Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/14/25

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Federal prosecutors in New York and Washington resign after refusing to drop Adams charges

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, February 14th, Valentine's Day. We have got a lot to get to this morning, including the fallout from the Justice Department's order to drop the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams and accusations of a quid pro quo between the mayor and the DOJ. Plus, we'll play for you President Trump's comments about Senator Mitch McConnell as the former party leader voted against yet another one of the president's cabinet nominees.

Also ahead, we'll bring you the latest out of Ukraine after a potentially catastrophic Russian drone strike inside the war-torn country. And we'll go through President Trump's new tariff proposal and the criticism from a major conservative outlet. Meanwhile, there are more legal challenges to Elon Musk's seemingly unchecked power within the federal government. We'll explain that and will be joined by a comedic legend

and one of the original SNL cast members. Chevy Chase is our guest ahead of this Sunday's big 50th anniversary special along with Willie and me. We have the co-host of our fourth hour, contributing writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire the host of way too early Ali Vitale first things first everybody it's Valentine's Day Willie yes and are you prepared Valentine's Day flowers have been ordered to us in the mirror plans no really plans are made surprises yes oh wow wow Willie okay done and went to dinner last night last night last night Oh, really? Plans are made. Surprises? Yes. Oh, wow. Wow, Willie. Okay.

Well done. Went to dinner last night. Last night. Last night. It's today. Went to dinner last night. Allie Battelli's been reminding everyone all week, so thank you for that. I wouldn't have known it was Valentine's Day.

So Allie, you set to go? I love love. I mean, so sue me. I will say my very sweet Valentine surprised me with roses in the room that I get ready in this morning. Oh my god. That's a good way to start. Very good way to start. So Joanna in the control room says love is in the air. Which is good because I think at this point we need some good news. So I'm thinking we're going to like change our programming up a bit. Willie we'll do a little bit of like can we do some live on air proposals on MJ or

something? Let's cut things up a little bit. Can you help me with that with your Today Show connections? We'll work on that. We'll do some legal news first and then we'll get to that. And some pregnancy revelations. Alex Corson, our producer, are you ready? I'm ready for the news.

Okay. Okay. Wow. So he is the wet blanket ready for the news. OK. OK. I get started. Wow. So he is the wet blanket. It's usually me. All right. Let's get started with the news.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody, after a very long week. And it continues. The top federal prosecutor in New York has resigned after she refused to follow a Justice Department order to drop the corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon announced her resignation in a brief statement to colleagues, according to a senior official. Sassoon appealed Wednesday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and expressed her alarm at being

ordered to drop the case, according to a letter obtained by NBC News. She wrote that she attended a meeting on January 31st with Emile Bofi, the acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General, Adams' attorney, and members of her office. Quote, Adams' attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to be a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. Mr. Boevi admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion.

The attorney for Mayor Adams, Alex Spiro, denied the allegations in a statement that reads in part, quote, the idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie. We offered nothing, and the department asked nothing of us. Sassoon also revealed in that letter that her office was prepared to bring additional charges against Mayor Adams based on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI. Adams was indicted last year on multiple criminal charges, including bribery and fraud over his dealings

with officials from the Turkish government he has maintained. He did nothing wrong. At least five other Justice Department officials have also resigned as a result of Boeve's order to dismiss. Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he will issue an executive order allowing immigration and customs enforcement agents access to the jail on Rikers Island. Mayor Adams says the order would allow the agents to assist in criminal investigations with a focus on violent criminals and gangs.

The mayor announced the shift after a meeting with the Trump administration's border czar Tom Homan, yesterday. And this morning, both Adams and Homan are set to make a joint appearance on Fox News. Let's bring in NBC News National Law Enforcement and Intelligence correspondent Tom Winter and former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, NBC News legal analyst analyst Katherine Christian.

Tom, I want to start with you on the reporting on this because it's a lot. It's a lot to take in. Can you break down exactly what we know about what happened here and why this letter by Danielle Sassoon is so blistering and potentially revealing? It is potentially revealing because, excuse me, so rarely do we see the internal communications between offices, between the Justice Department and their headquarters where they're based in Maine Justice, and so rarely do we see the back and forth that occurs in these cases. To be clear, this back and forth happens all the time.

So this is not something that is unusual that there could be issues about cases. What makes this so extraordinary and what I think people really need to understand here this morning is that the Justice Department leadership under this administration doesn't care about your feelings. They don't care about what you think. They don't care about all the smart legal points that Katherine will make about the precedent of this issue. And you'll hear unprecedented today that this exploded into public view. The questions that Sassoon raises in her memo, which I'll get to about this particular case, about the concerns about this particular case, they are not losing any sleep.

Amy Blumhovey is not losing any sleep right now. The attorney general is not losing any sleep. Her staff is not losing any sleep about what happened yesterday, but the exception of the fact that this case still remains open on the docket. They do want to get this order of dismissal without prejudice entered into it. So they need to find somebody who's going to do that. Everybody they've asked so far has resigned. That's maybe the only thing that they're losing sleep about.

They have come in in their eyes with a mandate, with an executive order from the president saying, you will zealously support the efforts of this administration if it comes to a point where we're either bringing a prosecution that's to our agenda, or whether you're defending the administration when people bring legal challenges, that is your job. That is what they are telling their people. That is the executive order from the president.

So they have policies. And some of them, having experience in these areas, when we talk about cartels, when we talk about drugs, that might be very successful if they're able to carry them out the way that they want to. But when you look at cases like this, the issues that Sassoon raises, it's something that we spoke about in our coverage earlier this week. Eric Adams right now can walk around with one of those t-shirts that says property of the United States government. And this is a question and an issue that she raises in her memo yesterday, effectively

saying, we are doing something that the courts have told us we cannot do, which is hold over a policy issue over somebody that we've charged, and we're not supposed to be able to do that. And Adams is in this position now. And to be clear, the executive order that you referenced that he signed yesterday about putting ICE people at the jail, he could have done that six months ago. He could have done that a year ago. That's not something that is particularly new or that he's now allowed to do as a result of all this.

This is something that law enforcement officials in the city have been calling for. If you have somebody who's a member of a Venezuelan gang, who's been charged with multiple violent offenses, why are we having a trial? Why are we having an issue? Have somebody at Rikers who can say, that person's not in this country legally, they're out. And so she raises that concern. And then she raised the concern that this appears to be, in her eyes, what it amounts to, as she said, a quid pro quo. Basically, I'll do what you guys want me to do on immigration. I need these charges to be, at the very least, tabled, if not dismissed. And that's what Democrats in the city have been saying for days now, that Mayor Adams is simply going to do President Trump's bidding. We've had prominent members of Congress, we've had state

local lawmakers suggesting he needs to resign. There's been reporting that Adams may run for reelection this year as a Republican, switch parties. You know, there's pressure on Governor Hocle to try to force him out of office because there's a mechanism where she could potentially do that because this idea that he's no longer independently governing the city, but rather doing what Donald Trump wants. So, Catherine, let's talk about why this is set up the way it is, how unusual, if it is unusual, that the dismissal of the cases were done without prejudice, the idea that it could be returned, that the

charges could be brought back on Adams if he doesn't do, carry out Trump's immigration policy, let's say. And then just speak about the crisis, if you will, in office. You know well that the mass resignations, an open rebellion, it would seem, at SDNY. Well, unusual is too light a word. Shocking, extraordinary. It just doesn't happen. And any prosecutor, any ethical prosecutor, you're always fearful, you're not always fearful because you work for decent people, that you don't want a boss to tell you prosecute that person and there's no basis for it. you don't want a boss to tell you, prosecute that person, and there's no basis for it.

Or don't prosecute that person out of fear or favor. And you have a prosecutor here, Ms. Sessun, she's now resigned, who basically said, no, we're not doing that. We have a—last September, Damian Williams, the former U.S. attorney, gave a press conference, and he talked about this being a long-running conspiracy, a legal campaign contributions, over $100,000 in first-class luxury trips. These are all allegations, but these were against the mayor of the city of New York. A search warrant was executed on Gracie Mansion.

That's the home of the mayor of the city of New York. Never happened before. So now, six months later, okay, you know, if you, again, this is an allegation, if you agree to our immigration agenda, we'll dismiss this case. But we'll dismiss it with prejudice, because if you don't, we're gonna bring it back.

That's the appearance. And that's basically, quite frankly, what Mrs. Soons said in her letter happened. Dismissal with prejudice, without prejudice, immigration agenda. You don't do the immigration agenda, we'll bring back the indictment. So that's shocking, outrageous, extraordinary,

and it's disheartening. And I'm not surprised that all of these prosecutors resigned. And the current acting U.S. attorneys throughout the country, the people who have been nominated to be U.S. attorneys, they have to look in the mirror and ask themselves, do I want to be in that same position? And they have to decide, are they going to go forward and agree to be the U.S. attorney? Are they going to resign as current acting U.S. attorneys or are they going to wait and see what happens? And as you said, Tom, the administration now has the mayor of America's largest city in

its back pocket. And they're parading around, as Mika just said. They're going to be at door knocks, they're going to be on Fox and Friends with Tom Homan doing all these appearances, doing effectively whatever they need him to do on immigration. And we should also point out that Ms. Sassoon is not some screaming New York lefty. She clerked for Justice Scalia. She's a federal society judge. She's very, very conservative in the classic sense

that we understand conservatism, not in a sort of a Trumpist, MAGA sense. But what are the implications now for the judicial system writ large if, as you say, the message is get on board or you're gone? I think there's extraordinary, as far as implications of this. Look, it's the same thing with the FBI. I mean, it's very clear where the third rails are with an investigation or

opening an investigation or continuing with a prosecution with this administration. They have their defined priorities as I alluded to before. But one of the things that we've been talking about to bring back some of our FBI coverage on this in another memo that was sent from the Justice Department where Amos Boevey said you are being insubordinate, at least some memos that have become public, it's very clear that one, they want you to do exactly what their mission states, as I mentioned earlier.

But two, what is the incentive to open an investigation into anyone tied to the Trump orbit or anybody who should be under investigation, but maybe that cuts against some of the ideals or some of the priorities of the Trump administration? Why would you do that, Willie? Why would you possibly open up that investigation, go down certain avenues? What does that ultimately do to people's respect for and understanding of law in this country? There will be people that will vocally, because they're in my email and on social media, tell me we

really don't care, thank you. We elected Donald Trump to do X, Y, and Z, and the Justice Department needs to play along with X, Y, and Z. There is a component of the country that absolutely feels that way, but there's another component of this country that feels obviously quite differently. And the politics of this are, I mean, Adams has been openly courting this, right? He went to Mar-a-Lago, he went to the inauguration,

he is desperate to have these charges dropped, he was seeking a pardon, instead we have this. And then to Tom's point, what this is saying from the White House is there's not gonna be a separation between what the White House's political arm is and the Department of Justice. They're going to carry out his bidding no matter what precedent it sends. Yeah, certainly sends that message.

One more legal story before you go. Officials in Louisiana are seeking to prosecute a New York doctor after she sent abortion pills to a Louisiana resident. New York governor Kathy Hochul rejected a request to extradite the doctor after Louisiana governor Jeff Landry signed the extradition warrant. Hochul stated that she will never, under any circumstances, turn the physician over to Louisiana. Dr. Margaret Carpenter was charged with allegedly prescribing and shipping abortion medication to a pregnant teenager in West Baton Rouge Parish last month.

The mother was also indicted on a felony charge for purchasing the abortion pills, but she has not been identified to protect the privacy of her teenage daughter. The case is the first known criminal indictment of a doctor being charged with sending abortion pills across state lines after Roe v. Wade was overturned. To note, New York has a shield law in place which prohibits state and local law enforcement from cooperating with extraditions or arrests of person charged with health care

provisions that are lawful in New York and that could be what what helps with this case. New York saw this happening in the future and passed this law protects reproductive health care providers from out-of-state investigations, prosecutions, civil liability and extradition. And that's what Governor Hockel is relying on. But it's still sending such a chilling message to doctors who are trying to give women access to what is at times life-saving health care. And here we go.

Any promises of any type of progress on lowering abortion bans or trying to make things better for women in America appears not to be happening. That appears to be moving forward just as is, which is a horrific situation for the state of women in America in terms of their healthcare. Ali Vitale, give us some context of this. You were reporting on this for way too early and why some of these laws were in place.

And this is actually a case that's really important. Catherine and probably Tom, too, can talk about why a lot of lawmakers, including Pat Ryan, who is the lawmaker that represents the area where this doctor practices. Of course you've got Kathy Hochul now engaged in this legal battle. But it's really important because this is an example, one of the earliest, of red states trying to build upon the Dobs decision that of course curtailed the right of women to access abortion care. So I think it's really important that we that we point out the FDA approved Mifepristone

which is the abortion pill medication. We've seen that come under legal challenges too in recent years. But then there's also the fact that during the pandemic the FDA said you can prescribe and send the abortion pill through the mail. That was a time where telehealth was being expanded. So an important way of trying to make this care more accessible. Then of course at the state level you've got restrictions coming into play. So now it's a patchwork again of rules where in some states you can get this medication, in other states you can't. That is of course the crux of this. But it really does present the question, right?

Catherine, that we're basically questioning now in this case, are we a country that is willing to potentially criminalize and go after providers and criminalize or go after patients? It's sort of been the next frontier in this reproductive healthcare battle, right? Well, clearly Louisiana is doing that. Of course. I mean, New York has this great shield law. Not all states have that law.

So if you're a doctor in another state and you don't have a law or a governor who is going to protect you, you're just not going to provide this reproductive health care. And so that will have a chilling effect if more states like Louisiana does this. We'll be following this. MSNBC legal analyst Katherine Christian, thank you so much for being on this morning. And NBC News national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter, thank you as well. Also, President Trump yesterday ordered his administration to determine how to impose reciprocal tariffs on all major U.S. trading partners. The order does not give a firm timeline for the tariffs.

Senate Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Luetnick said the administration would look at countries one by one, with a final report expected by April 1st. The president yesterday was pressed by reporters about the possible impact of more tariffs. What did consumers expect? Are prices going to go up short-term, long-term? Not necessarily. I mean, not necessarily. But I'll tell you what will go up is jobs. The jobs will go up tremendously.

We're going to have great jobs, jobs for everybody. The price is going up, Mr. President, because of these tariffs. Who do you think voters should hold responsible? Oh, I think what's going to go up is jobs are going to go up, and prices could go up somewhat short-term, but prices will also go down. There could be some short-term disturbance, but long-term, it's going to make our country a fortune. So Americans should prepare for some short term pain? No, you said that. I didn't say that.

But what if the prices go up? Let's see what happens. Nobody really knows what is going to happen. All right. So far, Trump has implemented only one set of the series of tariffs he has announced and additional 10 percent levy on Chinese imports. A 25% tax on steel and aluminum imports announced this week, as well as 25% duties on imports from Canada and Mexico that Trump suspended would not go into effect

until early March. This will have a huge impact ultimately on American consumers, Willie. Yeah, prices are going to go up. Let's bring in the anchor of CNBC's Worldwide Exchange, Frank Holland. Frank, good morning. So let's talk first about how the markets are reacting to all of this this morning and also just how manufacturers, consumers across the country understand what tariffs will do.

If you talk to somebody running a car dealership in Detroit or a parts manufacturer, prices are going to go up. Well, first off, let's start off with the fact that tariffs are taxed on imported goods that are paid by businesses and often passed on to consumers. There still seems to be some confusion about that. So certainly there's a potential for price increases. When it comes to the market reaction though, yesterday after we saw the president's news conference in the Oval Office, we actually saw the markets move higher.

Some of it was relief that the reciprocal you know, reciprocal terrorists weren't being instituted that day and the idea that there was going to be a study. And again, this, when we look at the markets this morning, we're seeing the futures actually in the red. The Dow is down about 100 points, the S&P and the NASDAQ down fractionally. So it seems to be some kind of mixed opinions, people really trying to figure all this out. When it comes to tariffs, however, there's a couple different camps. So there's many who argue, and these arguments are becoming louder, that these tariffs, they're

just negotiating tactics. In fact, I had a guest on my show this morning from the American Enterprise Institute. He described the president as having a complex or sophisticated agenda when it comes to global trade, and he believes these tariffs could lead to tariffs imposed by other countries to be lowered proactively before the White House and U.S. agencies finish their study of tariffs. In fact, the Commerce Secretary who you just mentioned, the Commerce Secretary nominee who you just mentioned, who's leading that study said the president's going to get that study on April 1st and then has the option to start these tariffs on April 2nd, implying

it's not really a foregone conclusion. And the fact that the president says he's going to match tariffs from other countries as opposed to universal tariffs that he discussed before, many people believe that will reduce global trade uncertainty. And that could in turn, and the could is the key word there, be a boost for the U.S. economy and a potentially increased foreign investment in the U.S. That's what the president was alluding to, foreign investment in the U.S. leading to new jobs.

All right. CNBC's Frank Holland. Wait, Mika, Mika, before you go, I think you guys are burying the lead. There's one other huge story happening today. What's that? What's that? Eagles. Eagles parade today, Go Birds, Super Bowl champs, America's team.

Valentine's Day. Right here, Go Birds, America's team won, America won. Thank goodness. It's going to be wild today. It's going to be to Philly today. You know. A million Eagles fans. Frank, you had an opportunity.

You had an opportunity to say happy Valentine's Day. No, you didn't. You took it. You took it. Mika, you already have a Valentine. My Valentine right here. The birds. Mine's Joe.

Valentine is Saquon. Okay. All right. Never agree to Valentine's Day, guys. Thank you. Happy Valentine's Day. Okay. So we are hearing from the Wall Street Journal editorial

board. Yeah, they've been consistent on this. They're writing Trump's tariff stress test. The piece reads, is President Trump trying to put markets through a stress test? It feels like it. Stocks rallied Thursday after Mr. Trump announced a temporary reprieve from the global reciprocal tariffs he

threatened earlier this week. Try to catch your breath before his next blunderbuss tariff shot. Trump's willy nuss tariff shot. Trump's willy-nilly tariff threats on one day off the next create business uncertainty that will hurt U.S. investment and hiring. Mr. Trump's tariff threats encourage other countries to get closer to Beijing. U.S. businesses are huffing and puffing, but Xi Jinping is smiling, writes the editorial

board of the Wall Street Journal. And Ali, you spoke to a member of Donald Trump's team, his economic team yesterday, and asked the very obvious question, won't prices go up with these new tariffs? A very obvious question. One, you saw the president there was asked himself, and he actually used very similar language to what his top economist told me yesterday on MSNBC. Just listen to that exchange. Can you, without invoking the past administration, guarantee that prices won't rise because of these tariffs? I, you know, prices move up, prices

move down. That's the way the world works, right? The economy... But you're an economist. You forecast trends like this. so will consumers see prices rise? My expectation is that prices will fluctuate and that when economists study the fluctuations of the prices, that they'll wonder what the causes were and there will be many. And so am I confident that there won't be strong evidence of a price effect of tariffs? Yes, I am confident. So he's saying he's confident. Look, that's a clip that we can save for later and see if it actually ends up being right. But it's exactly what the president then echoed about an hour or so later when he actually put these reciprocal tariffs into effect, or at least the starting bell for them.

But I think Frank brings up a lot of really good points here, like the idea that there are open questions about if these tariffs will include carve-outs for industries like the automotive industry. That's something that on Capitol Hill we've already heard some murmurs about, agitating to have carve-outs like that. There are questions about if this violates world trade agreements and then of course the way that it impacts just the alliances and trade partnerships that we have on the world stage. So a lot of questions there and then of course what the Wall Street Journal has said, Mika. Absolutely. And also just very quickly, some of this is just negotiations.

Trump has had for years now said tariffs have to be part of this. So he's got at least fall through to a time that's telling that this has been pushed off till April before it actually starts or later, depending on the study. We'll suspect that could be. What he says he means, I think certainly people are expecting these to come in some form, but perhaps not to quite the degree he first promised. But there seems to be an obsession, Willie, to blame these, the impacts, the consequences

of some of these policies on Joe Biden, or go back to Obama, and I even saw it actually in a news conference yesterday with President Trump going back, many presidents, and blaming the war on Ukraine. I mean, it just... Well, part of his... We won't go... We won't dig deep into that.

There's a connection between Ukraine and inflation, which is that Donald Trump on the campaign trail suggested he would wave a wand and on day one he'd get a deal to end the war in Ukraine and the prices would come down. Now, gas, groceries, prices have gone up since then and may go up further if these tariffs actually come to pass. Right. And there'll be no one that they can blame it on. These are Trump's tariffs. Still ahead on Morning Joe, President Donald Trump reveals more about his phone call with Vladimir Putin, but declines to say what Russia should give up, if anything, in a potential deal

to end the war in Ukraine, the country Russia invaded. The Wall Street Journal editorial board argues he's making concessions to Putin without anything in return. We'll read from that new piece. Plus, Ukraine will be a central topic for officials at the Munich Security Conference today. We'll go live to Germany.

Straight ahead, you're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. ["The Daily Show"] Just as the hour overnight a Russian drone strike hit the protective containment shell of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Despite the attack with a highly explosive warhead, radiation levels at the plant have not increased according to President Volodymyr Zelensky and a UN agency. A Kremlin spokesman said that it was responsible for the strike. It comes as Vice President JD Vance is set to meet with President Zelensky today at the

Munich Security Conference. President Trump spoke about his negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday. Russia has gotten themselves into something that I think they wish they didn't. If I were president, it would not have happened. Absolutely would not have happened. And it didn't happen for four years. I think that when you look at Ukraine and when you look at the mess that they're in, it's got to be ended and

it's got to be stopped. Now, Russia has taken over a pretty big chunk of territory, and they also have said from day one long before President Putin, they've said they cannot have Ukraine be a NATO. They said that very strongly. I actually think that that was the thing that caused the start of the war. But as far as the negotiation, it's too early to say what's going to happen. Maybe Russia will give up a lot, maybe they won't. And it's all dependent on what is going to happen. The negotiation really hasn't started. So the word negotiation is being used here. I'm not sure exactly what's being negotiated. A European official tells NBC News NATO allies were blindsided by Trump's call with Putin.

The official says there's also frustration that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said publicly that Ukraine should abandon its hopes of NATO membership as part of a peace deal, effectively making concessions to Russia before, quote, negotiations have even started. By the way, that was President Trump alongside India's Prime Minister Modi yesterday in the news conference. Joining us now live from Munich, columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. David, your analysis on what the president has said and also these conversations that

he's having directly with Putin. So, Mika, behind me is the packed lobby of the hotel where the Munich Security Conference is taking place. Everybody's jostling. It's like a huge dinner party where everybody's trying to get a seat. And that's kind of a metaphor for me of what's going on in these pre-negotiations. Everybody's trying to figure out what positions the US is taking, how to respond to them. And the positions have been all over the map.

President Trump's initial description of his meeting with, or his conversations with Vladimir Putin was very warm, led people to worry that Trump might be getting ready to sell out Ukraine. Similar comments by Pete Hegseth denying Ukraine the likelihood of membership in NATO added to those worries. In the following two days, we've had people pulling back some of those comments to the point that Vice President J.D. Vance said yesterday that the U.S. might want to put tariffs on Russia and might even send troops into Ukraine to guarantee a peace agreement, the very thing that President Trump had said two days before wouldn't happen. So there's a lot of confusion during the three days of this conference here in Munich where

every foreign policy and national security official from around the world gathers, there's going to be nothing but discussion of these negotiations and what positions the U.S. is going to take and even who's going to do the negotiating for the U.S. That's another mystery. So it's a moment where we've all got lots of questions and not a lot of answers. So David, if the negotiations effectively are phone calls between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which is how it has now begun, Donald Trump even pointing out that Vladimir Putin used the term MAGA and he was flattered by that. Putin obviously knows all the buttons to push with Donald Trump and it appears he's getting exactly what he wanted by supporting him during the presidential campaign.

But if it is Donald Trump and Putin really running these negotiations, how concerned are NATO members? How concerned are the people in that room behind you about what this deal will look like? Really, that specific issue of Trump and Putin negotiating over the heads of the Ukrainians and the Europeans, don't forget, it's their security that's at stake here as well, led to some pretty strong comments over the last several days, including from Britain, which said it still is open to the idea of Ukraine joining NATO and

pushing back, insisting that Europe has to have a place in these negotiations. It's not just a bilateral discussion between Trump and Putin. So as I say, this is going to shake out, I think we're in the moment, so often before negotiations, we have a period of jostling, positioning. We had what appears to have been an unusually heavy strike by Russia hitting near the Chernobyl nuclear plant. That's been a red line so far in the three years of this war. So it's a very unsettled period as we move towards some kind of negotiation.

My own guess will be this isn't just going to be Putin and Trump. The Ukrainians will make so much noise that they'll have a seat at the table. So another piece from the Wall Street Journal editorial board. This one is titled Peace Through Weakness in Ukraine. It reads, in part, President Trump has begun his promised effort to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, and the initial signs are discouraging. He's making concessions to Vladimir Putin without anything in return, and he's informing Ukraine after the fact.

Does Mr. Trump want to negotiate peace with honor that will last or peace through weakness that will reward the Kremlin? Most concerning is that Mr. Trump seems to be excluding Ukraine as a negotiating party, much less partner. Mr. Trump is wrong if he thinks letting Russia dominate Ukraine will result in less U.S. involvement in Europe or enhanced deterrence in the Pacific. The U.S. will end up spending far more on defense and deploying more troops in Europe to defend Poland, the Baltic states states and NATO commitments if he abandons

Ukraine. He'll soon find that China is even more emboldened to take Taiwan. Mr. Trump has to decide if he wants an honorable peace in Ukraine or risk his own Afghanistan or Vietnam. John Flamir, again, it doesn't sound like a negotiation that involves all parties at all. To this point, it does not. And the latest example of the remarkable deference that Donald Trump shows Vladimir Putin, we

saw it in Helsinki, we saw it repeatedly during his first time in office, and now inviting him to the United States, potentially even the White House, and at least David Ignatius seemingly at this moment cutting him out, cutting Volinsky out of these negotiations. We should note, just apparently a few minutes ago at an interview there in Munich, our Senate Armed Services Chair, Roger Wicker, Republican from Mississippi, said that talking about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was the one who first said that Ukraine returning to its pre-war borders was unrealistic and a line that Trump then echoed. Wicker said that that was a, quote, rookie mistake and said that Hegseth should not have

said that because it's giving up leverage in these negotiations. So my question to you is, do we think we'll hear more from Republicans on that that might push this White House to rethink how they approach these negotiations? So, Jonathan, there is Republican pushback when you have the Wall Street Journal warning about, he's through weakness, you know, about about misconceived negotiations. You know that Trump has trouble. about misconceived negotiations, you know that Trump has trouble.

This is going to be a very complicated negotiation. And I think although Hegseth got a lot of criticism for saying that Ukraine may have to make territorial concessions, that's generally been understood really for a year now. This war is at a stalemate. Ukraine has tried to push the Russians back unsuccessfully. So I think that's less the issue than what kind of guarantees Ukraine will have that whatever the ceasefire line is that's agreed, the Russians will be forced by European troops, maybe supplemented by U.S. troops, to stay behind that line. I think that's gonna be the key issue in negotiations. All right, The Washington Post. David Ignatius, as always, thank you so much

for coming on the show this morning live from Munich. All right, coming up, our next guest argues the new resistance to Donald Trump's presidency is working. Semaphore's Dave Weigelich joins us to explain his new reporting. Plus, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell is no longer helping Trump push his agenda forward. We'll go through the new friction between the president and the former majority leader after McConnell voted against

another one of Trump's cabinet nominees. Morning, Joe. We'll be right back. Well, a dozen states have filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk and President Trump arguing that the authority the White House has given to the tech billionaire and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOJ, is unconstitutional. The suit was filed yesterday by Democratic attorneys general from a total of 14 states, including Arizona, Michigan, and Rhode Island. Specifically, the suit focuses on the magnitude and scale of Musk's power, noting that Doge has led the Trump

administration's efforts to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce, dismantle entire agencies and access sensitive data. The states are seeking a court order to block Musk from making changes to government funding, canceling contracts, making personnel decisions, and more. At the same time, a federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration's controversial plan to place thousands of USAID staffers on paid leave will remain on pause at least through Friday. Joining us now, NBC News' national affairs analyst and a partner and chief political columnist

at PUC, John Heilman, and politics reporter for Semaphore, Dave Weigel, whose latest piece is entitled, Actually, the Resistance is Working. Dave we'll get to your piece in a moment. John Heilman, your assessment so far, this pushback from the courts and from attorneys general, yes, that is a line. At the same time, aren't some of these firings and buyouts and moves going forward while we wait for the courts to proceed, isn't the damage being done right now? Well, those are, number one, I think they're. I think there's a lot of some of these agencies

where there are court orders holding things in place, right? At the moment, those agencies are not functional. So you can, yes, damage is being done. I think damage is being done kind of independent of that also, Mika, because the reality is that if you are living in a federal agency right now and you have seen what's happened to people at USAID or at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, other places, you are now living in fear.

And there are a lot of ways in which this kind of behavior that Elon Musk and his team at Doge have undertaken. There are a lot of ways in which it's supposed to operate. Some of them involve actually trying to cut things. Some of them involve putting the fear of God into everybody about the possibility that they're going to be able to cut things. And I think the fear has as much of a pernicious effect as the actual question of maybe a little bit less than when you keep your job or not, but it's now pervasive throughout the government

that people see Elon Musk running amok in the way that he is. So I think there's damage being done in either case. It is true, though, that the courts are holding a very important line here, especially in the context of a Republican majority in Congress that seems to have no interest in doing its part of asserting any kind of institutional prerogatives and is basically turning over all of its authority to the executive. Yep. So, Dave, your piece is titled, Actually the Resistance is Working, and you point out the

resistance looks a little different this time than it did eight years ago, say. It's not people marching in the streets necessarily. You're talking about resistance in the courts. You're talking about resistance from state attorneys generals. So how is it working? I think John set it up well. They're not stopping everything, but they had a plan, a plan B if they lost the election to organize lawsuits very early, find plaintiffs

very early, as soon as they weren't sure if it would be Elon Musk acting. But as soon as the Trump administration acted to cut staff, to stop what organizations were doing, to shut down agencies, they were going to sue instantly. And they have. So you had Democracy Forward and Sky Parram and create this coalition of liberal legal groups They're up to I went talking this week up to 400 that are involved in this in some way And they're they're moving very quickly against a Trump administration. That's also moving quicker than it did eight years ago They did not have the same level of legal talent. They have now they were much more stimmy for example with the Muslim ban

That was their first legal test eight years ago They kept losing and having to rewrite it. This time they are acting differently. And that context is important. There is nothing that House Democrats can do, Senate Democrats can do, or a lawyer can do. If somebody leaves this administration and they don't get their job back in six months, if they win the case, the NLRP is slightly frozen.

There are a lot of tools that the Trump administration is using to shrink the administrative state. I'm just saying the Democrats knew that would happen and they were not naive in waiting for him to move. It contradicted a little bit the idea that Democrats are stimmy, they're blown away, they can't respond to this stuff in real time. Members of Congress and leadership are having trouble getting in the news cycle, but the attorneys are really not having trouble getting into court. I think also though, Dave, this is what we were talking about a little bit earlier, this idea of a decentralized Democratic party is not happening here in Washington.

And I take the point that Heilman is making about how the Republican majorities in Congress don't really want to have good faith debates over what's happening here because the politics takes over. We can always ask the question, but as reporters often tell their editors, you can't make someone make news. You can't make these folks push against the administration, at least not yet. So at what point can people look at these legal challenges that have slowed, at least, a lot of the Trump administration's efforts and say, that is Democrats through an organized fashion, trying to push back, trying to stop this. Can they take good enough?

Well, Democrats try to take credit for it. We asked Chuck Schumer for this piece and other Democrats in Congress about it, and they say, yes, we have a multi-pronged strategy. They won't say one of them is not working at all, which is having rallies and giving speeches that get turned into memes. That's not very effective. But this is part of it. They're all in coordination.

The evidence that it's working a little bit is the White House is Caroline Levitt complaining about activist judges saying that they are undermining an elected president. I think everyone watching this knows there are different branches. One of them's not elected. That's kind of the point. The White House is stimmy by this, irritated by this. There's a very dramatic example of this happening in New York as we speak in the Southern District. But Democrats, I think some of the gun shyness they might have is for four years, they were

in court against Donald Trump as a private citizen, and it didn't stop him from returning to the presidency. Democrats don't necessarily want to be the party that doesn't win elections but does win lawsuits. But in this situation, they want to be the party that is defending, one, their constituents in the federal workforce, two, the government itself. This is the party, to a fault really, because it didn't help them in 2024, the party of a large government that runs really well with a big staff. So this is, part of it is being a party of talented lawyers who know how to gum things up. Maybe they're not gonna run ads on that in New Jersey

and next year. In Virginia, where there are about 140,000 federal workers, I think it will help them. And people will notice there's a Republican attorney general who's not suing to save their jobs, and there are Democrats who are suing to do it. Politics reporter for Semaphore, Dave Weigel, thank you very much.

John Hellman, real quick. If you want to talk about, Dave just talked about the one sign of that it's working is the frustration on the part of people in the White House and just the Cruz and Charlie Kirk Twitter feed. And he says, you know, the last night he was tweeting, if any judge in any court anywhere in the country can stop anything Donald Trump does, we don't live in a democracy. That is a kind of outflowing of the kind of frustration that they're starting to feel because they are being tied up in so many courts, whether it's temporary or not and

whether it's the perfect solution or not. Again, the courts saved us in 2020, and the courts so far are holding at least some kind of a lie right now. They may be the only thing right now. All right. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the nation's health and human services secretary yesterday. The Senate confirmed Kennedy, 52 to 48, with every Democrat and Republican Senator Mitch

McConnell of Kentucky voting against his nomination. Kennedy's team sent out a celebratory email after the vote, which reads in part, quote, the future of public health is about to change forever. Kennedy was sworn in by Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch in the Oval Office with President Trump in attendance. Trump then signed an executive order establishing the president's Make America Healthy Again commission. Its first task will be to investigate childhood chronic disease. Again, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the lone GOP vote against Robert F. Kennedy

Jr.'s confirmation. He was also the sole Republican who voted against Tulsi Gabbard for DNI, and also voted against Pete Hegseth. The former Senate Republican leader issued a statement about R.F.K. Jr. writing in that statement yesterday, quote, I'm a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I've watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans

who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles. President Trump responded in the Oval Office yesterday. Well, I feel sorry for Mitch. And I was one of the people that led. He wanted to go to the end and he wanted to stay leader. He's not equipped mentally. He wasn't equipped 10 years ago mentally, in my opinion. He'd let the Republican Party go to hell. But I was the one that got him to drop out of the leadership position so he can't love

me but he's not voting against Bobby, he's voting against me but that's alright. He endorsed me. You know Mitch, do you know that Mitch endorsed me right? You think that was easy? What? He had polio obviously and his side of the family. I don't know anything about he had polio. He had polio.

Are you doubting that he had polio? I have no idea about he had polio. He had polio. Are you doubting that he had polio? I have no idea if he had polio. All I can tell you about him is that he shouldn't have been a leader. He knows that. He voted against Bobby. He votes against almost everything now. He's a very bitter guy. We could definitively say Mitch McConnell had polio,

despite what President Trump is sort of being a casting doubt there. And a few things. I know in Washington, there's certainly some Democrats, like this is a little late, Leader McConnell to suddenly be standing up to Donald Trump and to remind the president there. McConnell, during Trump's first term,

when he was majority leader, ushered in much of Trump's agenda, including help steer in numerous Supreme Court justices and blocked Merrick Garland from getting a spot there the year before Trump took office. But John Hammond, you know, he is in his waning days of his time in the Senate, has made some principled stances here against some of Trump's nominees. He also has broken with him on Ukraine policy.

He has said publicly, McConnell has, that he wants Ukraine and the continued U.S. support of Ukraine to be the signature part of his legacy even. But right now, he seems like a lone voice crying out in the wilderness. It's Yolo Mitch, basically. All of a sudden, we're seeing him. Who would have thought that you would find yourself in a situation, given a lot of McConnell's behavior in the latter part of his career in particular, that we would be saying, gosh, it would be great if the rest of the Republican Party was more like Mitch. But he is in that he is, you know, he is really behaving like someone who's free of all potential

political consequence. And both things can be true at the same time, that that has freed him to take some votes that he that seems sensible on the merits and that he would never have taken before. But also the Democrats kind of look at it and go, you know, gosh, it would have been great if you'd been around a guy like you had been around in the past a little sooner. All right.