Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/21/24

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Prosecutors say ex-FBI informant charged over false Hunter Biden reports claimed he got information from Russian intelligence

It is unacceptable to compare Navalny with Trump. Navalny sacrificed his life for democracy. Donald Trump tried to sacrifice Mike Pence's life to kill democracy. All right. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, February 21st, and we have a lot to get to this morning, including former President Trump continuing to compare his legal woes to the persecution of Alexei Navalny. It's beyond grotesque. While still a guy who has been accused by a judge of rape, a guy who has been accused or been found liable for sexual assault by a jury. Massive fraud. Massive fraud. Massive fraud.

Hundreds of millions of dollars. 91 criminal counts. Defrauding creditors. Yeah. And the thing is, the thing I just got to say really quickly, the thing is, nobody is questioning whether Donald Trump stole papers from the White House, whether he stole nuclear secrets, whether he had sex with a porn star and paid her off. No one's questioning it. He illegally right before an election. Nobody's even questioning that. And that guy is comparing himself

to Alexei Navalny. It's grotesque. And he continues to refuse to criticize Vladimir Putin on top of all of that. Not a surprise at all. His latest comments, just as the Biden White House prepares new major sanctions against the Kremlin following Navalny's death. Plus, we're getting new details about the former FBI informant accused of lying about Hunter and Joe Biden's dealings in Ukraine will tell you where U.S. prosecutors say he got his dirt on the Bidens and his new lies that could impact the 2024 elections. NBC's Tom Winter is standing by with new reporting. You'll be shocked, but you won't be surprised. Right. I think that's part of the plan is just to overrun people with bad information. Also ahead, Nikki Haley won't kiss the ring and she's not dropping out of the race. We'll play

for you what she had to say about Donald Trump yesterday in South Carolina. Fair to say she is not kicking sideways anymore. No, she's not. She's staying in and I think it's smart, actually. It really is smart. And Willie, we're going to be talking a good bit about what's been happening in Russia, what's been happening, more importantly, in the United States. Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, defending a man who continues kidnapping. And that's what it really is. It's not arresting, continues to kidnap Americans. Here's a picture of yet another American they have kidnapped and now are throwing in jail, just like they did Navalny. You see Evan Gerskovich at a hearing on Tuesday, once again denied.

Again, it's straight out Clemens. It's straight out kidnapping their thugs. Donald Trump, Mike Johnson keeps defending this tyrant who killed Navalny, this tyrant who invaded Georgia in 2008, this tyrant who who invaded Crimea in 2014, this tyrant who invaded Ukraine a couple of years ago, this tyrant that has continued to kill any political opponents or journalists or even people on foreign soil, tried to kill people on foreign soil who he considers his rivals. This this is who Donald Trump and Mike Johnson continue to defend. It's sickening. And I will go back, circle back to what Mika says. It's un-American. Un-American. And they're members of the Senate, by the way, have now taken to praising Vladimir Putin as well. And the longer we go without this aid, this aid package getting through the Congress, the happier Vladimir Putin is.

It's just real simple. They're taking back towns in eastern Ukraine they didn't think they'd be able to take back because Ukraine is running out of ammunition. And last night, Joe, at that town hall, I know we're going to play some more of it in a little bit. Donald Donald Trump talking on Fox News would not condemn Vladimir Putin, which raises the question we can ask it every day. what is going on there? This should be really, really easy. He very briefly said Alexei Navalny was brave and then pivoted to framing himself as the Alexei Navalny of America, which he has exactly backwards. Navalny was a critic of Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump is the opposite of that. And again, Willie, we go back to 2015 on this show and we thought at the time it was so bizarre. And it was the first time. It was the real thing. Then, Willie, we go back to 2015 on this show. And we thought at the time it was so bizarre. And it was the first time. It was the real thing. It was the first time that we had heard and other people had heard Donald Trump so fearful of crossing Vladimir Putin, refusing to say that it was wrong for him to kill political opponents, to kill journalists, to kill any rivals. And he says, well, yeah, America does it, too.

That sort of lie, that sort of lie, which Donald Trump, you know, used to have Republicans apologize for Donald Trump and then pass tough sanctions against Vladimir Putin. Now, this old, tired, aging reality TV host has not only taken over the party, but is actually completely destroyed, completely obliterated any trace of Ronald Reagan's Republican Party that stood for freedom, that stood for fighting Russian tyranny, that stood for the liberation of millions of souls in Eastern Europe and Central Europe. Now, Donald Trump, shockingly, and Ronald Reagan's old party, now teaming up in an alliance with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Yeah. And we are learning more details. Speaking of Russia, Joe, about Russian links to the FBI informant charged with

lying to the agency about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter during the 2020 presidential campaign at a detention hearing in federal court in Las Vegas yesterday. Prosecutors revealed in a filing that some of the false information Alexander Smirnoff fed to the FBI, including a story about Hunter Biden, came from officials associated with Russian intelligence. What's more, prosecutors allege the 43-year-old is, quote, actively peddling new lies

that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November. Despite those revelations, the judge found the government failed to make its case that Smirnoff should be detained until trial and ordered him released under conditions that include GPS monitoring. Smirnoff has been a key source for congressional Republicans and their impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Let's bring in NBC News investigations correspondent Tom Winter, also with us, the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief of Politico, Jonathan Lemire,

and U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye. Good morning to you all, Tom. I'll start with you. You've been digging into this new filing that we learned from the FBI that this guy, Alexander Smirnoff, who now is charged with lying to the FBI, he, of course, had been the cornerstone, the star witness for this impeachment investigation into Joe Biden. Turns out he made it all up. But now there's a new twist to the story. What more do we know about his connections to Russia? Right. Well, there's a whole lot of new information here. And I think it's really important to pay attention to the timeline, something Alexander Smirnoff clearly did not do. And that's a big reason why he's jammed up here. He appeared in

court late yesterday. Our colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick was there wearing a yellow jumpsuit, said detainee on the back. And he was there with some members of his family who were speaking in Russian. I think when you look at this in the totality of what was in the detention memo, which was extraordinary, I mean, prosecutors use these to really put the hammer down and show a little bit about what type of evidence they're going to bring forward. When you look at the filing yesterday, they went really deep in unclassifying information, information that was unclassified on Valentine's Day when Smirnoff was arrested, deep into his background, that he was a 10 year plus source for the FBI, that he had a handler that he talked to, quote, nearly every day, which is a lot, by the way, for somebody who's a

confidential human source, somebody who had been run out of the Seattle field office, assigned to an agent who works in the criminal squad there. And the key line from this, and we'll show a portion of the document that was filed yesterday, is that it says during his custodial interview on February 14th. So this is an interview that occurs after Smirnoff is in handcuffs. He admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about business person one who we've publicly identified is Hunter Biden. So he told the FBI after he's in handcuffs, yes, I did this and that it came from individuals associated with Russian intelligence. There's additional information that is that's contained in this

document. You read some of the quotes, Willie, but it shows that it overall he lied about a series of meetings in 2015 and 2016 phone calls in 2016 and 2017. And he didn't pay attention to what he already told the FBI. And so there's information that they write up in a report of 10. It's called the 1023 report. And that's just a summary of the conversation that they had with the guy. There's nothing in there that says whether or not they determined what he said was true or it made sense. But the 1023 is an interesting part of this because it speaks to the congressional component. If you remember, there was a big fight in Congress about whether or not a 1023 from a confidential human source about the Biden should be released from the FBI. That happens in the spring of last year.

This is ongoing. And then at some point it's released. Then he speaks with the FBI again on multiple occasions. And as you said, there's further discussions about, well, this is what the Bidens were up to. There was even information about what Hunter Biden was up to at a hotel in Ukraine. Problem with that, prosecutors say Hunter Biden's never been there. So it raises questions as to whether or not the Russians took a look at the fact that information they're feeding this guy can go direct to Congress. And they're smart enough to realize, hey, you know what? We don't even need to try to push this through the FBI.

We can just tell this guy whatever information is going to go in report and then it might just find its way to Congress. And there's no legal vetting here. There's no there's nothing here that says whether or not what this guy said was true or not. A reminder to our viewers, this all stems from the investigation. Special Counsel David Weiss, a Trump appointed prosecutor. So someone not particularly friendly to the Bidens. So let's take this a step further. Is the FBI suggesting in this filing in some way what it appears to be, which is that the Russian government, Russian intelligence feeding this source that they know has a direct line to the FBI, bad information to damage the Bidens as we enter an election year.

Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's where yesterday's detention memo really went a step further than the indictment. I mean, they said that he was meeting with Russian officials and people are looking through that and says, well, it sure seems like that could be code for Russian intelligence officials. But they flat out said without they didn't name those individuals, but they they put in a lot of detail about their positions within the Russian intelligence community. He's meeting with them. And then he says and they write in their memo that it was after he was arrested that he admitted that these individuals who are associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a business story on business person one who's Hunter Biden. So I think that's a key part of this. Another thing that I would say is that this individual, according to some of the things

that are in the indictment, had a background or at least had associates within Russian organized crime. We think in this country of the mobs on one side and the governments on the other. And of course, we've seen some bad instances where there's been some crossover. But to understand Russia is to understand that Russian organized crime is completely interwoven with the way that their system works from the intelligence side of things, the business side of things, the politics side of things. They're a huge part of the oil that greases the machine of Vladimir Putin in the current Russian state. And so for this person to have those, I'd be very curious to know more about what he knows

about Russian organized crime and how that could have been involved in all of this. Katty Kay, I was talking to a high level official who attended the Munich security conference, and the reporting back to me was that foreign leaders are looking at the United States with fear and trepidation as they watch Trump and Russian interference really infiltrate our politics and Russian crime, infiltrating our legal system to the point where they're extremely worried. And was wasn't the phrase freaked out, freaked out. But also, why don't Americans see what they see so clearly? I think freaked out might be a little mild, actually, about how many are feeling.

And just to pick up on, you know, Tom's reporting, there's an extraordinary report. And I'd recommend people take a quick look at it. It's paraphrased in The Economist this week from the Royal United Services Institute in London, showing just how much more effective Russian spying has become, even in the last few months, gearing up for the 2024 election. And the kinds of things that they're doing are exactly what Tom's reporting about. But the threat to American democracy, if we can really have Russian intelligence services feeding unfiltered any kind of information they want to willing recipients on Capitol Hill in the Republican Party is

extraordinary. I mean, you know, just a few weeks ago, there was Jim Jordan saying that Smirnoff was the what did he call him? The most corroborating evidence they had in their impeachment case against Hunter Biden. And yet and yet where's the kind of backlash from the Republicans now after this indictment saying, oh, actually, you know what? We don't really have a case because this guy is a Russian stooge. You're not hearing any of that, particularly not from James Comer. So Americans have to wise up to what the Russians are doing. They've got good.

I mean, it's easy to say, well, they failed over Kiev. They failed on a whole bunch of other things. They didn't do well at the beginning of the war in Ukraine. But actually, they're learning. They've learned militarily and they've certainly learned on the intelligence side. And Americans need to be very aware of exactly this kind of misinformation. And Tom, I mean, you know, what does this do now then to the Republicans? That's what I wonder, you know, does James Comer come do a vault fast and say, well, actually, you know what,

maybe this information isn't so good after all. Well, if I was able to know exactly what Congress would do, I don't know if I would be sitting here at a MIPI somewhere predicting congressional investigations. I do think it's important for people to know that this has been going on for a long time with this person. Specifically, it was spoken about by then Attorney General Bill Barr back in 2020, when they set up a kind of an intake center for what he said was information coming in from Ukraine that might be related to the Bidens. He said that the information had to be, quote, carefully scrutinized. There are a lot of agendas in Ukraine. There are a lot of crosscurrents and we can't take anything received from Ukraine at face value. He noted this is true

for all information that comes to the department, referring to the Department of Justice, relating to Ukraine, including anything that Mr. Giuliani might provide, because, of course, at that time, Giuliani was trying to put forward information he says he received relevant to the Bidens from that part of the world. So I think it's something that this case will be something that we'll closely watch. All right. NBC News investigations correspondent Tom Winter. Thank you so much. You know, it's just shocking. I mean, here here here we see what Russia is doing to Ukraine. The invasion of a free country, of of a sovereign country continues. You go to the front page of The Wall Street Journal. You see Americans kidnapped.

One masked. Evan staring from his jail cell into the courtroom trying to be freed. A journalist. A journalist for the Wall Street Journal arrested for reporting on the war. You have, and it's just shocking, you have Russian security services deciding, hey, we can just send unfiltered crap straight to Congress. And we don't have to worry about it being filtered by intel services, send unfiltered crap straight to Congress. Straight.

And we don't have to worry about it being filtered by Intel services. As we heard the report earlier, it's just shocking. And why is that? It's because Republicans hate Joe Biden more than they fear Vladimir Putin. It is really sick. It's really sick. And Trump once again and Republicans being played once again by Vladimir Putin. Thank you for this bell. Why? What are you doing? Every time a bell rings. Yeah. Putin has Donald Trump on a string. Oh, well, now hold on a second.

We'll do four hours of hitting that bell. Of course, Jonathan O'Meara in it. It's a Wonderful Life. Juju said that at the end to Jimmy Stewart made us all cry. It was true then. Is that what she said? I don't want to hear that for four hours. Is that what she said?

Something like that every time the bell rings. It was sort of an unexpected twist at the end of an otherwise feeling. It was strange. Unexpected to say the least. Putin has Republicans on a string. And you're like, you know, they did that in like 1946, 1947. And I'm sure they're thinking, Putin, who's this Putin guy? Yeah, we're sort of remarkable. Maybe, maybe, yeah, I don't know.

But anyway, think about, think about, though, I got to say seriously, think about the fact that Vladimir Putin understands that Republicans are so stupid now in the House, even with the help of their legal counsel, Arnold, the pig from Greenacres, that Republicans are so stupid in the house. They can feed Russian disinformation straight into the veins of the United States Congress straight in because they hate them so much. And then you have idiots running around talking about how they've got this disinformation that's going to bring down like they they they depended on Russian disinformation. They depended on an international fugitive illegally selling Iranian oil to communist China, illegally selling arm. And all of this to try to take down Joe Biden. And none of it's hitting and everything. And we've been saying this for months,

keeps making them look worse. Yeah, these Republicans and Donald Trump want to win more than they care about their country. That's what it seems like. We can trace it back to 2015, 2016, Trump's appearance on the show, praising Putin, his call, Russia, are you listening? Begging them to hack into Hillary Clinton's emails. It was that very day the WikiLeaks started posting them. You know, we know his performance as president, Helsinki included. And even in the last 10 days, he's urged Russia to invade NATO countries and compared himself to Alexei Navalny. But it's also Republicans doing his bidding. Yes, there are still some good Republicans in Congress, particularly in the Senate, who stand up to Putin, who are still cold warriors in a way, who follow the tradition of a Ronald Reagan and George H.W.

Bush and their approach to Russia, who are trying to get a funding package for Ukraine through. But there are just enough, a handful in the Senate and more in the House, who are these useful idiots who are willing to do Putin's bidding, who will take anything from an asset with Russian ties, ties to Russian officials. They'll take this unfiltered stuff and say, hey, let's make a case out of it. Let's bring down the Bidens. They don't care how they win. They just want to win. They'll do every dirty trick, including what used to be so sacrosanct in this country. You do not accept aid from foreign countries. You do not let them meddle in our elections. And I think that it's pretty clear that there are some Republicans

who hope that they'll be outside help again, trying to beat Joe Biden from Russia and elsewhere. They're banking on that come November. All right, everyone, stand by. We'll be back in just one minute. We'll go live to South Carolina. John Hellman is there and we'll have the latest of Donald Trump comparing himself again to Alexei Navalny in front of a town hall. We'll have the latest on all of that from South Carolina after a very short break. Twenty one past the hour, putting into context now the kind of regime, Russian regime that Donald Trump refuses to condemn. We're talking about this now. Joe mentioned at the top of the show, the American ballerina who's now in Russian custody after authorities there detained her on suspicion of treason, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. It's another kidnapping, another kidnapping by Vladimir Putin of an American. Russian officials say Kestnya Karolina, a Los Angeles resident with dual Russian-American

citizenship, was detained for raising funds, $51.80 to be specific, to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia. Russia says Carolina spent the money on medicine, equipment, weapons and ammunition to help Ukraine. The White House said it was working to secure consular access, but it has not yet been granted. We will continue to follow that story. It comes, of course, as a Russian court has decided to keep Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerskovich in custody. Gerskovich was arrested on espionage charges last March while on a reporting trip there. He and the journal have denied the allegations and the U.S. government has declared him to be wrongfully detained. Yesterday, the Moscow city court rejected an appeal filed by his lawyers to release Gurskovich from his pretrial detention.

Now, the reporter will remain behind bars until the end of March. The State Department says while it is disappointed in the ruling, it is not surprised by the outcome. And Paul Whelan still sits in a Russian gulag, his family waiting for him to be returned home. And with that as a backdrop, Donald Trump continues to make the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny

about himself. But not about the man who killed him. Not about Vladimir Putin. He refuses still to condemn Vladimir Putin. Who poisoned him once and it didn't work. And finally, he killed him. In a recorded town hall that aired on Fox News last night. Trump was asked about the money he now owes after being found liable for massive fraud in New York state.

And he said that was a, quote, form of Navalny. Trump did call the opposition leader, quote, very brave while answering a separate question, but again, failed to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin, who most believe to be behind Navalny's death. Take a look. Even if you appeal, you've got to put up escrow money. That's it's a lot of form of Navalny. It is a form of communism or fascism. Navalny is a very sad situation and he's very brave. He was a very brave guy. It's a horrible thing, but it's happening in our country too. We are turning into a communist country in many ways. And if you look at it, I'm the leading candidate. I get indicted. I never heard of being indicted before. It's such a lie.

That's disgusting. It's such a lie on every single level. A form of Navalny. Communism? A guy that lies to banks? A guy that lies to creditors? A guy that lies to everybody about his property holdings. Listen, that that would get any of us thrown in jail. That would get you thrown in jail if you did that, or that would get you, if not thrown in jail,

that would get you fined. And so he's been doing this for decades. People in Manhattan have been saying he's been doing this for decades. And so finally, if there is a form of sort of Putinism in America, which, of course, it's so funny he didn't say Putinism. He didn't bring up Vladimir Putin. But I think the most un-American thing that's happened to Donald Trump through the decades is he always gets away with it. He is Rolo Tomasi. If you saw LA Confidential, he's the guy that always gets away with it. And we don't know, maybe he's going to get away with it again. Maybe that's what we know. That's what this run for the presidency is. We said it in 2019. I said it in 2019. I said

if Donald Trump loses, he's going to run again and he's going to run again if for no other reason to avoid all of the criminal actions that are going to be coming against him. The ones that we saw even before January 6th, communism. I just wonder, are the people in that crowd, and I think we have to start asking this of our fellow Americans, are the people in that crowd really stupid enough to believe that if justice finally comes to one shyster, that that somehow condemns America and makes it a, quote, communist nation, when actually American capitalism is stronger today than ever before? Let me just say that again.

I don't want to believe that. American capitalism is stronger than ever before. We are crushing Chinese communism. I know they're really stupid people in Congress. They go, ah, it's communist, communist. They throw that word around having absolutely no idea what that means, no idea what Marxism means. They're just like, anybody they're opposed to is either a pedophile or a Marxist.

That shows you, again, how bankrupt,, how bankrupt philosophically, how bankrupt spiritually the Republican Party is. They attack our military. They say it's weak. They say it's pathetic. When our men and women in uniform are stronger now relative to the rest of the world than any time since the end of World War II. And American capitalism blowing away not only our allies, but also all of our rivals. I just got to keep saying it. Donald Trump, Donald Trump loves Russia so much he should move there. If he moved there, he'd hate it. Tucker Carlson, why don't you move there? If you love Russia, if it's so great, if it's a land of paradise. I mean, these are the lies.

This is the BS we used to hear from Soviet leaders coming to the United States and talking on Larry King about what a worker's paradise. Go to the worker's paradise. Has a lower GDP than the state of Texas. California, this place, everybody says the worst place. Oh, it's so horrible. California, communist state. California has the fourth largest GDP in the world, in the world, in the world, in the world. I want to bring in Eilman in a second, but I want to go to Katty Kay. Katty, when you have these idiot Republicans talking about how weak America's military is, how weak America's economy is, how Americans are, Americans are communists. I think of my limited time going across the world, talking to leaders in the Middle East, talking to the leaders in Europe, talking to leaders around the world. I will tell you over the past several years,

I've not had one say, you know what the problem is with America? You all are too weak. No. What they say is you're trouncing us economically, you're trouncing us militarily, and we don't appreciate it. They say it in different words, sometimes much harsher. I can't even repeat what what one leader of a major European country said to me about what the United States was doing to them. But it was colorful and it was about our strong economy. We're rolling over the rest of the world. And instead of celebrating America's strength, Republicans are attacking it. Yeah, I mean, look, you and I have had this conversation many times, Joe. Look at the state of the U.S. economy at the moment compared to all other industrialized economies in the world.

And it's not just the state of communist California that's doing so well. It is the United States writ large. Growth is higher. Inflation is lower. Unemployment is lower. This, you know, it's in global terms, this is a rocket ship. You read it. I read it, too. Jared Baker's article about the state of Russia and the state of the United States,

saying how absurd it is to compare Russia to the United States at the moment. He makes a very funny comment at the beginning and a kind of spoof saying, yeah, that's because there are so many immigrants queuing up to get into Russia at the moment. At least they don't have an immigration problem because millions of people are not trying to get there. Where do people want to send their kids to university?

It's here in the United States. Where do people want to come into this country to work? It's here in the United States. None of that is true of Russia. I mean, it's just, it's Joe Biden for for you may not like Joe Biden if you're a Republican. You may not like the expansion of government. You may not like the CHIPS Act. You may not like the Inflation Reduction Act. You may not like the spending that has gone on during this administration. If you are a fiscal conservative, you may have concerns about it. But to say that, you know,

Joe Biden locks up his political enemies or if you're a journalist, you get thrown into jail if you report critical things of this administration or that there's any that the Justice Department is warped one way or the other. It's it's ridiculous. I mean, there's there is clearly no comparison. Yeah, it's absolute insanity. The thing is, even if you're a small government conservative, you can't be rooting for Donald Trump to come in because Donald Trump in four years raised the national debt more than any other president in American history. More than any president in American history, even two term Democratic presidents didn't raise the national debt more than Donald Trump did in one four year term. But if you're a Republican voter looking at the Republicans in Congress right now,

they're the ones holding up aid to Ukraine. Right. Aid to Ukraine. And Israel. To ward off Russian aggression. And you would think that would help ward off Russian aggression, while Donald Trump is Russian aggression in the form of a useful idiot. Well, you've got money going to Israel to help them in their fight against Hamas.

You've got money going to Gaza to help with the humanitarian crisis. You've got money going to Russia or to Ukraine to help in their fight against Russia. And you've got money going to Taiwan to help in their fight against communist China. And it's the House Republicans. It's the House Republicans that are standing. It's Mike Johnson who is standing in the way of us helping our allies in Ukraine, in Israel and and he could be and in Taiwan hero if he wanted. But that's not what he doesn't want to do. Let's bring in NBC News national affairs analyst John Heilman, who has been reporting from South Carolina all this week in the lead up to the primary there. So Nikki Haley is not kicking sideways anymore, as I mentioned earlier, John. She's going directly at Trump. But is it breaking through? Well, good morning, guys. I think she's not kicking sideways, Mika. That's right.

And, you know, yesterday she did she's not kicking sideways, Mika. That's right. And yesterday, she did a speech that her campaign called attention to. They said, we're going to do a big update on the state of the race. Quietly, they said, she is not getting out of this race. Not only did she not get out of the race, but she made pretty clear to everybody, or as clear as she went further than she's ever gone before in saying she's not going to get out after Saturday's primary here, where she's widely expected, if saying she's not going to get out after Saturday's primary here where she's widely expected, if all the polls are correct, to get crushed. She's not just going to go on and stay in the race until Super Tuesday. She said yesterday she was going to stay in the

race until all the votes had been cast. She's going to stay in the race all the way till the end. That was news. She also broke down a little bit and let her emotions come through talking about her husband, who's on his deployment. Toward the end of her speech, she had a moment where she got weepy. And yet, I think it's fair to say, as she, former governor of the state, former popular governor of the state, who's all over the state, she's been barnstorming the state all week long. She's going to continue all the way through Friday night.

Donald Trump is a spectral presence here. He flew in yesterday, did this town hall with Laura Ingraham and flew right out again. And yet there's not a poll that doesn't have Donald Trump ahead of Nikki Haley by somewhere between 30 and 40 points. So the reality is all you guys, you know, I'm with you on everything. You just said everything all morning for the last half hour. All the things that Donald Trump represents, all of the rot at the core of the Republican Party. But Donald Trump is the Republican Party right now. And you can see it on display here in South Carolina in a way you didn't see in New Hampshire where you had an open primary.

This is a pure Republican primary in a big red state. And Donald Trump is just is crushing Nikki Haley almost without any effort. And the primaries on Saturday, as Mika said, Nikki Haley is no longer kicking sideways, to use a phrase she had been using for a long time. She's going right at Donald Trump. Here's some of her remarks in Greenville yesterday. It's not normal to spend 50 million dollars in campaign contributions on personal court cases. It's not normal to threaten people who back your opponent. And it's not normal to call on Russia to invade NATO countries. Donald Trump has done all of that and more in just the past month. He's gotten more unstable and unhinged. He spends more time in courtrooms than he does on the campaign month. He's gotten more unstable and unhinged. He spends more time in courtrooms

than he does on the campaign trail. He refuses to debate. He's completely distracted. And everything is about him. He's so obsessed with his own demons from the past, he can't focus on delivering the future Americans deserve. I'm not afraid to say the hard truths out loud. I feel no need to kiss the ring. I have no fear of Trump's retribution. I'm not looking for anything from him. My own political future is of zero concern. I wish Michael was here today and I wish our children and I could see him tonight, but we can't. he's serving on the other side of the world where conflict is the norm,

where terrorists hide among the innocent, where Iran's terrorist proxies are now attacking American troops. This is Michael's second deployment. It was hard for us to say goodbye to him the first time. So, John, that's Governor Haley talking there about her husband, Michael, serves in the South Carolina Army National Guard. Of course, Donald Trump has asked at some of his rallies, where's the husband? Where's the husband? Suggesting something who knows what we will go into that. But where is he? He's serving abroad, something Donald Trump couldn't contemplate doing. So the points that Governor Haley made at the beginning of those clips, everything she said about Donald Trump, everything she said about the state of the race are factually true.

And in the same political world, in the same party, that would have some impact. But as you say, the margin is huge, even in her home state, going in to Saturday. So if Nikki Haley does, in fact, lose, John, what's the future here? We know she's going to campaign in Super Tuesday states coming up here. She's promised to stay in at least until then. What is the strategy from the Haley campaign? Well, like I said a second ago, Willie, I mean, it was kind of striking. She really went further yesterday and said, I mean, seemed to suggest that she was going to stay in this race all the way until the very end. And I think there is something in that in the sense that she is, we know that candidates

don't drop out because they're losing. They drop out because they've run out of money. That's the truism of presidential and all other politics. And I think Nikki Haley has discovered so far, at least, that there is a core of donors that wants to have her in this race, even if she gets beat. Now, who knows how long this will last. But so far, there's a core of donors who look at Donald Trump's future, what's going to happen to him potentially in these court cases going forward, other possible things that might unfold in this very unpredictable climate and say, hey, you know what? It'd be good

to have Nikki Haley still in this race, still in fighting. In a lot of these states, she's not going to even win any delegates. They're a winner-take-all states. So Trump is going to get himself to his magic number of delegates, probably, they think, by the second or third week of March. But she is now suggesting she wants to kind of stick around. And I think that part of the thinking is that something, it's not totally crazy, wishful thinking, that something could befall Donald Trump, particularly on the legal front, that might change the state of the race that might create an opening for her.

And I'll say one other thing is that, you know, we play rightly. We play the clips of Haley going head on against Donald Trump. She's amped up her the directness and the fierceness of her critiques against him. But she goes she hits Joe Biden just as hard as she does Donald Trump in the in these same speeches. She did that yesterday. And there is a part of her critiques against him. But she goes, she hits Joe Biden just as hard as she does Donald Trump in the, in these same speeches. She did that yesterday. And there is a part of her that seems to be saying, Hey, she said this directly yesterday, 75% of the country doesn't want this race. And she makes a very, she makes a case. She made a case yesterday that if you were listening to it and the, in the abstract, you would say, Hey, this woman sounds like a third party candidate. This woman sounds like a third party

candidate. This woman sounds like an independent candidate who's trying to get ready potentially to put herself in a position where she might be someone that someone like no labels might decide to look at down the line. So, you know, I've definitely learned along the way, talking about politics, especially with you over the course of the decade, that you will take someone when they decide to come around, whenever they decide to come around. And Nikki Haley has come around. She's a good candidate. She's great on stage. And she's saying what needs to be said about Donald Trump. And every day she says a little more. And I hope she stays in this race. I hope she hangs in there no matter what happens in South Carolina. Republican voters need a viable option, an American candidate, not a Russian idiot.

That's what they've got in Donald Trump. They need someone like Nikki Haley to hang in there, to give them an option that they could actually support and a real race for the presidency, an American race. Well, there are a lot of a lot of Main Street Republicans. There are a lot of Reagan Republicans or a lot of of of of, well, just good old fashioned. They want an option. Government, strong military Republicans that want an option. Small government, strong military, Republicans that want an option. So why would Nikki Haley stay in the race? Jonathan Lemire. Let's see. There's a war of attrition. Keep going. You never know what's going to happen with Donald Trump as one case after another piles up against him. It's a war of attrition. And if I were Nikki Haley, I would go to the convention. I would lose 30 contests in a row, but I would keep picking up whatever delegates I could pick up.

And I would be the last woman standing, as she has said. And I would stay there to the end. Why? Because anything can happen, as we've said. Also, I must say, she's getting better. Yeah. She's not getting worse. She's getting better out there on the campaign trail.

Because she's speaking authentically now. And not just because she's going after Donald Trump, but that frees her up and gives her credibility to go after Joe Biden, to go after both parties. So that's critically important, too. And I've got to say, finally, after Donald Trump loses, whether it's in the primary or after he loses in the general election again, at that point, who is the last person standing? Who is the person that warned Republicans? You can do what you want to do, but if you pick that guy, you're going to lose. Suddenly you have a situation of where she's standing in the position of where Ronald Reagan was in 1976, after Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter.

He was the guy that was too crazy to win, too right wing to win, too radical to win. And he put himself in position where everybody looked to him for 1980. And it worked. Same thing with Nikki Haley. If Donald Trump is a nominee, he's going to lose again in the fall. Nikki Haley has already said it and she's right. After that loss, Nikki Haley can say to Republicans, I warned you, but I'm here. And let's win in 28. So why the hell should she drop out of this race before the convention? Yeah, there's always benefit to being the last person standing, the last alternative. And as you know, Joe, there's a Republican tradition of sort of nominating the next person up, if you will, the next cycle. The runner up one cycle gets to be potentially the

favorite to be the nominee the next time around. Yeah, I think that's right. To Hauman's point, and, you know, I don't like to agree with him on much, but candidates stay in if they have the money to do so. And she looks like she's going to have the money to do so. There's enough of a never Trump pocket wallet out there that's going to keep funding her. She has certainly gotten better. It's caught the attention of both Republicans and Democrats alike. She can keep pointing to polls and suggest that she would beat President Biden if they were to be the November matchup. She fares much better against Biden than Trump does. And I think, of course, there is the wild card here that that something could change Trump's trajectory, whether it is one of these court

cases. We know that one is happening next month. And yes, the polls suggest that the damage from a court case maybe wouldn't hurt Trump much, maybe around the margins. And that could frankly could be enough in November. But we also don't know. We've never seen this before. A presidential candidate sitting in court day after day after day. He's scheduled to do so in New York in March. There's still a chance he'll have to do so in the federal election case in Washington later this year. We'll have to see how the American public responds to that. And of course, seemingly by the day, Trump proves himself less and less qualified for the position by the things he says about NATO, Putin, Navalny and the rest. So I think if you're Haley, you stay in as long as the money's there, you stay in.

Certainly the Biden camp is grateful that she is. All right. Our thanks to John Howman in South Carolina for being on this morning and coming up on Morning Joe, a Supreme Court decision on Donald Trump's ballot eligibility in Colorado could come as early as this morning. We'll talk to former U.S. attorney Chuck Rosenberg about the potential outcome of that case, as well as how and when the high court might rule on the former president's immunity claim. Plus, what if Trump can't afford to pay that $354 million civil fraud penalty he owes to New York State? And what about E. Jean Carroll's $83.3 million? We'll tell you what Attorney General Letitia James is planning. Morning Joe is back in a moment.

I was allowed to do what I did. Absolutely allowed. Why didn't you just hand him over when they requested, though? I mean, they requested him. You could have just handed him over. It probably saved yourself a lot of trouble. First of all, I didn't have to hand him over. But second of all, I would have done that.

We were talking, and then all of a sudden they raided Mar-a-Lago. Okay, so again, who in the audience really, really, who in the audience is too stupid to believe that? I don't ask that being derogatory of anybody in the audience, because I don't think anybody in the audience is stupid enough to believe that. Because if... Well, we know the host knows. Well, yeah, of course she knows. That's why she asked the question, because she knows.

And so that's why she asked him, well, why didn't you hand him over? I did. And he said I was working with him. He kept lying to the FBI. Willie, we know this. I know you know that he went to his own people who are now testifying against him and told them to destroy the evidence. Flood the pool. To flood them. All of that. Oh, my God. We know that.

Trump knows that. Laura knows that, which is why she was asking the question. My question to you is, who is such a low information voter? Who is ignorant enough? Who is stupid enough to believe anything that Donald Trump just said there? I can't believe anybody is out there. If you're actually interested in it, it's really not that hard to find. You can go to Google, for example, read any newspaper you want to read. The facts have been out there for many, many months now. So that's willful to take that. And Donald Trump knows that he has a receptive audience. He can just repeat the talking points, throw terms out there, say, but Joe Biden had his under the Corvette in the garage. I had a lock on my door,

leaving out the larger story of obstruction and the volume of documents and the intent to take the documents. He did, under the Presidential Records Act, have to hand over those documents. There was no raid. It was a lawful FBI search, which took place after Trump repeatedly defied a subpoena to return the classified materials he took and stash them at his beach club. Let's bring in former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg. He's an MSNBC contributor. Chuck, a lot to talk to you about, but let's start right there. I guess it's worth repeating the facts of this case.

Donald Trump says he had every right to hold on to those documents. To what do you say? What? No, he did not. Willie, to your point, those records belonged to the United States government. He was asked for them and didn't return them. He was subpoenaed for them and didn't return them. And so the FBI, working through the U.S. attorney's office, went to a federal judge and got a court authorized search warrant permitting them to go to Mar-a-Lago and take the documents.

And by the way, what did they find at Mar-a-Lago? Classified documents, which Mr. Trump said he didn't have. So to your other point, all this information is out there. It's easy to find. You can read the search warrant affidavit. This was all done pursuant to law the way it ought to be done. So where is this case, Chuck? There's so much.

I mean, just thinking the viewer out there trying to sort through, OK, we've got all this stuff in New York. There's the federal election interference case, which seems to be taking precedent. What about this documents case? Where are we in the process? Well, there's still a trial date for this documents case in the Southern District of Florida for Judge Eileen Cannon. It's set for May.

That could slide. Right now, they are holding hearings in Florida to figure out how to present classified information in a courtroom setting through something called the Classified Information Procedures Act. It's a mouthful, but it is a procedure so that information that's highly sensitive can be redacted or sanitized before it's put into a courtroom and before a jury. They're working through that. I've handled cases with that type of information. It's not complex, but it can be cumbersome. And so it's possible, Willie, that that trial date slides.

But right now, the Mar-a-Lago documents case is still scheduled for trial in May in federal court. Looking at the Supreme Court now, Chuck, I want to ask you about the Colorado ballot question in just a moment. We could get a ruling today. We don't really know. It's a black box. Could be another day. But more importantly, that immunity question, which hangs over all of these cases. What do we know about that? Really important question, Willie. So about two weeks ago, there was an argument in an appellate court in the District of Columbia on whether or not a trial, in this case, in federal court in the District of Columbia, could further slide into the summer and even the fall? If the Supreme Court doesn't hear the absolute immunity question, if they let the underlying decision stand, then two things happen. One, he doesn't have absolute immunity. And two, he goes to trial

and maybe to a he goes to trial sooner rather than later, probably before the election. I'm still somewhat bullish on that. But if the Supreme Court takes the case, if they hear argument on absolute immunity, all bets are off on timing. Fair to say you'd be surprised if the Supreme Court granted Trump immunity in these cases. I'm surprised by less and less these days, Willie. I don't think they ought to. I think you have a very good appellate decision from the court below. I don't imagine that Mr. Trump can win this, nor should he. I hope they don't take the case because I think we need to move forward with a trial.

So let's talk about that Colorado ballot question. Supreme Court seems skeptical of the idea during oral arguments that the state could remove Donald Trump for the ballot. What do you expect to hear from the court on that question? They did seem skeptical. I listened to the argument. It was on February 9th. It doesn't seem to me that there are anywhere near enough votes to uphold the Colorado Supreme Court decision and to create a procedure, a mechanism to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot in various states. I imagine it's going to be a rather lopsided victory for Mr. Trump, that the Supreme Court will overturn the Colorado Supreme Court. Again, the question is timing. When does that happen? I expect it'll be relatively soon. But an

interesting thing, Willie, how will the decision look? How will the justices align? Will they reach the same conclusion, but for different reasons? So you might have multiple opinions. But again, based on the argument, it seemed there was not a lot of interest in sustaining, affirming the Colorado Supreme Court's disqualification of Mr. Trump. OK, I promise we're going to quiz you on just about every case surrounding Donald Trump. So let's move to Georgia now. Sure. That dramatic testimony yesterday when, excuse me, last week, when D.A. Willis raised her hand and said, no, actually, I do want to testify. She sat for one day and sparred with the defense attorneys there. That part of this this hearing is about her relationship with Nathan Wade, who was appointed to prosecute this trial. Let's start with that question. Do you see her being disqualified potentially?

And then we can talk about the larger case, what it means for Donald Trump. Yeah. You know, there's two ways to look at the disqualification of a prosecutor of Ms. Willis in this case. One is, does she have an actual conflict, a financial conflict? And I don't think the defense attorneys have proved that. The other way to look at it, Willie, is whether there's an appearance of a conflict. As a former prosecutor, appearances matter, right? And appearances matter a lot. So if it looks like she hired somebody unqualified to prosecute the case in Mr. Wade, if it looks like they had a romantic entanglement, if it looks like she benefited in some way financially, that all creates an appearance of a conflict. And that alone could be reason to step down. Are you surprised, Chuck, as a prosecutor, that this was effectively in Georgia and in the Fulton

County DA's office, the case of a lifetime with historic implications, that they didn't have it a little more buttoned up in terms of disclosing their relationship or maybe not appointing Nathan Wade as the prosecutor? Yeah, so nothing against Mr. Wade. I don't mean this personally, but he has no experience, none, zero, Willie, in handling felony cases. And suddenly he's asked to help shepherd one of the most important felony cases in the country. That seems crazy to me. It'd be like asking me to do open heart surgery. I'm a nice enough guy, but I'm not the least bit qualified. You wouldn't want me doing that as well. It is a well-known tactic in big cases to go after prosecutors. And so they have to be pristine. They have to be, you know, right down the middle. And if they're not willing, they make themselves targets

for things like we just saw, calling into question the financial relationship, calling into question the romantic entanglement. So, yeah, I was surprised to see Mr. Wade asked to help shepherd the case. I don't think he's qualified to do so. I understand why they might have wanted him, but I would never have put someone like Mr. Wade in charge of a case like this. And just pulling back, however, this is settled out in the prosecutor's office. There's still a strong case against Donald Trump, who is on tape asking for votes to be flipped in his favor in the state of Georgia. Former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg, thank you for covering all that ground for us. Great to see you and still ahead.