Morning Joe - Morning Joe 12/20/22

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

Jan 6. committee approves criminal referrals against Trump for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election  

The whole purpose and obvious effect of Trump's scheme were to obstruct, influence, and impede this official proceeding, the central moment for the lawful transfer of power in the United States. We believe that there is more than sufficient evidence to refer former President Donald J. Trump, John Eastman, and others for violating Title 18, Section 371. This statute makes it a crime to conspire to defraud the United States. Third, we make a referral based on Title 18, Section 1001, which makes it unlawful to knowingly and willfully make materially false statements to the federal government. The evidence clearly suggests that President Trump conspired with others to submit slates of fake electors to Congress and the National Archives. The fourth and final statute we invoke for referral is Title 18, Section 2383. The statute applies to anyone who incites, assists, or engages

in insurrection against the United States of America and anyone who gives aid or comfort to an insurrection. Those are the four criminal charges the January 6th committee is recommending to the Justice Department. Against former President Donald Trump will have much more on this unprecedented move by Congress. Plus, a last minute move by Chief Justice John Roberts granting a request from Republicans to block the Biden administration from ending the COVID era policy used to deter migrants from entering through the southern border. We'll explain what is next in this immigration crisis. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, December 20th. With us, we have U.S. national editor at the Financial Times, Ed Luce,

Pulitzer Prize winning columnist at the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, and presidential historian John Meacham joins us this morning. And we'll begin right there. What a day on Capitol Hill. Historic criminal referrals against former President Donald Trump from the January 6th committee. It is the first time Congress has ever referred a former president for prosecution. And the committee yesterday recommended that the Justice Department prosecute Trump on four charges for his role in the attack on the Capitol. The charges are obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and inciting or assisting an insurrection.

And here's how Committee Chair Benny Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney opened the hearing. Beyond our findings, we will also show that evidence we've gathered points to further action beyond the power of this committee or the Congress to help ensure accountability under law. Accountability that can only be found in the criminal justice system. No man who would behave that way at that moment in time can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again. He is unfit for any office. The panel also issued a criminal referral for attorney John Eastman, who the committee says was the architect of the plot to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes and have fake electors submitted to Congress instead.

The committee's referrals do not carry legal weight, and it's unclear if the Justice Department will decide to pursue them. We could talk about your take on what happened yesterday. Well, first of all, I just felt so grateful for everybody on that committee who, you know, gave up more than a year of their lives dedicated to this. They looked tired. They looked dead serious. And the whole the whole hearing felt like a gut punch as to where we are in our democracy. Even when there was a standing ovation at the end by many of the cops who had been beaten within moments of their death. The committee showed no emotion. Not a smile on their faces. It was grim. They got up and walked off. It was

something that you could tell they didn't want to do. They wish they weren't there. They wish that history did not require them to do this. But it's exactly what they did. Yeah. And, you know, there's several extremely talented lawyers on that committee. And I think it's safe to say, although our experts might know better, that what they're sending to the DOJ is a lot of evidence that adds up to these charges and giving them, quite frankly, a path to potentially prosecuting the former president and others. Yeah, there's so much to play from yesterday,

and we're going to be doing that across the whole four hours of this show. Liz Cheney focused, as she has for some time, on the 187 minutes where Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office, sat in the room beside the Oval Office, sat in the room beside the Oval Office and watched these rioters while his children, while his other family members, while his closest aides, while his lawyers were begging him to act and stop the riots. And Donald Trump refused to do it for 187 minutes. You know, John Meacham, Hunter Thompson once said of Richard Nixon, who used to be seen as the embodiment of evil by many in the Oval Office, he said Richard Nixon was an evil man, evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the devil can understand. He was

utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Actually, all these years later, after six years of Donald Trump, I would say that not only Richard Nixon, but just about every president that preceded the 45th president, obviously deserves a relook. This is a new level. Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, I'm glad you went back to that era. You know, the thing about Richard Nixon is he broke the law and then he followed the law. He had a sense of shame. He believed in the institutions. He after he asked if there was any air in the Supreme Court decision that forced him to release evidence that he had created and then refused to destroy the Supreme Court, said he had to hand it over.

He did. And that was it. And he followed the institution and and the law. The other thing I was thinking about is, you know, when Congresswoman Cheney talks about the hundred and eighty seven minutes, when she talks about a moment of genuine crisis, and remember, the origin of the word crisis comes from medical science. Crisis was a moment, Hippocrates talked about it, where a patient lived or died in the course of a disease. This was a genuine crisis. Democracy, the Constitution, could have lived or could have died in this moment. She knows this in her bones because her father and her mother sat in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center on September 11th at another moment of national crisis. And she knows what leadership in those hours of absolute terror and horror, whether it's literal in the terror, in the sense of the terrorist attacks, figurative in the sense of the Constitution being shredded.

She understands that. What's on trial here is something that, this is the winter in 1776 when Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense and then later the American Crisis, these pamphlets that really crystallized the American Revolution that gave us this system that we want to defend. He wrote that people say, where is the king of America? And Paine answered, in America, the law is king. And that's the test we have now. Is the law still the king? Yeah. We should apologize to Ed Luce, who is in merry old England right now. Is he is he is he in his parents' house? If he's in his parents' home, we apologize. Ed, are you in your parents' home? I am. No need to apologize. I was just thinking as John was talking about Thomas Paine and common sense in 1776 that Thomas Paine lived and collected taxes.

He was a tax collector about 15 miles from where I'm sitting now. And there's a pub called The Age of Reason that he used to go to. No way. Still thriving. Still thriving. That is color you can't get anywhere else. Absolutely. And thank you. At yesterday's hearing, the committee played new, never before seen testimony from some of Trump's closest advisors. Listen to former White House communications director Hope Hicks as she describes debunked claims of election fraud and tries to get the former president to stop the violence. Being evidence of fraud on a scale

that would have impacted the outcome of the election. And I was becoming increasingly concerned that we were damaging, we were damaging his legacy. What did the president say in response to what you just described? He said something along the lines of, you know, nobody will care about my legacy if I lose. So that won't matter. The only thing that matters is winning.

When you wrote, I suggested it several times, and it presumably means that the president say something about being nonviolent. He wrote, I suggested it several times Monday and Tuesday, and he refused. Tell us what happened. Sure. I didn't speak to the president about this directly, but I communicated to people like Eric Hirschman, that it was my view that it was important that the president put out some kind of message in advance of the event. And what was Mr. Hirschman's response? Mr. Hirschman said that he had made the same recommendation directly

to the president and that he had refused. Just so I understand, Mr. Hirschman said that he had already recommended to the president that the president convey a message that people should be peaceful on January 6th, and the president had refused to do that? Yes. Gene Robinson, the people closest to Donald Trump, as I said earlier, his family members, Don Jr., Ivanka, and we see here Hope Hicks, who was like a family member for six, seven years. Everyone telling him to stand down, his lawyers telling him to stand down. Everybody, there was, of course, there was his lawyer who was asked, was there any staff member, any staff member that wanted the protests slash riots to continue?

And his lawyer said, no, of course not. So the president was alone and wanting this rights continued, watched for 187 minutes. And I liked what you wrote uh yesterday I found it interesting you said obviously the most sensational recommendation was that Donald Trump should be prosecuted for inciting insurrection but the most perfect in terms of what we have seen with our own eyes is that Trump faced justice for conspiring to defraud the United States. Explain.

Well, because Donald Trump's entire political career, indeed his entire life, has been a fraud, a grift that from the very beginning he was a Democrat who decided to become a Republican and pretend to believe in a lot of things he never believed in. He pretended to try to win the support of the evangelicals. He pretended that the Bible was his favorite book. But, of course, he didn't know any Bible verses. And the one verse that somebody told him to cite, he said, was from 2 Corinthians. It was all a grift.

It was all a fraud. And in the furtherance of that conspiracy to defraud the United States, he committed these other terribly serious offenses. At least I believe it's been demonstrated that he committed these other terribly serious offenses. At least I believe it's been demonstrated that he committed them. It hasn't been demonstrated in a court of law. But obviously the Justice Department will be paying attention, and they'll make their own decisions as to whether and when to prosecute. The other thing that really struck me yesterday was that partnership between Benny Thompson and Liz Cheney, the chair and vice chair of that committee.

You know, you could probably count on one hand the number of times that in their careers they have voted on the same way on a matter of policy or spending or whatever. He's a liberal Democrat. She's a conservative Republican. And yet their their horror at what happened on January 6th and their faith in American democracy and their determination to to to that there be accountability join them in this extraordinary partnership that that has produced I just I just can't say enough about what this

committee was able to achieve it was able to unearth how it was able to present it the seriousness with which all the members attacked this mission, the gravitas that they displayed at all times, and the impact that it is having in the country. And I think it is because of really of those two, ofny thompson and liz cheney and i you know i think there ought to be a there ought to be a statute of two of them someplace in washington that really benny thompson did an extraordinary job uh well i've got to say i was going to say one of the most effective committees i've seen my entire life, really the most effective committee since the Watergate hearings,

when I cursed the Watergate hearings because we only had three channels in rural Mississippi, and I couldn't watch Sesame Street. So it's been a long time since there's been a committee this good. And now, Mika, I wasn't 30 watching Sesame Street. It was when I was Watergate. I was about eight, seven or eight. Oh, boy. So yesterday I got it. Watergate. I got it. Seven or eight. Oh, boy. So yesterday I heard John Heilman say something fascinating.

He said, you know, sometimes you have great you have great lawyers that are wonderful for the law. Sometimes you have great politicians who are wonderful at being politicians. He said it is rare when you have a great lawyer and a great politician like Liz Cheney. The two come together. And when the two come together, John said, in effect, they can bend history. Let's just say it right here. Everybody, including me, underestimated this committee at the beginning and what they could do. What they ended up doing was not only drawing 20 million people.

Remember when we started getting those numbers and they helped change an election outcome. We talk about Roe a lot. This committee played a huge role in shaking the public consciousness on the election denying liars that wanted to be elected. They shook the nation's conscience and they stood in the gap for this constitutional republic, for this American democracy. And along with the overturning of Roe, this committee played a historic role in making sure every major election denier that ran in 2022 went down to defeat. History will write it that way. And that will be the correct take. And I think there is more history that is going to be written as a result of the work that this committee has done. We also heard from former counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway. She gave new details into how Trump rationalized the violence of that day.

There's no doubt that President Trump thought that the actions of the rioters were justified. In the days after January 6th, he spoke to several different advisors, and in those conversations, he minimized the seriousness of the attack. Here is new testimony from another one of President's senior advisors, Kellyanne Conway. You said you talked to the president the next day. Tell us about that conversation on the 7th. I don't think it was very long. I just said that was just a terrible day.

I'm working on a long statement. I said it's crazy. What did he say? No, these people are upset. They're very upset. Ed, you call them patriots, of course, and saluted them for what they did when he finally was pushed into telling them to go home. Seeing Kellyanne Conway there and seeing Hope Hicks before that really does underline the fact, does it not, that this January 6th committee, they didn't call progressives. They didn't call left wingers.

They didn't call Biden supporters. We had one Trump advisor after another. One Trump person after another who supported him through the first impeachment. Who argued for him through the first impeachment, who argued for him through the second impeachment, who stood with him to the bitter end through January the 5th. Every one of these people to the bitter end, they were dead enders. And then January 6th happened. And even they never imagined that Donald Trump was this. Let me just say lacked the most basic prerequisites of being a patriotic president. Isn't it remarkable that this has been a committee of two Republicans and and just one Republican witness against Trump after they're all Trump is that have testified against him.

Yeah, I mean, it was it was amusing at the beginning when Kevin McCarthy refused to cooperate with the committee and a lot of the people, you know, he was suggesting that the Jordans, et cetera, who belong to the committee that Pelosi correctly rejected, asked Trump for a pardon before January 20th, before he left office. So they're sort of declaring their guilt themselves. But McCarthy would describe this committee again and again as a partisan committee. And, of course, he was right. It was a partisan committee. Every witness was a republican the lead the lead face this change was one of the most conservative voting records of any of any members of congress and a loyal voting record for trump by the way on those impeachment uh here the first impeachment um and many of the staffers who produce such voluminous bang to rights, impressive

evidence that is now available to the Department of Justice and has been made available over the last few months to the Department of Justice are Republican lawyers. And you both know better than me that, you know, you're not a Republican lawyer working on Capitol Hill. If you're a sort of milk soap type Republican, you're a committed conservative. If you're a Republican lawyer working on Capitol Hill. And I think what they've given themselves in their personal in terms of their personal sense of self-respect is something they can point to, to say, no, I'm a true conservative. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power. I believe in holding people to account for their actions under the rule of law in a land where the

law is king. And so I share what you've just said, Joe, but also what everybody said, which is the skepticism that I felt at the beginning of this process last June with the first committee hearing has been completely belied. This has been way more impressive than I expected. And for those very reasons.

Yes. John Meacham, I'm curious. I talked before about what I thought history's read on this remarkable committee would be. I probably should let the Pulitzer Prize winning historian give his take. And so people will have a better understanding, actually, of how this how this will play out over time and the impact they had on the 2022 election. Well, people voted for democracy, I think, plus something else. So perhaps it was Dobbs. Perhaps it was some other form of Republican extremism. And what these hearings did, seems to me, is in a very, to date myself, a very Joe Friday way, very factual. John Adams said facts are stubborn things, laid out what they knew and what, as Ed says, did so with Republican voices. It's interesting. There was no sort of great John Dean witness when you think about it. Instead, it was this accretion of detail. It was one person after another. I think Cassidy Hutchison probably rises to the one person who was surprising, and that had a lot to do with the ketchup on the wall, right?

It was just these people who were willing to say, and you could see how reluctantly, or how, you know, it was difficult. They knew, their consciences were telling them that they weren't dealing with a rational actor. And they weren't dealing with, and I think this is something that's interesting for the conservative movement, which I'm sure is wildly uninterested in my views on what they might do. But it's an interesting thing.

And Joe, you grew up with these folks. You know, people didn't pre-Trump go into politics, come to Washington to tear down the Constitution. Right. There was most people have a kind of romance about politics, a kind of commitment to playing a part in this unfolding drama. But they have they fell under the spell and may still be. So let's be clear. Again, we're not at the we're probably at the end of the beginning to bring one of Ed's guys in for a second, as opposed to the beginning of the end. But, you know, we're still in the middle chapter here. As someone who took over the Republican Party, who wasn't interested in the unfolding story, he was interested in

his own unfolding ambition. And the reason we the Constitution has endured the way it has is because the founders understood that there would be people like this. Lincoln understood in his first major speech. He talked about how if we are if the republic falls, it will not be from a foreign foe. It will be from someone rising here and capitalizing on the passions of the people. And the point of this whole system is that reason at least gets a fighting chance against passion. Law gets a fighting chance against ambition. And that's what we have to struggle for.

And I think that in this moment, just enough of us, right? It wasn't a landslide in the midterm. Just enough of us said, you know what, we want to try to keep this more perfect union going. We don't want to become a wholly owned subsidiary of one person. And when we look at the battle between the rule of law and the ambition of one man, the rule of is doing pretty damn well right now. Yeah, just move slowly.

It's deliberate. For a reason. For a reason. And I want to say, following up on what John said, that he's right. People like Liz Cheney, people like me, people with conservative views, that a lot of people watching this show disagree with. And I'm very grateful that you watch the show regardless of that. You know, Liz and I had, I think, a 95 lifetime ACU rating in Congress.

I think Liz is at 94, 95. It's a hell of a lot higher than most of the yahoos that are running around calling people rhinos because they don't they aren't craving followers of Donald Trump. But, yeah, we we we have a romantic view of the Constitution. There's a reason why I talk about Madisonian democracy on this show, because it's the it's the beauty of divided government, the beauty of checks and balances, the extraordinary system that we have inherited from extraordinary founders who were deeply flawed human beings, but who created documents that freed more people than anybody else in the history of this planet. So yeah, yeah, we carried constitutions around.

People made fun of us. There was a reason why we did. But we actually believed in the rule of law. Liz Cheney actually believes in the rule of law. And she's going home. She got defeated because of that, where you have a long list of people that have shown nothing but contempt, contempt for Madisonian democracy, contempt for the rule of law, contempt for the foundations of

this constitutional republic. They will still be in Washington. And many of them, Mika, just decided to ignore subpoenas from a congressional committee. Lots of luck with that precedent. Because now, if the people who are actually running Congress over the next two years had contempt, showed contempt for subpoenas from a congressional committee, then why should anybody else ever, ever respond to any subpoena? They can't. They just can't. Everything that you just said just shows also how precious our democracy is and how easily things can unravel.

The criminal referrals recommended by the January 6th House Committee do not carry legal weight, but represent a significant symbolic rebuke of former President Trump. And it remains unclear just how closely the special counsel's office in charge of the DOJ's own investigation will follow the path mapped out by the January 6th committee or whether Trump or others will face any criminal charges at all. The New York Times points out that not much is publicly known about any specific charges

the special counsel, Jack Smith, might be considering in a criminal prosecution. And the department is under no obligation to adopt the committee's conclusions. Joining us now, former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg. Given what I just said, Chuck, what do you think the options are here for the DOJ? And just what's your gut on how this material will or will not be used? Well, Mika, understand that the Department of Justice had a large, complex, ongoing investigation. You made the point earlier, and you're exactly right, that the law moves slowly. And between slowly and recklessly, I'll take slowly every time. So this work is ongoing. I one hand, the referral is of great symbolic and historical

importance. No question about that. No committee of Congress has ever referred a former president for prosecution. If you look at it from the vantage point of the committee, it has great meaning. If you look at it from the vantage point of the Department of Justice, where I used to work, it is almost literally meaningless. It doesn't have any precedential value, no evidentiary value, no substantive value, no procedural value. The Department of Justice has great investigators, great agents that have been doing this work. They know which statutes would be applicable. If the committee really wants to help the Department of Justice, and I presume they do, there are a couple ways to do that. Telling the Department of Justice what charges it ought to bring isn't all that helpful. Giving the Department of Justice

all of the testimony and transcripts could be very helpful. That's, you know, the one thing, Mika, that the Department of Justice had wanted all along, the transcripts could be very helpful. That's, you know, the one thing, Mika, that the Department of Justice had wanted all along, the transcripts of the testimony from the various witnesses with whom the committee spoke. So, there's a large ongoing investigation. The Department of Justice, I believe, and I'm biased, but I believe the Department of Justice will make principled, prosecutive decisions. It doesn't need the committee's recommendation. That's not to say that the committee didn't do a good job. They did. But proving something in a hearing room is very different than proving something in federal court. The first thing is easier. The second thing is much, much harder.

Chuck, I take what you say as 100 percent, because you obviously know the Justice Department and how they're thinking. Nonetheless, they're not sequestered like a jury in a hotel room someplace. The Justice Department did hear and see what happened yesterday, And they did take in, at least, the committee's view on what the president, the former president, should be charged with. Would you agree with my assessment that perhaps the least likely of those charges to actually be brought by justice would be the insurrection charge? Or do you have a different view?

Yeah, you know, Eugene, it's a great question. So, you know, you and I independently, I think, have come up with a list in our own heads of which charges pertain and which might not. Here's the problem with trying to make that assessment now. And I hate to be a wet blanket, but so be it. Here's the problem. The committee spoke to over 1,000 people. I mean, if you do a simple math equation, if each person spoke with the committee for, let's say, six hours or eight hours, that's 8,000 hours worth of testimony and deposition. We saw in 10 hearings about 20 hours worth of stuff.

That's not a criticism of the committee. I think they made an outstanding presentation. It was compelling and linear and logical. It was terrific, but it's not all of the stuff that prosecutors would need in order to make a determination. So to your question, do I think insurrection is the least likely charge or the most likely charge? I don't know. It seems to me that lots of folks committed lots of crimes. In order to prove it in federal court, you need to convince a jury with proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's awfully hard to do, particularly given that we only have right now a small slice of the evidence in public. Well put. Chuck, Ed Luce here.

Again, thanks for that sort of caveat about we tend to get carried away by what constitutes proof versus what constitutes proof in the media sphere. But nevertheless, what's come out from this committee and from reporting elsewhere seems to the average person, you know, without a law degree, not working in the Department of Justice, to be really pretty conclusive. And yet I imagine if you're Jack Smith and you're sort of evaluating whether a grand jury can can accept beyond all reasonable doubt that they're very different, you know, at the end of weeks and weeks of hearings to the average person. Nevertheless, it does seem really conclusive. Could you just explain the difference between the two and how important that will be to Jack Smith's decision on whether and what to indict Trump

and his cohorts with. Yeah, great question, Ed. So to win a case in federal court, you need to convince the jury unanimously by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The hearings were terrific, but there was no judge, no defense attorney, no cross-examination, no rules of evidence, no rules of criminal procedure that applied in that form. So Jack Smith and his team are going to have to make principled decisions, understanding that everything that they introduce in court will be challenged, that every story that they tell will have someone else telling an opposite story. It's not just indicting the case in grand jury where you need probable cause. It's convicting in court where you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

And that's a difficult standard. Not impossible. Not impossible. It happens all the time, but difficult. And I just think it's important for people to keep those differences in mind. Yeah. Chuck, I'm so glad you pointed that out because I was about to ask you to sketch it out. And here's why I hear frustration from time

to time that the DOJ Merrick Garland's not moved enough to indict there's enough to indict there's enough well in in the words of I forget what sports star who got indicted but afterwards he said in the 1980s he goes you can indict a grapefruit. Good luck convicting me. He was right. It's getting that indictment from a grand jury, not a massive legal hurdle, it seems to me, with the evidence that we've seen. But taking a former president of the United States to jury and understanding that if you don't prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt, then that former president will spend the rest of his life, instead of saying, every member of the jury did not find me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, will spend the rest of his life saying, see, I'm innocent. See, it was a scam.

See, it was a setup. And I would guess, and help me out here, if you're going after a former president of the United States, you may know that the indictment is a slam dunk. But do you really want to take it to trial where you've got to convince every member beyond a reasonable doubt or else this person is going to be able to spend the rest of his life saying it was a setup, it was a scam, they tried me, and where do I go now to get my reputation back? Yeah, Joe. So it's such a good

point. One of the lowest standards in law is probable cause. And that's the amount, the threshold that you need to indict a case. To your point, the highest standard in the criminal law is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the quantum of proof you need to convict the trial. So that delta, that gulf between probable cause to indict and proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict, that's where the difficulties lie. And so, you know, and Mika mentioned this earlier and we spoke about it. But if it's a choice between going slowly or carefully, I'll take carefully. And so sometimes when you're in the Justice Department, you can't talk publicly about what you're doing. You can't explain why it's taking a long time. But you really only have

one shot at this. You really only have one shot to get it right. And so let's take our time. Let's be really careful. And if and when we put a case in front of a jury, let's convict because that legacy will have lasting import. To your point, Joe, an acquittal could be devastating here. Former U.S. attorney Chuck Rosenberg, thank you very much for your insight this morning. And by the way, the famous quote also from a judge in New York was you can die to ham sandwich. OK, Ross Duthat has a column in The New York Times entitled The End of the Trump Era Will Be Unsatisfying. He reads in part. Well, if it's the end of the Trump era, that's pretty satisfying to me. Since the 2022 midterm elections, the end of the Trump era in American politics has become

at least a 50-50 proposition. While Ron DeSantis surges in multiple national polls, the former president has busied himself shilling $99 digital trading cards to his most devoted fans. There will be no perp walk where Trump exits the White House in handcuffs, though he still could face indictment. That hope lives. No revelations of Putin Putinist treason forcing the Trumps into a Middle Eastern exile. No Aaron Sorkin scripted denunciation driving him in shame from the public square, this desire for vindication is completely understandable. How else can you ensure that serious mistakes won't be repeated or that

an awful demagogue won't just slip into sheep's clothing and return? The answer, however, and this is tough medicine, is that the way to avert that kind of repetition is to make certain you have a strategy for winning the next election and the ones after that on the public's terms rather than your own. It's pretty great. Let's bring it right now. The host of way too early. White House bureau chief of Politico, Jonathan Lemire, and also former White House press secretary, now on MSNBC, how's Jen Psaki? Jen, you know, I read this op-ed and I wanted to disagree with it because I was saying, well, you know, the thing is, I don't need lasers. I don't need a laser.

The end of the Trump era means democracy has survived this six-year challenge. But he brings up such a great point there. And it's one of the reasons why we're doing it today. We had an extraordinary... The morning after the election, I texted my children, who were ideologically on different parts of the spectrum, and I texted all four of them.

I said, you know what? Democracy, Madisonian democracy, had a great night last night. Every election denier lost. So whether you're a republican or democrat america wins but that happened because as we say excuse me for being a guy here blocking and tackling right getting the people out women like football knocking i know you so you understand you don't win by practicing the bombs and the wonderful speeches. It's the blocking and tacking.

And I will say I've been critical of Democrats like going, doesn't anybody know how to play this game? At times they've seen the hapless. And yet you look every time it matters in 18 blocking and tackling in 20 blocking and tackling in 22 blocking and tackling they got the people out to the polls yeah whether it was whether it was a coalition of people of color or when those numbers went down a little bit it was white people in the suburbs that used to vote republican they got the people out and ross is right It's the blocking and tackling that will save democracy, not the floor and speeches. Yep, that's so true. And I thought that was excellent, too.

I mean, because winning elections and defeating election deniers and defeating Trump, as you said, and as he said, is not bad. It's not always going to be sexy work, right? It's going to be running on an agenda, as many Democrats did over the course of the last few years, and turning people out to vote, which they did in droves, as we know, but have more work to do. So now the question is, what happens in January? What happens in February? How are you keeping those coalitions together? Are you staying true to the agenda you're running on that rate that won in 2022 but that's the only way elections have consequences and elections in 2024 could be the end of trump but it requires doing all those things and jonathan lamere one of the reasons donald trump had so much trouble uh accepting the election results well first of all he wasn't going

to accept them he told chris christie in all, he wasn't going to accept them. He told Chris Christie in the spring he wasn't going to accept them. He started lying in the spring about a rigged election. That said, I talked to people on Trump's campaign team throughout the election like you did. They sat down. They showed me the data. They showed me the numbers. They said, we're going to pull this many people out. This is how we're going to get reelected. They pulled that many people out. What Trump still can't come to terms with is the Democrats and the Biden campaign did a better job at bringing out historic numbers. It's crazy. And again, this goes back to Ross's op-ed.

It's the blocking and tackling. It's the getting people out. It's the making history, not with an extraordinary speech on the top of Mount Olympus, but by knocking on doors, making phone calls, driving people to the polls, winning.

Yeah, it's about blocking and tackling and not whatever it was the Patriots tried in that last play of Sunday's game. That's the exact opposite of the fundamental. I still don't get where two days later, I still can't talk about it. And by the way, by the way, speaking of the word of the year being dude,

Jack and I looking, and I turned to him while this was happening, I go, dude, he said to me, dude. Dude. Jack's never actually said dude, but I do say it a little, dude, dude, dude. But this is but it's that's not the fundamentals. And the Democrats took care of the fundamentals. And in 2020, let's note, they took care of fundamentals during a pandemic that made it that much harder.

And yet they were able to do it. And there were some questioning whether they were doing enough like door to door, the door knocking to get people out. They pulled off just fine. And you are right. The Republicans, and this is what Trump is obsessed with to this day. He says so publicly and people around him say he says so privately. He got such a big number of votes, far more than he got in 2016. And he can't believe that he lost. Well, the issue is Joe Biden got that much more because of Democrats who were enthusiastic to turn out against Trump and also because Democrats did a great job of getting them to the polls. We saw it again this year.

Even though Trump wasn't on the ballot, he hovered over it. It was a lot of his handpicked candidates were on there, particularly for the Senate. And Democrats, motivated by the Supreme Court decision, motivated by the threats to democracy, motivated by, because they were in favor of a lot of Joe Biden's policies, motivated by the threats to democracy, motivated by, because they were in favor of a lot of Joe Biden's policies, particularly on the economy, came out to vote. And Republicans, that combined with the poor candidates that Trump saddled his party with, led to those defeats and have put Trump in such a perilous place today. Yes, there's the legal peril. Yes, there is the dinner with the white supremacists, the threats against the Constitution, the NFTs. But really why Donald

Trump is in such trouble is because he lost and his candidates lost. And he's talking about the past. And Republicans realize that's a losing strategy going forward. You know, as President Trump, who still is the de facto leader of the Republican Party, faces negative headline after negative headline. And there is one a week at least. Usually like a week like this, it's multiple. It's one of the worst weeks ever for him. Democrats have shown that they are able to do more than one thing at a time.

You know, as these hearings were, you know, forging ahead and the work being done with a bipartisan committee and the midterms and working on getting out the vote and people like Stacey Abrams and others working on making sure Democrats are heard, the president staying focused on a sharp message for the Democrats before the midterms. Plus, if you just put up on the screen all the wins for the Biden administration showing they can get things done. I mean, I sound honestly like a commercial, but this is what they've been able to do. Actually, you don't sound like it's reality. Gene Robinson, it doesn't sound like a commercial. She actually sounds like somebody that's been

actually looking at the news instead of listening to talking points on some far right pro-trump uh uh show um it is i will say there's a blocking and tackling there was roe there was a january 6th committee but also you have the inflation reduction act the chips act extraordinarily important the pact act the bipartisan gun law i say bipartisan the chips act bipartisan so many things that you see up there bipartisan the al-qaeda leader eliminated gas prices falling low unemployment go down the list look that he's he's running basically a war in Ukraine along with the partners of NATO and quite frankly, very admirably. And the president, at least on this side of the pond, hasn't gotten,

I think, enough recognition for what has happened there. But I will say, though, Gene, and you have colleagues that are very conservative, that were very supportive of Donald Trump, that were very supportive of Republicans who have written very kind things in The Washington Post, very laudatory things about you can take that down now because that does look like a commercial, very laudatory, very laudatory things about how Joe Biden is running perhaps the most important, well, the most important European war since World War II. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. One of the narratives that I think we can we can put to bed right now is that Democrats are horribly, permanently, eternally terrible at messaging. In fact,

the Democrats message got through to voters this time. Now, I'm not saying that they're absolutely as good as Republicans usually are at messaging, but they were quite good in this cycle. And you're right about the blocking and tackling. I mean, there was very good and effective coordination between the White House and the Democratic National Committee and various candidates in the states. Those campaigns worked together well. They deployed their their money, their resources smartly and well. So, yeah, the fundamentals, they got the fundamentals right. And the fundamentals are, in the end, what wins football games and elections. So, Jen, Ed Luce here. Nice to see you.

Clearly, Donald Trump's Herschel Walker kind of candidates played a role in the midterm disappointment for Republicans. My question to you is looking ahead a little bit. played a role in the midterm disappointment for Republicans. My question to you is looking ahead a little bit, if the internal Republican polls are correct and Ron DeSantis, who is a Trumpian without being Trump, is fair, apparent or unapparent, because they're so different. But if this more disciplined, competent Trumpian becomes the Republican nominee and doesn't doesn't endorse wacko candidates, how will we block and tackle?

How will the Democrats block and tackle that kind of disciplined Trumpianism? Well, I think the reality is Ron DeSantis could either be at his peak right now or he could be the future saver, savior of the Republican Party. We don't know. It's not just about being disciplined, Ed. It's also about moving people, whether it's moving people through kind of an evil message or a positive, proactive message. And I think we don't know that yet. So if Ron DeSantis is the opponent, I think what Joe Biden, if he's the nominee, if he runs all those things, will do is kind of lay out the choice for the public. And that was effective last year and I think could still be effective in 2024.