Morning Joe - Morning Joe 1/7/24

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

The Morning Joe panel discusses the latest in U.S. and world news, politics, sports and culture.

Today, I did what I have done my entire career, which is take seriously the oath that I have taken many times to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, which included today performing my constitutional duties to ensure that the people of America, the voters of America, will have their votes counted, that those votes matter, and that they will determine then the outcome of an election. I do believe very strongly that America's democracy is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it. Every single person, their willingness to fight for and respect the importance of our

democracy. Otherwise, it is very fragile, and it will not be able to withstand moments of crisis. And today, America's democracy stood. Vice President Harris, after the certification of the 2024 election results, pointing out the stark contrast between yesterday and what took place four years ago yesterday when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to block what is usually a mundane certification process. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe.

It is Tuesday, January 7th. With us we have the co-host of our fourth hour, Jonathan Lemire. MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle is with us. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson is here. And NBC News and MSNBC political analyst, former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill. So Joe, it should have been a boring process, but all eyes were on the Capitol yesterday, especially given what happened four years ago and given the division in our country

that still exists about whether or not that was a massive moment in history never to happen again. Now, you see some of the numbers that came out in polls yesterday about Republicans, how they felt in January of 21 and how they feel now. And obviously Republicans far less concerned about it today than they were immediately after it happened. As far as those that said it was okay, the numbers jumped in the Gallup poll from like 21% to 30% of those Republicans said it was okay. But you know I've been talking about this a good bit and and I just I it's important that we keep talking about it. We keep talking about the

perspective of keeping everything in proper perspective as far as what the election was. And I will say what the Biden-Harris presidency was, we're going to have Peter Baker on a little bit later on. And you know, Willie, we keep hearing about landslides, this, that, other. I mean, a win's a win's a win. It was a 1% win, though. It was a 1% win though. It was a 1% win.

So the election was extremely close, even though the trend lines were all the Republicans' ways and in just about every demographic group, it was still 1%. There was less than 1% in Wisconsin. It was about 1.5% in Pennsylvania. There's a little less than 1.5% in Wisconsin. It was about 1.5% in Pennsylvania. It's a little less than 1.5% in Wisconsin. So, we are politically an equally divided country. But also, we're going to have Peter Baker on.

And I read this this past weekend. It's pretty remarkable. And it's something that Biden and Harris, you know, they're not feeling it now, but historians certainly will note this, only because it's the facts. And I know that the facts don't matter to a lot of people. Their feelings matter more, which of course is ironic, because I remember seeing in 2020 all these flags that said, F your feelings, Trump 2020. And then of course, it was their feelings. They didn't care about the facts.

It was their feelings that stopped them from saying, yes, of course, Joe Biden won. It just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like he could have won. And it's the same thing with this election. Oh, things are terrible. Things are horrible in America. Biden's been a failure.

Harris has been a failure. That's all we heard. Let me just briefly read a little bit from what Peter Baker said. And again, these are facts. I hope facts don't offend you all that are watching that want to keep believing how horrible things have been under Biden and Harris. But this is Peter Baker. We're going to have him on in an hour. For the first time, Willie, since George W. Bush's inauguration, no American troops were

at war overseas on Inauguration Day. Murders way down. Illegal immigration fallen below where it was when Donald Trump left office. Stock markets are roaring and finished at their best two years in up. Wages are rising. The economy is growing as quickly as it did during Trump's presidency. Unemployment is as low as it was before the pandemic. Domestic energy production higher than it has ever been. And Willie, did you know our manufacturing sector has more jobs right now than any time than it has in 25 years? So the manufacturing sector up, drug overdose deaths down, And of course, as an economist from Moody says, who has to look at economies across the world

and rate them, America's economy, and this is not even debatable. America's economy is the envy of the world. And even inflation down. Were there some economic headwinds because of inflation over the last three years or so? Yeah. But I just say all this to say

that history's going to have a clear record on the Biden presidency. And when we move beyond the sound and the fury signifying nothing on social media about how horrible Joe Biden's presidency has been, our own cable news network saying how horrible Joe Biden's presidency has been, data, the facts, I think they may matter, the historians, the facts are going to show that Donald Trump is inheriting a pretty strong economy and a country that is going in the right direction socially whether you're talking about, you know, whether you're talking about jobs, whether you're talking about illegal immigration, whether you're talking about jobs, whether you're talking about illegal immigration,

whether you're talking about drug overdose deaths going down, I could go on and on and on. But things are pretty strong right now. And make no doubt, Republicans will be measured two years from now and four years from now against where America is at this point. Yeah, the case you just laid out and that Peter Baker lays out in the New York Times this morning, we'll talk to him about it in a few minutes, makes it very difficult to argue that Donald Trump is entering a moment again of American carnage, as he called it

four years ago at his inauguration, that only he can rescue the country from where it is right now. It's all there in black and white. If you want to talk legacy, go back to where we were four years ago in the grips of a pandemic that the Biden administration helped to lead us out of with the help of Operation Warp Speed with that vaccine under Donald Trump as well. And yeah, now Republicans get Washington. It's theirs. They've inherited this Donald Trump in the White House.

They've got the House, they've got the Senate, and now they have to deliver on all the things that they said they were going to deliver on, all the things that they promised during this campaign. And they'll have to do it, as you said many times, Joe, with a very, very slim margin in the House of Representatives. Right now, Mike Johnson, the speaker, has a four-vote margin that's going to go down to two when he loses a couple members to the new administration in this cabinet. So they're not going to come in with the mandate they think they have and just write checks and do whatever they want, however they want. And again, this is not a country

that's in the grips of American carnage right now. This is the country that Peter Baker lays out, Joe, and also it has to be said that unemployment jobs are good. There are things from the Biden administration that were too little too late. When we talk about the military, no troops on the ground. Well, the Afghanistan withdrawal was an unmitigated disaster that cost the lives of 13 American service members. The border was not under control until recently. It is now, so there are reasons that Joe Biden

was not reelected. Inflation's still too high and was during the last couple of years, but he does leave the country in pretty good shape for the next president. Well, I mean, you look at the numbers, Mike, I mean, just again, I'm not talking about where we are today, what people are thinking because the die is cast. I'm just saying we've all seen this.

We know how history goes four years from now, eight years from now, 20 years from now when people are looking back at this administration and they're going to say, what? Okay, so what happened in that election? Wait, wait, you you. You had jobs at near record lows. You had America's economy outpacing the rest of the world. You you had crime, crime at 50 year lows, violent crime at 50-year lows.

Violent crime at 50-year lows. Don't get mad at me for saying that, y'all. Get mad at the facts. If you don't like the facts, I mean, I can't help you. But crimes at 50-year lows, violent crime is. Murders way down. Drug overdose deaths going down precipitously. I could go on and on and on.

And, Mike, my biggest point is Republicans, they need to be careful when they take control. They need to be careful because right now they have an economy that's the envy of the world. And when you're sitting with a lead like that, you don't want to move too fast. You don't want to take radical chances. I will just tell you as a conservative, and I hope there are still conservatives in the House of Representatives. As a conservative, I'm very concerned about the fact that we have a $36 trillion debt. And Republicans are talking about blowing a hole wide open in that debt that will cause inflation to spike to numbers that we haven't seen since Paul Volcker was running the Fed

and moved interest rates up to 21%. Because at some point that debt bomb is going to go off, and at some point the rest of the world is going to say, wait a second, you're $36 trillion in debt, and you're going to add $10 trillion more to the debt? Those are the sort of things, and of course, most economists would also say tariffs, those are the sort of things that are going to cause this economy to move from being the strongest in the world to possibly struggling like the rest of the world. So I just hope that Republicans take care with what they're inheriting. They're never going to say Joe Biden's done a good job with the economy. But they know the numbers.

They see the numbers. They know where Wall Street is. They know what happens if they screw this up and suddenly everybody's stocks start plummeting. Everybody's 401Ks start going through the floor. They need to be careful. Because as Peter Baker reports in the New York Times this weekend, and we're talking to him in an hour, right now the election's behind us.

They won. But they got a set of facts that actually it's going to be incumbent on them to make sure they don't screw it up. Well, Joe, you're right about everything. And Peter Baker is right about everything that he put in the paper. Facts do matter, and they matter to everyone's life in America. The other thing that matters is the Biden presidency initiated, passed, and sponsored and strengthened two enormous acts of legislation comparable to Lyndon Johnson's 1964 89th Congress progress that we made legislatively in the country at that time.

But something has happened in the culture over the years and America now is uniquely, I think, a nation of the moment. The fact that the Republican Party is being handed the strongest economy in the world, which it is, matters less than what happens in aisle three to the cost of eggs. In a moment, people can turn on a candidate that they voted for in 2020 and change their minds because of the gas prices, because of the cost of eggs. Everyone gets that. That's been politics for 100 years.

There's no doubt about it. But Joe Biden can stand on his legislative record. The Republicans have that record now. They are standing on it in terms of the economy, as we've pointed out several times already today. The strongest economy in the world, if it slips, if it slips, it's on them. And Gerald Baker in the Wall Street Journal had a pretty good piece today, which has to do with all of this, his advice, his New Year's resolutions for different political people

and resolutions for himself. His New Year's resolution that he suggests that Donald Trump take is be a president for all the American people, not just, you know, your friends. Don't go after your enemies. Be a president for all the American people. That's maybe the biggest question of all that we're going to face. We are going to face that. And Jerry Baker, obviously, it is a great op-ed.

I want to read more from it today. But Mika, Mike just brought up a great point about grocery bills, about inflation, and inflation is down, but inflation over three, four years. We're talking about all these numbers, that, again, Republicans will be judged by four years from now. America will be better off four years ago than it is today?

And there are a lot of inflationary pressures I'm really concerned about regarding tariffs and also 10 trillion more dollars in debt that's going to spike inflation if it's not done the right way. And that of course will be up to President Trump and that'll be up to the Republicans. But there's an important point. I just talked about the macro, how great things are if you look at the data. The micro ends up being this. I heard, you know, when I interviewed Bill Clinton at the 25th anniversary of the Clinton Library last month, his takeaway message was this. You got to meet Americans where they are. And Ben Wickler, who I hope, I hope Ben is going to be the next chairman of the DNC, not because I have anything against the other people that are running against him, but because he's been playing against a rigged deck in Wisconsin since 2010, some of the worst gerrymandering

in America that I've ever seen in Wisconsin. And yet, Ben has pushed Democrats back into a winning position in the state of Wisconsin and almost helped Harris carry Wisconsin over the finish line this past year. But Ben said this, listen to these stats, it's fascinating. For Americans who follow the news, Kamala Harris won by six percentage points, she was plus six. For Americans that don't follow the news regularly. She lost by 18 points. And when you hear numbers like that, you realize we can sit here and we can talk about how great things are going in America.

But for these people who don't follow the news regularly, but they have alternative sources to get their news, for them, chances are very good. Their headlines were the signs outside the gas stations when they were driving past and saw gas prices up much higher now than they were four years ago. And the stories they read were not in the New York Times. The only story they needed to read was on the receipt when they were leaving the grocery store and their grocery bills. And they saw that grocery bills were just too high. So yes, two things can be true at one time. America's economy can be the envy of the world.

Things can be going better than anybody else. But if Democrats don't go out and meet people where they are and say, we understand, we're here, and we're gonna make things better, we're gonna fight like hell, fight like hell until those grocery bills are down. I mean, that's what Bill Clinton's message was,

that's how you win those elections. You meet people where they are, and you let them know things will get better and that's going to be your singular focus. So anyway, it's just fascinating and can't wait to see Jerry. I can't wait to see, we'll talk about Jerry Baker's op-ed and also we'll be seeing Peter Baker, the fabulous Baker brothers in about an hour from now. Yeah, and with respect, the Harris campaign did focus on some of the things that were still yanking at this economy.

Housing prices, they had a plan for it. The costs were still too high for people, even though on the macro, the economy and the build put in by the Biden administration was extremely strong under extremely difficult circumstances. And I think you're right, Joe, Republicans have to worry about building on this economy rather than tearing it down. And that will be that will be the tension that lies ahead. By the way, as the election certification was taking place yesterday, President-elect

Trump accused President Biden of hurting the transition of power. Trump wrote on social media, quote, Biden is doing everything possible to make the transition as difficult as possible, from lawfare, such as has never been seen before, too costly and ridiculous executive orders on the Green New scam and other money-wasting hoaxes. Shortly before writing that, Trump posted a photo of the crowd at the ellipse four years ago right before a mob of his supporters would go on to storm the Capitol. And Jonathan Lamare talked about hurting the transition. That picture is quite something.

Yeah, and we all, of course, know that President Trump didn't give then-incoming president-elect Biden any transition at all because of his efforts to undermine the election. Did not cooperate. The Biden team had to really play catch up. They're also impacted by the pandemic. The Biden team had to really play catch up. They're also impacted by the pandemic. The Biden team, you know, other Trump aides have said to me

and to others in last week's have been nothing but professional in terms of turning this over. We've heard President Biden has bit his tongue a number of times. We heard from the president in an op-ed over the weekend saying that though yes, January 6th should of course be remembered, he's calling for an annual commemoration. He knows that American democracy has to be honored.

The results have to be accepted. Donald Trump won. He's gonna meet with Donald Trump the morning of the 20th and will attend his inauguration. And what he's doing now is yes, there's still some executive orders. They're still trying to pass to get some things done, to codify some of his accomplishments

as any president would do. That's not Claire McCaskill undermining a transition that is securing a legacy to be sure and the West Wing is very mindful of president Biden's legacy, but it's also simply trying to codify accomplishments which is hardly a unique thing for an outgoing president. But instead we have Donald Trump seemingly unable to do what Jerry Baker has advised,

which is to be a president of all people. And we should note, every chance, Donald Trump has had the opportunity to choose division or unity. He's chosen division in the past. Here he is highlighting the mob on January 6th, attacking the outgoing president. Over the weekend, he's screening a documentary

about the 2020 election, which he still believes was rigged. He still will not concede. It seems to me as Democrats honor their democracy, they certify his election win. Donald Trump still picking division. Yeah, you know, and there's a couple of things that come to mind on this. Joe is right that the numbers in the United States of America are good.

And one of the problems we have is not only are there a huge swath of Americans that aren't following the news, they don't get an international perspective. They don't realize what great shape we're in compared to the rest of the world. The other thing that's going on in the rest of the world that hasn't been talked about enough is the anti-incumbency movement.

It doesn't matter whether you are on the right in the UK or on the left in Canada. If you are in an incumbent right now, the hangover from COVID, especially as it relates to migrants and as it relates to inflation, has caused an anti-incumbency mood worldwide. That is the hole that Kamala Harris was trying to dig out of. She did a remarkable job in a short period of time, but at the end of the day, there wasn't a swath of Americans that believed that they would be better off, that those eggs that Barnacle referred to

would be cheaper under Donald Trump. Now, he's gonna be an incumbent in about 10 minutes, and he's gonna be expected to bring those prices down. And with the one-two punch of debt and tariffs, that's a tall order for him to say nothing of the fact that he's got a margin in the House of Representatives that's so tiny that when it's time to fund the government in March, they will not be able to fund the government without democratic votes. So that's when the Democrats have to stress how important it is that we stay focused on

people who can't afford to buy their groceries. And remember, Donald Trump's been managing expectations even on that in that Time Person of the Year interview. He said, actually, it's going to be tough to get those prices down right away, but that he'd work on it. Gene Robinson, you're writing this morning in The Washington Post about why we should remember as a nation, January 6, 2025, what happened yesterday as a stark contrast, of course, to 2021, where Vice President Kamala Harris stood, performed her constitutional duty without incident, lasted just over about

30 minutes or so. It called to mind when Al Gore had to do the same for George W. Bush. Joe Biden actually did it in 2016 for Donald Trump and on and on. What stood out to you yesterday? What stood out to me was that it was a normal ceremonial certification of the election as we had consistently every four years until 2021, until January 6, 2021, when Donald Trump assembled that crowd that he showed, that he highlighted yesterday and sent the mob up to the Capitol to conduct a violent invasion of the Capitol, in which 140 police officers were injured,

several took their lives afterward or died directly because of this. Members of Congress were legitimately in fear of their lives. They were chanting, hang Mike Pence. This was all on Donald Trump. And everybody knows that it was. It's the only time in American history

that we failed to peacefully transfer power from one party to the other, going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson's inauguration. And we should never, ever forget that. And what should remind us is the contrast, the contrast with what happened yesterday, which was Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, presiding over the certification of her own defeat, as Al Gore did in 2001, as Richard Nixon did as Vice President in 1961, as every Vice President has peacefully done throughout our history. And so this is how it's supposed to work,

but Republicans can't just accept election results when they win. And so the real test, I guess, will be the next time we switch from a Republican president to a Democratic president. And we see how the party behaves and whether it behaves in the American tradition, in the Democratic tradition, or the way it behaved in 2021. Yeah, you know, Mika, as we end this segment, I just, I want to circle back to something that Claire brought up that I think we all forget about maybe a little bit too much. And that is the pandemic. COVID, we brush it aside. We talk about all these other things that have happened. I do believe that when history is written about this election and about this time, they're going to talk about what a massive

impact COVID had, the pandemic, that dark chapter in American history had on voters. It still hangs over us in a sense, the memories of what it meant, not only for us, for our children, for our parents, for everybody. And there's just not a much stronger pull for many Americans than nostalgia. We remember, of course, the immortal words of those political philosophers, Gladys Knight and the Pips. And when they sang The Way We Were, Gladys started that by saying, the good old days, the good old days, everybody's talking about the good old days. Well, the good old days weren't as good as we remember it. And as bad as today seems, these will be the good old days for our children. And the pull of nostalgia to the before times, before the pandemic,

led so many people to have nostalgia for those times before March of 2020. Oh, things were better back then. The economy was better. Everything was better. Things are horrible now. If we could have only gone back to the before times, Donald Trump was president in the before times. I like it better back then than where we are now.

So we can talk again about all of these trend lines that are extraordinarily positive. And again, let me underline it, that Republicans, whether they like it or not, will be judged two years from now and four years from now by how great things are on the macro level. And they will, of course, be judged where people live. Will they be able to bring grocery prices down? Will they be able to bring gas prices down? But we can never look past

the extraordinarily powerful pull of nostalgia and people just thinking back to how things were before the pandemic, before that crack in time that shattered the lives of almost every American. Yeah, with hundreds and thousands of people dead and a country pulled together by technology and social media at the same time because they couldn't go out. It made a lot of impact as to how we look back now today. And we forget. We forget.

The issue of amnesiacs. Yes, major. I think it is social media, which is a whole different conversation. Let's pause. Still ahead on Morning Joe, a federal judge has found former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in contempt for failing to comply with a $148 million defamation ruling. We're going to go over what happened in court yesterday and what's next with that. Plus, president-elect Trump loses a bid to delay Friday's sentencing in his hush money

case. While he is not expected to face any jail time, our next guest says that doesn't mean the story is over. We're back in just a moment. New York judge has denied president elect Trump's latest request to delay a sentencing hearing in his hush money criminal case. The hearing on Trump's 34 felony convictions currently set for this Friday, just 10 days before he takes office.

Let's bring in former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent, Lisa Rubin. Lisa, good morning. Happy New Year. It's great to see you. So people have been sort of tuned out for a couple of weeks through the holidays. Let's tune them back in to what's happening exactly here. This is the case where Donald Trump was convicted 34 times on felony counts and in hush money trial.

So what was Judge Mershon ruling on exactly yesterday? Judge Mershon was ruling on a motion to vacate both the verdict and the indictment. And one of the things that Trump said was, in addition to the presidential immunity arguments that we're all familiar with, meaning you can't use certain evidence to convict me because I was in the White House at the time, he also made a timing-based immunity argument saying,

as a president-elect, the same courtesies that are extended to a sitting president in terms of being immune from prosecution, those should extend to me during the transition period as well, because I am so busy preparing to take the office that essentially the same principles that animate immunity for sitting presidents

should also apply during the transition period. Mershon rejecting that as well. So he rejected that, which means what will we see on Friday? What do you expect? Well, first of all, it's not clear to me that we're going to go forward on Friday. Judge Mershon is the first, but not the only decision-maker here.

And Donald Trump has put in two appeals to the New York state system. One of them was something he filed yesterday called an Article 78 proceeding. That's when you sue a government actor like a judge, for example, saying that person interfered with your constitutional rights. Trump filed that lawsuit yesterday and one of the relief that he asks for in that suit is an immediate stay of all further proceedings Count on there being a flurry of activity today in New York appeals courts and perhaps in the coming days before we get to that Friday Sentencing so Lisa let's say it does move forward It's sort of expected all along that Donald Trump, you know

Even before he won the election wouldn't face prison time for this and the judge sort sort of reiterated that recently, if I believe. But if this does move forward, what are the possibilities of the outcomes? The judge has said in that same opinion that Willie was just referring to, John, that his preference is for something called an unconditional discharge. And it's exactly what it sounds like.

There is no penalty associated with an unconditional discharge, no probation, no jail time, nothing other than the conviction staying in place. And that's what Mershawn seems to be really fixed on is upholding the verdict itself and the conviction to honor the jury that decided against Trump on those 34 felony counts. But if there is a sentencing, the other thing that we should count on is Mershawn addressing Trump and talking to him about the gravity of his crimes

and his lack of remorse. And if you read the opinion that he issued the other day, you can see him taking on both of those things almost as if Mershon is planning, well, this may be my last opportunity to address these things. I might not get to that sentencing and therefore I'm gonna address in my written opinion maybe the sort of things that I would say to this guy if he were in front of me in court for a sentencing. So written opinion, if this happens, would Trump have to be there? Trump has the option of being there. Again, in Rashaun's opinion, he says, I will allow you to attend the sentencing virtually.

That's a courtesy extended to almost no other defendant that I can think of. However, remember that Trump coming to court every day during the trial was a real test on the security and other resources of the New York State court system. Him coming for his sentencing on Friday, particularly given some of the violence that we've seen in other areas of the country at the beginning of the year, that's something that I'm not sure New York State welcomes right now and therefore Mershon gave him the option. Let me know if you want to come in person but it's fine with me if you appear virtually. All right let's move to Rudy Giuliani. Where does this go next?

Rudy Giuliani faces even more contempt hearings beyond the one he had yesterday. So yesterday was about whether Rudy Giuliani turned over enough information about his Palm Beach condo. He is saying that his Palm Beach condo is now his primary residence. He shouldn't be forced to turn that over to satisfy a 150 million dollar verdict that to defamation to women that found him guilty of defamation. Has he turned anything over? He has turned some things over. He's turned over for example the keys to that vintage Mercedes-Benz convertible. But until yesterday at least they didn't have the title to the car. They

have the keys to his condo but similarly they don't have the deed. They don't have the frame Joe DiMaggio jersey because no one can seem to figure out where exactly it is. And now we're arguing about whether the Palm Beach County condo is even subject to the order. That's the issue on which he was held in contempt yesterday. But on Friday in a DC court he faces another contempt hearing and that's about his continued defamation of these same two women. There was an injunction that both sides agreed to where Rudy essentially said, I'm not going to tell the same lies about you guys.

I'm not going to say that you tried to rig the 2020 election for Joe Biden when you handed each other a ginger mint under the table. I'm not going to say that anymore. And yet what did he do in late November in the run up to Thanksgiving on two successive radio broadcasts that Rudy Giuliani had according to the women and their lawyers? He did exactly that. So on Friday, he'll be in a DC federal court facing a contempt hearing and yet another court.

And of course, then there's still the issue, Mika, of what you said, has he turned over enough assets? That's an issue that Judge Louis Lyman of the Southern District of New York still has to determine. And if money's not enough, what's the ultimate penalty gonna be? How do you get Rudy Giuliani to comply if he's already cash poor?

One solution here and one available to the judge is some jail time. Joe. Yeah, but it doesn't seem like this is about him being cash poor. It seems like him not doing what the court's asking him to do or telling him to do, which is to turn over the title, whether it's to his car or turn over all documents to his New York City apartment. I guess what I don't understand is,

why does this keep rolling on into the day and night and day and night? I'm sorry, am I being naive here to think that if any any of us kept ignoring court's orders the way Rudy Giuliani is ignoring court orders, I mean, we'd be thrown in jail. My only frame of reference, I guess, is where I practiced law and grew up in Northwest Florida. Man, a judge tells you to do something, and I'm dead serious.

You do it, and if they tell you a second time, you're in jail. I'm not, I'm not, I mean, this is, this is just black and white. So I don't understand why do we keep getting these news stories that he just kind of doesn't feel like doing what the judge is telling him to do? I think, Joe, part of it is just understanding what it is that he hasn't done and is doing and where some of these things are obviously we know where the apartment is but for example what he's also been ordered to turn over a collection of watches establishing where they are who has possession of them that

takes some time but you're right to say it's a function of his willful non-compliance the judges are seeing that I think we will end up in a situation, sadly, where there may be no alternative to get Rudy Giuliani's compliance here, but for putting him in jail. I don't think we're all that far away from it, but we're not quite there yet, and he is entitled to due process here.

He is getting that process from both courts. But it's also a both and situation. You can be both cash poor and willfully noncompliant, and that's a description that I would give to Rudy Giuliani in this instance. To your and Joe's point both, Judge Lyman said, quote, Giuliani willfully violated an unambiguous order

of the court attempting to run out the clock by stalling and now is considering appropriate sanctions. So we'll see where that goes. One more for you here, Lisa, which is just happening overnight, which is Donald Trump and his team seeking to block the release of Jack Smith, the special counsel's report on the two federal cases he was investigating. It's in the hands now of Attorney General Merrick Garland in these final days. Obviously, those cases have been thrown out or they've been seized.

Well, yes and no, right? But but now but there is a report that can be made public and there is still an ongoing case in the sense of the Department of Justice or rather the special counsel is appealing the dismissal of the case as to the two co-defendants Walt Nata and Carlos de Oliveira is their lawyers yesterday who went to judge cannon and asked her to block the release of the report but through their motion we also learned Trump's lawyers have block the release of the report but through their motion we also learned Trump's lawyers

have seen a draft of the report they press Jack Smith's team for access to it they got it in very early January and it's on the basis of that review that they wrote to attorney general Merrick Garland and said that presidential immunity among other reasons compels him to block the public release of the report I would just say for the Trump lawyers, presidential immunity is like the elastic hairband that keeps on giving. They just keep stretching and stretching and stretching it

to see where else it can apply. I'm not really sure that protecting a president from the peculiar public opprobrium that's associated with prosecution necessarily applies to the release of a report that's supposed to contain facts that we already know. From what we understand, that report is not going to contain much, if any, new information. So this appeal to Garland, please conceal this from the public because this will be

embarrassing or damaging to the president-elect, doesn't quite carry a lot of water, at least with me right now. Joe. So, let me ask you just a legal question here. The Florida judge had said that Jack Smith had been appointed improperly. And now the argument is that if Jack Smith's special prosecutor had been appointed improperly, and that's being appealed, and I'm sure the appeals court will actually overturn her like they have time and time again. But is that not, at least for where we are procedurally, a strong argument saying, how

would you allow Jack Smith's report to be released in this documents case if the district court judge has ruled that he was improperly appointed. How? And again, and if that is the case, then would we have a situation where the 11th circuit overturns her again, and once they overturn her, then at that point, the report can be released. But of course, by that time, we will have most likely Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and it won't be released.

Well, it's no accident, Joe, that this is coming up on January 6th overnight into 7th, right? This is a race against the clock. I would note to you that while Judge Aline Cannon has held that the special counsel didn't have the right to prosecute Donald Trump and his co-defendants. There is law in other circuits of the country that holds exactly the opposite. The D.C. circuit has held multiple times that the special counsel does have that right. So we are headed for a situation in which either the 11th Circuit intervenes or we go

all the way up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court has to decide whether that report was written by people in a validly constituted office. Lisa, can you recall a defendant in either federal or state level who over a long period of time in several different courts whose team of lawyers over the course of months if not years have so successfully delayed, delayed, delayed a verdict. No, and I think we have some viewers who will be upset with me for saying this, but the particular genius of the Trump legal team is how skillfully they have exploited existing federal rules and law

to delay and to use every form of process to which a litigant is entitled to get the results that their client wanted. That's not surprising. Joe? You know, Lisa, I am a boring person, a nerd. Mika will tell you. And so sometimes on weekends, I read Supreme Court rulings. And I did that this past weekend.

I wanted to dig through, again, you brought up immunity. And I wanted to dig through the immunity ruling that the Supreme Court passed. I want to bring in Claire here also, but Lisa, I want to start with you. Because it seems to me there were some cursory readings of it. I want to make sure I understand this. More importantly, I want to make sure that our viewers understand. And I think even more importantly than that, I think people in the Trump administration need to understand what the Supreme Court said. And more importantly for them, what they did not say. Now, it seems to me that immunity was put into three baskets Basket number one the president the United States as a former president has complete immunity

For for for things that actions that he took that that he is Constitutionally empowered to take That makes sense Then there was the middle basket. And that middle basket said for official acts, the Supreme Court says that a former president has a presumed immunity. Presumed. And then the Supreme Court said, the Roberts Court said, that is presumed, but that's just a presumption that of course every criminal defendant has. We all know that there's always these presumptions

and the court went through the way that the government could overcome that presumption and find a former president actually guilty. And then the final was unofficial acts. and find a former president actually guilty. And then the final was unofficial acts. And they quoted the Clinton case to say, there is no immunity for unofficial acts. And in this basket, they seem to say to Chutkin, you figure this out, but chances are good,

some of the things he said to to pence are not going to have immunity The speech on january the 6th most likely he won't be immune from those acts things that he did as a politician and not a president things that he did as a party leader and not as a president, things that he did, fighting election results, those are unofficial acts and there is no immunity. Do I have those three baskets right based on your reading of that? And if I do, should that not serve as a warning for Trump officials coming in who think because

they read some headline somewhere that the president was granted sweeping immunity that actually the Supreme Court what I found was they left holes in there big enough to drive a Mack truck through in the future. Well I mean Joe first of all I think you've described the buckets accurately how that would have cut if Judge Chuckin had been able to render a decision on what fell and which buckets still is obviously up for debate. But I also want to distinguish between what I'll call substantive immunity. Those are like the three buckets that you just described, which is when a former president

is entitled to immunity depending on what kind of actions he took and what I'll call timing or process immunity. Remember the minute Trump takes the oath again on January 20th at 1201, he is immune from any and all prosecutions for any and all acts official or unofficial until he leaves office. And so this question of what falls into which bucket that will fall by the wayside once this man is once again sitting in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk. And what falls in which bucket will be a question that can be parsed again in 2029, but not

necessarily any sooner. Yeah, and Claire, that is also an important thing to note from this ruling. The Supreme Court didn't say, oh, well, he's immune from this, he's immune from that. What they said was something that we all know as attorneys, we're not fact-finders. The district court's fact-finders, and neither the district court or the DC Circuit of Appeals ruled on the facts of the matter, whether the speech was immune or not. So two questions for you. I guess we do have to wait till 29 to see how Judge Chutkin or another judge would determine whether these were official acts or unofficial acts. But the second question is, I know the Justice

Department doesn't go after Donald Trump or any other presidents when they're sitting. Do state attorney generals continue to move forward on cases or does the Supreme Court stop any of those actions for a sitting president as well? Well, the important thing to note is Donald Trump can't stop state actions. Donald Trump, once he is sworn in, can stop anything and everything he wants to stop at the Department of Justice. And he has guaranteed that by putting in an attorney general that he sees as being loyal to him above all else.

The state cases ultimately, and here's the thing, yes, there's judges that have to do fact-finding on the scope of presidential immunity at some date in the future if Donald Trump breaks the law. But ultimately, the real fact-finders are the juries, because juries have to decide whether or not the president's defense of immunity stands. So, you know, for the first jury are the United States Senate on impeachment for removing a president for unlawful acts. The second jury would be a jury of his peers.

And that's why what Mushan is doing is so important, because he is saying to the country, we had a jury that was selected with the input of Donald Trump. Donald Trump had a hand in forming that jury and they unanimously based on the facts that they heard found him guilty and it is important that that guilty verdict stand for all time, that he be a convicted felon based on respect the system should have for our jury trial system, which I might point out, Joe, is embedded in our Constitution. So there's a lot of legal questions that are going to continue to bubble up, both civil

and criminal, over the next four years. But a warning to people in Trump's White House, do not think you're above the law because even though the path is sticky, even though there are hurdles that have to be overcome by the government, there's nothing in that immunity decision by the Supreme Court that keeps a president free of consequences if he boldly breaks the law. Well, and Mika, this is I'm so glad Claire said that because Mika, you and I have been talking about this decision for some time.

And I actually didn't tell people, but this was actually a Brzezinski assignment. Mika told me sit down, read through it, figure it out for two reasons. One, to let Democrats know that it may not been as sweeping as was reported before, but more importantly, to warn people that are coming into the Trump administration, if you think you have sweeping immunity and blind immunity because what was said on Somebody's podcast you better have your lawyer read that entire Decision because it does not grant sweeping immunity In any respect whatsoever. They need to be aware. All right, Claire McCaskill, thank you so much.

And MSNBC legal correspondent, Lisa Rubin, thank you as well. A lot to cover for you. Coming up, Americans who were wrongfully detained overseas but are now freed and back at home are facing fines for not paying their taxes while they were imprisoned. MSNBC's Ali Vitale, the host of Way Too Early, will join us to explain that and the effort

to change the law. Morning Joe will be right back. Welcome back. As we begin the new year, families of Americans wrongfully detained overseas continue in the struggle to secure the release of their loved ones. According to the Foley Foundation, which tracks and advocates for U.S. hostages, there are currently 36 publicly disclosed hostage and wrongful detention cases, mostly in Asia and the Middle East. And the challenges don't end when they finally come home.

Let's bring in the host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitale. Ali, you've been reporting on the financial burden faced by some American detainees after they have returned home. Tell us about it. Yeah, Mika, you're right, because imagine you're an American citizen who has, to the relief of your nation, just been released from being held by a foreign adversary. You come home after spending weeks, months,

even years in detention, and as if the return to normal isn't task enough, you soon find out you owe thousands to the IRS because, understandably, you didn't pay your taxes. That was exactly the experience of one Washington Post reporter who is now part of a legislative push to change those rules. Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian

spent more than 500 days detained in an Iranian prison before his release in January of 2016. Please welcome Jason Rezaian. A release celebrated by his colleagues two months later. There was a lot of fanfare, a lot of goodwill support. But after a few months, I started getting some bills from the IRS. Because he'd technically filed his taxes late, Jason owed $22,000 in fines and penalties. How did that feel? There is a level of frustration to the entire experience, but there's also an absurdity

to it. Absurdity to the whole thing. The IRS was sympathetic, but hamstrung. They really wanted to help, but they didn't have a mechanism to remove these penalties. So Jason took his concerns to Capitol Hill and Senator Chris Coons. He was miffed and appalled but as a key member of the Senate he's also somebody with some influence. The right person to have be appalled on your behalf. One of them, yeah. So that to me me, was like a thunderclap. I said, this is something I can get done.

For Americans wrongfully detained by foreign adversaries, the tax penalties are just one piece of a complex financial puzzle that also includes retirement and Social Security contributions, even their credit scores. In my case, my credit score, because I had a couple of bills set to auto pay. Who doesn't? Exactly. And then suddenly there's not money in the account anymore. I don't have a physical address where those things are going to.

My email account is in the hands of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They're not paying my bills for me, right? So my credit score when I came back was under 500. Coons is co-sponsoring other bipartisan bills that hope to solve those issues too. And that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you're about to enter. So help you God.

Amen. All of them now on the docket for this new Congress after the original IRS-related bill stalled out at the close of the year. The word that Jason used when I spoke with him was, this is absurd. It is absurd. This is a simple fix to a problem that you can understand once you sit out and talk to the agency.

But Congress should fix this and fix it now. Especially amid the growing urgency of more Americans wrongfully detained by U.S. adversaries. Most recently, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Griskovich and WNBA star Brittany Greiner. A number of countries, authoritarian countries, are seizing Americans and using them as leverage. And so one of our challenges is making sure that we're connecting with their families. Our hope, and you know, we're a small community of people, several dozen, maybe a couple of hundred Americans who've been subjected to this kind of hostage-taking, our hope is that people after us don't have to deal

with these sorts of hurdles when they get home. And I don't think that they need to. Yeah, it's hard enough to come back. Look, in the scope of things, it's not nearly as bad as what we've been subjected to. And yet, we shouldn't have to deal with this. So this bill actually did pass the Senate last year and unanimously at that,

but it failed to pass in the House before the end of the year. So that means it's back to the legislative drawing board. Senator Coons told me he's going to reintroduce this in this Congress and ensure it passes not just in his chamber again, but that it ultimately makes it to the president's desk. But you heard from Jason why that matters. This is not a bill that would be retroactive. So this isn't even really about him, but it's about ensuring that future Americans who are wrongfully detained have one less thing to worry about, Nika. Absolutely. The host of Way Too Early, Alec Vitali, thank you very much for your reporting on that.