Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/12/24

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

New book: Trump had repeated praise for Hitler

Biden's back, baby. I know that all the haters have been out there talking their s**t. He's too old. He's too weak. He can't make it. He won't be able to stand. Oh, I see you haters. I know who you are. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, March 12th. We've got a lot to get to this morning, including Donald Trump's latest promise to his supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. It comes as Hungary's prime minister is revealing how Trump would handle the war in Ukraine if he wins another term. Plus, we will go through Donald Trump's flip flop on TikTok, the platform he used the money to ban. Well, he pushed a ban while he was president. It comes as

the House is expected to vote tomorrow on a significant bill tied to the app's Beijing based parent company, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of Washington Post, Eugene Robinson is with us this morning. Yes, it's really it's something really we all will get that tick tock story in a minute. But you know, we always say follow the money, follow the money. It's either about money or it's about this anti-American sort of thirst for authoritarian power. And you see it with Orban, which we're going to be talking about today. But but but you see it in the top story. It is serving story.

We've heard a little bit about before, but not to this full extent. Yeah, I mean, we're about to tell you four or five stories that in the previous universe of politics would have been disqualifying alone, each of them. But let's start with this one. Former President Donald Trump allegedly praised Adolf Hitler, saying the Nazi leader had, quote, done some good things, according to a new book, The Return of Great Powers by CNN's Jim Sciutto, retired General John Kelly, who of course served as White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, recounted several conversations where Trump spoke favorably about Hitler. From the book, quote, he said, well, but Hitler did some good things, Kelly said of one conversation with Trump. I said, well, what? And he said, well, Hitler rebuilt the economy.

But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. And I said, sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing. And, quote, Trump also admired Nazi officers loyalty to Hitler, according to Kelly. The book quotes he would ask about the loyalty issues and about how, when I pointed out to him, the German generals as a group were not loyal to him and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times. And he did not know that, Kelly said. In a statement, Trump's spokesperson dismissed Kelly's comments and said he is suffering from a severe case of Trump derangement syndrome. On the heels of this report, it's worth recalling the, according to a 1990 investigation by Vanity Fair, Trump's late wife, Ivana Trump, quote, told her lawyer, Michael Kennedy, that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches,

My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. So, again, the source material here, Joe, is General Kelly, obviously a highly decorated general who served at the right hand of Donald Trump for many years. So a guy with credibility who's recalled other conversations where Donald Trump has called fallen soldiers suckers and losers and now revealing that he had a lot of fondness for Adolf Hitler. Yeah. And Trump derangement syndrome. Sorry, whatever idiot said that we're talking about a man who dedicated his entire life to serving the United States military at war in peace. Gene Robinson decided to go in

and work with Donald Trump, even though he had some concerns. He did it for his country. He ended up being Donald Trump's longest running chief of staff. This is not a guy with Trump derangement syndrome. This is a man who is deeply concerned

about Donald Trump calling dead Americans war hero suckers when Donald Trump is sitting next to a man there whose own son sacrificed his life for his country in Afghanistan. So no Trump derangement syndrome here. The problem is, and we see it over and over again, and let's just keep going back to that famous saying when somebody tells you who they are, believe them. Donald Trump is continuing to tell us and with more rapidity that he is an autocrat. And if he takes power again, he will be an autocrat. And this worshiping of Hitler's power, just like this worshiping of President Xi, just like this worshiping of Kim Jong-un, just like this worshiping of Vladimir Putin, it all comes from the same disturbing place. He has an anti-American bent to authoritarianism.

Absolutely. I mean, Donald Trump has told us like 57,000 times who he is. And we see clearly who he is and what a sick, warped individual he happens to be. I mean, it is it's hard to look at him any other way. Yes, you always follow the money with Trump, but but it's more than his lust for money. It's more than his narcissism. There is this authoritarian bet, this fawning over authoritarian figures. I know we're going to talk about it later. But Victor Orban at Mar-a-Lago, are you kidding me?

This is the great guy, the great leader that he wants to praise? It's just sick. And it amazes me, and I'm sure it amazes General Kelly and amazes a lot of other people that more Americans, that all Americans don't see this in Donald Trump and don't fear it and reject it. But again, here we are. He's, you know, going to be the Republican candidate. And there is a possibility that he could be president again. It scares the willies out of General Kelly and scare the willies out of all of us. Yeah, it scares the willies out of many people. He has a one in two chance of being president of the United States. We should not overlook that. And this is not a unfamiliar refrain for Donald Trump. Who praises these

strongmen? Who praises these leaders? We can go down the list. It's Kim Jong-un. It's Viktor Orban. It's Xi Jinping. It's Bolsonaro out of Brazil. And of course, it is Vladimir Putin time and time again. So this reported admiration for Adolf Hitler certainly is of that that trend for Donald Trump, even if it's not something he says publicly. And I think it is it is instructive to ask as a as a preview as to what the next Trump term would look like were he to be reelected. Not just that he would side with all of these leaders, including with Putin in the conflict against Ukraine, but with Trump in office again, facing no consequences, having gotten away with all of these criminal indictments, having gotten away with fueling the January 6th insurrection,

with not having to face voters again, he would be unchecked. He would be unfettered. There would be no John Kelly in the White House next time. It would only be true believers. There would not be guardrails. And I think we would see him lean in to these strongman tendencies, Joe Amica. Yeah. And we can call it sick and disgusting. But the reality is this is unbelievably dangerous for our country. And somebody like this, someone like Donald Trump, who does what Donald Trump does, says what Donald Trump says, has done what he's done as president of the United States, would be in normal times shunned, would be shunned completely politically or personally. But in this case, you have people showing up at Mar-a-Lago and clapping and hooting and going to his rallies. And you can't just cast them off as uninformed or there for the show. If you read like Madeleine Albright's book on fascism or any books on the rise of dictatorships,

this is how it happens. Well, and you look at Vaughn Hilliard's interview, Willie, with people who were in a rally last week. And, you know, I've been wondering, what do they think when he says he's going to be a dictator from day one? What do they think when he says that he can execute with SEAL Team 6? He can order SEAL Team 6 to execute his political opponents and not face any criminal repercussions. What do they think when he says he's going to terminate the Constitution? What do they think when he says he's going to execute insufficiently loyal generals who aren't lackeys to him all the time? What do they think when he says all of these things that Vladimir Putin doesn't even say publicly? Well, you listen to some of Vaughn's interviews. They think it's

great and say that if Trump doesn't win this time, they think they should have a civil war and go state legislator by state legislator. I saw I saw a video and I'm sure you saw it, too, of a Republican event in Missouri. And they had Joe Biden and people went up kicking Joe Biden. I'm telling you, in all my lifetime, in all my lifetime, if that ever happened at any Republican event, if one person even talked about doing that, they would be surrounded and they would be removed and and the image of the president would be removed. I just I just again, there is there is a sickness where people say, yeah, we're going to violently take over state legislatures. We're going to violently take over the Congress. We're going to violently take over whatever we have to take over if we don't win the

election. Yeah. And even a few years ago, you could have perhaps rolled your eyes at that a little bit as idle talk or threats. We saw it happened. It happened on January 6th, a violent attack on the United States Capitol. So of course it could happen again. And of course, we're already hearing talk that if Donald Trump loses,

that we're gonna hear and see exactly the kind of things you've just described there. But the voters who go to those rallies, they go along for the ride. They laugh at the stuff that they've been laughing at for the last eight years. They don't mind his authoritarian tendencies. Perhaps they even like it. The question, I guess, is how many of those people are still there with him and how many people have seen enough of the show? We'll find out in November. Donald Trump talking about strongmen says he will not fund Ukraine's fight against Russia if he's reelected. That's according to his buddy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Trump welcomed Orban at Mar-a-Lago last Friday. And after that meeting, Orban told Hungarian state media on Sunday that Trump, quote, will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war. Therefore, the war will end because it is obvious Ukraine cannot stand on its own feet, end quote. Trump previously has pledged to end the war in Ukraine. He says within 24 hours if elected, but has provided no details. The detail is, Joe, that he will roll over for Vladimir Putin and Russia will get what it wants. Exactly. Well, there will be a new axis of evil supporting Vladimir Putin and supporting totalitarianism across the East, Jonathan

Lemire. Right now, it's Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban, who, again, holds out as much as he can. But without the United States supporting him, he's out of luck. And you've got China. And then you will have Donald Trump doing their bidding. It's very simple. There really will be with Donald Trump. There will be a straight line from Washington

to Hungary to Russia to Beijing. And Donald Trump's made it clear. He does not like Democratic leaders. By the way, you have you have a trial. You have Trump derangement syndrome in that you are so deranged for Donald Trump that you. You can't see this or you're willing to lie through your teeth to deny the existence of this, because Donald Trump keeps telling us what he's going to do. And it's going to be the United States, Hungary and Russia all working together to help Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump's been very clear about that. And he was clear about it with Orman. And he's been clear when there was the invasion of Ukraine. What did he say, Jonathan? He said it was brilliant, a brilliant move by Putin. And now, you know, he keeps saying that once he's president, this war will be over in a day. Well, yeah, now we know how it will be over in a day. One thing I think that the show has done very importantly is talk about the stakes

of this next election. It's not just the day to day and the polling and the up and down the campaign strategy. We talk about that, too. But it's the stakes of this election. And it can't be any clearer than on the world stage. President Biden took office in 2021 saying he was going to restore America's commitment to alliances, restore America's imprint on the world as a force for good. And he tells a story frequently about how world leaders, he tells world leaders America's back. And they wonder, well, for how long? This is what those world leaders are wondering about. Because if Trump does return to office, America's going to disappear from the world stage, at least as we're used to thinking about it.

It's going to be far more isolationist. Trump and his Project 2025 that his allies have put together have made that clear. He will cut off funding entirely to Ukraine. Of course, his supporters in the House have already done that now. And Ukraine is losing ground by the day to Russia. But that, of course, will only get worse were Trump to take office. We know, despite his occasional tough talk about China, he has also

praised Xi Jinping, including in his response to the COVID pandemic. There's no suggestion he would stand up to Xi Jinping were he to make a move on Taiwan. He buddied up with Orban this weekend. He sings, he talks highly of Kim Jong-un, who, of course, threatens Japan and South Korea nearly every week with a various rocket launch. There's no sense that Trump will hold American ideals and keep American foreign policy in place for those things. That is what so many of us should be focusing on as we head into November. All right. Former President Trump is vowing to release hundreds of January 6th defendants currently behind bars if he is reelected in November. On Truth Social last night, Trump wrote one of his first acts as president

will be to, quote, free the January 6th hostages being wrongfully imprisoned. It is grotesque to call these people who beat the hell out of cops and rioted in the United States Capitol hostages when there are actual hostages being kept by a terror group underground in Gaza. These people are not hostages. And the fact is Donald Trump should already be in jail with them. The only thing that is wrong with the fact that they're in jail is that Donald Trump is not there. The person who incited the riot.

Because there is a two-tier justice system. There's a justice system that protects Donald Trump, and we've seen it. The Supreme Court has protected Donald Trump. And we've seen it. The Supreme Court has protected Donald Trump because he's powerful. Courts have protected Donald Trump because he's powerful. Trump judges have protected Trump because he's powerful.

And just the system has protected Trump because he's rich and he's powerful. Whereas these working class people, these middle class people that went and rioted on January 6th at the behest of Donald Trump and following Donald Trump's orders are sitting in jail. But Donald Trump, two-tiered system, two-tiered system.

We see it time and time again. We'll see it in Fort Pierce again. Will we see it from the Supreme Court again? Most likely because they want to give Donald Trump a free ride and they've given him a free ride by certainly dragging out an issue that we already know the answer to. Trump has previously suggested he would pardon people charged in the January 6th attacks. Nearly 500 people involved in the insurrection convicts have been sentenced to a prison and over a thousand people have been charged over their connection to the Capitol riot. Let's bring in congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. Jackie Trump is also getting help from some House Republicans who are trying to undermine the work of the now defunct January 6th investigative committee and one of the committee's witnesses.

Tell us about that effort. Committee released an extensive report that was essentially a review of the work that the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th investigation committed several years ago at the end of 2022. Throughout this report, they essentially underscore some inconsistencies that they found with Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, much of which has already been reported. But the most interesting parts of this report were some of the repressed transcripts that the committee was able to unearth that had yet to be released by the Department of Homeland Security. At the end of the January 6th committee, they released, you know, the dozens of transcripts that they had transcribed with witnesses who appeared before the committee to testify about Trump's actions to overturn the results of the election on January 6th, 2021. But there were a handful of transcripts that they didn't release in agreement with the Department of Homeland Security because of security precautions.

And the department had asked for more time to review those. But in those transcripts, what they found, these House Republicans, was essentially that there was at least one person, the driver who disputed that the driver who was taking Trump from the White House to his speech on the Ellipse back to the White House, that he essentially couldn't remember what Cassidy Hutchinson, the star witness of the January 6th committee, had testified that she had heard one of Trump's lead details, Anthony Ornato, tell her about Trump trying to lunge, grab a wheel and lunge at one of his other security details in the car to go to the Ellipse. Sorry, that's a bit confusing, but basically this inconsistency does not detract from the thrust of what happened on January 6th, was that Trump obviously encouraged rioters to storm the Capitol. And that's why even at the time, despite House Republicans unearthing this inconsistency, there was concern on the January 6th committee that putting forth Cassidy Hutchinson

without more corroboration and without sort of a secondary account of what had happened exactly inside the beast on that car ride when Trump was going back and forth on the ellipse to and from his speech, that there was concern that it was an unforced error. You know, as we look at those pictures, I just you get a sense when Donald Trump calls these people hostages to your point at a time when we're dealing with world wars in which real hostages are being held and their families are suffering so much beyond sick. It's also the ultimate kind of twisting of our democratic system by this former president. These people have received due process. They have had trials. They have been found guilty of crimes.

And now he's trying to work completely against our system and saying he is going to free them upon his next presidency. I mean, this is if you can't see what's in front of you, I can't help. Well, I mean, they're not hostages. They're they're convicts, Willie. And I know that this may seem strange, but two things can be true at once. I think they're receiving the justice that they deserve. But I feel very sorry for a lot of them. I really do. They were lied to for well over a year. They believe because of those lies that they were doing something to save democracy from being stolen because Donald Trump, again, lied to them repeatedly.

It really is kind of like a cult. Or as I've always said before, it's kind of like my my grandmom, my sainted grandmom, who would send money to Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. Send part of her Social Security check to Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, despite what we all tried to tell her. We come with these people are scam artists. Grandmom, come on now, please. But she would do it anyway because she believed in them. She lost her money. That's and she lost her money. And they, of course, ended up being the scam artists, just like Donald Trump said, scam artists. But these people, as badly as I feel for them, because it's not fair that they're in

prison and the guy that pushed them there isn't because he's rich and powerful. They're still convicts. There's still people who beat the hell out of cops. Hard to really feel sorry at the end of the day for people that take American flags and beat the hell out of cops. That's, you know, the people that did that should be in jail for a very, very long time. Yeah. And by the way, the second layer to that scam from Donald Trump is go attack the Capitol on my behalf based on a lie I've told you. And also, please pay my legal bills here as we go forward. He's asking them to do that. But Joe, you're absolutely right. Just as recently as five days ago, a Florida man pleaded guilty to a couple

of felony counts of, as you said, beating the hell out of cops. He's going to jail. There was a cop down. Another officer came in to assist the officer who was down. And this 33-year-old Florida man beat up the officer who was helping the downed officer. This is a story we've heard again and again where even in the last couple of weeks, there have been three or four other cases of men who beat up police officers on January 6th pleading guilty, saying, yeah, I did it. I believed a lie. I shouldn't have believed I did it. I'm going to jail. And perhaps part of their thinking now is, well, if Donald Trump becomes president, United States, I won't be in jail for very long because he's going to empty the prisons so that I can be free,

despite the fact that I beat the hell out of a police officer on January 6th as I attempted to participate in a coup against the government. Well, and they're supposed to take down of the January 6th report. I mean, it's just again, I guess Arnold the pig went from working for Comer. Yeah. And he just trotted across and started working for Loudermilk because Loudermilk's lying or else he didn't read the report. And I think it's much more likely he didn't read the report. So, Congressman, if you read page 585 to page 592, you will see all the details there. They spelled it out.

I'm not sure he cares. I'm not exactly sure. Well, he probably did read it, which is why they call him the best they have. Arnold the pig from Green Acres. He snorts a couple times. And they ignore him. They release it anyway. But it's all bogus.

And if anybody had actually read the report, they would have seen that they addressed all of this. All right, Jackie, stay with us. Still ahead on Morning Joe. We need to get Arnold on the show.

Often we talk to soundbites that seem very much like Arnold. Arnold has signed a non-compete and a non-disparagement. Oh, dear. He does not like being... So hopefully when he gets out of that, we can have him on the show.

I don't think he appreciates being, you know, labeled with Comer. And again, read the January 6th report, pages 585 to 592. It's worth it. It's worth it. You'll see that louder milk's not telling the truth. Up next, the very latest on Donald Trump's legal troubles, including a push to delay his hush money case. A hearing this week on his

handling of classified documents. And did the former president defame writer E. Jean Carroll again? What her lawyers are saying about Trump's latest remarks. You're watching Morning Joe. We will be right back. For President Trump is expected to attend a hearing on Thursday in the federal criminal case involving his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon will hear arguments on two of Trump's motions to dismiss his indictment, with his attorney set to argue the case should be thrown out because of the Presidential Records Act. Meanwhile, a former Mar-a-Lago employee is now publicly describing how he helped to move materials related to the classified documents case.

Brian Butler says he was a Mar-a-Lago employee for 20 years and handled car service for the former president. Butler told CNN he helped Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta load several boxes onto Trump's plane at the West Palm Beach airport on June 3rd of 2022. That was the same time the FBI was searching a storage area at Mar-a-Lago for classified documents. And did you have any idea at the time that there was potentially U.S. national security secrets in those boxes? No clue. No, I had no clue. I mean, we were just taking them out of the Escalade, piling them up. I remember they were all stacked on top of each other and then we're lifting them up to the pilot. How many boxes was it? They asked me in the interview, and I believe it was 10 to 15 is what I remember.

They being the investigators? Correct. And when you look back on that now? Well, I had no clue until probably the end of June. There was a few different things that happened that kind of opened my eyes to, you know, something's going on here. So you get that unusual request. Did you ever think to yourself, why were there so many boxes at Mar-a-Lago? For me, I'm just thinking of the former president.

He has a lot of stuff he likes to lug around with him. I never would have thought it was anything like what we see now. Yeah, I mean, Butler's interview with CNN there. Butler, Walt Notta's legal team and the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith all declined to comment to NBC News. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment by NBC, although CNN reports a lawyer for Trump declined to comment. Join us now, former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Lisa, good morning. Let's start with the last part of that, which is Brian Butler saying explicitly, I helped Walt Nott load boxes onto a private plane

to get them away from Mar-a-Lago right around the time the FBI was coming to search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. How does Mr. Butler play into all of this? Well, it's interesting because Mr. Butler shows up in the indictment with six different references across two paragraphs. None of those paragraphs relate to the incident that we were just watching as he described to CNN. Nothing about the indictment details how boxes got from Mar-a-Lago to Bedminster. It makes a passing reference to it. But the story that Brian Butler told to CNN is not currently part of what Donald Trump has been charged with, what Walt Nauda has been charged with. So it's interesting to hear

him provide this additional detail that isn't part of the case as we understand it. So why do you suspect he sat for that interview? Why did he want to go public and tell all these details? He got into his relationship with Donald Trump about how he doesn't trust Donald Trump, thinks he's a bad guy, et cetera, et cetera. What's he up to here? It's interesting. He worked there for 20 years. So on one hand, it's interesting to hear him say that he doesn't trust Trump now. On the other hand, I think part of his motivation is that he may believe that his name is about to be disclosed. Well, you might recall that Judge Cannon had ordered the unsealing of certain documents in this case that relate to almost two dozen witnesses or potential witnesses in the case. That order is under a motion for reconsideration.

But if she decides that she's going to side with Donald Trump and his co-defendants, Brian Butler's name could become a matter of public record sooner than we think. It's always been an open question why the feds didn't search Bedminster as well. Let's shift to the case here in New York. Yesterday, Trump's lawyers asked the judge to delay that trial, which is set to begin in just about two weeks' time, March 25th, until after the Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity. What do we think? Do they have a shot for that to happen? I really don't think that they do, John. And partially, the reason that they don't is because

they've waited so long to raise this argument. Judge Mershon, who is the judge overseeing the New York trial, issued an order last night taking a tweak at Donald Trump and his lawyers for putting this in at the very last minute. Jury selection begins two weeks from yesterday. They could have raised the question of presidential immunity at any other point during this case since the indictment. They hadn't raised it since last summer and then essentially let it lapse and didn't appeal a federal court's determination about that that relates to this case. They're now not claiming that he's immune from the case. They're claiming that the D.A. wants to use particular statements by him during his presidency that somehow should be considered official statements

because he was president. The stuff he said about Michael Cohen, for example, on Twitter in 2017, 2018 is as personal as it gets. There's nothing official about it. I expect the D.A. to take a really hard whack at this motion when they respond later this week. And for Judge Marchand to treat it similarly tough. So let's stay in New York, Lisa, and talk about E. Jean Carroll for a moment. Because, again, Donald Trump just had to post a $91 million bond. Again, defaming her at a rally over the weekend. Again, yesterday morning on CNBC, defaming E. Jean Carroll.

To which E. Jean Carroll's attorney, Robbie Kaplan, says, dude, I'm not quoting her, but dude, we can keep doing this if you want to. And you'll keep writing us checks. Are they going to pursue another defamation case against Donald Trump? I wish I had a crystal ball to answer that question. I certainly think they have grounds to do so if they would like to. But there are a couple of complications. One of them is proving that E. Jean Carroll has been further damaged by the repetition. Now, this would be for the third time of the same lies that Donald Trump has been telling about her. And unfortunately, showing that she's been damaged in that way might perversely require Robbie Kaplan and her team to wait a little bit to see how the death threats mount, to see how

the nasty and vile comments on Twitter pile up. To be able to show that she's been damaged is critical to filing a new suit against Trump. Even if the larger goal is to punish him, the law requires some proportionality between her injuries and the punitive damages. And yesterday, Donald Trump calling her Miss Bergdorf Goodman, which is where he was found liable of sexual assault against her many years ago. Really quickly, before we go, I just want to circle back to where we started, which is the documents case. Donald Trump's team is claiming Presidential Records Act covers them and so that this should be dismissed. We'll say it again for the 1000th time.

That is not what the Presidential Records Act says, that you can take classified documents home with you to your beach club. Does that hold any water at all, that argument? I don't think so. I mean, certainly it's an issue of first impression. Nobody has ever claimed before that the Presidential Records Act somehow immunizes them from criminal prosecution. You know that Trump is like famous for a shorthand about this argument. He always says the Clinton socks case, Clinton socks case has to do with audio tapes that Bill Clinton made while he was president with the historian Taylor Branch. The court found in that case that those audiotapes were akin to diaries, which are exempt from the Presidential Records Act. It was not a determination that they were his personal records. And therefore, Trump can analyze from that like, hey, these were all mine to begin with. And I was president when I took them. Therefore,

there's no criminal liability here. I think Donald Trump is again dreaming. Then again, his audience is Aileen Cannon, who when Donald Trump wants, she usually provides. So you're saying tapes of stories about your cat are different than taking war plans for attacking Iran back and waving them around your beach club? Willie, that is indeed what I am saying. Thank you for the clarification. Wow. Good to know. And that's ABC legal course. That's why we have her. Isn't she good? Because you're looking and you're going, how do you like be King Solomon and split that baby? She just did it.

Stories about cats. Okay. Stories about nuclear weapons. Thank you. No. Okay. We got it now. Thank you, Lisa.

Thank you, Lee. Good work. Special counsel. She went to a good law school. She did. There's no doubt about that. She knows her stuff. Yeah, yeah got it now. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Lisa. Good work. Special counsel Robert- She went to a good law school. She did. There's no doubt about that. She knows her stuff. Yeah, yeah, she does.

Special counsel Robert Herr is expected to testify later this morning before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee. I wonder what pasture he will walk off into. I don't know. Just kind of wander off and say, well, you know, and Joe Biden, I noticed he didn't really tie his tie well. The tie knot suggested that maybe he has arthritis in his left thumb. Where are you going with this? I'm just saying this guy says such random shit about his.

Oh, stop. He's a kindly old man who could not remember his son's birthday. Like he wandered off into a pasture here and, you know, maybe Arnold the pig let him there. I don't know. No, you should apologize for her because I don't know exactly. Like, does he hope he gets a judgeship? I think he does. I think he hopes he gets a judgeship? I think he does. I think he hopes he gets a judgeship if Donald Trump gets

elected again. He's trying out because he humiliated himself with that display. Actually, Jackie Alomany has actual reporting on this. So let's go to her. Let's do that right now. Hopefully she will not have a foul mouth. You've never hung out with Jackie Alomany when she gets mad.

Let me tell you something. You ever see her in a basketball court? Yeah. No, I know. Well, she does have a temper. Yeah. Yeah. Ask Jake. You don't want to see me mad. OK, continue. Jackie, so what's going on with this guy? Well, we are going to hear from Robert Herr today on Capitol Hill, whom Democrats and Republicans both have some issues with, although very different issues. But we should really start this conversation with the fact that Robert Herr ultimately concluded that there were no criminal charges warranted in President Biden's classified documents case, that essentially he had found that Biden willfully did retain some sensitive

information, but that it was not enough to establish Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But the big issues, obviously, that Republicans have had with Robert Herr's report, which was essentially a declination memo where Herr felt like he needed to establish why he did not pursue charges against Biden, was some of the, as Democrats view it, gratuitous and elaborate digs at Biden's memory and mental faculties. Her went into extensive detail about Biden being unable to remember specific details during his interview with the president. Biden's aides have said that this interview that took place, which was several hours long, happened in the aftermath of the October 7th attack. And it's also important to note that there are many witnesses across the board, across many administrations who have trouble remembering information about something that happened several years ago. Biden was asked about, you know, essentially retaining documents, again, not willfully after his vice presidency. And Republicans are probably going to

try to hammer and press her for why, you know, he didn't ultimately charge Biden, especially in comparison to former President Donald Trump, who's obviously facing extensive criminal charges. But Herr does note in that report, which he is expected to underscore, that there are serious material differences between the Trump case and the Biden case, that Biden at the end of the day cooperated and that the people around him cooperated with the Justice Department's investigation into the classified documents. And, you know, former President Trump obviously didn't. And then also in the process, committed obstruction and enlisted other people to destroy and hide evidence. So our friends at Playbook got an

advanced copy of her prepared testimony, which is set to deliver in a short time. And he defends his decision to include those comments about the president's memory. I'll just read a little. He says, for that reason, I had to consider the president's memory and overall mental state and how a jury likely would perceive his memory and mental state at a trial. He says, I did not sanitize my explanation, nor did I disparage the president unfairly, is what Robert Hearst says. But Eugene Robinson, I mean, the White House feels really good post-State of the Union. They felt like they addressed this issue of the president's age and mental fitness for the job. They're not thrilled to have this come up again today, although they feel like they've already sort of mitigated some of the possible damage here because the president was so strong the other night. We should note Robert Hurd no longer an employee of the DOJ, so he's not bound by some of the constraints that a DOJ employee would have.

He potentially has the freedom to editorialize more than a special counsel normally would. And the White House has prepared a rapid response room. We'll be hearing from them a lot today. So give us your expectations of what will happen today and particularly on the political fallout. You know, I have no idea what Herr is going to say. I mean, which way he's going to go? Is he going to go deeper into this sort of fantasy world he created in the report, or is he going to pull back from that? And we'll have to see. Politically, I think, from the White House point of view, they would be very happy that if this has to happen, it happens in the wake of the State of the Union address, as you noted. President Biden and his team believe they put a lot of the, you know, doddering old man kind of kind of trope to rest with with that speech and with, you know, the appearances and the ads that he's done since.

And so I think they believe they can handle that. I do have a question for Jackie about her and specifically in his report. At the beginning of the report, in the summary, he says that Biden willfully withheld these documents. And then later in the report, I believe in a footnote, he says, well, actually, we don't have proof that he willfully did this. So I will he be asked to clarify that? And what do you think he's going to say? Yeah, I think he's going to have to address this this sort of confusing manner that he drafted the report in at the top of his hearing today. I mean, this is going to be a priority for Democrats to have him clarify that in his own words. And I think he's probably going to go into

detail about this episode in 2017 about a recording that her and Justice Department investigators obtained with his biographer, who at the time Biden was going back and forth sharing information with. But at the end of the day, after all was said and done and something that Biden was was not willfully disclosing and did not necessarily know. They were not able to establish that he knew that it was sensitive information and that he was disclosing anything that was essentially problematic to U.S. national security. Yeah. And, you know, again, I mean, the inconsistency there just shows bad faith. They put it up front that it was willful. And then at the end, you go to a footnote that says we don't have any evidence that what he did was willful. And whatever he says today is going to be ineffective because he painted Joe Biden as a doddering old man who couldn't remember anything.

Over 30 million people saw Joe Biden. Own the Republicans. Stick it to the Republicans. Confront the Republicans. Go back and forth with the Republicans. No doddering old man. In fact, I don't think most people in their 30s, 40s, 50s or 60s could have done that on that big of a stage, knowing that 31 million people were watching you. So it's preposterous what he said. He humiliated himself. Let's see

how much more he wants to humiliate himself today. We shall see. The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson and Jackie Alimany, thank you both very much for being on this morning. We appreciate it. And still ahead on Morning Joe, as lawmakers consider ways to regulate artificial intelligence, a new book looks at what could happen if the technology goes unchecked. The authors, Admiral James DeVritas and Elliot Ackerman, join us next on Morning Joe. While serving as president in 2020, Donald Trump planned to ban the social media app TikTok from operating in the United States, and he was considering signing an order forcing China's ByteDance to sell the app over national security concerns.

As far as TikTok is concerned, we're banning them from the United States, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. Well, that sounds strong. Yeah, very. He knows exactly. He's very, very concise there. Yeah, it's very. So he's against it.

I mean, he's against TikTok. No commies surveilling the United States. Yep. OK. Last month, Trump welcomed conservative hedge fund manager Jeff Yass to Mar-a-Lago. But doesn't he have a huge stake in TikTok? Yeah. Thirty three billion dollar stake. Oh, OK. Media app. OK. Over the weekend, one time Trump adviser Steve Bannon suggested the former president was paid off by gas to switch his stance on the platform. Trump denied discussing TikTok with him yesterday as legislation that could ban TikTok makes its way through Congress with Republican support. Trump was asked about the matter if he still supports it. Well, of course. Right. Yeah.

I could have banned TikTok. I had it banned just about. I could asked about the measure. If he still supports it. Well, of course. Right. Yeah. I could have banned TikTok. I had it banned just about. I could have gotten it done. But I said, you know what? But I'll leave it up to you. I didn't push him too hard because, you know, let them do their own research and development. And they decided not to do it. But as you know, I was at the point where I could have gotten it done if I wanted to. I sort of said, you guys decide. You make that decision because it's a tough decision to make. Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it. There are a lot of users. There's a lot of good and there's a lot of bad with TikTok.

But the thing I don't like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger. And I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media. Let's bring right now former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four-star Admiral James Trevitas. He's chief international analyst for NBC News, contributing writer for The Atlantic, Elliot Ackerman. He served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart. They are co-authors of a new book titled 2054, a novel, which is the sequel to their bestseller, 2034, a novel of the next world war. We're going to get to that in a moment. But first, let's talk about TikTok. Donald Trump, everything you said there was a lie. Just in case I could fact check him, but just read the Wall Street Journal editorial page today. They fact check him

for me. But let me read just very quickly from this just to talk about some of the real concerns why Donald Trump has flip flopped, as Steve Bannon said, because a billionaire with a lot invested in TikTok wants him to flip flop. This is the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Not a left wing rag, obviously. TikTok can't explain why posts that are divisive in America go viral, while those that are sensitive for the Communist Chinese Party get few views. TikTok's algorithms are still controlled by ByteDance engineers in China. Chinese law requires ByteDance to comply with Beijing's surveillance demands. This is why there is no way to mitigate TikTok security risk besides a forced investment. ByteDance employees once tried to uncover internal leakers by spying on American journalists, the Communist Chinese Party, through TikTok, spied on American journalists to try to uncover leaks.

And they end by saying China's blocked U.S. social media companies that don't comply with their censorship regime. And the House bill would prevent Beijing from applying its political speech controls and surveillance in the U.S. Despite America's political divisions, this should be a shared goal. And it looks like it is a shared goal, except for Donald Trump, who a billionaire walks through the gates of Mar-a-Lago and suddenly he's fine with the communist Chinese party surveilling Americans. Yeah. Do the words the swamp mean anything to you? Let's face it. Tick tock. Wow.

Is tick tock is universally across the political spectrum regarded as a national security threat, not just a concern, a threat. And on this one, I listened to a chairman of the bipartisan House Committee on China, outgoing congressman Mike Gallagher, combat Marine, a terrific thinker about China. And he is deeply worried and concerned about this. And we all ought to be in final thought to the novel 2054. It's all about how artificial intelligence can insert itself into these social networks. And here is a beaten path to the heart of America, TikTok, to our youth. We need to get control of it. It should not be connected to ByteDance. One more issue, and then we'll jump into the book. Front cover women are now enlisting in large numbers in Ukraine because there have been a shortage of men.

And so a lot more women are enlisting. We, of course, are are faced with the shame of House Republicans, people who claim to support freedom, people who claim to support Ukraine, meekly sitting back and letting Ukraine twist in the wind. And that's exactly what every Republican chairman that claims to be a big supporter, but it's doing nothing right now to get aid to Ukraine. It's exactly what they're doing. And, you know, Orban basically killed Hamlet in the first act yesterday by telling us why the House Republican Party won't fund him, because Donald Trump promised him if he's reelected, he will immediately cut off all aid to Ukraine. What is the impact on America, on NATO, on Europe, on America's

role in the world? Yeah, to stay with the metaphor of Hamlet, Orban is playing Polonius in this, this empty fool who natters along through through Act three until he's finally killed. Here's the point. If we walk away from Ukraine now and my wonderful co-author, Elliot, just returned from Ukraine, and I'm sure would have a thought on this. If we walk away now, we're repeating the 1930s. We are ceding Europe to a malevolent force in the form of Vladimir Putin. We will rue the day we did that. It would be an enormous geopolitical mistake. Well, Elliot, before we dive into the book, let me ask you about that since you just returned from Ukraine, which is this idea, not just Donald Trump, by the way, but the United States Congress,

the House of Representatives now has stalled months and months and months worth of desperately needed aid to Ukraine as it's forced to retreat in some places. What's the impact on the ground of the Congress sitting on its hands? I mean, the impact is profound. You know, time is a maneuver space that exists on the battlefield. So it doesn't just matter that you get the equipment. It matters when you get the equipment. And the story of the U.S. response and the Western response in Ukraine has just been not enough and too slow. And to the story you mentioned, when I was there, I visited several fighting units. I served in the Marine Corps, and the average age in the units I served in was 20, 21 years old. The average age of soldiers in these units, 42, 43 years old. And so Russia is still producing at a high

capacity, producing ammunition. They're outproducing the United States in the West right now. So if it continues this way, what does it look like six months from now, a year from now in Ukraine? I mean, I think the Ukrainians can hold out two, three more months, but there isn't a six month or a year out option to recommit to Ukraine. So, you know, the aid needs to come. It needs to come now or else we're going to be dealing with the consequences, which is further Russian incursions into Ukraine and a further destabilized Europe. All right. Let's turn to the book 2054 coming off the bestseller 2034. I'm just going to read a little bit of the thumbnail and tell me if any of this sounds familiar.

A future where the Democratic and Republican parties are near a point of extinction. The U.S. is on the edge of a civil war. A president who will not leave office. And the emergence of remote gene editing software courtesy of A.I. that may or may not have assassinated him. A lot in there. Tell us where we find ourselves in 2054 in this new book. Well, in 2054, we find ourselves, as you mentioned, at the beginning of a political crisis. The president has been killed. We don't know who or what killed him. And we have two very divergent Americas living in two curated realities that are being curated by artificial intelligence. So, Admiral, there's obviously authoritarian nations here, Russia, China,

Iran, that play a part in your books. So tell us about the role they play on the page, but also what lessons we can draw as if they also go unchecked in real life. Without question, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is the essential lesson of leadership in authoritarian nations. And thus, as we see in twenty fifty four, the president simply refuses to lose office. Something decides that it's time for him to go. That's where the artificial intelligence comes in. And so, Elliot, this does give us a little bit of a view.

Hopefully it doesn't go this way about where AI could take us over the course of the next 25, 30 years. What's your sense as you obviously you're well versed in artificial intelligence from just reading this book? What's your sense of plays into the book, but where it's going here in reality as well? Well, one of the ideas we get into in the book is this concept of what's known as the singularity, which is the moment when technological evolution starts merging with biological evolution and the permeability between the two. And we just sort of lived through an iteration of that in the pandemic. And we were all getting vaccines, which were basically a version of technology. So what does it look like as not only our curated realities on social media start blurring, but our kind of technological and biological realities start merging? And that

gets into the weapon that kills the president and is also threatening to take over the United States. But this is a part of a project that the Admiral and I have been doing. It started with 2034 and are really a trilogy of books that serve to deal and imagine with what we view as kind of the three great challenges facing us in the 21st century. One is China. The second one is artificial intelligence and civil conflict. And without spoiling too much, the last will be about the environment. So, Admiral, what is your sense on the question of artificial intelligence, hopes and fears about where it may be headed? I think that's exactly the right construct. And if you look at great inventions in history,

think the printing press or electricity, big things that truly move the needle of the human experience, they come with risk and they come with benefit. And I would argue I'm cautiously optimistic ultimately about what artificial intelligence can do for us. But the whole point of the book, the whole point of 2054 is it's not strictly predictive fiction. It's cautionary fiction. It lays out some of the risks. I think those could be profound. On the other hand, the benefits could be profound. Last thought, what we do now in 2024, as we think about mid-century and how we can contain and shape artificial intelligence, will matter deeply, Willie. It's a thriller and a little too close for comfort to reality here.

The new book is titled 2054, a novel, retired four-star Navy Admiral James DeVritas, contributing writer at The Atlantic, Elliot Ackerman. Thank you both. And Elliot, thank you for your extraordinary service to the country. We appreciate you both. Thanks, guys.