady upward. Under Trump, it's bounced around, but it's going to average only 2% this year.

And even the 2% that Trump is going to get is heavily driven by all this AI spending on data centers that you've been reading about and talking about, which obviously have nothing to do with him. And so the economy is, in fact, slowing, not growing faster, and a downward trend in the fourth quarter could be down here in the one to one and a half percent range. And then you also hear when you talk about affordability about housing. And so housing starts, which is what we need.

We need more housing, obviously, for people to be able to afford them, have dropped. And you can see what they did under Biden. And you can see down here under Trump, they are lower. And so we're building fewer houses. And so Vance can talk all he wants about inheriting a bad economy, but what you have to be able to do is then make the economy go the right way, even from whatever you get, rather than going the wrong way. And right now, it is going the wrong way,

and especially on jobs and affordability. All right. In your third chart, Steve, we're looking at inflation, which has been persistent in part because of the tariffs. Exactly. And so, again, they talk about inflation, and they talk about, and he said it in that clip about he inherited the worst inflation in 50 years and all that kind of stuff, it was 3% when he inherited it, less than 3%.

And what's happened here is inflation did start to go down under Trump, but then you had the tariffs, and now it's back up to 3%. And that puts pressure on the Fed's ability to cut interest rates. In comparison, Goldman Sachs, before Trump got here, Goldman Sachs, assuming a more normal set of policies, but inflation would be down to 2.2% at this point. And in fact, because of the tariffs and everything else Trump has done, it's back up to 3% and growing at the moment. And all of that put together has created this incredibly pessimistic mood among people

where consumer sentiment now is down all the way down here. It is down, in fact, if I took this chart back further, it would be down to levels of the great financial crisis in terms of how people feel about this economy. They are unbelievably negative about this economy. And so, as I said, Vance can talk all he wants, but if it had been gotten better, we've now almost a full year into the Trump administration. If it had gotten better, you'd think people would start to recognize that and feel that.

It doesn't show up in the numbers, and it doesn't show up in what people are telling pollsters and so forth about how they feel. A lot of business are shocked by the terrorists. Yeah. He looked like he was dancing to Oda's Day in the Night of Animal House, a little bit lower now a little bit more now. He touched his tones. Did he touch his morning exercise with Steve? Dancing is not one of my

core skills. I can tell you that. I don't know, Steve. Well, look at those charts lined up. All right. Morning Joe Economic analyst, Steve Rutland. Thank you so much. And New York Times alarm from this building. This is cool.