Morning Joe - Morning Joe 2/7/24

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

GOP set to kill border bill they demanded and negotiated

This week, we will vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his willful and systemic refusal to enforce our immigration laws. These articles are the product of a deliberate, thoughtful and fair investigation. There is no greater impeachable offense than for an officer of the United States to violate their oath. You have a short time coming. You can honorably resign or we are going to impeach you. And it's happening very, very soon. On this vote, the yeas are 214 and the nays are 216. The resolution is not adopted. You know, I got to say the season of Curb took an unexpected turn last night. And Willie, one of the, yeah, one of the more surprising, but really good introductions to the season.

I mean, who knew Mike Johnson would star as a hapless Speaker of the House who couldn't even get an impeachment through? Yeah, all we're missing is the slow push in on his face. I mean, that was truly, and we're going to go through, we've got four hours luckily today to go. One of the most humiliating days in the history of the House of Representatives. I think it's fair to say they couldn't pass their own impeachment of Mayorkas. They couldn't get through an Israel bill. They did find time to pass a resolution, though. Good news that says Donald Trump did not commit an insurrection around January 6th. Want to make sure they protect him on that.

They're getting ready to have a vote today, a procedural vote that will turn away the Senate immigration bill that they've been asking for for two generations. The list goes on and on and on. Israel, Ukraine have no funding. The crisis at the border has not been fixed. So even in their efforts to scramble to protect Donald Trump, House Republicans are failing. So, you know, I like to watch cable news. And so you were busy zooming or whatever. And I had to rewind an entire hour because I thought, what just happened? And I actually walked into the room and I said, can you believe they lost on the Israel funding and impeachment? Yeah.

Because really, I had to rewind. It was incredible. And of course, this on top of the big news yesterday about Donald Trump being immune. Yeah, that is big news yesterday about Donald Trump not being immune. Yeah, that is big news. I do want to say, though, there's a really good point brought up at the end of way too early, Willie, that, again, I just I don't think all Republicans in the House understand how dangerous what a dangerous game they're playing with Vladimir Putin. He invaded Georgia in 2008. We did nothing.

He invaded Ukraine in 2014. We did nothing. He's invaded Ukraine again. We fought. We pushed back along with the West. And, of course, with the brave Ukrainian soldiers and citizens that have given so much. And they don't understand. I mean, after if the West buckles on Ukraine and of course, if Donald Trump's elected,

then that's that's the end of NATO. That's the end of of any deterrence with Vladimir Putin. He'll sweep across Eastern Europe. He'll go through the Balkan states. I mean, he'll do all of these things. And you see in sharp relief a Republican Party that is now doing Vladimir Putin's bidding. Donald Trump always did. Yeah. But but but the Republican Party now in the House is doing Vladimir Putin's bidding. And somebody that we know that we used to know, going over, doing Vladimir Putin's

bidding, attacking Western journalists, saying if only Western journalists would have come over here and tried to even report fairly on the war. Well, there have been Western journalists that have gone over and tried to report fairly on the war. And they're in jail. They're in gulags right now with the person because Vladimir Putin doesn't want really Western journalists going over and asking honest questions, fair questions. He'll he'll let puppets talk to him, but nobody else. Yeah, he'll let a certain kind of journalist in for an interview, but not the ones who ask the questions. And I assure you, NBC and every other news organization in the Western world has a request in for an interview with Vladimir Putin. So it's not for

a lack of trying, that's for sure. But yeah, it was striking again yesterday to see Republicans across the board. And maybe some of them are doing Vladimir Putin's bidding, but really they're doing Donald Trump's bidding, which is Vladimir Putin's bidding, which is they put themselves in a place when your North Star is what Donald Trump wants and he is the voice that controls everything. You put yourself in the position we saw them yesterday, failing again and again and again and putting in jeopardy aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel even, and doing nothing about the crisis at the border, which they've been talking about rightly for a long time. Chaos on Capitol Hill late into the evening yesterday, the Republican led house failed in its attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, falling one vote short. Republicans Ken Buck of Colorado, Tom McClintock of California and Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin voted against the measure. Republican Conference Vice Chair Blake Moore then flipped his vote to no

seconds before the vote closed. So the party can bring the articles of impeachment back to the floor at a later date. Democratic Congressman Al Green had missed votes on the issue earlier in the day because he was in the hospital recovering from abdominal surgery, but he was able to show up at the last minute for the final vote. Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested that that was a sneaky move. They hid one of their members waiting to the last minute, watching to see our votes, trying to throw us off on the numbers that we had versus the numbers they had. So, yeah, that was a strategy at play tonight. Oh, got it. Got it. A spokesperson. I don't even know what to say about that. He voted. He came. You're supposed to vote. There's nothing sneaky

about it. Got a voting card. I'm here. Yeah. Vote. A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson says Republicans will bring the articles of impeachment back to the floor when the House has enough votes to pass it. So this is what they're doing with their time. Let's bring in the host of way too early White House Bureau Chief of Politico, Jonathan Lemire, deputy managing editor for politics at Politico, Sam Stein, MSNBC contributor and author of the book, How the Right Lost Its Mind, Charlie Sykes. Good morning to talk about that book this morning. And NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Julie Serkin is with us as well. Good to have you all on. So, Julie, tell us what in the world happened. I mean, you guys saw it. I'm glad you had to go back and rewatch C-SPAN because I think we all were glued to C-SPAN last night. I

mean, this was really stunning and it was a bad week for Republican leadership, not only in the House, but also in the Senate because of everything you just went through with the border bill. This was absolutely stunning on the floor. Actually, Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team spent a long time on the floor trying to pressure Mike Gallagher, one of those no's, trying to get him to flip to vote for impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas. He said he would not. You also had the same effort happen with Ken Buck, the Colorado Republican who said that he is retiring from Congress. So he doesn't have any reason to flip and go with what Republicans want on this because he said that this Mayorkas's impeachment does not

rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Nonetheless, they're going to try this again, guys. And Steve Scalise, who's the majority leader, who's been out for cancer treatment, he's going to come back at some point in February to try and get this done. The question is, under House rules, how many days do they have to bring this up again? The House majority, the Republican majority, feels confident they can do it. But it is quite embarrassing. And I can't remember the last time, if ever, that they pursued impeachment, especially of a cabinet secretary, which hasn't been successfully impeached in 150 years. And this kind of thing happened where they just didn't have the votes on the floor.

So, Charlie, they're bringing up a BS impeachment, articles of impeachment. They're voting on it. They're failing. They're losing. They're trying to get other funding. Yeah. Who knew? Through their they're they're failing on those votes. They bring up a resolution to try to polish off what Donald Trump did when he committed insurrection. We could go down the list. I remain deeply troubled, though. They leave the border open as a political strategy and they allow Vladimir Putin his dream of possibly one day being able to march into Kiev because they won't fund Ukraine. And you do wonder, I know there have to be serious House

Republicans in there. And I do wonder when they're going to stand up and speak out and say, we let Putin take Georgia in 2008. So he went into Ukraine in 2014. He went in again a couple of years ago. And after we sit back and give him Ukraine, he'll then go after Poland. He'll then go after the Balkan states. And in their eyes, I mean, they'll have Donald Trump in the White House who will gladly let Putin do that. This is the worst invasion since World War II on the continent of Europe. And Republicans are saying, take it. I am so glad that you're connecting all the dots

because, of course, you know, that was a, you know, shambolic clown car we saw yesterday. You know, we really yesterday was peak Republican dysfunction. But the collateral damage is going to be immense, you know, with the border, with Ukraine, with Israel, with our image in the world, with our relationship with our allies. So on the one hand, you're seeing these bad performance artists like Marjorie Taylor Greene spend their time on this sort of thing, and you see the ongoing audition for the favor of Donald Trump. But meanwhile, there are real world consequences to all of this. I mean, that was an embarrassing day. It was a humiliating day. It was a shameful day. But unfortunately, to your question, I'm not sure that, you know, this this party, you know,

has the capacity to say, hey, this is just wrong. This is not who we are. I have to admit that like everybody else, I was surprised by that vote. I was surprised that Mike Gallagher finally found a backbone and decided to stand up against him. And I imagine that the pressure on him is going to be absolutely intense between now and next week on the Mayorkas impeachment. But you can't unring a bell. You can't undo the humiliating embarrassment you saw yesterday. The dysfunction and the inability of the Republican Party to be a serious governing party was on full display all day yesterday. And we're going to get and we're going to get a, you know, a replay of that again later today as well. Yeah, we're going to get a replay of that, Jonathan Lemire, on the immigration question with

this closure vote in the Senate expected to fail. They're not going to allow debate on this bill. Yesterday, also, as we mentioned, there was a vote after the failed impeachment vote on standalone Israel aid. Again, this was a Republican idea, a Republican bill that failed too and by a wide margin. So this House not exactly covering itself in glory yesterday and more to come today. Yeah, more to come today and just a complete abandonment of trying to actually govern here. That right now, unless something is completely a startling turnaround, there's not going to be a border security deal. There will not be aid to Ukraine. And we saw yesterday, national security officials saying that Russia was on the verge of its first victories in the war, taking new Ukrainian territory since Bakhmut.

So that's many, many months from now. We're seeing the tide of war turning a little bit there already. And Ukraine is going each and every day without the weapons and money they need for the United States. And we seem unwilling to send it that way. So certainly this is Sam Stein going to hand President Biden a couple of significant campaign issues. He's going to be able to point at Republicans and say they abandoned Ukraine. They are the ones not securing the border. The president said yesterday he'll be out in the campaign trail making those those arguments. And it also seems like nothing's going to change because Speaker Johnson now, especially after this failed impeachment vote, his grasp on power that much more tenuous, he's going to have to do Donald

Trump's bidding to the word. Yeah, it's hard to see Johnson turning around and then putting up a bill that gets majority Democrat support. I mean, his position is incredibly weak this morning, much weaker than it was yesterday. And it was pretty weak yesterday. I'm sort of with you here, Jonathan. I have to, my assessment of yesterday was that the Mayorkas vote was, I mean, obviously an objective humiliation for House Republican leadership. But ultimately, sort of on a substantive level, I don't think it was as significant as the defeat of this border bill in the Senate that is coming today. For that reason, two reasons.

One, Mayorkas' impeachment was never going to happen, even if the House recommended the articles of it to the Senate. The trial would have been quick. They would have dismissed it. We would have gone on with our lives. It's a show, more or less. But the border bill, really, you know, that is the key to unlock a whole host of different foreign policy priorities.

And I think the dysfunction in the Senate among Republicans there is, to a degree, more significant than the House. I mean, we sort of expect the House Republicans to operate this way. I guess that's the bigotry of low expectations, but it's true. The expectation was the Senate would operate slightly differently. And I'm just struck by it. Someone put it, like, in a headline that I thought was pretty remarkable. And I'm summarizing here, but it was like,

Senate Democrats fail to persuade Republicans to pass conservative border bill. And that's essentially what happened. Right. Like this is a conservative border bill that Democrats were saying you should pass. And they said no. And because of that, we will not likely have Ukraine aid, Israel aid, Taiwan aid for Palestinians. Yeah. So, Julie, we're going to get back to you in just a moment for the very latest on the border deal and where it stands. But as House Republicans really are flailing and humiliating themselves, hurting the party, hurting the country, all for Donald Trump, a federal appeals court has rejected Donald Trump's claim that he is immune from prosecution in his election interference case. The three judge panelge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously yesterday

that there was no basis for Trump to assert former presidents have blanket immunity from prosecution or any acts committed as president. The 57-page ruling states that former President Trump is no longer the president and has become citizen Trump for the purposes of criminal prosecution. Trump had argued in part that, quote, criminal liability for former presidents risks chilling presidential action while in office and opening the floodgates to meritless and harassing prosecution. But the appeals court found that risk appears to be low. Trump reacted on his social media platform, writing, quote,

A nation-destroying ruling like this cannot be allowed to stand, calling the ruling, quote, so bad and so dangerous. The former president is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court soon. I think he has until Monday to do so in a bid to prevent the trial from going ahead as scheduled. The D.C. Circuit panel cut the time Trump has to file an appeal down significantly. Usually it's a few months. He's got till Monday. Until Monday, let's bring her out. Former litigator and MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin and also former U.S. attorney and MSNBC contributor Chuck Rosenberg. Chuck, first of all, let's let's talk about the fact that this was a unanimous ruling and how people were wondering why it was taking so long. Talk about how maybe that delay was caused

by wanting a unanimous ruling. Yeah, Joe, well, first of all, from my perspective, having litigated in the courts of appeal, it didn't take all that long. I mean, it was a little bit less than four weeks. I know that's slow in journalism world. I get that. But that long. I mean, it was a little bit less than four weeks. I know that's slow in journalism world. I get that. But I think in lawyer world, that's relatively quick. Second, to your point, the judges wrote one opinion per curiam, meaning for the court, of the court. They all joined a single opinion. It's 57 pages long. I read it yesterday. It's thoughtful. It's forceful. And the fact that they were unanimous and of one voice, I think, lends some heft to their opinion. And so taking a little bit more time to get it right, because you know this opinion will be subject to enormous

scrutiny, I think is well worth it. So unanimity was important. The forcefulness of the opinion was important. The fact that it took a little bit longer than folks might have liked, in my view, doesn't matter all that much. Yeah. So for cert to be granted, you have to have four justices. Is that correct, Chuck? Yes. Yeah, that's right. guess, and Lisa, Chuck, tell me if I'm wrong, I would guess that the institutionalist in John Roberts is thinking, we want to stay out of politics. We want as little to do with this as possible. We're already handling the Colorado case. I'm curious if you all think that Roberts wants to find the six members of the court who will deny cert. So maybe he's talking to Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, trying to get that sixth vote to keep this away and just

affirm the lower court ruling. What do you guys think? I defer to Lisa. Well, one of the things, Joe, that I think is important to point out for our viewers is, yes, it takes four votes to grant cert here, but it takes five votes to grant a stay. And in reality, the stay is the name of the game, because that order that accompanied yesterday's decision essentially says Donald Trump has until Monday to file a motion for stay pending the court's review of his cert petition. If he can't get those five votes, even if he has four votes to review it, that also means that without a stay, the court of appeals issues its mandate. That's a fancy way of saying it kicks the case back to Judge Chetkin. So Trump could simultaneously get Supreme Court review, but also have pretrial proceedings and allow Judge Chutkan to move forward. That would make the court review in some respects meaningless if she's empowered to forge ahead. I was going to ask you about that,

Lisa. It was just a couple of days ago that Judge Chutkan vacated the March 4th trial date and said, we're waiting on this immunity decision, so now we'll have to reschedule everything. Given that this decision came down a day later, how soon do you think she can get this case back on the docket? Judge Chetkin wrote a decision, Willie, at one point where she said it was important to her to grant the parties about seven months to prepare for trial. It seems to me that she is committed to giving Trump that same seven month period, not including the periods of time during which the case has been stayed. So if, for example, the Supreme Court were to deny the stay application from Trump and or deny cert relatively quickly, she would then probably take that up on that day and add eight or nine

weeks. However long we've been delayed, you can think of her adding that back onto the trial calendar. She might shorten it a little bit to ensure that she's at trial. But this is also a judge who earlier this week contemplated she could be on trial in August at a January 6th related proceeding for another of the 1300 plus defendants who have already been charged for that day. Judge Shetkin said, well, I'm planning to be out of the country in August. However, there's a possibility I could be on trial referring to this case. So I think it's within her contemplation that sometime in the July, August, perhaps even September range, she could be trying this case. But Chuck, obviously that's getting so close to the election.

It would be in everybody's best interest from just the court systems, the judiciary branches, the justice departments for this case to be expedited. I'm curious, if Trump needs five justices, I'm curious, what are your thoughts? If, let's say, Roberts decides he wants to just just affirm the D.C. Circuit ruling, who is more likely to go his way? Do you think do you think he's he's he's talking to Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett defined that fifth vote to deny to deny stay. Yeah, hard to know for sure, Joe. But but here's my sense of it. The Court of Appeals decision was thoughtful and forceful and I think solid and forgive the pun, but unimpeachable.

And I think that means that it will not be reviewed ultimately by the Supreme Court, at least not right now. I don't really see a path there. Look, the only party who benefits from delay, the only party is Mr. Trump. And so whether he gets five justices for a stay, as Lisa pointed out, or four to grant a petition of certiorari for the Supreme Court to hear the case, that's Mr. Trump's path. And I think whether you're a textualist or an originalist or just a thoughtful, smart justice of the Supreme Court, you read the D.C. opinion. It denies absolute immunity. It counters the notion that double jeopardy was implicated in this case. And the best thing to do, the smartest thing to do, the lawful thing

to do is to send this back to Judge Chutkan and let her try it. I hope it's before the election. I still think it will be. I think that's very much on the table and in the cards. But I think that's the path forward, Joe. So Donald Trump, of course, railed against this decision, saying that we're on the verge of losing our country, Lisa. And we know from the beginning that this was the one case that stood a chance of coming to trial and potentially even having a verdict before the election. Built for speed was how the phrasing was. Is there anything now that Jack Smith can do with that in mind? He's trying to build this for speed. Is there any does he have any recourse here? Any options to try to speed this along as these other things are happening? Well, usually it's the party who's seeking review

who asks for that speed. However, you'll remember that before this went to the DC circuit, Jack Smith moved for something called cert before judgment. He asked the Supreme court essentially to leapfrog that DC circuit and review it itself. He was not the losing party before judge Chetkin, but he said inevitably this case is going to be reviewed. And so I'm going to ask you, Supreme Court, given that this guy doesn't like the decision, why don't you take it now and take it fast? And they denied his application within 11 days of his making it. However, I do think Jack Smith, when Trump files that motion on or before Monday, is going to say, if Trump doesn't do it fast, do it as fast as you possibly can.

Make it possible for this case to be tried in the public's interest, because, as you know, Jack Smith and even Merrick Garland have said the public has an interest in this case moving to trial speedily. So, Chuck, in this 57 page ruling, the panel refers to Donald Trump as citizen Trump, saying effectively, you're not president anymore. So any executive immunity you may have enjoyed while president is gone now, which raises the question if Donald Trump is reelected and does, in fact, become the president again. The suggestion there is there may be some form of executive immunity there. Does that sound right to you that if he gets waits this out long enough, gets back in office, he can then claim executive immunity in some of these cases? Well, Willie, that's right. I mean, delay inures to his benefit. So imagine that the case is not

tried. There's no judgment from a trial court. Mr. Trump is reelected. At the very least, the Department of Justice has a longstanding policy that sitting presidents cannot be indicted or tried. Moreover, Mr. Trump would have controls over the levers of the executive branch of the government, including presumably his attorney general, who could dismiss Mr. Smith and the charges. So if Mr. Trump can get back into office without a verdict, without a trial, without a judgment against him. Not only does he enjoy certain executive immunities and certain privileges, but he has all the powers of the presidency. To Lisa's point, that's why Jack Smith wants to move quickly. And that's why I think also the American voters, whether you love Mr. Trump or loathe Mr. Trump,

ought to have a verdict before the election. All right. Former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg and former litigator Lisa Rubin, thank you both so much for your insight this morning. A lot more to come on those cases and on the civil cases as well. Still ahead on Morning Joe, as we've mentioned, after months. I get to say, let's just stop for one second. Yeah. We got to stop everything. I did have another question. Stop.

We got to stop everything here. I had another question. Because the news that came out yesterday about the fraud trial. Yeah. No, that's not even yesterday. Or two days ago. When I was reading you about the monitor and the $48 million. The monitor.

They can't make sense of. Yeah, because. That's what I wanted to ask Lisa. Yeah, so that's why I waved up. So Lisa. It's like James Brown. Hold on. It's like, stop.

I need somebody to put a robe on. Lisa. Lisa. Yeah. Okay, so here's the thing. First of all, $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll. Has he posted bond? What's the status of him handing over money?

And secondly, tell me about the monitor in the civil fraud trial who became extremely confused as they were trying to monitor Trump's organization and found this Chicago building loan, 48 million dollars. But it's not really a known loan, but is it? Let's start with the first thing. I don't believe that Trump has posted bond yet. In order for him to post bond, a judgment has to issue from the trial court. I don't believe that we've seen that happen yet. If I am wrong, I certainly will be in touch and hopefully I can correct myself somewhere else on our air or on the internet today. But with respect to the letter from the monitor, it's a 12 page letter saying that since she was appointed after Judge Angoron granted a preliminary injunction last year, there are 12 pages of irregularities that she is essentially reporting to him saying, I am now in charge of overseeing financial reporting at this organization. And here are all the things I've noticed that don't add up.

And in a footnote, one of the things she says is we have long understood that there was a 48 million dollar loan that concerns the Chicago property that Trump owns and which was a subject of that case. That loan was made to Trump personally from a business entity. And when I asked for documentation of that loan, I asked repeatedly. I still never got it. And the Trump organization, for its part, when it responded, it said, no, no, no. We told Judge Jones, retired Judge Barbara Jones, who's the monitor here. We told her that that loan had been extinguished.

And then they attached a one page, one paragraph memo to file from December of 2023, essentially saying that loan has already been paid off. Nothing more is payable. That doesn't answer the question, where's the documentation of the loan in the first place? If there was never any $48 million loan to Donald Trump, but it was instead a gift, he has been misreporting that for years and not just misreporting that to his lenders,

but also in his presidential and candidate disclosure forms. As a candidate for office who's declared, he files disclosures with the Federal Office of Government Ethics. That loan was on his form as recently as April of 2023. So someone has got to explain what happened to the loan, whether it existed. And if it never did, that's just one more straw that Judge Ngoran can consider in this years-long fraud that the Trump Organization, led by Donald Trump and others, have perpetrated with respect to the financial markets and their lenders. And of course, Weisselberg called back in

because he believed that he lied. Oh, my God. Under oath. This is just, it just keeps getting worse. He's got a lot on his mind, this candidate. As we've mentioned, after months and, thank you, Lisa. Thank you. Thank you. After months of talks and negotiations,

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is essentially calling the bipartisan border deal dead on arrival. So where do lawmakers go from here? Look, the latest from Capitol Hill. Plus, several migrants have been arrested after being accused of attacking two New York City police officers. We're following those new developments and we're breaking down the Nevada GOP primary results where most voters chose not to pick a candidate at all rather than support Nikki Haley. We'll explain that ahead. You're watching Haley. We'll explain that ahead. You're watching Morning Joe.

We'll be right back. A robust discussion about whether or not this product could ever become law. And it's been made pretty clear to us by the speaker that it will not become law. It is doubly outrageous for them to now oppose the very bill that they begged us to craft. A group of us spent four months working every day through the holidays, through the weekends to satisfy the demands that Republicans made. We followed the Republican instructions on how to get a bipartisan border deal and how to get aid to Ukraine unlocked. And within 24 hours of unveiling that agreement, they abandoned bipartisan border reform and Ukraine for one reason, because Donald Trump asked them.

In the face of Donald Trump's open and relentless pressure campaign to kill the carefully negotiated bipartisan border deal, Senate Republicans now are set to block a procedural vote today that effectively will sink the legislation entirely, just as Donald Trump demanded. Despite Minority Leader Mitch McConnell initially putting his stamp of approval on the package, the Kentucky senator now says the bill stands no chance of becoming law. Quite an about-face. The foreign aid component of the bill may still stand a chance. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer expected to move forward with a standalone bill later today on that part of the package. Let's bring Julie Serkin back into the conversation. So, Julie, Majority Leader Schumer says today we're

still going to have this cloture vote to begin debate on the immigration bill with no expectation that it will get the 60 votes it needs to pass. Republicans standing in the way again of the bill that they demanded. So what happens from here? Well, Schumer played this smartly when he initially set up the procedural vote on this bill, including the bipartisan border security bill. As a part of it, he was vague in the way that he set it up so that just in case Republicans about faced on the border, which let's be clear, they did. I want to talk about that briefly after this, but he did that so that he could bring up the bipartisan national security supplemental without the border security piece of it. That means just funding for Ukraine, for the Indo-Pacific, for Israel, humanitarian assistance. And they're going to keep the fend off our fentanyl act, which is a bipartisan piece of legislation, a huge topic.

That's going to stay as part of this second attempt, which I don't know if it'll pass because there is so much souring on Ukraine. There are so many Republicans yesterday who said they should be separate issues and blamed all of this mess at the feet of leader McConnell. I want to start off with a fact check on this, though, because they keep saying that this is McConnell's fault, they being the Rick Scott's, the Ted Cruz's, the folks who really have soured on McConnell in the wake of his relationship falling apart with the former president. They said it was McConnell who tied Ukraine and border together. It was actually former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy back in September who tied Ukraine and border security. That was echoed then by Speaker Johnson, who

embraced that approach. So now when you have Republicans railing, why are these two issues tied? This is like Groundhog Day all over again. We've been living through it for the last four months. So this is something that Schumer is planning to do today. We'll see if it works. The House has made it very clear they're not interested in Ukraine aid, but it certainly is making things even more interesting here. So, Sam Stein, we heard from President Biden forcefully yesterday saying that he would he was urging passage of this, although that seems deeply unlikely. And he said if it didn't, he'd go around the country and blame Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans for killing the bill. We know we talked earlier about the real world implications here,

that Ukraine is deeply worried about it. But let's stay on the border piece of it for now. To this point, the Republicans have, it's been a winning issue for them. Do you think, though, that this is a moment where that could change? That in light of what's happened the last couple of days, with Donald Trump nakedly saying, I want this issue to run upon, therefore, the border is going to stay open for a while, do you think the Democrats could either turn it into an advantage or at least negate the Republicans' advantage? You don't think it's going to pass today, Jonathan? You know, I've been doing this for a little while and I'm going to say no. No, probably not. I think the answer to your question is it's unlikely to change the politics

in totality. Look, I think it is a losing issue for Biden. It has been for three years. That doesn't mean it can be made less bad for Biden, right? I mean, that's the thing is like you want to reduce your margins on these bad issues. And frankly, they did not have Biden and Democrats did not have a logical way around this issue or through this issue until they were practically gifted one by Republicans. I mean, it's not that hard for them to say, we tried to craft a bill that you wanted to address this problem and then you killed it. That's not a unpersuasive argument to make politically. I will say when we've talked, we were talking to Democrats about this yesterday, you know, the way to, how do you go about making this case? One is you have to do it in a sustained way. Chris Coons, an ally of the

president, you know, he was saying he should, Biden should go down to the border and make the case that Republicans have made it impossible for him to address this. I don't know if Biden's going to go that far. The second thing though, is there's, you know, we talked to advocates who say, well, now he should couple it with executive actions and not necessarily executive actions that Republicans would love, but because they've given him the green light to take executive action on the issue of migration, immigration. But ultimately, the broader scheme of things, if you are making the case on the border, you're operating on conservative turf. That doesn't mean you shouldn't make the case. Doesn't mean you can't help yourself out on this issue.

But I think fundamentally, Democrats want to talk about things like abortion and democracy and Donald Trump for the election and probably not migration. Well, exactly. So maybe, Sam, so right. Maybe this helps Republicans or Democrats neutralize the issue a bit more than if they had not had this battle. And when you have the union coming out, we'll talk about the Border Patrol coming out in support for this bill. That's certainly something that Joe Biden can bring up in debates and something he can bring up on the campaign trail. But Charlie Sykes is talking to pretty smart people last night, smarter than me. It's a low bar, I understand. But there are a lot of Republicans that said, you know, we did, said last night to me,

we did Joe Biden a big favor here. Because if you look at the NBC News poll, Bill McIntyre was going through the poll and Biden's numbers are just hellacious with young voters, with progressives, traditional Democrats. They they've moved away from him. If you're sitting at thirty five, thirty six, thirty seven percent, you're not down there because MAGA Republicans don't like you. You're down there because your party hasn't come home yet, which I believe they will come home. But the argument that these Republicans made and I it's actually it's three dimensional chess, but it makes it actually makes perfect sense. Is it Mike Johnson? Did Joe Biden the biggest favor ever? If Joe Biden had signed

the harshest border bill security bill ever, then the same Democrats that have abandoned him because they think he's too tough on the border. They think he's too tough in going, you know, with Netanyahu going into Gaza. They think he's too moderate, too conservative. Then that would have been hung around his neck politically. Now, it's very cynical. That's a game Republicans are playing. But these Republicans last night said he's got the best of both worlds. He can say, I tried. Trump said he wanted an open border and he doesn't have to worry about his own base coming after him for the next six months. Well, I think that's right. In other words, Mike Johnson is

playing three dimensional chess for idiots. I mean, I don't know that this was planned out this way, but that that is the way that it ends up. But, you know, you know, just stepping back from the horse race. I mean, I do hope that we just think about the implications of, you know, you know, just stepping back from the horse race. I mean, I do hope that we just think about the implications of, you know, a continuing border problem, but also the abandonment of Ukraine. Whatever happens in November, whether the poll numbers move or not, Ukrainians are dying today. The Russians are moving. They're about to seize a city. We are about to see, you know, the Vladimir Putin is scored a massive victory in the U.S. Congress, in American politics, a victory that he could not obtain on the battlefield until now. It will be an extraordinary historical inflection point when the United States watches Vladimir Putin defeat Ukraine because the Republican Party decided they were

going to abandon our allies and this brave democracy that is fighting against tyranny. So I don't know how this is going to play out. But, you know, again, it's the deep unseriousness. It is the recklessness. It is the way the Republican Party has not shifted so much on ideology as as much as has decided that it's just all in on whatever helps Donald Trump, whatever helps, whatever buys them access to this particular cult. So it's you know, there's a lot of cynical, naked, cynical politics here. But also, we are about to see a very, very ugly moment on the world stage. Well, we are. It's been unfolding for years.

Donald Trump, of course, is praised repeatedly. The man who invaded Ukraine and the man who jails Americans, jails American journalists while you have others going over there lying, saying, oh, well, if if American journalists would only have been interested in this war and reported on it fairly, well, they have been and they get thrown in jail by Vladimir Putin. But they are deeply unserious. I know, again, there have to be Republicans in the House caucus that are concerned about the fact that by letting Vladimir Putin storm across Ukraine, take over Kiev, the message that they are sending, not just to our allies, but more importantly, to people who consider the United States their enemy. President Xi, who Donald Trump can't stop praising. Kim Jong-un, who Donald Trump can't stop talking about how he's in love with him.

These people see the weakness in America. And these same Republicans who are being weak on Ukraine, these same Republicans who are being weak on Israel, these same Republicans who are being weak on our own southern border, they're going to be the ones bitching if Xi makes a move on Taiwan. But they're the ones, as Republican Chairman Mike McCaul said, they're the ones sending the message to Xi that House Republicans in America don't have the fight in them anymore. They're going to bow down to Donald Trump, a man who praises autocrats, who praises tyrants, who praises dictators. And they're taking their lead from him. As Charlie said, the consequences are absolutely staggering and they're unfolding right now in Ukraine.

In real time. Charlie Sykes and NBC's Julie Serkin. Thank you both very much. And Sam Stein, thank you as well. Good to see you all coming up. For the first time, a parent is being held criminally responsible for a mass shooting committed by their child. We'll break down yesterday's landmark verdict in Michigan. Morning Joe is back in a moment. Past the hour, a parent of a convicted school shooter has been found criminally responsible for their child's deadly actions. A Michigan jury yesterday found Jennifer Crumbly guilty of all four counts of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of four of her son's classmates in 2021. NBC News correspondent Maggie Vespa has the latest. An unprecedented verdict. We find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Jennifer Crumbly found guilty on four counts, one for each student her son killed, leaving the courtroom in handcuffs as the first parent in the U.S. ever convicted for their role in a mass school shooting committed by their child.

The jury forewoman speaking out to NBC News. It was very difficult. It wasn't an easy decision. The thing that really hammered it home is that she was the last adult with the gun. After the verdict, family members of those four students hugging prosecutors. The moment you heard the verdict, what went through your mind? Well, that I can breathe. Greg Schilling lost his 17-year-old son, Justin. He loved life and he deserved to live it.

The historic verdict following seven days of emotional testimony, culminating with Crumbly taking the stand in her own defense. I wish he would have killed us instead. Prosecutors suggested she was a negligent mom who ignored mounting red flags about her son's behavior. She did not give him the help that he wanted. The defense arguing Crumbly was an engaged parent. No one could have expected this, including Mrs. Crumbly. Legal experts say this case may have implications far beyond this courthouse. Does this open the door for parents to be held accountable for mass shootings, school shootings in the future?

It absolutely does. I believe this will be used as persuasive precedent. But for Steve St. Juliana, it's simply justice for his 14-year-old daughter, Hannah. Anything you want to say to the jury? Just thank you for using common sense. Maggie Vespa reporting from Michigan there. Joining us now, MSNBC legal analyst Danny Savalos. Danny, good morning. This is a fascinating judgment by the jury here because of what Maggie just referred to, which is this could now become not legal precedent, but some kind of precedent for juries to say, actually, in a school shooting, the parents are responsible if they saw warning signs, if they provided a weapon, say.

It is a spiritual precedent because for most of American history, we did not hold parents automatically criminally responsible for the crimes of their children. And also legally, historically, an intentional act was often enough to cut off the responsibility of somebody else's negligence. But it appears that in America, when it comes to school shootings, there's a growing trend and we're willing to disregard that prior history and say, hey, this is an exception. When it comes to firearms, when it comes to mental health, when it comes to red flags, we as Americans, as a society may be comfortable with this kind of liability, which is an exception to the general rule that we simply don't always hold parents criminally responsible for the crimes of their children. It is, I guess the question is, what was persuasive, do you think, for the

jury in this particular case? Because as I said, the parents did provide a weapon to the child and the jury effectively said, you know your kid, you know there was something wrong there, probably but giving him a gun wasn't the best idea, including on the day of the shooting, the parents were called into the school because of something disturbing the shooter had written in class. Later that day, he committed the crime and killed those four children. So what do you think was decisive here? Well, this was a case where the prosecution had overwhelming evidence in the form of text messages and other red flags. That was the key to their case. Red flag evidence. They put that on and they said, look at all these incidents where the parents knew or should have known that

their son had problems. And they recklessly ignored that and recklessly allowed him access to a firearm. And that's why the defense's needle to thread was so narrow. That's why when they called their client, she didn't get on the stand and say, oh, knowing what I know now or oh, I see now all these red flags. Had she done that, that would have made the prosecution's case. Instead, she had to get on there and say, look, I wouldn't do anything differently because as I look at that now today, it was still, for example, the whole thing about the poltergeist in the house. That was a running joke in the family that the house was haunted. And we were seeing those text messages as part

of that running joke when he says the dishes are flying off the wall, the clothes are flying off the wall. That was just a joke between parents. It's a hard sell. By the way, if your defense at trial is it was a joke, that is often a difficult sell for a jury. So I think probably the jury saw that as her being rather cavalier about her son's mental health and the fact that he had access to a firearm, which she also testified was kind of a healthy activity for an otherwise maybe reserved child. And you and I were talking about, I mean, there are a lot of much more healthy activities that you can get your kid involved in if there may be mental health issues than firearm ownership. And just lastly, I mean, I'm part Michigander and folks out there, firearm ownership is a really big thing. I was

probably the only kid in my high school who didn't own a firearm, didn't hunt, didn't fish. But I think the message here is not all parents beware, you will be held liable. And I think there were probably a lot of parents of gun owner children who watched this and said, look, that's not me. I'm not that kind of gun owner. What she did was reckless. So, Danny, because this is the decision is a first and potentially precedent setting, does that set up an appeal here? What do you think the argument would be and could it be successful? What happened? There are a couple of different legal issues for appeal. I mean, there are always issues about the trial, what evidence came in, what didn't. But there might be legal issues, for example. And by the way, the defendant already raised these substantially when she

tried to throw the case out of court and went up to the Michigan Court of Appeals. But you may see some iteration of, look, when it comes to the intentional acts of another person, as I said at the top, historically, we don't hold others responsible unless they encouraged it. There is precedent for holding parents responsible where they encourage their child's crime, where they send them out with a lockpick and tell them, hey, go burgle this house. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. This is a case where it's conceded that the parents didn't want the child to do this, but instead they recklessly permitted it to happen. So you may see an issue on appeal of what's called causation. Did this recklessness actually cause the independent, intentional criminal act of another, their child. And the shooter, now 17 years old, in December, pled guilty. He is in prison for life without the possibility of parole. His victims are Justin and Madison, 17,

Tate, 16 years old, and Hana, 14. MSNBC legal analyst Danny Savalos. Danny, thanks as always. Appreciate it.