Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/5/23

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

'The Donald Trump show is over': Letitia James 'will not be bullied'

What's your advice to the next House Speaker? That's above my pay grade. Thank you, sir. Okay, so there you go. You know, sometimes less is more. We definitely got a lot of less. I thought he would have gone to the side of the cross. I kind of thought that.

I don't want to thought that. You know, so we're all looking at what's happening in Washington. But I've got to say, for those of us who have known Donald Trump for a long time and following Donald Trump for a long time. To borrow from Star Wars lexicon, there's a disturbance in the force there. Like he's he is shaken. I mean, here's here's the front page of The Daily News talking about poor Donald. And of course, they're talking about him coming off the Forbes list. But we've always said, if you want to understand Donald Trump and said this from the very beginning, just

understand the money, the money. I still think a lot of these criminal investigations and the possibility of going to jail too abstract for him. But him sitting there and possibility of losing his businesses, losing Trump Tower, having to pay 250 billion million dollars that he doesn't have. I think that's getting to him. Look at look at the clip of an attorney general in New York state that I think has just kind of had enough. This case was brought simply because it was a case where individuals have engaged in a pattern and practice of fraud. And I will not sit idly by and allow anyone to subvert the law. And lastly, I will not be bullied.

And so Mr. Trump is no longer here. The Donald Trump show is over. I will not be bullied, Katty Kay. The Donald Trump show is over. Well, let's see if the show is over. I have a feeling we've got another year and a half of this show to run. So we're only in kind of the intermission, perhaps. But so far, the first half of the show hasn't been looking that great for him up there in the New York courtroom. He does, you know, he has that demeanor of somebody who keeps saying he doesn't want to be there, but clearly can't stay away. And that's what's weird is he's volunteering to be there, right? He doesn't have to be there in the courtroom every day. And yet he then complains that he'd much rather be out on the campaign trail. Not that he's done a ton of being out on the campaign trail, but he says, at the moment, I'd much rather

be out on the campaign trail and be sitting here in this courtroom. He's made the courtroom part of the campaign. His campaign manager is sitting right behind him in the courtroom. So he feels that this is a chance for him to appeal to his voters, as all of the others have been. Maybe this trial will be different, Joe. Maybe you're right. Maybe it is all about the money and being thrown off the Forbes 400 list will matter to some of Trump's supporters. But so far, every time he's had a legal process like this, the reaction from Trump's base and from some in the middle has been, look, the state is overreaching. And, you know, Mar-a-Lago must be worth more than 18 million. It's always been smoke and mirrors. I mean, his money has always been smoke and mirrors, moving things around. That's why It's always been smoke and mirrors. I mean, his money has always been smoke and mirrors,

moving things around. That's why he's always lied. It's why he's always exaggerated. Every banker in New York City knows that he's lies and exaggerates. Every person he's gone into business with for the past 30, 40 years say, you know, they regret going into business with him because he immediately starts lying. He doesn't pay his bills because he doesn't have the money to pay his bills. And he's facing the possibility of his business being shut down and his his tower being taken away. And the possibility, most frighteningly for him, that he's going to have to pay two hundred and fifty million dollars. Does anybody here think that Donald Trump has two hundred and fifty million million of liquid assets to pay the court for a fine? Because if you do, I need to sit down. I need to. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like your point, I think, is Katia's,

I think, right, that the political impact of this is likely to be almost nothing. And the psychic impact is huge. I think that's your point is really that if you're a student of Trump as the man, you know, the characterological assessment in New York means everything to him. He didn't want to come. Washington was never his aspiration. His aspiration was always to be all of his building, big buildings in Manhattan, showing people like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein and all of the masters of New York finance world who the real boss was. And it's falling down in front of his eyes. Or at least that he belonged with them.

That grasping thing. I want to be in the club. I want to be in the establishment. I want to be the king of New York. Whether I build these buildings or just slap my name on them, the New York is central to the psyche. And I think what Tish James said is right. The Trump show is over in New York. I mean, this is this is a New York specific case, right, where he's losing whether it's money, the visibility of the branding, all that stuff is in the hub is in Manhattan. Right. And that's been, you know, the kind of fix since he was really

young is how to be the king of Manhattan. He's no longer welcome. Really? He's an outer boroughs guy who, Willie, you know, wanted to be the king of Manhattan. He had his name on buildings all over Manhattan. As I said, every time I would drive out the Upper West Side, heading up to my home in Connecticut, I would see seven buildings a row on the Upper West Side. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump every day. Second, he got elected president and he started offending 60 percent of Americans. One by one,

his name started coming down off of those buildings. It started the decline as soon as he became president of the United States. You saw golf opens saying they weren't going to be going to his courses. Again, all the things that he valued. And now the possibility of losing his business in New York State, a possibility of Trump Towers being yanked from him, his Wall Street property being yanked from him. And again, very likely that he's going to have to pay $250 million that nobody that I know that knows him thinks he has. Yeah, I mean, they physically a few years ago pried his name off of all of those buildings going up on the Upper West Side, Lincoln Square over there. And now, though, this is something else,

because Trump Tower is the monument in his eyes to his success, that he made it in Manhattan, that he did. He came from an outer borough and made it in Manhattan. He's got the building with a name on it. It's on Fifth Avenue, has a view of Central Park. And you could see yesterday and you've seen all this week, John, the fury. Some of it, of course, is performative. He's intimidating witnesses and the judge and the clerk and all that. But he's really mad when he comes out in those in those moments after when they get a break in the courtroom. And he did it yesterday. We'll play it in a second. He's raged. He was even asked about the Kevin McCarthy situation. Did you engineer this? No, I didn't.

Now, this trial is a sham. It's a witch hunt on and on and on. He knows he feels something very important to him, central to who he is slipping away in that courtroom. Yeah, this one case is not political, but it's very personal. Yeah, it's very clear. He's very angry the way with a little bit of images we've seen inside the courtroom. He's glowering. And then he comes out every chance he can and yells at the reporters who are gathered out there. Now, he did leave. He won't be. He's back in Florida. He won't be there today. But it goes to show how much this is central to his identity, that his long before he entered politics, he was about becoming this would be master of the universe in New York City. And he never quite achieved that. He was never really

accepted by the elite in Manhattan. He was always looked down upon as the out of borough kid. And that fed an insecurity that, well, led to of the, his career choices and the entrance into politics later on. But this is something that also imperils his fortune. And yes, he's not worth what he says. He probably doesn't have that money, but he's still obviously a rich man. And now he's, that's going to change in some ways and that he's not going to be able to have what he associates as success, which is which is money and the fame that comes along with it. And I think we are seeing here, at least for now, the attorney general standing up to him. And this is a case that's going to drag on for months. But it's a problem. It's a problem. He's not going to be there today. We'll play more of what he said yesterday and get into where it's going from

here. But we want to go to Washington first and the race to become the next speaker of the House. Two Republicans now have announced they are running to replace Kevin McCarthy. They are, as expected, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Lawmakers say Scalise has been making calls to shore up support and has met with the Texas Republican delegation, the largest in the party. He's been the number two Republican leader under McCarthy since 2019. Jim Jordan was the first to announce his bid for speaker. The founding chair of the House Freedom Caucus is now serving as one of the party's leaders in the impeachment inquiry into President Biden and also a close ally of former Speaker McCarthy.

In their letters to lawmakers pitching their candidacies, both Jordan and Scalise pledged to unite the Republican conference. Meanwhile, Congressman Kevin Hearn of Oklahoma also reportedly intends to run for speaker. Hearn is the chair of the Republican Study Committee and also has met with the Texas delegation, Joe. So two names at the top that were odds on favorites. We all expected Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise, allies of Kevin McCarthy. But obviously also people if Democrats thought, OK, something better is coming behind these. In fact, in the case of Jordan anywhere, the very people who are leading the impeachment inquiry and have been the defenders of Donald

Trump, some of the things that Democrats say they objected to in Kevin McCarthy and why they didn't vote to keep him in office. Yeah, the people that are leading a lot of these conspiracy theories and Jackie. I mean, I Democrats, if Democrats wake up to a Jim Jordan speakership, I mean, who knows? They may be asking questions like why didn't a few more of us vote present? But but right now it remains it remains a conference that's in deep disarray and a conference that's trying to figure out its way forward. And I've got to say, if they've got any brains in there and I don't know if they do, but they got to worry about people like Mike Lawler. Is a Jim Jordan speakership going to help or hurt Mike Lawler and other people in swing districts get reelected so they can stay in the majority next time? Yeah, it was a really interesting day on the Hill yesterday. It was pretty quiet.

I think everyone is sort of recalibrating and taking stock of the situation they're in. We barely heard anything from Democrats, most of whom are headed up to California for Dianne Feinstein's funeral. But even on the Republican side, a lot of closed door meetings, hearing these initial pitches from Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, Kevin Hearn, and people starting to make heard what exactly they want to hear from the speaker. Steve Scalise more focused on unifying an extremely fractured House GOP conference. And Jim Jordan a little bit more focused on the details, saying, you know, talking about his plans for what happens in 40 days when the continuing resolution expires, what he will and won't fund, including he does not want to re-up funding for Ukraine, which was a big point of contention amongst the GOP House conference. And then a lot of venting, I think. How much of the House conference, because you have people like Mike McCaul and it seems a majority of the House conference who

want to fund Ukraine. Well, based on that initial vote that we already had, there is a growing pool of people who who are against it. And that actually could potentially tip the scales here. Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not Democrats get involved here down the line and are sort of interested in some sort of coalition government. I mean, right now that has been ruled out by several people that I that I spoke to, you know, in a background capacity yesterday, that it's that that conversation is not even on the table on the Republican side and Democratic side. Exactly. That they're, you know, Republicans are still furious at Democrats, especially in the bipartisan

problem solvers caucus for what they claim is. Help me here. Help me here. I know. Help me here. I don't get it. OK, so if you were in and I know I probably upset some progressives yesterday by saying, you know, maybe you think about protecting the institution and you keep the guy who's

not going to deep six Ukraine funding and don't replace him with Jim Jordan. But, you know, we can't expect Hakeem Jeffries to come out and say, please vote for Kevin McCarthy. But if you are in the problem solvers caucus, a caucus that is meant to protect the institution of the United States Congress, do you not as a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, go, hey, guys, why don't we all just vote present on the Democratic side? We'll keep McCarthy in there. We'll keep him on a short leash. We'll let him know that if, you know, and then suddenly

you have a small group of people that have power. I will say there were about 12. You remember when I was there, we had 12, 13, 14 people. Yeah. And we had a disproportionate amount of power, but we used it wisely. They say, no, that doesn't work. This works. Let's figure out how to compromise.

So the problem solvers were actually in a position where they could have saved McCarthy, gone to him and kept him on his shortly. And they could say, you didn't ask us to do this. We're not going to do it again if you keep moving forward in a way that's destructive to the institution. But they didn't do it. So why is there a problem solvers caucus? They didn't solve the problem. If they just went, whoop, and let one of the worst crises in recent House history go by them.

Well, it goes to show just how deep the rancor and distrust is for McCarthy. Essentially, there was Democrats said to Brian Fitzpatrick and some of the other leaders of the caucus, we will help you if you make some changes to the rules package, basically getting rid of the motion to vacate, which is what has allowed Matt Gaetz and these far right insurgents really take the GOP conference hostage. And, you know, even outside of Congress, democracy scholars, a lot of people have agreed that the rules package as is, you know, is really corrosive to the system and penalizes people for working across the aisle and doing anything on a bipartisan basis. Essentially, what they were told in return is we don't have time to do this. The vote to vacate McCarthy is happening today. We can't get a new rules package done. It's just not realistic. And Democrats threw their hands up and said, well, you know, this problem is much bigger than today.

And the rules package, there are a number of things McCarthy has done down the line to betray us. We can't we can trust you guys. McCarthy can't be trusted. We're not going to bail him out. But you're you make a really valid point. I mean, Dan Lipinski, former congressman from Illinois, said yesterday that in 2015, he was in then Speaker Boehner's office. And Boehner suggested to him that when Mark Meadows was trying to overthrow the government and to take to overthrow Speaker Boehner's perch and see the speaker that Pelosi suggested to him, we got your back. If there is a motion to vacate you, we will vote affirmatively against it. And and she was an institutionalist. And that that is not what we saw this time.

Now, when we come back, we'll be back in 60 seconds. When we come back in 60 seconds, Willie Geist is going to ask Michael Steele the two most important questions in Washington, D.C. Number one, how do the Republicans get out of this mess? And number two, is the NFL showing too much Taylor Swift at Kansas City Chiefs games? We'll be right back. The Republican Party today just can't govern. Nancy Pelosi with a five vote majority. She was able to govern. The Democrats have become the party of discipline and the Republicans have become the party that lacks discipline.

We're going to get that Taylor Swift question answered very soon. Michael Still. Yes. I've said this from the very beginning. This is what Ari Fleischer said, which is everybody's like, oh, he only has a five vote majority. How in the world? He can't even make scrambled eggs and toast with a five vote majority. He can't even walk his dog. He can't take basic breath. He can't like all these things he can't do because he's got a five vote majority. Nancy Pelosi won seven NBA championships. She scaled, she scaled Everest.

She, she threw out the first pitch of the 2022 World Series, and it was so good they then had her pitch the entire complete game. Game seven. We have a five-vote majority. And by the way, you know how you knew something was going to pass? When Nancy put it on the floor. If Nancy put it on the floor. And that's what I said yesterday. I'm going to make this harder

than it is. Politics comes down, down to people and it comes down, it comes down to, to, to personalities and building relationships. And it comes down to planning. Yeah. Like, I'm sorry. Like what idiot would ever put a vote on the floor that they knew they were going to lose? Kevin McCarthy. Well, unless they really wanted to make a stupid point. And that's when you would do something like that. This is right in that in order to govern, you've got to have a governing philosophy. You've got to have a purpose, a reason to move the country from where it is to someplace you think is better. And you have to be able to express that openly and honestly with voters and be able to do the politics, which is what you're talking about, which is what Nancy did. Nancy knew where her votes were. She knew where they weren't.

And she knew how much of what she didn't have she needed to get. And by the way, it wasn't always easy with her. No, it wasn't easy. When the squad came on and they were saying, we're the real progressives. Exactly. You're not the progressives. But the thing, but she shut it down. She controlled it.

She did. Remember when they were saying green, you know, are you going to support the green, whatever it was, the Green New Deal? She goes, what's a Green New Deal? She didn't allow herself to be pushed in the corner. She also didn't say bad things about members of her caucus. They worked it out behind closed doors. And she delivered on what she promised. That was the other thing.

The time and again you hear of Kevin McCarthy. Why did Nancy Mace, who is not in that group of eight. I still am trying to figure that out. What's that all about? It seems to be entirely personal. Is that trusting? I can tell you what it's about. I can tell you while all that's happening. You say it's an identity crisis.

Who is Nancy Mace? One day she's truth teller. The next day she's like mrs gates i don't know i the profile i've been working on her has been languishing because figuring that out but again it's just part of it isn't about these personal relationships you're talking about a lot of these some of these people who voted against mccarthy it's like he just he treated them badly they felt as hard done by as Democrats. But I come back to it with Pelosi. The thing that this whole conversation goes back to,

which is something we talked about yesterday on the air. One word strength. You can't lead a fractious caucus if you seem weak, if you give if you project that you can be pushed around and you can be had. McCarthy started his tenure by saying, basically, Matt Gaetz is going to put my balls in his pocket for the rest of the hour. I'm a speaker. Nancy Pelosi never projected anything other than strength with anybody who was fractious in her causes. The moderates were about to stray. She would lean on them.

If they went to a squad, what stride to stray, she leaned on them. And yes, she also was, she worked personal relationships behind the scenes, but out in front, she was like, I will not be pushed around by anybody in my caucus. You can't lead that kind of caucus. If you look like you're a sitting duck. And Michael, Michael, that's the thing you, first of all, you lead with strength publicly and you say, I can't do that. And then you go to him and you say, I mean, this is not hard, kids. If you want to get into politics, easiest job I've ever had. You go to him and go, listen, I can't do that. All right. I know you need it.

I can't do that. But tell me what else I can do for you. And it may be two or three or four things. Or maybe I'm just I'm beholden to you for the rest of this session. And I'm going to be working for you around the clock. But I can't do what you're asking me to do. It breaks up the conference. It doesn't work. And we got to get this bill on the floor. You give me this vote and I know it doesn't feel great. I'll go to your district. Right. If you need me to explain it to you. I'll give you two or three more things. We'll announce an unveiling in your district of something I can get the conference to do. And that's how we can work it. That's how the pros do it.

They don't just tell a member, you know, I have your whatever in my pocket or that you don't insult me. It's it's a you're constantly working them. And that's what I don't understand about Kevin McCarthy. You knew this train was coming for months and he just sat there like he was in an Austin Powers movie. You know, I think part of it was he thought that he could avoid some of it. I think he thought that there were probably be more members in the caucus who would have his back. And to John's point, because he failed on those other fronts in terms of building those relationships and creating. But you have whip counts. He knew they weren't going to be on

his side. You have the whip counts. But again, it's all about how you come into the game. He came in the game wrong. He came into the room the wrong way. He left. He gave all the power to one or two individuals. So what do you do? So what do you do then? You start working not to make it sound too easy, but what you do if you know you're starting with a disadvantage, you work it to an advantage and you're working 24 hours a day going, OK, what do I do? I know these three people are going to go after me any chance I can get. I need to talk to Hakeem. I need to get three or four Democrats to vote president on anything.

I'll do a quiet deal with him that my conference will never know about. And then I'm going to work everybody else around those people and turn my adversaries into allies or at least make them neutral. I mean, that's the sort of stuff he could have done. That's what Nancy would have done. That's what Tip O'Neill would have done. Yeah, you build yourself a ring of defense by figuring out what can I give them that they need. And you do it right from the beginning and see if there's a way that you can find some kind of majority

that's going to support you when you know that that motion to vacate is going to come, because it is going to come, because Matt Gaetz had made it clear right from the beginning it was going to come. I mean, I guess the difference between the squad and this gang of eight is that the majority of that gang of eight are nihilists when it comes to government. They have no interest in making it work, whereas that's not true of the squad. I mean, they came from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but they didn't want to blow up the institution of government.

They were not interested in government failing because they want to prove to their voters that government doesn't work and shouldn't be funded. Yeah. And that's the difference. The difference for me is that Kevin McCarthy, they had nothing to give Kevin McCarthy because there was nothing that was of value to the system, to the structure. To your point, they wanted to blow the whole thing up the squad was about a policy green new deal we want this on the environment we want this we want that these guys didn't want that so what what does kevin bargain have you ever had a bargain with the devil well how does that deal work yes actually i have i'll leave him out of there right now and he was on the hill as well and and what what you do is when you get to the point where you have nothing but attention what do you is when you get to the point where you have nihilists

who want nothing but attention, what do you give them? You give them attention. And you say, listen, I have a task force. This is going to be a big task force. There's going to be a lot of work. It's going to be a border task force

on building the new wall. You're going to be in charge of it and you're going to be chairman. They smell that from a mile away. How many times have they been told that? That's what I'm saying. You name that something.

I think I disagree with this one point. I think the original sin was he gave Matt Gates and that caucus the ability once he caved on the rule change it was done. Well, then you have to, there's got to be a line that you draw. You can't give away everything to get the job. And again, Well, then you have to, there's got to be a line that you draw. Then you have to say it's a job worth it.

You can't give away everything to get the job. But here's the deal, though. That means you're going to lose the job. And again, when you find yourself in a position like this, hey, by the way, this is Joe Leadership 101, by the way. If you want to sign up for the online course, you can go to. If you find yourself in a disadvantage like that, if you put yourself behind the eight ball like that, right,

you're at this disadvantage. Your job at that point is to immediately begin mitigating damages. And you're working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to mitigate the damages. You're going into it, Jonathan O'Meara, and you know you're in a really difficult position, but you did what you had to do to become speaker. And then it's time to mitigate damages. Now your people go, oh, you can't reason with anybody. Oh, you can't buy off anybody. Oh, you can't just stop right there. You can buy off anybody with, with, with a committee assignments, with, with tasks, task forces, with fundraisers, with, hey, would you like to meet my friend Johnny Smith? He owns the largest iron ore, whatever, whatever, whatever these people want. There's always a way to mitigate damages. And Kevin just sat there like with his feet in cement for like a year.

Yeah. And part of the problem would undermine McCarthy and certainly Gates and his crew are particularly tricky group to deal with, is that he lost everyone's trust. That's what we kept hearing from Republicans and Democrats alike, that McCarthy would say something in the moment to them to win their support, but never follow through with his half of the bargain. That simply he broke a lot of promises. He told a lot of lies. But on this theme of Republican chaos, there's no sense this is going to end anytime soon. Republicans I spoke to yesterday, they point to the schedule of electing the new speaker, a candidate for him on Tuesday, maybe the vote on Wednesday. No one thinks that's going to hold. They don't think anyone has the ability to get the number of votes needed to become speaker, the 217, because there

are a couple of vacancies right now. Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News was with me on way too early an hour ago. He actually thinks that neither Jim Jordan nor Steve Scalise, the two favorites right now, the two frontrunners, he doesn't think either of them will eventually be speaker. He doesn't think they can. He does not believe they can be get enough votes because they can't win over those handful of Biden district Republicans who would look at Jordan and Scalise and believe they will put them in uncomfortable positions, make them take votes that will doom their seats. So he believes the next speaker is someone we're not even talking about just yet. But we could rule out one person. There are some Republicans who are floated the idea of Donald Trump because you

don't have to be a member of the House to be speaker. Trump, up early this morning, is posting saying he wants to help out in the short term with the Speaker's race, but then help elect a new Speaker. So he is itself that he will not side Willie. He will not become the next Speaker of the House. He's focusing on becoming President. Bowing out of that race as well. So Jackie Alamany, by the way, Karl Rove has an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this morning. Let's just say not a fan of Matt Gaetz, Karl Rove. It's pretty specific in its takedown and the implications for the Republican Party as well. So let's talk about what really happens from here.

A lot of people said the number, by the way, is 217 because there are two vacancies. There are 433 members right now. So you have to get 217 votes to become the next speaker of the House. Who is the most likely candidate to get to 217? Who are some of the names that are rising to the top of the list here? Yeah, Willie. So right now it's Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, Kevin Hearn. And then there are a few other people who are sort of lurking around in the background

waiting to see if there might be an opportunity for them to shoot the gap and take advantage of what's likely going to happen, which is that Scalise and Jordan are going to split the vote. Neither of them are going to be able to get to that 217. There are lots of rumors and lots of speculation going on right now. One of the ideas being that actually Patrick McHenry, who is right now the pro tem speaker, could benefit from some of the fractiousness that we've seen. And basically, if Republicans tire of the situation and of trying to hash this out behind closed doors, Patrick McHenry is relatively well liked by some Democrats, although his move to oust McCarthy and Hoyer from their hideaways in the House chamber did not sit very well, that maybe he could be the one who would emerge as a voice of reason and patch together some sort of bipartisan coalition.

But there are a lot of moving pieces here. And but at the end of the day, there is not the same sort of hostility towards some of these people as there was for McCarthy, you know, Matt Gates, uh, Bob good, a bunch of these guys hated McCarthy and did not want him to be speaker no matter what. And why are they hating? That's a really good question, actually. And I think that there's more of a story there that we don't quite know what we saw some of it actually, um, from Cassidy Hutchinson in her book.

Did it have something to do with the, I heard Gingrich had said on, told Halperin that it had to do with Gates has two very serious ethics charges and McCarthy wouldn't get rid of them? That is some of the speculation. We don't actually know the status of the ethics investigation that's going on in the House right now. It would be in the Ethics Committee and then sent to the House Ethics Committee once that report is done. And then members would have to decide what they're ultimately going to do with that. And the House had essentially picked up that investigation once the Department of Justice decided that they weren't going to. They declined to prosecute Gates for sex trafficking charges. But yeah,

Gates doesn't have a good reputation here amongst even his own peers. I mean, we had a piece on Tuesday that was essentially, you know, why does everybody hate Matt Gates? He has not won a lot of friends for his tactics and for some of his behavior. I mean, remember in 2021, there were reports that we reported as well of him showing pictures, inappropriate pictures and making crude comments on the House floor. Well, that came out yesterday on CNN. A member said that he was back at the time. But on CNN, I don't know if it sounded more recent, but he was saying that he was showing images of him doing things with women on the House floor. What kinds of things, Joe? Crushing up certain pills and sniffing it and on the House floor. And members just, again.

Don't like that. They don't like that. Yeah. Consider it inappropriate by almost every across all across ideology. I think that's got to unites the parties. There was just there's just a personal animosity there that I don't think exists with some of these other contenders. Willie. Yeah.

And Willie, I thank you for looking past whatever Jonathan O'Meara does on the set at 30 Rock. You keep working with him regardless. All kinds of stuff. Just coffee. Oh, just coffee. Yeah, that was a very colorful story told by one of Matt Gaetz's Republican colleagues on the Hill. It's all coming out now. You can see the frustration that clearly has been pent up for a long time. The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. Thank you, as always, for your excellent reporting. We'll talk to you again soon. Coming up here, did Donald Trump admit to the fraud that a judge

has found him liable for in New York? We'll play for you again soon. Coming up here, did Donald Trump admit to the fraud that a judge has found him liable for in New York? We'll play for you what the former president said outside the courthouse yesterday that caught the attention of many legal experts. We're back in a moment. I'm stuck here because I have a corrupt attorney general that communicates with the DOJ in Washington to keep me nice and busy. They made up a fake case. They're fraudulent people. And the judge already knows what he's going to do. He's a Democrat judge. In all fairness to him, he has no choice. He has no choice. He's run by the Democrats. The financial documents that I gave to the bank are much less than my actual network. So therefore, I gave them to the bank.

They can't be a fraud because I gave them lower numbers. Come on. He's lost it. It can't be a fraud because I gave the numbers lower. He knows also that all of that means absolutely nothing. He's already lost inside the courthouse, Scotty. He can talk to the press all he wants, but he knows he's lost. I mean, this is all just preparation, prepping people when he's found guilty of fraud.

Yeah. And it's a direct play to his base, right? It's that all he's doing there is talking to his supporters and hoping that he can talk to some people in the middle of the political spectrum who haven't made their mind up about him. And the message time and again with Donald Trump is I'm the victim of the system. I'm the victim of the state. They've overreached. They hate me so much that this is yet another incidence where they have indicted me,

where they're prosecuting me and that they have overreached. And there are plenty of Donald Trump supporters who believe it. There are plenty of people actually who are in the kind of who haven't made up their minds yet, who have some sympathy with that argument. And he just uses these appearances in court. That's the way he's there. He uses it to campaign. I could change that $250 million you're going to have to pay, though. You know, the data is the data is the data.

The fraud is on the documents. And lots of luck with that. Let's bring in right now MSNBC Justice and Legal Affairs analyst Anthony Coley, who was most recently the top spokesman of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland. Well, there's another attorney general up in New York State who's saying the Trump show is over. You believe her? I do.

And she is really making a name for herself. coming out of this trial this week is not just what Tish James said to the country, but what this judge ruled from the bench in terms of this limited gag order. What he really said, he really drew the line, right? There are certain there's a certain level of criticism that any public official will take. But when you talk about people's staff with lies and innuendo, that's where he drew the line and he should have, he should have drawn. I like it. I like there was a very limited gag order specifically to people that work for him. If for some reason it has to be expanded out a little bit later on, it has to be expanded out later on. But again, for the fools, uh, and I've heard quite a few of them running around saying that this is,

you know, this is somehow, you know, the deep state going after Donald Trump. You know, this is horrible. You know, another network, it seemed their constant refrain was, well, if they do this to Donald Trump, they can do this to you. Well, yes, they can do this to you if you defraud your state like a quarter of a billion dollars. And again, it's on paper. Right. This is this is not like trying to draw lines about conspiracy. It's on paper. He overestimates his net worth. He lies about it. He submits that to tax tax authorities.

He submits it to banks. He's been busted. That's right. Every legal challenge that Donald Trump is facing right now, he brought on his own. He's not some victim of a woke prosecutor or a biased judge, which is what he wants all of us to believe. I do want to pick up on one thing that Katie said earlier. I do think that because there are so many cases happening right now, these things are beginning to meld together for the public. And people are not paying attention to the particular facts in any of these cases because the facts are so clear and so overwhelming against Donald Trump. Right. But they're looking at one big hodgepodge of of a picture in their mind of a Donald Trump who is under relentless attack from. Right. That's what that's why I really hope we can find some way, certainly in these federal trials for cameras to be in these

courtrooms. I know you support that. It's so important. Because there is so much misinformation and disinformation. And the way to convince the public that he is being treated fairly is to keep the facts from the citizen. Just let them see it like they saw OJ, like they saw Amber Heard and that other guy who was on Pirates of the Caribbean. Johnny Depp. Counselor, I have a question for you. Yes, sir.

You are famously just a simple country lawyer, I have a question for you. You are famously just a simple country lawyer. But I do want to ask the question about the gag orders. This judge has issued this limited gag order. This is going to be an issue in every case that Trump has going forward. At least one of those cases we think might actually happen during the campaign.

You know Trump. He's not likely to be restrained. he's going to be on the campaign trail attacking right judges prosecutors jury members everybody he's going to be out running for president he's going to do it every day right and there's going to be limited gag rules people are going to try to get what can is there a does the rubber not at some point meet the road where someone's going to have to be if trump just flouts these gag orders on the campaign trail and says hey i have a first amendment right i'm running running for office. I can say whatever I want.

Is there not going to come a moment where you're going to have to be like, start slapping him with contempt citations, put it, threatening him with jail? Like, how does that play out as a practical matter in the context of something we've never seen before? A presidential nominee of one party in a courtroom. I mean, I mean, the first, the first thing that every, every one of these judges is going to remember is the first thing that they were taught about the First Amendment and free speech when they were in their constitutional law class. I mean, political speech is the most protected speech. Man, you have a remarkably tough burden to overcome if you are going to stop, squelch, limit political speech. So you better believe that every one of those orders that are drawn up,

every gag order is going to be tight. Right. And it's going to be limited. And a violation is going to be so obvious on its face and so egregious as to shock the consciousness of most Americans that they can say to Donald Trump, do it again. I'm going to bring you into court. I'm going to talk to you. And if you can't get it right, I'm going to send you to jail and let you think about it.

So how does that look like, right? Let's take this federal case, for example. October 16th, Judge Tanya Chuckin has this hearing in federal court. How does she thread that needle? On the one hand, she can thread it by saying, you know what? Yes, we're going to enter this limited gag order. Donald Trump, you are allowed to say that these are political prosecutions, right? OK, you can do that. It's not ideal, but whatever.

You're running for president. But what she will not allow, what she must not allow, is continued intimidation of witnesses in these trials, right? What we just saw last week, this attack on General George, on General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he is a witness in this federal case. You cannot and should not be allowed to intimidate him or anybody else. That's how she is going to have to thread the needle. But if he carries on doing that, what's the retribution? At what point is the retribution? So what's the remedy? So here's what I think will happen. I think he will ultimately try to appeal this and it's going to go to the Supreme Court. And I was listening intently to Neil Katyal, our friend who was the acting solicitor general who was did an interview with Alex Wagner last night.

And he appropriately noted that this is a court who believes very strongly put aside what their views are on abortion. But they believe very strongly in the decorum of the court and the legitimacy of court. He makes the argument, and I tend to agree, that this court is going to stand up and going to protect these types of... I agree. As long as they're tightly drawn to protecting witnesses, to protecting judicial staff, to protecting prosecutors, to protecting lawyers involved in the case, if there's a tight nexus there, then the Roberts court will uphold whatever limitations that they put there. That can be drawn. That can be drawn as tight as you want. The reality of it is, is as we've already seen just yesterday, Donald Trump basically says to his followers, you do it. You do it. do it yeah right and there is no i mean at the end of the day i don't

think this system is prepared to deal with this oh yeah it is i think no they're not there's a remedy there's going to be a judge that's going to say well where's that judge the judges is going to say when this comes you can say you need to come into the courtroom we put a gag order on you you violated the gag order you're going to need to go to jail for two days. You want to appeal it to the Supreme Court. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to let you walk around. I'm not going to send you straight to jail.

You appeal it to the United States Supreme Court. We'll see what they have to say. And when it comes to that, you've already shaded it. This is my point. But even I've already shaded it. You say, well, I'm not going to put you in jail. I'm going to let you walk around. No, no, no.

You and I go to jail. That's the point. You give Donald Trump every benefit of the doubt. He's gotten every benefit of the doubt. That's the problem. Michael, if the judge rules that he's in contempt of court and needs to spend time in a federal penitentiary, it's OK to say you're going to spend a week in a federal penitentiary pending the appeal. I got that. I totally know. Joe, I'm not. And then I agree with you. If it goes up to the Supreme Court and the Roberts Supreme Court is not going to allow any defendant,

any defendant to run over a judge or threaten a judge, they're going to uphold it. And he's going to be going to jail with the full weight of the United States Supreme Court, the conservative United States Supreme Court, saying he belongs in jail for a week. I'm not arguing with any of that. I'm just saying the process is not prepared to deal with the outcome from that. Well, that's actually sending him to jail. And that's the hesitation in this system right now. It is not prepared to pull the trigger you just described.

And I don't care what judge is sitting behind what bench. They're going to sit there and think long and hard about what you just described happening or doing. And that's the problem. And we just gave them a pathway katie i had a conversation yesterday somebody from the trump campaign close to the campaign who's saying look they won't stop us talking because all of our supporters are going to carry on talking and you know what we'll do we'll just set up a non-profit we'll have a non-profit do it that

a non-profit who is not actually donald trump will tweet out the kinds of things that we want to get out anyway and we'll get around it that way. That's fine. That's not Donald Trump doing it. In the end, the question is just whether you have the system. A given judge, when the rubber meets the road, will they actually send him to jail? And that is the question. That's the final question. If he repeatedly flouts gag orders. Pretty simple.

You know, I think the Supreme Court will be behind it. I think all that will happen. But will a judge say, I'm going to put that man behind bars in the middle of the campaign? We hear your question. We got to go to break. No man is above the law. MSNBC justice and legal analyst, affairs analyst Anthony Coley. Thank you so much.

It's always great having you here. All right. And coming up, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is going to be our guest. We're going to ask him what he makes of the Republican chaos in the house and ask him if he's going to be running for president. Plus, Rudy Giuliani is quickly losing members of his legal team while they keep jumping ship. And what we're now learning about federal prosecutors digging into his reported drinking problem, something that even the Trump campaign was talking about in 2016. But it's mainly been whispered. It's on the front pages of The New York Times today because, well, there's some legal dimensions to it.

Morning Joe will be right back. Ask you about some news headlines and see where your take is on everything. Nothing too crazy, but how about what everyone's talking about? Travis and Tay-Tay. You joke, but it is what everyone's talking about. I cover the news every day and what's going on with Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy and Congress and all that. And yet when on my phone it pops up, I'm like, babe, Travis Kelsey's jersey sales are up 400 percent.

It is every other headline. She's like, that's not something. But I don't I don't know exactly what's going on. I do have a little bit of a theory. I hope it's not controversial. I'm happy for both of them. They seem like great people. Yeah.

Is there any chance that this is all one big Capital One commercial? In other words, are we going to go through weeks of this, and at the end they turn to the camera and say, what's in your wallet? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think this is real. Do you think it's real? I think it's as real as can be. I hope it is.

I think it is. And I think they're both cool people. Very cool. So I think I would love, it's almost like when you see two people that you go like, they should date. Like, I want to be at that party. Yes. I want to be at this party.

No, I'm totally on board. I just want to put it in the universe if it happens that I was right. That's a Capital One ad. I'm telling you,ie maybe maybe who knows but the nfl is defending it's focused on taylor and travis and i think katty k's all for it like everybody's all for it who we want to see taylor yeah what do I want to say? All you audiences, people love it. What's the downside here? I see no downside whatsoever, Willie. Totally agree with the Caddy Cave view, as I usually do.

The NFL put out a statement yesterday. Some people like football fans, why you keep showing Taylor Swift? The league actually put out a statement, quote, we frequently change our bios and profile imagery based on what's happening in and around our games as well as culturally the taylor swift and travis kelsey news has been a pop cultural moment we've leaned into in real time as it's an intersection of sport and entertainment and we've seen incredible amount of positivity around the sport who's against this coming and joe there's also like, again, it's a tiny sliver of people who want

attention attacking Taylor Swift, usually from the far right. And it was funny to see Sean Hannity, of all people, going on his show unprompted with a rousing defense of Taylor Swift. Like, knock it off, guys. She's fantastic from Sean Hannity.

Love it. There is Jonathan Meir. As John Heilman said, today, we are all Sean Hannity. I love it. As John Heilman said, today we are all Sean Hannity. The page six of the paper of record this morning, the New York Post, John Lemire points to wall to wall

Taylor Swift, Travis Kelsey. There are no other topics covered on the entire page six. Maybe it's a bit of a gag, but every single item, every single item on page six today is Taylor Swift related. Here you go. There's camera here. Every single item is Taylor Swift related. Come on.

This shows that it's not just the NFL. Everyone right now. It is Taylor Swift's universe. And we're just living in it. I feel like everybody wins. Who's mad about this? Everybody's mad. It's great.

And Willie, once again, once again, the New York Post proves. and we're just living in it. I feel like everybody wins. Who's mad about this? Everybody's mad. Taylor Swift was at this. Taylor Swift was at this. Once again, the New York Post proves why it is Morning Joe's newspaper of record. If you think about at the moment when, if you take all the power of Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Bruce Springsteen at their zenith in the mid-1980s. Exactly. And rolled all that up into one. Yes. And then multiplied it by 10. Right. You got Taylor.

A flaming supernova, as Oasis would have sung at the turn of the century. That's exactly right. I mean, it's like she's blotting out the sun at this point. She's like, she's the queen of all media. Well, the thing is. She is the sun. The thing is, too, you know, Michael still, as I said, as I said a couple of days ago, you know, we got an expression in the Baptist church. You know, some two people get married and and the old ladies and walk on go.

Y'all ain't evenly yoked. Yeah, right. When you're evenly yoked, they'll go by and they go evenly. This is going to work. Let me tell you something. When you are the biggest music store on the planet and you're going up against a guy who regularly is seen by hundreds of millions of people as being like the cog for the Super Bowl champion two years in a row, you're evenly yoked. This works.

It works for now. Except he has to wear a helmet to work every day. That's right. And, like, there are a lot of people in America who still couldn't pick that guy out of a lineup on 5th Avenue. There's not an airport in the world where everybody doesn't know who Taylor Swift is. I think Heilman underestimates Travis Kelsey's fame. I mean, the guy hosting Saturday Night Live. And it was great.

Take him to the airport in Osaka and see how many people recognize him there compared to Taylor Global. Osaka. That's such a rant. Moscow. Pick your Asian airport, your African airport.

You know, Cady spent a lot of time in Africa. How many people in sub-Saharan Africa recognize Taylor Kelsey? Take it to the Yeah. Taylor Kelsey. Taylor Kelsey. Taylor Kelsey. Taylor Kelsey. Taylor Kelsey.

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