Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/23/22

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

At least 7 dead, including suspect, in shooting at Walmart in Virginia, police say

Welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, November 23rd. This morning we are covering overnight breaking news from Virginia, where another deadly mass shooting has taken place overnight, this time at a Walmart. We will go live to the scene in just a moment. It comes on the heels of the deadly mass shooting in Colorado this weekend. The accused shooter in that attack is now out of the hospital and in jail, expected to appear virtually for a court hearing this morning. We'll be following that as well. Also, new developments on Donald Trump's legal woes, the Supreme Court delivering a victory to House Democrats in the long running battle over the former president's tax returns and signs the Justice Department could be on the verge

of winning the legal fight over the appointment of a special master in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Political investigations reporter for The Guardian, Hugo Lowell, is covering those developments, and we will speak with him in just a moment. Also with us, the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief at Politico and author of the bestseller, The Big Lie, Jonathan Lemire, the host of MSNBC's Politics Nation and president of the National Action Network, Reverend Al Sharpton, Washington bureau chief for USA Today, Susan Page, and presidential historian John Meacham. Good morning to you all. We'll get to politics in a bit, but first,

another mass shooting in America. Shots rang out just after 10 o'clock last night at a Walmart in the city of Chesapeake, Virginia, in the southeastern corner of the state, just outside of Norfolk. Police confirming within the last two hours, six people are dead, plus the gunman, making seven. It is unclear if he took his own life or if he was killed by responding officers. Police say victims are being treated at multiple hospitals. A spokesman for the area's top trauma center told reporters five patients were being treated there. The FBI was on the scene last night and the ATF out of Washington tweeted just after midnight that its agents also are assisting in that investigation.

Joining us now live from Chesapeake, NBC's Julia Jester. Julia, what more do we know? Good morning, Willie. Chesapeake police confirm that six people have been killed and the suspect is also deceased here at this Walmart in Chesapeake. We are waiting for an 8 a.m. news conference from authorities to hopefully get more details as to what happened, whether this was a targeted attack, whether any of the suspects or victims were employees or customers. Hopefully we can get those details soon. But the mayor of Chesapeake is coming out this morning with a heartfelt statement about his heartbroken

community, saying that he is devastated by the senseless act of violence and, quote, Chesapeake is a tight-knit community and we are all shaken by this news. Now, as you mentioned, this is not the first mass shooting we've seen this week. We have no idea how many victims have been injured. You mentioned those five. There could likely be more. But even just last week, a few hours away in Charlottesville, the University of Virginia still reeling from a shooting there. So this state, this community will have a little bit of a more somber Thanksgiving,

Willie. Without saying NBC's Julia Jester in Chesapeake, Virginia, we will stay on top of this story. We're just getting developments in on it. We'll also be reporting from Colorado Springs with news on that investigation as well on the shooting there last weekend. Turning to politics, the Supreme Court has cleared the way for House Democrats finally to access Donald Trump's tax returns. The former president has fought for years to shield those records from the House Ways and Means Committee. The decision came in a brief one-page order that noted there were no dissenting votes. This means the House Ways and Means Committee, which has been seeking Trump's tax documents

since 2019, can now attempt to access the materials before Republicans take over the House in January. Committee Chairman Richard Neal celebrated the decision, while the top Republican on the panel, Congressman Kevin Brady, accused the Supreme Court of, quote, opening a dangerous new political battleground where no citizen is safe. Joe, this has been a long time coming. As I said, it's been years and years and years of people trying to get Donald Trump's tax returns through his presidential campaigns. And now with what, two months or less of Democrats in power in the House, they're going to finally get their hands on them. Well, they are. And we're

going to be talking about quite a few other topics this morning regarding legal challenges, spurious challenges that Donald Trump has made to the United States Supreme Court. And John Meacham, one after another, after another of Trump's spurious claims, whether it's about his taxes, whether it's about, you know, his stolen election conspiracies, whether it's about privilege, whether it's about the special master. We're seeing time and again the United States Supreme Court in these issues, these issues involving Madisonian checks and balances. We see this court standing steadfast and really drawing a straight line between themselves and the U.S. v. Nixon case back in 1974. Yeah, it's important to remember that the court did the right thing in 1974. In July, it was the decision that he had to hand over that most incriminating tape, and that Nixon, after asking the question, is there any air in it, I think was the phrase. Was there any give, anything for him to

try to not follow it? And realizing that there wasn't, he then obeyed the rule of law. One of the ironies of Richard Nixon's life is that he broke the law, but then he followed custom and the law in leaving office. Interesting question going forward, and I think we know the answer, is whether Donald Trump has the capacity to follow the rule of law. We've seen him again and again launch assaults against it, very much in the tradition of Roy Cohn, his old lawyer, who was Joe McCarthy's lawyer, were coming up on the anniversary of when Joe McCarthy was censured in the early 1950s. But what Cohn used to say is, don't tell me what the law is.

Tell me what the judge is. I think there's good news that the Supreme Court, you may disagree with the substance of their decisions. But as you say, on these important cases, they have stood by the Constitution. Question's going to be now, what does the special counsel do in all these various matters? What is the Justice Department? The Justice Department has now made its decision by appointing a special counsel. But we're entering a very complicated period that, you know, I say it's complicated. It's not all that complicated. The issue is whether is anyone above the law is an American president or let's be very clear,

a former American president really above the law? I say no. I think that most Americans would say no. And I think we're going to be testing that over the next few months. Well, and the Supreme Court time and again has said no. And Susan Page, I think it's important not to conflate other decisions that the Supreme Court makes, whether you're talking about the overturning of Roe, a half century president, which was shocking, but actually not surprising if you look at what these justices had said since their law school days. I think it's important that commentators don't conflate those ideological decisions with these constitutional questions regarding a president's power or a former president's power. And again, you go time and again, whether you're talking about the special master,

whether you're talking about tax returns, whether you're talking about privilege, whether you're talking about all of these questions where Donald Trump's thinking, oh, they're my court because I appointed them. He's thinking they're going to rule in his favor. Not only do they not rule in his favor, but these decisions are unanimous,

they're unsigned, and they're ringing, I would say, a ringing endorsement of some basic, basic fundamental rules of law. Yeah, you really see, Joe, the assertion of the rule of law just in the past couple days. And one of the things I think is heartening is that in several cases, we've seen judges appointed by President Trump ruling against his interest, against his wishes in these cases. I'm thinking about the Federal Appeals Court yesterday that signaled it was going to overrule that judge in Florida who set up the special master for the search of classified and other sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago. You think about how embattled former President Trump is on many fronts. The Atlanta grand jury heard from Senator Lindsey Graham yesterday. We saw in New York the court

date set for the fraud charges by the New York state attorney general against the Trump organization set for next October. You really see sometimes the legal system takes some time to sort things out, to move ahead, to go through the processes. But I have to say that for former President Trump, this has been a very sobering couple of days for him in terms of all this network of legal challenges he's now facing. And Willie, so much of this he should have seen coming. He thought that the judges on the Supreme Court were going to be like Judge Cannon, who yesterday just took an absolute drubbing in the 11th Circuit. Again, for those that don't follow it, the 11th Circuit is one of the most conservative circuits in America. It's probably the rights version of the 9th Circuit out on the West Coast.

But I know a lot of judges. I know a lot of people that have worked in the 11th Circuit. I mean, yeah, they're ideologically conservative. They're no-nonsense, all business. And here you had the 11th Circuit yesterday in this hearing make it very clear they're going to overturn what Judge Cannon did, which was preposterous. Legal scholars on the left, center and right were saying it was preposterous. Well, the 11th Circuit stepping in and may perhaps get rid of the special master because there is no space. When you even go up to Clarence Thomas, you go up to Brett Kavanaugh, you go up to Amy Coney Barrett.

If he thought he was going to get any special breaks on these rulings, he's been been sadly mistaken, not only on these rulings, but let's say it again. In the 55 or 65 cases that Trump attorneys brought to federal court to try to assert widespread voter fraud, he went 0 and 65. This is quite a compelling argument for the Supreme Court on these issues being straightforward and calling balls and strikes. And this all gets to Donald Trump's mistaken mentality, which is, if I appointed you, I have impunity under you, which is to say I did

you a favor. You do me a favor like he's operating a business deal in New York in the 1980s. And Hugo Lowell, if you look at this 11th Circuit decision, we're talking about a three judge panel to Joe's point. Two of those three judges were Trump appointees. So he thought he was going to get a good ride, did not. What are the implications of this? What does it mean practically now, this ruling out of the 11th Circuit? Well, we don't have a ruling yet, but, you know, the indication was that this is going to be bad for Trump because they were basically like, you know, what's the difference between the documents case and any other defendant pre-endowment? And the only thing that the Trump lawyers could settle on is, well,

he's a former president and that's why he should get special treatment. And not even the 11th Circuit yesterday seemed to buy that argument. And it was a real dropping, right? The three panel basically said, you know, there is no instance in which you should get special treatment. Why should the judicial branch, given the separation of powers, be able to interfere and stop an executive branch investigation? And that was the kind of the fundamental issue at play. And I think that's why everyone came away from that hearing thinking Trump's special masters basically didn't get terminated. Yeah, you know, Rev, you and I have known Donald Trump for a very long time. I guess we're not surprised that he would think that if he appointed somebody, they were going to do him favors.

But it shows a complete ignorance of the federal judiciary, a complete, absolute ignorance. And he keeps getting surprised. You know, he kept getting surprised during his term in office when judges that he appointed would rebuke him, would rebuke his policies. And this has happened time and time again. And it doesn't appear that here we are five years later. He still doesn't get it. No, you're absolutely right. I think that any of us that have known Donald Trump at any level, friend or foe, understands he sees the world totally in a quid pro quo kind of way. I do you, you do me. And the rules don't apply to him. It's about whatever trades in his interest. And to think that he rolls all the way to the presidency of the United States and never got that out of his head, that there is

a framework that is beyond whatever deal making you make is amazing. He's still there. He still believes that it's like him trading with a contractor or building that his company was going to build, that he can deal with judges like that, including Supreme Court justices. And I think the fact that he lived in a shadow world that didn't exist to the rest of the world may end up his downfall. Let's remember in his first months in office, one of his rare accomplishments without controversy was the appointment and installation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Trump, weeks later, complained that Gorsuch wasn't grateful enough, wanted if he could undo that.

So, Hugo, talk to us, though, about this ruling with the special master and how it could dovetail with the news in the last week or so about the special counsel, this new appointment from the Department of Justice. How are these things going to work together and give us a sense of a timeline we should expect? Yeah. So with the special master, the special master has been examining the document seeds from Mar-a-Lago, seeing if there are any potential privilege protections that would enable him effectively to pull these documents out of the evidence cache that the Justice Department put together as a result of the search back at Mar-a-Lago on August 8th. The special counsel, that investigation is proceeding on a separate track, right? The special

counsel, Jack Smith, he's basically took the reins on Monday. He now has to appoint his staff. He needs to kind of get his office up and running. But the investigation's already been going on for four or five months. You know, he can pull all of those resources, all of the investigative work that's been done, and just carry that forward. And so we really expect there to be kind of like a seamless transition from the Justice Department's kind of national security division that have been handling this investigation straight into the special counsel. And when the special master eventually comes to an end, whether that's as a result of the 11th Circuit decision or because it comes to its natural conclusion, those unclassified documents that are currently under review go back to the Justice Department and the Justice Department can then evaluate whether they have sufficient evidence to charge Donald Trump with a crime.

So he delayed the investigation, but still the investigation continues and he may get justice in the end. We'll see what happens here. Political investigations reporter for The Guardian, Hugo Lowell. Hugo, thanks so much. Good to see you. Still ahead on Morning Joe, the second woman to accuse Georgia Senate nominee Herschel Walker of pressuring her into having an abortion comes forward with new evidence. Plus, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy issues an ultimatum to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Resign or face impeachment when Republicans hold the majority. Also ahead, inflation having a major impact on the cost of Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Steve Ratner joins us ahead with his charts and a look at some of the numbers. And Howard Stern will be our guest this morning. We'll talk to Howard about his in-depth, unforgettable interview with the boss, Bruce Springsteen. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to Morning Joe. A shot of Reagan National Airport. One of the busiest travel days of the year. So, man, it's, I've had some stories traveling around with my mom and dad when I was younger.

Getting to relatives' houses. Well, we'll just leave that where it is. Three of us jammed in the backseat of a Dodge Dart, Willie, going down the Beeline Highway from Atlanta down to, you know, Orlando. Sounds like an Allman Brothers song. It got pretty intense, my friend. It got pretty intense somewhere along the Georgia-Florida line. So, you know, Willie, sometimes we forget, you know, Steve Ratner is a captain of industry, because we had asked him, you and I were on the phone with him last night and said, hey, can you just, we want to see how

inflation is impacting Thanksgiving for average Americans. And so we're thinking, stuffing, right. He comes back. And so his first run through had foie gras. How much more of that cost this year? Russian caviar, charcuterie boards. And this is really surprising, given what's been in the news, what's been in the news. Right. Crudite. And I'm like, what are you talking? What are you doing, Dr. Oz? Come on. This is we're you know, this is man of the people show. Oz. Come on. This is Man of the People show, right? I'm just impressed you know the term charcuterie board. I didn't know you had that in your arsenal. That's impressive. I think Mika texted that to you.

I asked Alex, how do you pronounce them boards that have cheese and stuff on there? Yeah, exactly. Well, by the way, by the way, you know, I can't really go. You're sure. Kooter read. I mean, that's four syllables, right? That's a lot. It's really it's for me. But I got it. I think I got it.

I'm feeling pretty good now. Steve, did you go back and we can talk offline about caviar and everything. But did you go back and get the assignment right? This what is the assignment again? Never mind. You know what? Just forget it, Steve. Let's talk about Disney, because it's all I really want to talk about anyway. Let's talk about Bob Iger, first of all, and then we'll get to your charts, actually, on how much inflation actually is impacting Americans and their Thanksgiving meal.

But let's talk first about Disney. This is just pretty shocking to me. I was pretty sure Iger was gone for good. I think everybody was. But he's come back and there's a bit of a standoff between the two Bobs. Yeah, Iger was back. And no, he was not expecting to. I know that on very, very good authority. He was actually in New York.

He was actually in New York. He told me. No, he didn't tell me. He was actually in New York last weekend with his family getting ready for Thanksgiving. And he got a call on Friday night from the leader from the chairman of Disney now, Susan Arnold, saying we want you back. And by Sunday night, he was back. Look, it's it's it's really it's a fascinating case, of course, of of of one of the great CEOs of his time picking a successor. The successor doesn't work. Is he back? What happened? And I think the honest story, I don't believe this is a case where Iger picked somebody

because he wanted him to fail or wanted to come back or was expecting to come back. I think it's a case where the successor was simply the wrong guy. And we can talk about what responsibility Iger might have for that. But I think that's what we're talking about here. And it really all came to a head a couple weeks ago when Disney reported their third quarter earnings. And they had terrible earnings. And Bob Chapik, the new CEO, particularly handled them badly on the call. And the result was that the chief financial officer of the company, among others, went to the board and said, you've got to get rid of this guy.

And the board finally took action. There's a couple of interesting points here, though, to take away. One is that it comes in a backdrop where the business is having a tough time. It would have been probably easier for Chapik to survive. But for the fact that the streaming wars that we all are familiar with are taking their toll. It cost Disney a billion and a half dollars of losses last quarter in their streaming business. And so you were facing you had sort of an underpinning of a fairly poor, very poor business environment. And we know Chapik handled it particularly particularly badly.

Look, it's interesting because the other the other great CEO who messed up his succession, of course, was Jack Welch, who famously ran a whole competition and got down to three of his 350,000 employees, picked Jeff Emmelt, a really great guy, worked his tail off, but wasn't the right guy, and ultimately took a lot, lot longer in the case of General Electric. Didn't work out, so you can always play these Freudian games of, did the guy, did this great CEO pick a successor that he kind of thought might fail and wasn't all, you know, kind of wanted to look good? Or did he did he really just make a mistake? And in Iger's case, I think it's absolutely the latter. I think Iger is a really stand up guy and tried to pick the best guy.

And that's what he got. Well, and also, I've just got to say, because I knew Jack and I know Jeff, and it certainly didn't help Jeff Immelt that Jack Welch would go around trashing behind his back all the time, telling anybody who would listen how incompetent he was as CEO. And that continued for some time. Like you said, no suggestion that Bob Iger has been doing that. But it is it is a fascinating turn. I want to talk about actually, actually, actually, Bob Iger did do that. As a matter of fact, he said they all do it, huh? Well, you know, look, I think in the case of both of them, actually, I think they did it.

Maybe they shouldn't have done it. We can debate that. But they did it with justification. Their successes were both failing. And I think it was very true. I mean, I know Bob very well. I've known him for 35 years. I think he was just I think he was actually deeply troubled and disappointed that Bob

J. Pick was failing, not happy. But nonetheless, he did say a few things to some people and it got into the press. Yeah. And I would guess that Jack Welch's friends would say probably the same thing of him. Listen, just really quickly. And I do want to get to the charts. There's been something I've wanted to say about my own company, Comcast, for some time. You talked about the streaming wars, but I didn't do it because they write my check and I just say, eh, I'm not going to give up. I also, obviously, if you're a Comcast employee, you have Comcast stock. So people can take whatever I say with a grain of salt here. But you've known the Roberts for a very long time. It's a family business. They're pretty conservative people. And we've heard through

the past three or four years, oh, they didn't take this merger. They're pretty conservative people. And we've heard through the past three or four years, oh, they didn't take this merger. They should have taken that merger. They need to jump in and get into the streaming wars. Comcast, in retrospect, looking pretty damn good, I think, at least, because the Netflix model, as you said, just absolutely collapsed. All of these people chasing after movie catalogs, paying top dollar for them. It's one of Disney's problems with, again, streaming costs and everything else. You have Comcast now who didn't go all in. We've seen that the streaming model is not the future that everybody was saying it was a year ago. And they're sitting flush with cash right now.

So it's just fascinating how tumultuous the media landscape is right now. And sometimes sitting back may be the thing to do. You look at the AT&T-Warner, Time Warner merger that actually some people are calling perhaps the worst merger in the history of media. Yeah, the Time Warner merger, the Warner Media merger, more accurately, with Discovery, may turn out to be one of the worst mergers in history. Look, AT&T is a case of unbelievably bad business decisions at every step of the way, getting into DirecTV, now getting out of DirecTV, buying WarnerMedia, turning around and then selling it, putting a huge amount of debt on it. It's really a case study in how not to run a company.

As far as Comcast is concerned, yeah, I was their investment banker for 20 years. I was involved in pretty for 20 years. I was involved in pretty much all their acquisitions. And they're an incredibly disciplined, focused company and very careful and aren't going to do stupid things like something like the Warner merger. That said, the streaming wars are changing life for all these companies. Comcast has hung back. Disney got a little bit lucky. They had bought Fox, they had bought Marvel, they had bought Pixar. They had this huge library that they could launch a streaming product with and very quickly become the largest one out there. It's more tricky for

Comcast. And so they've been more judicious about it. But the fact that you have all this cord cutting going on and all these people giving up their cable bundle means that even the content providers like Comcast have to think about what their distribution strategy is going to be going forward. They have a streaming service, obviously Peacock. It is so far subscale because they didn't have quite that level of resources and they have some decisions they're going to have to make. But as you said, they're proceeding very carefully, very judiciously and aren't going to do anything stupid. It's the story of media right now. It's so interesting. Let's turn to your charts and the story of Thanksgiving. Inflation is hitting people. We're going to go out shopping today to buy their turkey and their mashed

potatoes and everything else. Price is up 20 percent for a dinner this year, it sounds like, almost. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. They're up 18 percent, up to $81.31, which you can see in the chart, in the bar chart in the middle there, and was just a year ago, 68.72. This is to feed a family of 10. And on the right, you can see some of the main items that go into your Thanksgiving dinner. Stuffing up 16. We'll talk about the reasons in a second. Stuffing up 69 percent. Rolls up 22 percent. Pumpkin pie up 22 percent. Turkey, which is the biggest item on your Thanksgiving plate, not surprisingly, up 21 percent. Also up five dollars, fully a third of that increase. And the only one that's down is cranberries, which are down four percent. Sorry, 13 percent.

And I know somebody is going to ask me, why are cranberries down 13 percent? And the answer is because unlike a lot of the rest of what I'm going to tell you, cranberry crops were up four percent. Oh, they were. So there's a lot of cranberries out there. All right. Some good news. Silver lining. Put a lot of cranberries on it.

But look, the reasons are interesting, and they cut across a whole bunch of different factors. And in fairness, this is not one you can pin on the Biden administration or the Federal Reserve. You've got a bunch of stuff going on out there. And so if you want to talk about the price of turkey, what happened to turkey is avian flu, which some of you may have followed. But avian flu killed eight million turkeys out of our 46 million turkeys. And so turkey prices go up. The other factor that affects all the things, things like bread and stuffing and pumpkin pie and all that is the drought. There's a huge drought going on out there, almost at record levels, certainly the highest in many years. We can debate, and this is the one sort of policy area here, we can debate whether global warming has something to do with this,

climate change has something to do with this or not, but drought has been a big factor because it means less wheat, fewer potatoes, and so forth. And that has also driven up prices enormously for wheat. The war in Ukraine also helped drive up prices enormously for wheat, and all that contributes to higher prices for your dinner rolls and your pumpkin pie and so forth, as I said. And then you put it all together and what's happened. So on the left is kind of interesting because what it shows is how many hours somebody has to work to pay for their Thanksgiving dinner. And you can see that the

red line at the top is for people who earn just a minimum wage. And the amount of time they have to work for a Thanksgiving dinner is actually now higher than it was in 1986, partly because we haven't raised the minimum wage that much. But eight hours and 45 minutes to pay for that dinner compared to eight hours and 35 minutes back in 1986. So not great for them. For the average worker, it's a little bit better. It's up from last year, two hours and 20 minutes. But here's the good news on the right side, which is all those huge blue bars are the food price inflation around the world that has gone on. It was as high as 40% year-over-year inflation back in May of 2021. And you can't quite almost see it, but all the way on the right, last month, food price inflation barely existed. And we think in November,

you might actually see a slight decline in food prices. So I want to leave you with some good news. I don't want you to celebrate Thanksgiving without a little bit of good news. Help is on the way, perhaps. Hope is on the way anyway. Leaving us with a good taste in our mouth and covering a lot of ground today

from Bob Iger to the price of stuffing for Thanksgiving. Steve Ratner, great to see you. Happy Thanksgiving. And to you as well, Willie. Coming up, we're looking at the challenges special counsel Jack Smith is facing as he takes over two high stakes investigations into former President Trump. Talk about it when we come right back. It's a beautiful live picture as the sun comes up over the White House, 640 in the morning. Joining us now, executive editor for news at NewYorker.com, David Rode. David's latest piece in The New Yorker is titled Will the New Special Counsel Bring Donald Trump to Justice? In it, David writes this, quote, Garland appointed Jack Smith, a veteran federal prosecutor, as a special counsel to take over investigations into former President Donald Trump's role in the January 6th, 2021 insurrection and his alleged mishandling of classified documents. In this case, the circumstances are extraordinary. Trump announced last week he would be running again for president.

Biden has indicated that he, too, plans to run. To have the current president's appointees criminally prosecuting the former president while they both run for the Oval Office is unprecedented. No such moment has existed before in U.S. history. Some former prosecutors criticized Garland's appointment of Smith, warning it would delay the Trump investigations and potentially allow him to campaign for president without being held accountable. Others disagreed, saying Smith's appointment would speed up the investigation because he will be unhindered by Justice Department bureaucracy.

And David joins us now. David, good morning. It's good to see you. What seems to be the consensus here? I mean, you laid out well the two arguments for it. Attorney General Garland saying, I have to step back from this because I was appointed by the man who's going to run against Donald Trump most likely. How does this play out? Just talking to people, what do they think? I think it slows things down a bit, but it's not a dramatic change. And I think particularly the Mar-a-Lago case is the one that is much farther along. It's a stronger legal case. And I've heard predictions that you could have a decision from the new special counsel about whether or not to indict Trump regarding classified documents by the spring, by March or April.

And so we'll see what happens. I think Garland was being very cautious. He wanted to kind of insulate himself to not have it look like he was, you know, the man appointed by Joe Biden was prosecuting Donald Trump as a campaign plays out. There's certainly a lot of politics at play here because we also know this is an active, ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden, the president's son. Talk to us a little bit about this special counsel. What should we expect from him? The resume seems sparkling. He's been assigned to the Hague, coming back to the states. What do you know of him and what his approach will be? He's prosecuted both Republicans and Democrats when he ran the public integrity section. There has been some criticism by some

FBI officials saying that he was too slow in past cases. I think he'll move quickly. And look, the big fear here is another Mueller investigation that went very slowly. There was no decision made by Mueller's team in terms of did Donald Trump obstruct the investigation of him. I don't see that happening primarily because Donald Trump is a private citizen. And so there's no legal debate about can you indict a sitting president or not. And again, I think it's really the Mar-a-Lago case. That's the key decision here. I know from Justice Department sources they were looking for any evidence that Trump had somehow shown the documents to people, had handled them recklessly, had this is a worst case scenario. And by the way, there's no confirmation of any of this.

Had any sort of Russian or Chinese asset been in Mar-a-Lago if Trump was showing off these documents and possibly seen them? I have no confirmation that actually happened, but they need to show some sort of damage that there was. It wasn't just that a bunch of documents were sitting in his desk or sitting in the basement that it actually damaged American national security. The January 6th case is much less clear. That'll take much more time.

And I think if Mark Meadows doesn't start cooperating or someone in that inner circle and this one furiate many people, including you, Reverend Sharpton signal that he thinks there may be some things there that does reach the level of charges. Are we reading too much into that? Is that hopeful thinking for those of us that thinks crimes have been made? Or is there some merit to if you didn't see any evidence that could lead to an indictment? Why appoint a special counsel at all? I think that he might see charges related to classified documents and obstructing the government's effort to get them back. One advantage of a special counsel is if there is no indictment for January 6th, a special counsel has to write a report about why they decided to not charge someone. So that's a way to kind of address

public concerns about why there would be no charges on January 6th. But I think, again, I just don't, I kind of respect what Garland's trying to do. We, just one hokey thing, and you talked about in the beginning of the show about the importance of the Supreme Court ruling, the judges in Atlanta and the 11th Circuit ruling against Trump. There needs to be nonpartisan public service in our country. There needs to be nonpartisan public service in our country. There needs to be nonpartisan judges and police officers and doctors and school teachers. And Donald Trump, you spoke about this, Reverend, but his sort of dark view of the world that everyone is totally corrupt and just fighting in their own interests.

So I respect what Garland's trying to do here. The good news is those judges have behaved in a nonpartisan way, much to the dismay of Donald Trump in this case. So the argument has been made by people around Donald Trump that he got out so early, got into this race last Tuesday because he thinks that may help to insulate him from all of this. The Justice Department has been clear, no, we're going to proceed with this. Does it weigh on Merrick Garland's mind?

Does it weigh on the Justice Department's mind that, yes, this man is going to be running a presidential campaign? He seeks to sit in the White House again, that this will at least appear political in some way, even though they started these investigations long before the announcement? It does weigh on their mind. And it's another Trump tactic to kind of politicize, run the clock out, whatever you want to call it. So Jack Smith and Merrick Garland are going to want to make decisions about indic the clock out, whatever you want to call it. So Jack Smith and Merrick Garland are going to want to make decisions about indicting Donald Trump, I think, in calendar 2023. They don't want, you know, an indictment, a trial happening in 2024. Again, on the Mar-a-Lago case,

I don't think that'll impact it. If the evidence is strong, they'll indict him. But January 6th, if this inner circle remains quiet, back to Mark Meadows and Steve Bannon and all these others, it's this issue of intent. They need to show that Trump knew he'd lost, knew there was going to be violence, and still sent the crowd towards the Capitol. So backing up to what you said a minute ago about the Mar-a-Lago documents, and you said there's no confirmation that, you know, some Chinese or Russian ass or whatever it might be, might have got to look at it. But there's been some reporting that at least one thread that the investigators are pulling on is just the idea that he was had Trump had documents. It was just showing off to like club members like, look at this.

It's cool. I used to be president. If that's what they determine, all that it is. I mean, obviously, he still shouldn't have documents. That's clear. But if he was just showing off in that regard, will that be enough to bring charges? That's the really difficult decision. You need to, again, to convince a jury, you have to show some damage. You know, he shouldn't, there is technically a case that he, like David Petraeus, that he mishandled classified documents. Petraeus pled to a misdemeanor. Most normal people would plead to a misdemeanor. Donald Trump won't.

Donald Trump, in a way, I think wants to go on trial because that plays to his base. And it's a very, you know, it's a day everyone says and, you know, lock him up and all this stuff. Even if Trump is convicted, A, he can run again. Eugene Debs was convicted under the, you know, I can't remember which law around World War I and still ran for president. So it's a it's a messy situation. But I think it, again, depends on what they see in terms of the damage that was caused by hoarding all these documents by Donald Trump. Let's bring it. Let's bring into the conversation state attorney for Palm Beach

County, Florida, Dave Ehrenberg. Dave, a lot to talk about this morning, but I want to go back to something that you predicted from the very start. And that was that that a certain federal judge, Judge Cannon, was drawing way outside of the lines, way outside legal boundaries. It looks like when it comes to this special master, the 11th Circuit is going to confirm what you said from the very beginning, that her rulings had no basis in law. Yeah, Joe, yesterday was a smackdown. You had three judges appointed by Republican presidents, including two appointed by Donald Trump himself, who were incredulous at Trump's legal arguments.

You know, they were asking, hey, do you have any precedent at all? They were a federal judge intervene in a matter like this, where it's an investigation by the executive branch, it's pre-indictment, and there's no showing of a Fourth Amendment violation of an unlawful search. And Trump's legal counsel's answer was, no, we don't have precedent, but we don't need precedent because he was the president. That's not going to fly. That may fly in right-wing radio where you can complain about the harassment of political prosecutors, but it doesn't fly in a court of law. So, yes, I think the 11th Circuit is going

to overturn Judge Cannon's ruling, vacate her ruling for a special master, vacate her ruling for a stay pending the review of the documents. And I think they very well may take this case out of our hands entirely, because after all, did she really have jurisdiction here? This case was in the hands of the magistrate judge in West Palm Beach. She took it away. She's in a courthouse 68 miles away. Yeah. You know, Dave, what's so surprising is their lawyers never even tried to come up with a legal argument to justify any of their actions. Remember when the special master was saying, hey, listen, you're going to have to tell me if he declassified these documents or not, because I can't really make any rulings unless I know whether they're declassified or not. And Trump's lawyers were,

and then the judge steps in remarkably and saves Trump's lawyers from having to answer a basic question that goes to the heart of what the special master was supposed to do. Trump's attorneys never had a sound legal argument, but they had a district court judge who was willing to humiliate herself, I guess, for Donald Trump. I don't know why she's willing to go against the law of the United States of America to do what she did, but she did. Yeah, she's about to be rebuked by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and it's not going to be pretty. That's my prediction. By the way, by the way, explain just how conservative the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is. This is not the Ninth Circuit on the West Coast. No, it's got a very conservative reputation. And the panel that they pulled here,

three judges at random from the justice of the judges there are all appointed by Republican presidents to by Trump himself. And, you know, this argument that Trump declassified the documents, you know, that's not true because his lawyers will not make that argument in court because you can say what you want in the court of public opinion and not get in trouble. But you say it in front of a judge, you could lose your law license or worse. That's why the DOJ subpoenaed Kash Patel, because Kash Patel is the guy who went on social media and right wing TV saying he declassified the documents. Well, the DOJ wants to put him under oath and they gave him immunity. So he has no more Fifth Amendment protection. And so I suspect he probably told the truth. And I think that's why I believe that DOJ is going to indict the former president on the documents matter,

because why else would you give Kash Patel immunity? Because you're focused on Donald Trump. All right. State attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave Ehrenberg. Thank you so much. And the New Yorkers, David Road. Thank you as well. Greatly appreciate it. Susan Page, we saw this time and time again. We saw it during the 65 bogus challenges to the election where Rudy Giuliani and others would go outside of a federal courthouse that make the most outrageous claims and then that walk inside and the federal

judge would say, are you going to argue that there was widespread voter fraud? Oh, no, your honor. No, we're not going to happen. It just keeps happening, doesn't it? Yeah, it's true. And, you know, one question I have, Joan, maybe you have a view on this is whatever the special counsel does with Donald Trump is going to enrage a significant number of Americans. If he's not held accountable, if he's not indicted, that will outrage some. If he is indicted, if there are legal consequences for him, that's going to outrage others. And we know he'll be defiant. And I wonder if you think, given the lesson of the last year on the legal system, is the legal system strong enough to hold? Are Americans going to be

broadly willing to put enough trust in the process to accept whatever it is that happens to President Trump? What do you think? Yeah, I think so, Susan. And I could ask you the same thing as far as going back. We were both there in the 2000 recount. I don't remember any case really any more divisive than that. I certainly know the overturning of Roe was a shock. That was a case, though, in 2000, where the Supreme Court voted along party lines five to four to put George W. Bush into the White House. And there were a lot of predictions of how the Supreme Court's reputation be shattered forever. Just wasn't the case. In fact, their standing was higher then than it is now.

And I think I do think they're going to be strong enough. The court, especially since you have Trump appointees that are time and again ruling against his ridiculous claims. What do you think? Yeah, well, but, you know, I think about the 2000 case and it was remarkable to me even then that Democrat Democratic voters were willing to accept the outcome in that disputed election. But, you know, it's that was two decades ago and we've had the Trump presidency and the and the faith in institutions has gone way down since then. It really has. John Meacham, let's bring you in on this discussion. And how do you think the court as an institution will hold up? How do you think checks and balances behind Madisonian democracy will hold up if

Donald Trump is, in fact, indicted and tried and possibly convicted? I think the difference between today and 2000, as Susan just said, is that the principal loser, which I hate that word, but the one who came out on the short end of that case, Al Gore, did the gracious, right and constitutional thing and accepted it. And the country was able to move on. I'd be willing to bet my, I guess, my more expensive Thanksgiving dinner that that will not be the case with Donald Trump. And so, so much of what makes America work to go all the way back to the books that the founders were reading is an ascent, not just to the substance of the law, but to the spirit of the law. And so one of the great tests, arguably more so perhaps than even the midterms, will be what do the, and Joe, you and I have talked about this, is this a 35 percent, is it a 40 percent of the Republican Party or more that is a forever Trump base, what do they do?

Because that's it seems to me that's the question, right? It's it's what's the reaction of the many? We know what the few are going to do. We know what Donald Trump's going to do. He's going to pound on his high chair. But what will the both the core base and then the enabling caucus, right, the folks who have gone along with this because power has been more important to them than principle. And I wish I could say that I think I know the rule of law would hold, but I'm not as sure as I wish I were. I am optimistic, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Susan Page and John Meacham, thank you both. We greatly appreciate you being here. And Willie, I think the only thing, if you're in the Department of Justice, if you're the special counsel, you have to understand that the law is supposed to be blind as far as to who's being investigated, who's possibly being prosecuted. And no man is above the law. No woman is above the law. And they need to make their decisions based on the law in front of them and not based on political considerations. And if the prosecutors do that and if the judges do that, the Supreme Court justices do that, which they have done in cases related to Donald Trump thus far, I don't I don't mean to be

overly optimistic, but I am I think we'll be just fine. Yeah, the judges have by and large shown themselves able and willing to do that in the case of Donald Trump, especially here recently. And there's always going to be the noise, as John said, about the weaponization of the Justice Department. The IRS is coming for you and all that noise is always going to be there. It's the job of the judges to blindly go forward and look for justice. And as you say, especially in the case of the 2020 election, everything around January 6th, they've been doing that very consistently. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Steve Kornacki joins us in just a couple of minutes, stepping away from the big board to sit at our table to talk about the

Republican Revolution of 1994. Joe might know something about that and the connection to what we're seeing in Congress today. Plus, Carrie Lake is still refusing to concede her race after losing the governor's election in Arizona. We'll take a look at her new fundraising effort. Also ahead, Times Director of Photography will join us to reveal the magazine's photos of the year. And former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called her the most dangerous person in the world. The head of the nation's second largest teachers union, Randy Weingarten, will be our guest. Plus, Howard Stern, one hour from now. Morning Joe's coming right back.