Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/26/23

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

Maine shooting kills at least 15, injures up to 50

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Thursday, October 26th. We have a lot to get to this morning with the deadliest mass shooting so far this year in America. It happened at two locations last night in Lewiston, Maine. We will have a live report from there in just a moment. Plus, Republicans finally have elected a new Speaker of the House after weeks of chaos on Capitol Hill. We'll have much more on that also ahead. The latest out of the House after weeks of chaos on Capitol Hill. We'll have much more on that also ahead. The latest out of the Middle East. President Biden is pushing for a ceasefire to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And we will show you former President Donald Trump's outburst during his civil fraud trial in New York. But first, Willie, let's go right to the latest on the tragedy unfolding in Maine. At least 15 people are dead this morning. Up to 50 may be injured in the community of Lewiston,

located about 30 miles north of Portland, Maine. Police say the gunman entered two separate locations Wednesday night. First, a bowling alley where he fatally shot seven people before moving on to a nearby bar. Some of the victims may have been injured in stampedes as crowds raced to escape as the shooting started. Officials fear many teenagers could be among those killed and injured as the bowling alley was hosting its youth night. Police have identified now a 40-year-old male as a person of interest in connection with these shootings. He's still at large, considered armed and dangerous with an AR style rifle. Police say they have located the man's vehicle in the neighboring town of Lisbon, but he was not in it. Residents in the area have been

urged to shelter in place. According to a bulletin from law enforcement officials, the man was a military firearms instructor with about 20 years experience of military service. Noted the man recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard base in the nearby town of Saco. It also said he was reported to have been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this summer and then released. The White House says President Biden, Vice President Harris have been briefed on the active situation. Biden spoke to Maine's governor, the state's congressional representatives last night

and offered the full support of the federal government. In response to the shooting, Maine's commissioner of public safety sought to assure the public they're committed to apprehending the person of interest. We have literally hundreds of police officers working around the state of Maine to investigate this case,

to locate Mr. Card, who again is a person of interest and a person of interest only. And we'll continue to gather information so that we can bring the suspect to justice and ultimately seek prosecution down the road. Let's get right to the ground in Lewiston, Maine. That's where we find NBC's Emma Barnett.

Emma, what's the latest there? Yeah, hey, Willie. So I'm standing right in front of the bowling alley where the gunman went in about 6.30, around 6.30 p.m. last night. And it has been eerily quiet here in Lewiston. I got here at around 12.30 a.m. last night, and it has been eerily quiet here in Lewiston. I got here at around 1230 a.m., and the only people that I have really seen out and about for the most part have been members of the media. I took a drive to the reunification center. The only people there that I saw were media and a couple cars, which I assume belonged to the families who were inside. I asked the

police officer how many family members are waiting to hear from loved ones and hoping and praying that they are still alive. He was not able to give me that kind of information. And something else that we just learned is that Lisbon school districts are going to be closed. As you mentioned in your intro, Lisbon is where that vehicle was found. The school districts are closed. The town offices are closed. And a lot of people are still sheltering in place. I did meet one woman earlier who she took a nap and woke up around midnight and saw everything that was happening in this town.

She lives four miles away. And she came here to see what the scene was like and what was going on. And she described it as being shocked. She was shocked and devastated and just absolutely horrified. This is a small town where things like this, no one ever expects to happen until they happen. And it is just absolutely horrific and tragic. Emma, can you give us a sense of the geography of the shootings here there in Lewiston? So two separate locations. We're looking at a map right now.

First, the bowling alley and then south to the bar where they were having a cornhole night, apparently, went and shot up those two places. Just about how this played out last night, just before seven o'clock, according to police. Yeah, so those details are still unraveling. And I also want to mention that in the bowling alley, there was a youth. It seemed to have been a youth night, which just makes this even more tragic that we don't know for sure yet, but people fear that there are young people among the victims. And the hospital that a lot of these victims were transported to is just down the road, about a mile and a half from here. People were also taken to Boston and another hospital in Maine as well. And these details are still emerging and still still coming to the to the surface. OK, NBC's Emma Barnett live in Lewiston, Maine, for us. We'll let you get back

out and do some reporting and we will talk to you later. So, Mika, police say news conference at 10 30 a.m. as of right now, where they may be able to provide more information. But the headline is this person of interest is still on the loose and obviously armed and dangerous. This is very much unfolding right now in Maine, in Lewiston, Maine and surrounding towns. This person of interest, this this Robert Card, 40 years old, reading Associated Press and NBC News reporting. He's described as a firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve assigned to a training facility in Saco, Maine. There's a document that circulated to law enforcement that said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks

in the summer of 2023. It did not provide details about his treatment or condition, but said Card had reported hearing voices, threats to shoot up a military base, and they've been trying to track down more information. Meanwhile, the central Maine Medical Center is reacting to this like it's a war zone. They have a mass casualty, mass shooter event unfolding in their ER. They're coordinating with local hospitals to try and figure out how to take in patients. There were, to some reports, up to 50 injured. There's an order for residents and business owners to stay inside, to not go outside from Lewiston to Lisbon, Maine, as a vehicle of interest was found.

But they don't know if this man has fled in some other way. Maybe he's received help. Who knows? The governor of Maine, Janet Mills, has released a statement echoing instructions for people to shelter in place. She says she's been briefed on the situation and will remain in close contact with public safety officials. Joe Biden spoke by phone with the governor and offered full federal support in the wake of this horrific attack again in Lewiston, Maine. Schools are closed today and everybody is told to shelter in place until they know where this man is. And just for the record, Willie, Maine doesn't require permits to carry guns. I go to Maine. I've been going to Maine for 56 years.

It has a longstanding culture of gun ownership, hunting and sports shooting. I can't imagine something like this happening in Maine, but that's what we say everywhere when there is one of these mass shootings, which is now, of course, an epidemic. And these mass shootings in Maine, anyway, are exceedingly rare. If you look back through the history of the Portland Press-Herald, the newspaper in Portland is doing great reporting on this sort of detailed some of that as well. We should point out that Bates College is right there in Lewiston, smack in the middle between these two shooting sites. And obviously that school is locked down. You can imagine the terror of those students along with the members. There is concern, Willie, that a lot of young people

may be victims here because at one of the locations they were having like a teen night or something. The bowling alley was youth night. This is horrifying. It is. Let's go to NBC News National Security Analyst Clint Watts. So, Clint, the person of interest, as they're calling him as of right now, is still out there. The man who they believe perpetrated these shootings with an AR style rifle at two separate locations. From your experience, how do you approach this? They found the vehicle that they believe he was in. They haven't found him. They've locked down the

town of Lisbon because that's where they found the car. Where do you begin here to track this person down? Willie, I think last night when we came on air for this, it was the worst case scenario and you knew it right away. If you just look at that image of the shooter, you quickly notice that he seems to be someone who knows how to handle a weapon. And when you're law enforcement, you've seen him already go through and just shoot and kill multiple people. The way he's holding the weapon, the kind of equipment he's got, you're looking at extra magazines taped together. It looks like high capacity scopes, cargo pants. This is somebody who knows what they're doing. You could tell just by the way

they're standing, holding the weapon. So imagine you're law enforcement. Now you're out trying to track this down. And in Lewiston, there are not a lot of law enforcement, and it's a vast area. So just a couple months ago, we were talking about a prison break, remember, in Pennsylvania. And that was an individual who didn't really have much. You know, escaped from a prison, was just on the loose, was trying to find gear. That's not the case in this scenario. We have a large rural area. Somebody who has some military experience, knows how to use a weapon, has already used it multiple times in multiple locations.

This is a really dangerous situation for law enforcement. So like we had seen earlier this morning, a lot of law enforcement, FBI, ATF, you know, rushing to the scene. You'll have state police rushing to the scene. But they're really moving from behind. There's just not that many law and law enforcement officers in this town to cover that vast an area that quickly while also dealing with multiple trauma scenes. Yeah. Again, we're covering breaking news, a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. We're talking about 15 or 16 dead. We're trying to get the numbers right. And many, many, many more injured. And again, Willie, Clint was talking about how experienced this suspect was with the cargo pants

and ammunition all over him. He was able to wreak as much havoc as possible on this town and on these people. And the challenge right now for authorities and all the different law enforcement organizations that are coming together trying to track him down, but also to lock down and make safe, for example, the health facilities that are trying to take care of the victims, the many, many victims, the hospital in the area is also on lockdown with police circulating it and circulating the halls because who knows where he might go next. And when we talk about up to 50 people injured, we know, sadly, from our experience with all these mass shootings with AR-15s, those are very, very serious injuries.

So there is a likelihood medical officials would tell you that the death toll could rise from where it is, 15 or 16 right now. Clint, national response, would the FBI be on the ground already? Who else could they call in? As you mentioned, Lewiston's a town of about 37,000 people. It's the second largest town in the state of Maine, but still only 37,000 people. So they don't have the capacity for a wide scale manhunt here. So who else would be on the ground this morning? Yeah, the FBI is absolutely going to move to the scene very quickly. Evidence response teams, likely SWAT teams, have already been deployed. Boston is the field office that would cover that. And there are resident agencies sprinkled throughout Maine. Portland and Augusta,

I believe, being the two main ones. I think Bangor as well. Those resident agencies will send people. We're still talking about a small number of agents. Separately, I would imagine they're going to need extra security. So that brings up the situation with, as Mika noted at the top of the hour, you know, the Army Reserve Base. Is there anybody that can just come and do just physical security or be immediately called up to try and protect specific locations. I think the key thing we don't really understand about this case yet is why these two targets we've not heard. There is some indication late last night that law enforcement did know

potentially why he went to these two locations. But are there any other locations that this person has talked about or considered or somebody around that neighborhood that actually knows him or or where he works thinks he might attack or use as a target. The last part is the outdoor training. You know, is he someone who's done a lot of survivalist type training? Has he gone out, done a lot of camping and hiking? That would make the search even more difficult at this point with so few people on the scene. That's what I'm wondering about, Clint. And I'm just if you could help us with and he'd been up all night. But in terms of when this story broke, when this started happening and when they started looking for him, Lewiston is maybe 90 minutes north of the border.

Having done that drive a lot, is there any possibility he has been able to leave the state, gotten assistance, or in terms of where his car was found, is there anything we can glean about where he may be? So far, I've not heard anything. Late last night, Jim Cavanaugh and I were on Frank Bigluzzi as well, and we had not heard of anything there was the potential that he had another automobile but that was not confirmed um separately it it is a place where you know he did this attack there's a reaction time to the to the two scenes he has a lot of lead time if he were to have another car he could move quite some distance but it it is not clear at all where the individual went. And as of last night, I had not seen any evidence that really tracked any strong leads on his whereabouts.

That may have changed, but I have not seen anything so far. All right. National security analyst Clint Watts, we're going to be in touch with you and many others throughout the morning on this. We're just starting to get some accounts of what it was like to be in the bowling alley or in the restaurant. This is from the Associated Press. A young man named Brandon, who was putting on his bowling shoes, said he was barefoot. He said, I had my back turned to the door. As soon as I turned, saw it was not a balloon that popped. It was a man holding a weapon.

I booked it. He said he scrambled down the length of the bowling alley, dove in where the pins are and hid up there and survived because of that and was sent to a reunification center later, said I'd been barefoot for five hours because I was putting on my bowling shoes. So we have a lot of questions to address over the next four hours. Again, this man is still on the run. The suspect so far identified as 40 year old Robert Card, who is described as a firearms instructor, which is why he was able potentially to wreak so much damage and murder across the area of not just Lewiston, Maine, but wherever else he might be. So still ahead on Morning Joe, we will continue to follow any and all developments out of the state of Maine as a massive manhunt continues for this person of interest in this deadly mass shooting. And by the way, up to 50 people injured and the

type of weapon used, these injuries will be difficult. We'll be checking in with local hospitals as well to figure out how they're locking them down and dealing with the injuries and potentially more deaths as this story unfolds, this breaking news unfolds. Plus, major news out of Washington. Mike Johnson is the new speaker of the House. Three weeks after Republicans removed Kevin McCarthy, it was a long battle. We'll tell you more about the new leader of the lower chamber. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. We're back. We're going to be doing several things at once all morning long as we cover this breaking news out of Maine. The death toll so far is 16 and up to 50 injured in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. And Willie, you point

out it started one of the locations. There was two locations for this shooting is a bowling alley. And you point out now the location is close to Bates College. Yeah, it's obviously a prominent small liberal arts school, great school. It's right there in Lewiston. It's about five minutes away from the bowling alley. So we don't have any information for you want to jump to any conclusions about victims. But very it's right. It's a college town. It's been effectively. So you can imagine on a youth bowling night, there'll be some young people, perhaps college

students, high school students, even at that point, up to 16 dead and up to 50 injured. You wonder why this man, this suspect at large, described as a firearms instructor who was heavily, heavily armed and is still on the run. There is a massive search underway. We are on this and we will jump back into this as every piece of information comes in. We have other big news to cover this morning after more than three weeks of dysfunction and chaos on Capitol Hill. The House finally has a new speaker this morning. House lawmakers elected Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana as the 56th Speaker of the House. He's a conservative ally of former President Donald Trump and a low-ranking member of the GOP leadership team. After 22 days of

disarray, Republican House members demonstrated remarkable unity with all 220 voting for Johnson. Shortly after the vote, the new speaker made this pledge. And I want to make this commitment to you, to my colleagues here and on the other side of the aisle as well. My office is going to be known for trust and transparency and accountability, for good stewardship of the people's treasure, for the honesty, integrity that is incumbent upon us, all of us here in the people's house. Speaker Johnson will immediately have to work within his party and with the Biden White House to figure out how to fund the government before money runs out on November 17th and deliver critical aid packages to Ukraine and Israel. As for Speaker Johnson himself, he is arguably the most ideological conservative person to serve as Speaker since Newt Gingrich in the

1990s. Johnson is an outspoken opponent of abortion and LGBTQ rights. The 51-year-old also played an instrumental role in the GOP's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He led the amicus brief signed by 100 Republicans backing a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate the 2020 election results in four swing states, one by President Biden. The New York Times called Johnson, quote, the most important architect of the Electoral College objections. Ahead of yesterday's vote, Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California called out Johnson for his previous efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. This has been about one thing. This has been about who can appease Donald Trump. House Republicans have put their names behind someone who has been called the most important

architect of the Electoral College objections. He's spearheaded. That's fair. That's fair. We know how you feel. Yeah, you've made that clear. Damn right. Someone in the chamber yells. Meanwhile, former President Trump congratulated the new speaker by posting on social media, quote, MAGA Mike Johnson, adding that Johnson will be, quote, a great speaker. Let's bring in the White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein, and congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alamainer, and founder of the conservative website, The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes and Willie. This is going to be interesting. This election denier as speaker of the House.

Yeah, I mean, Charlie Sykes, just look at who celebrated the loudest yesterday. It was Donald Trump. It was Matt Gaetz. It was somehow they got moderates. The New York moderates have been holding some of the power here. Mike Lawler, for example, they all got on board with Mike Johnson. And the truth is, says someone put it to me yesterday, he's Jim Jordan with a jacket and a better haircut, which is to say he has full throatedly supported the effort to overturn the 2020 election. Obviously, very conservative on issues like abortion, LGBTQ rights.

What's your assessment of where the party landed here? No question who the biggest winners are here. Matt Gaetz may be loathed by his colleagues, but he got his way, right? He blew it up. He managed to torpedo to torpedo Kevin McCarthy to to to block Steve Scalise to to shiv Tom Emmer and eventually did get his own candidate. Adam Kinzinger describes him, Mike Johnson, as Jim Jordan in drag. So there's no question about it. I mean, this is a full MAGA. This is a full MAGA speaker. You know, to describe him as one of the chief architects of the Electoral College objections actually understates Mike Johnson's role. I mean, Mike Johnson is a full throated believer in crack and level conspiracy theories about dominion, about Hugo Chavez.

If he had gotten his way, tens of millions of votes would have been thrown out. He may be a personable individual, but he is a pure ideologue. But I think it is extraordinary, as we look back on all of this chaos, that Matt Gaetz and a handful of other members of the caucus, of the people that John McCain called the wacko birds. John Boehner called them legislative terrorists. Ben Wittes calls them the crazed, slavering jackal caucus. Ultimately, they got their way. And all of the normies caved in. For a brief five minutes, it looked like the moderates were going to hold the line. but ultimately the squishes did what squishes always do. And the fact that it was unanimous is also extraordinary.

And that was my question to you, Jackie Alomany. What happened here? What changed when you had people like Ken Buck and others saying, I will not support somebody who is an election denier? Full stop. And then yesterday he got the votes he needed. It was a really remarkable turn of events to see someone with perhaps the lowest name ID in all of American history become speaker in a matter of 24, less than 24 hours, actually, with a full support of his conference. I think that Johnson benefited from a number of things, primarily the fact that he has no national profile.

His even his colleagues didn't have time to properly vet him. As one lawmaker told me, he didn't have time to go through all of his votes overnight in that period from, you know, Tuesday night when Tom Emmer stormed out of the House GOP conference, dropping out a speaker. And when Mike when Mike Johnson then became the speaker designate to to vote the next morning, he also benefited from fatigue. I think if lawmakers are being honest, you know, when I spoke with Ken Buck yesterday, he said that he supported Mike Johnson. He tried to draw a distinction between his opposition to Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson saying, making this argument that

Jordan was actively involved in encouraging the rioters to storm the U.S. Capitol. He was in the White House in touch with Trump in these efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and that Mike Johnson was involved in the lawyerly aspects of the fight and therefore it wasn't as harmful. But when I asked Buck why he didn't ask Johnson in that House GOP conference meeting, as he had with other candidates, whether he was opposed, whether he still believed the 2020 election was stolen, Buck simply said it was a really long day. There were 12 other things going on and he just didn't get to the question. But he was hopeful that Johnson would answer it

appropriately. I asked Johnson right after he gave his press conference, his first press conference as House GOP speaker, whether or not he believed the 2020 election was stolen. And he simply said that his position was well known and that he wasn't going to be talking about issues yesterday. Wow. Wow. So Sam Stein, big picture. How do how does Mitch McConnell work with him? How what do you see in terms of actual government running policy being created, laws passing? What do you see coming in the future, given his extreme stances and how he works with other Republicans who perhaps don't carry those same beliefs? It's a great question. There's a couple of things that have to come to head. Right. One is funding the government. We have a matter of weeks until the current resolution runs out.

They got to get it funded. And you have to wonder if he's going to get he he being Johnson, gets a little bit of runway to handle that. The other is this supplemental foreign aid package that was introduced, $106 billion, Ukraine, Israel, border aid, humanitarian aid, all that's going to be packaged together. You know, does he get any leeway to push that forward? And if so, maybe they can get it done, but it gets pared back. Mitch McConnell has to figure out how much pressure he puts on him as well. It's a great unknown. And keep in mind, there is nothing, there's no template by which we can really judge Mike Johnson here. He's never done this before. His legislative record is very sparse. He's only been a four-term member of Congress. He doesn't have the leadership experience that anyone who also ran for the post has. So this is all sort of

on-the-fly experimental governance. He's second in line for the presidency, and people are Googling him right now to figure out what's going on. So I'm just completely uncertain, as everyone else is, about how these next couple weeks go. But there are several major things that do have to happen. Charlie, the idea that Mike Johnson's colleagues, Republican colleagues, the moderates, didn't have time to vet him properly overturn 2020 election that was slapped down by the Supreme Court ultimately with that amicus brief in the Texas lawsuit. But speak to the Donald Trump of it all here. I mean, for all the talk of his perhaps waning influence, he was able to take out Emmer when he wanted to, when he decided that he wasn't the right guy because he wasn't a strong enough supporter. And at the end of the day, he looked at Mike Johnson, did Donald Trump said, oh, he did all that stuff on my behalf around the 2020 election. Congress, he's the guy.

Yeah, there's no question about it. I mean, Donald, in case there was any doubt that Donald Trump is sitting in a courtroom in New York, but he is still the apex predator of the Republican Party. Tom Emmer is not the speaker because he refused to go along with Donald Trump's coup attempts. Mike Johnson, this fifth string speaker that nobody really knows anything about, is in fact second in line to the presidency because of the role he played in trying to get Donald Trump to overthrow the elections. I mean, so this is not rocket science. This is now a full MAGA house. And whether it was exhaustion or a lack of courage or a lack of imagination,

you know, you had the entire Republican Party basically now lining up behind a super uber Trumpy speaker. Wow. Which seems to be the story of the last seven years, isn't it? It seems to be the story of 2023. It seems to be the story of 2024. The Bulwarks, Charlie Sykes, Politico, Sam Stein and The Washington Post, Jackie Alimini. Thank you all. Of course, major news out of Washington.

We have an election denier as Speaker of the House. We're also following this major breaking news out of Maine. If you're just joining us, at least 15 people are dead and up to 50 may be injured. That is the suspect, the person of interest in this. Police say the gunman entered two locations last night, a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, where he fatally shot seven people before moving on to a nearby bar. Some of the victims may have been injured in stampedes as crowds raced to escape as the shooting unfolded.

Officials fear that a lot of teenagers could be among those killed or injured as the bowling alley was hosting its youth night yesterday, Willie pointing out that this bowling alley is four minutes away from Bates College. This person of interest, a 40-year-old male, is still at large. He was armed and dangerous when he was last seen with an AR-style rifle, heavily armed. They located his vehicle in the neighboring town of Lisbon. The entire area is locked down. Schools are closed and residents have been urged to shelter in place. A lot of questions about this suspect who, according to law enforcement officials, was a military firearms instructor with 20 years experience of military service. He had many, many health problems, mental health problems, and was recently in a mental health

civility as recently as this summer. The White House has been briefed on this. The governor of Maine has been briefed on this. And we'll be hearing much more this morning, especially from local hospitals, which are also under lockdown and being protected right now because the suspect is still at large. But they're dealing with up to 50 injured. And with that type of weapon, these injuries could be quite serious. We'll be continuing to follow this breaking news throughout the morning. We have several other big stories as well to cover. Coming up, Israel conducts an overnight raid in northern Gaza as it prepares for a ground invasion that the U.S. is urging the country try to delay.

We'll have the latest on the Israel-Hamas war. Plus, President Biden is set to meet with China's foreign minister on Friday. Could it lead to a face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month? We'll have the very latest from Beijing. That's just ahead on Morning Joe. Overnight, Israeli defense forces conducted a targeted raid in northern Gaza. Officials say soldiers attacked several terrorists, terror infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts. The soldiers now back safely on Israeli soil. The IDF posted about the mission on social media, writing it was, quote, in preparation for the next stages of

combat. Meanwhile, the White House is calling for a humanitarian pause in Israel's military campaign in an effort to get more aid into Gaza. Hospitals in the area have warned they will have to shut down if more fuel and supplies like water and medicine are not brought in. The United Nations also warning it will have to curtail its relief efforts for Palestinian refugees. As of now, only a small number of aid trucks have entered Gaza. Yesterday, in a joint address with the Australian prime minister in Washington. President Biden spoke about the war. Israel has the right, and I would add responsibility, to respond to the slaughter of their people.

And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That's a guarantee. We also have to remember that Hamas does not represent, let me say it again, Hamas does not represent the vast majority of the Palestinian people on the Gaza Strip or anywhere else. Hamas is hiding behind Palestinian civilians and is despicable and not surprisingly cowardly as well. This also puts an added burden on Israel while they go after Hamas. But that does not lessen the need for to operate in a line with the laws of war. For Israeli, it has to do everything in its power. Israel has to do

everything in its power. As difficult as it is to protect innocent civilians, it's difficult. I also want to take a moment to look ahead toward the future that we seek. Israelis and Palestinians equally deserve to live side by side in safety, dignity and peace. There's no going back to the status quo as it stood on October the 6th. That means ensuring Hamas can no longer terrorize Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields. It also means that when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution. It means a concentrated effort for all the parties, Israelis, Palestinians, regional partners, global leaders, to put us on a path toward peace. I'm convinced one of the reasons Hamas attacked when they did i have no proof of this just my instinct tells me is because of the

progress we were making towards regional integration for israel and regional integration overall and we can't leave that work behind so richard haas is with us president emeritus of the council on Foreign Relations. What do you make of what President Biden said, and especially the last part where he talks about the need for a vision of what comes next? Does anyone have an answer for that? Well, he's right. Yes, but what's the next part? Well, it's also on the United States.

Right. I mean, you can't just defeat Hamas militarily. Right. One is I'm one of those who's arguing you can't just defeat Hamas militarily. Right. One is I'm one of those who's arguing you can't eliminate it. Let's put that aside. But you need more than a military tool. Right. You can't beat something with nothing. There's got to be a Palestinian partner. It's never going to be Hamas. Ultimately, it'll be Palestinians in the West Bank. But Israel has been undermining them. They've been undermining themselves. The United States

has not made this a priority. Let's be honest. So what we've got to do is stabilize the current situation, avoid a wider war, get the Israelis to ultimately think about how we get aid into Gaza. Everyone's worried about how to get the hostages out. But if and when the dust settles, the president's 100 percent right. There's got to be a larger political conversation about how we move towards a two state solution. Otherwise, we're going to return to something like this down the road. So can you speak, Richard, to the line President Biden is walking right now? He also condemned Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. He's trying to say, listen, Hamas is separate from the Palestinian people.

Let's not conflate the two. Warning a little bit Israel to pump the brakes. You got it exactly right. This is conditional support. This is needle threat. And what he's trying to do is be publicly as supportive and empathetic as he can be. Israel has every right, indeed the duty, as he said, to hit back hard against Hamas. But distinction between Hamas and Gaza, between Hamas and the people of Gaza. Again, the political horizon that has to be has to be out there. Israel has to be sensitive to the laws of war. So this is this is conditional support. President so far has pulled it off really well. He is by far more popular in Israel than Bibi Netanyahu. And the question for the

president is, can he continue to walk this line, urge Israel, while acknowledging it is the right to do things, urge it to act with a degree of restraint? And ultimately, I think it's in Israel's best interest to do so. He's essentially joining the Israeli political conversation. He's trying to be, he's not telling Israel you have to do to do things ultimately it's their sovereign decisions what he is saying though be wise make foreign policy with your head not with your heart and even though you're tempted to do certain things even though quote unquote you have the right to do certain things make sure it's smart make sure it leaves you better off the day after and so this is a very tricky thing but but I think his instincts are right here. Yeah, it is extremely tricky amid concerns of a wider war in the Middle East. The White House

is working to ease tensions with its top competitor in Asia. Senior Biden administration officials say tomorrow the president will host China's foreign minister at the White House. That's ahead of a planned trip to the U.S. by Chinese President Xi Jinping next month, where the White House is working towards securing a face to face meeting between Xi and Biden. For more on this, let's bring in NBC News foreign correspondent Janice Mackey-Frayer live from Beijing. Janice, what needs to happen for all this to go well? Well, this is a crucial set of meetings that's about to happen in the midst of two major conflicts with ramifications for the world to be reshaped. Wang Yi is the highest level Chinese official to visit Washington in years. The meetings will be spread over three days with Secretary Blinken, with Jake Sullivan,

and ultimately with President Biden. That's expected to happen on Friday. And the issues could touch on anything from human rights to fentanyl, tech wars to the South China Sea. But what the U.S. is looking to leverage with Wang Yi is China's influence with Iran to help ensure that there is some stability, the sort of stability Richard was just talking about, to ensure that there isn't a wider regional conflict. Beijing has made no secret of its efforts to try and position itself as a global player and Xi Jinping as a global statesman.

This conflict, though, is already presenting some limits for China's neutrality. China has relations with Israel, but it is traditionally backed the Palestinians. So while we're probably not going to see China take on a role like Qatar, Qatar also having influence with Hamas in particular, Wang Yi does seem to be trying to carve out some sort of role for China. He's had talks with both the Israelis and the Palestinians. He's talked with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia. He's talked with Iran. And so the U.S. is looking at this as an opening to potentially coordinate with China on the Middle East. The other important piece with these meetings, of course, is that Wang Yi is

expected to lay the groundwork for the visit, possibly next month of China's President Xi Jinping to the United States and that meeting with President Biden. They haven't spoken in nearly a year and consider the year that it's been. But there have been signs of stabilizing the relationship. There's been a whirlwind of high level visits here in recent months. The most recent, Gavin Newsom, the California governor, he's been here this week. He met yesterday with Xi Jinping. And I asked him, did he get the sense in that room with Xi Jinping that he thought the U.S.-China relationship was in a better place than it was even a few months ago?

Here's what he had to say. We can isolate. We can turn our back on one another. We can talk past each other, down to each other. I've never seen in the history of mankind progress made in that space. I think progress is only made when you set the table, work through your differences and disagreements, and you do it in a responsible and respectful way. And so that's the spirit that brings me back to China. It's the spirit I hope brings President Xi back to the United States. We'll see. So the tension between the U.S. and China is still there, but there is the sense that

maybe the tension has been capped. There is at least communication now. What's still unclear is whether a Biden-Xi summit will actually yield any sort of progress beyond communication. So things appear better on the surface, Mika, but they still seem to be simmering below it. NBC's Janice McEfrayer live in Beijing. Thank you very much for that report. And for much of Janice's report, you were nodding your head because these meetings, what are the dynamics at play here? What are the pitfalls? Why is it important these meetings happen? A couple of things. One is China is a major importer of Iranian oil. The last thing the Chinese economy right now needs

is a cutoff of oil or expensive oil. So the real question is, can we get China to maybe play a little bit of a dampening role with Iran here? Not inconceivable. Secondly, China thus far has not provided arms, as best we know, to Russia. We want to make sure that remains the case. We want to have some limits to this no-limit relationship between China and Russia as Ukraine, as that war goes into, finishes its second year, moves towards its third year. And, yeah, the question is, the president always says we need a floor in U.S.-Chinese relations. Xi Jinping is definitely now coming over to San Francisco for the so-called APEC meetings.

Can we get something of a floor? Again, we're not going to have massive cooperation with China. The real question is, can we continue to avoid something much worse? Can we keep open an economic relationship, come up with some parameters? Can we at least calm or avoid a crisis over Taiwan for the foreseeable future? So a lot going on. There's three geographies right now in American foreign policy, the Middle East, the Ukraine-Russia war, Asia with China, Taiwan. All three now are coming into focus. Really important meetings. The Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans throw them in there.

The Iranians have made a big show in the last couple of weeks of their alliance. I mean, you have Lavrov going from Beijing to Tehran and showing where he stands on both of those. What does the United States do with that sort of budding alliance of those nations? You've got that axis, if you will, and it's the anti-American axis. They're anti-democratic. They're anti-American. The good news is we've got the Europeans. We've got NATO. We've got the Japanese. Last night, you had the state dinner with the prime minister of Australia. You've got Taiwan. You've got South Korea. So what we're seeing now is the world spinning around two axes, the United States with its partners in Europe and Asia,

China, Russia, and then the middle powers, if you will, North Korea and Iran. That's the way the world's lined up. A lot of the so-called global south hedging its bets, the Indias and others essentially working with us on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and working with them on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. That's the way the world is lining up. But that's where we are. It makes it hard to manage these regional crises, very difficult to make any progress on things like climate or global issues. But this is the world now. The world has given way from an American dominated, if you will, unipolar post-Cold War moment. This is now the new world disorder. This is this world in disarray that we've been talking about here for years.

That's that's what's here. The new world disorder. President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass. Thank you. And thank you for being flexible with all the breaking news this morning. And once again, we're following that out of Lewiston, Maine, where at least 15 people are dead and up to 50 may be injured in the community. There was a gunman who opened fire in two locations, including a bowling alley where there was a youth night taking place. That bowling alley is near Bates College, by the way. Some of the victims may have been injured in stampedes as crowds were racing to escape from allegedly this man, who is still at large at this hour. Schools are closed. Hospitals are on lockdown as they try and tend to the victims

and also not have more victims. And people are being urged to shelter in place. We will have the very latest for you on this mass shooting in Maine with the gunmen heavily armed, still at large and still ahead. We'll also tell you why Donald Trump stormed out of court yesterday after facing his former fixer, Michael Cohen. MSNBC analyst Lisa Rubin was in the courtroom for it all. She joins the conversation next on Morning Job. All right, 52 past the hour. We're staying on the latest out of Maine, up to 15 people dead, 50 injured. There's going to be a news conference at 1030 this morning. This is Lewiston, Maine, a gunman still at large and heavily armed,

wreaking havoc at two locations in Lewiston near Bates College, near Portland and Freeport, major tourist destinations. But apparently this man entered a bar and a bowling alley. And there is concern that a lot of young people may be among the victims of this latest mass shooting in America. We'll have the very latest for you as it comes into us. Other big news in the morning here. Donald Trump stormed out of a New York City courtroom Wednesday after a heated day in court in which he was fined $10,000 on the spot for violating a gag order in the case. The former president, who was at his $250 million civil fraud trial to watch the final day of Michael

Cohen's testimony, was himself called to take the stand to answer about who he was referring to earlier in the day when he said this to reporters. This judge is a very partisan judge with a person who's very partisan sitting alongside him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is. You know, he didn't have to be there. Trump insisted that he was talking about Michael Cohen, but the judge did not believe him. In previous posts and comments, Trump and his team have repeatedly targeted the judge's law clerk who sits beside him during the trial. The judge immediately ordered the fine on the spot. Trump stormed out of the courtroom less than an hour later. NBC News reporters at the trial say Trump's departure was so abrupt, it appeared to surprise

even his own lawyers and had his Secret Service detail running after him. Joining us now, former litigator and MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin, we usually have you standing outside the courthouse. What in the world? I mean, how how self this is just he does this to himself. Yeah. And he he knew what he was supposed to say and not supposed to say. He goes close to the line. The judge slaps a fine. He's humiliated in court and he storms out like a baby, stormed out like a baby. And yesterday, Mika, we should have been talking about Michael Cohen's credibility, right? Yesterday was Trump's lawyer's opportunity. And you say she did a pretty good job at working on that part of the story, right? I think the first day she had a great day.

The second day was a lot tougher for her. Alina Haba. Haba. Yes. The second day was a lot tougher for her. And we should have been talking about Michael Cohen. But instead, the person whose credibility was on the line by the end of second day was a lot tougher for her. And we should have been talking about Michael Cohen. But instead, the person whose credibility was on the line by the end of the day was Donald Trump himself. He didn't have to show up. He didn't have to flout the order. And nonetheless, he did both.

So, Lisa, beyond the gag order, which is a fascinating part of the story, for sure. But like what actually happened in the courtroom? How significant was Michael Cohen's testimony? You know, Michael Cohen's testimony is really needed by the attorney general on one issue, Willie, which is Trump's intent and his direct participation. Because, as you know, Trump limited his communications with people. He didn't text. He didn't email. He really didn't even use the phone. And the small circle of people that he talked to about his statements of financial condition was a group that included Allen Weisselberg and, according to Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen himself. When Michael Cohen was directly on the stand, he essentially testified that over a course of years, Trump asked him and Weisselberg to reverse engineer his net worth. He would invent a number out of whole cloth, say, this is what I think I'm worth, and expect them to go back and make that happen.

The cross-examination was primarily just about calling Michael Cohen a liar and showing eight ways from Sunday how Michael Cohen has no credibility. It wasn't surprising to anybody who's followed Trump or has followed Michael Cohen. The question is, is Michael Cohen believable on this issue? And I would submit to you, yes. And that's less because of Michael Cohen and more because of what we already know about Donald Trump. So Cohen came outside the courtroom yesterday after court and explained why he lied during his 2018 plea hearing. Here's what he said. When I lied to Judge Pauly, something that defense counsel thought was going to be the gotcha moment. I did it because you may recall I was given three days. In fact, it was actually two. It was 48 hours from a Friday evening at 530 to a Monday morning in order to plead guilty or face an 80 page indictment that would include my

wife. So, Lisa, let's go back in time five years ago. Remind our viewers that moment in 2018, what he's talking about, what he lied about. When Michael Cohen pled guilty in 2018 to a variety of crimes, some of them didn't even include things he had done for Donald Trump. And several of the counts to which he pled guilty had to do with tax evasion. Michael Cohen at the time was concerned that if he did not plead, prosecutors would charge his wife, who co-signed his tax returns and potentially could have charged his father-in-law in connection with his taxi medallion business. Michael Cohen says he did it all for his family. I want to be clear. Michael Cohen's lie is a serious one.

To lie under oath to a federal judge during a plea hearing is not inconsequential. On the other hand, to get up in front of a court now and admit that, you don't do that unless you are really serious about what you're about to say as well. It took a lot of bravery, particularly in this political environment, as Donald Trump is making his enemies list, as his campaign continues to come into open court and admit to having perjured yourself in federal court. All right. Former litigator and MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin. Thank you. Keep us posted. I'm just looking at the Web site of Bates College.

They're on active high alert. Everyone's being urged to shelter in place. Also, Bowdoin College is 20 minutes away and we're getting a sense of what's going on. We're following the latest out of Lewiston, Maine, where at least 15 people are dead at this hour. A manhunt is underway for a person of interest still at large and considered armed and dangerous.