Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/13/23

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Mike Pence slams Trump over Jan. 6 attack

Let me be clear that during the financial crisis, there were investors and owners of systemic large banks that were bailed out that we're not going to do that again. But we are concerned about depositors and are focused on trying to meet their needs. Treasury Secretary Jenny Allen showing support for people who deposited money in Silicon Valley banks. She says the Feds will not bail out the second largest failed bank in U.S. history. We're going to have the latest on this developing financial crisis. It was a crazy weekend. And yesterday, the White House working along with with people across the financial industry doing everything they could to stop a meltdown. And it looked in the early afternoon like that meltdown was coming. They understood that China's markets were going to be opening at eight, nine o'clock at night,

and they had to get things lined up before then. So the Asian markets didn't collapse, which would cause U.S. markets to collapse this morning. And it was touch and go, as you know, because we were on a lot of calls yesterday afternoon. It's touch and go for quite some time. It looks like for now they've stemmed the bleeding. But this for a while was looking like it could spread much like 2008. Absolutely. Meanwhile, Mike Pence finds the courage to speak out on Donald Trump, but only behind closed doors and off camera. We'll recap for you what he said during a media dinner with no cameras. And speaking of the former president, Trump makes a campaign stop in Iowa today, just days after Ron DeSantis delivered campaign style speeches to voters there. Also ahead, we'll have an update on the fighting in Eastern Europe and signs that there are some cracks in the leadership between,

the relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine. We'll talk about that coming up. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, March 13th. And with us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, professor at Princeton University, Eddie Claude Jr., who is very excited that Princeton made the men's basketball March Madness tournament.

Former White House press secretary, now an MSNBC host, Jen Psaki. Her new show, Inside with Jen Psaki, debuts this coming Sunday. And we have a preview coming up of one of her first guests on the show and former Treasury official Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. He's going to explain to us why the classic film It's a Wonderful Life explains all that is happening with the banks and also with us, the founder of the conservative website, The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes. It's my favorite movie. I can't wait to hear it. Yeah, I know.

Mary, Mary. Yeah, I cannot wait to hear Steve Ratner's It's a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra Theory here. And we'll be playing for you during the show this morning, our full interview with First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which is pretty incredible. That's coming up on Morning Show. It was an extraordinary moment in Abu Dhabi. of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which is pretty incredible. It was an extraordinary moment in Abu Dhabi and having them talking about this war, talking about partnerships. Yeah, really, really something that she was even there. Yeah. So let's get straight to the news. Former Vice President Mike Pence offering his sharpest criticism yet of former President Donald Trump over the January 6th insurrection.

Pence made the remarks on Saturday at the annual Gridiron Dinner, a closed door off camera event attended by politicians and journalists in the nation's capital. Speeches at that event usually take a humorous tone where politicians poke fun at each other. But people at the dinner reported the tone turned serious when Pence turned to January 6th. Pence said in part, quote, President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day. And I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable. He continued, quote, make no mistake about it. What happened that day was a disgrace and it mocks decency to portray it any other way. OK, we will note that despite those comments, Pence has so far refused to testify under oath. OK, so history will hold him accountable, but nobody will right now. What is he saying?

I mean, he's saying he's he's he's not going to testify under oath before all the investigative bodies that are trying to actually hold Donald Trump accountable for those things that Mike Pence said he did. Before the January 6th committee saying publicly that he the committee had, quote, no right to his testimony. But the gridiron dinner was OK. He currently is fighting a subpoena to testify in connection with the special counsel, Jack Smith's federal investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as well as the former president's mishandling of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. Very interesting. Well, and this is more of the same, Mika, where we saw Kevin McCarthy

scream to Donald Trump on January 6th to stop the rioters. They were his people. And it was all on him. We saw him go to the House floor the next day and do it. You have these Republicans that want to have it both ways. I'm very glad Mike Pence said what Mike Pence said at the gridiron. It is there. It now is in the history books. And we know about it. But at a comedy dinner, I just again, I don't understand why they can't just tell the American people the truth. He's talking to the camera and tell them the truth. I know that's not in vogue right now at a lot of networks. I know that's not in vogue for a lot of politicians. I should say for a lot of cable news hosts and other networks.

But when you want to hear the truth about Donald Trump from top Republicans these days, you just can't expect to hear it in the light of day. Instead, maybe some will say it and whisper it off the record conversations with reporters or in cloakroom screens where Donald Trump is dismissed with contempt as a liar or a loser or a cancer on his party. Or maybe you may hear it from Mike Pence, but only when he's off camera at the Gridiron Club. And like all of these Republicans that attack Donald Trump off the record, but won't say the truth about him on the record, on camera. The former vice president wants to have it both ways, telling the truth about a man who threatened

his life and his family's life, but not actually saying it on TV or Charlie Sykes, to the very investigative committees and investigators that could hold him accountable for this extraordinarily terrible behavior that Mike Pence himself is now condemning in the harshest words. Well, it was profiles and half courage, wasn't it? Which we've gotten used to from Mike Pence, you know. And the and the irony, of course, is that this is why he has zero chance of winning the Republican nomination. You know, despite all of this, he got a standing ovation from many members of the club, I understand. But there's probably no focus group that's less representative of Republican voters right now than than than the media crowd in Washington, D.C. So he's willing to go halfway. He's not willing to testify. But the fact that he is willing to call out Donald Trump, that he is willing to talk about

decency in relationship to what happened on January 6th is the reason why he is disqualified as a Republican nominee, because this is the Republican Party. This is the Republican base. You think, you know, one of the questions you have to ask yourself is, this as a Republican nominee because this is the Republican Party. This is the Republican base. You think, you know, one of the questions you have to ask yourself is, this is a former vice president of the United States. Why is he not one of the front runners? And why is he have and why is there no prospect at all that he's going to end up with this nomination? And it's because he was willing to go halfway and condemn Donald Trump. But now he's in this no man's land where he's condemned Donald Trump. So he's going to be cast out by the MAGA by the MAGAverse. And yet

he's not willing to testify. He is not willing to have the courage of his own convictions when it comes to denouncing this. So it's yeah, one and a half cheers, but ultimately sort of pathetic. Again, so glad he said it. But you're right. Very sad he can't say it on camera. And Jen Psaki, let's just forget about what's right and what's wrong in terms of this conversation about Mike Pence. And let's just talk about what helps you win elections and what helps you lose elections. There's no guarantee that if he actually tells the truth about Donald Trump and is strong and goes aggressive on the campaign trail that he'll win. But we all know this.

You can't be halfway in. You can't have one foot in the water, one foot out of the water. That guarantees a loss. And that's what all these people are doing right now. You look at Nikki Haley, who said, oh, I'm not going to criticize Donald Trump. I'm not going to say anything bad about him because he hasn't said anything bad about me. Really? The guy the guy has been attacking Nikki Haley, even attacking her complexion, just like these vicious, horrible personal attacks against her. And a couple weeks later, she said, oh, Donald Trump's not attacked me, so why would I ever say anything bad about him?

Again, let's forget about what's right, what's wrong, what's courageous, what's not courageous. That's just bad politics. I agree. I mean, one, you can't win a presidential election in a primary even, or certainly in a general by being inauthentic. And that's what we're seeing from a lot of these candidates. It's like, who are you and what do you actually think? That's important no matter what political party you are.

The second piece is you also don't win by pretending that the guy who's leading is going to just go away. I mean, we've seen him go down in polls in Iowa and other places, but that's because of excitement maybe about Ron DeSantis and others. It's not really about Nikki Haley at this point, and it's not really about Mike Pence either at this point. And it's not really about Mike Pence either. The other thing, Joe, I was at that dinner on Saturday night and it was strange, I will say. I mean, because it was about 930 at night in a dark basement ballroom. Everybody's

wearing black tie or white tails, which is very strange. There's not many dinners left that still do that. And that's when he decided to give his strongest comments. Now, it is true also that he got largely a standing ovation from the room. He had some good jokes. Then he gave a very powerful, what I thought was a powerful case in the moment. But to the point everybody's been raising, why there? What are you going to do now? And what role are you actually going to play in getting to the bottom of what happened to prevent it from happening again in history? Right. And, you know, Mika, all these Republicans need to do is look back at Donald Trump. When Donald Trump first got in the race, he knew he had to take out Jeb. Jeb was way ahead of everybody.

He had hundreds of millions of dollars. There was no way Jeb Bush was going to lose to Donald Trump. That's what everybody was saying. So what did he do? He went after low energy Jeb and hammered him every day. And on a very small level, I know the same thing. I had to keep punching, punching, punching up and just bait them to come after me. And eventually they did. You can't just when you're when you're as far behind as Mike Pence and Nikki Haley and most of these other Republicans, you can't just sit back and pretend that the guy that's leading the pack is a nice guy, especially if you tried to have you and your family killed. Yeah. Let me say that again. You can't pretend on camera that a guy's a nice guy and you're going to protect him in front of federal investigators if he's tried to kill you and your family. It's Donald Trump tried to do with Mike Pence and Mike Pence's family.

And Mike Pence said that himself on Saturday night. So why do you pull your punches against that guy? Listen, albeit slow, things are changing. The environment is changing. And it's getting to the point where after all of Trump's losing, after all of his lying, after Dominion and other things changing the dynamic here, that truth is becoming back in vogue. OK, whether whether you like it or not.

And it seems like Mike Pence is still trying to, like, walk that very fine line between truth and fiction. And at the same time, on Saturday night, the gridiron, he spoke the truth. He spoke his truth. And you brought up a great point. I mean, all these people you brought up to many and Eddie Glowd, the things that Donald Trump supporters, so-called supporters, say about Donald Trump in texts to each other in the cloakroom, to members of the press. I mean, we've had Mark Leibovich on talking about, you know, how Kevin McCarthy has just gone after Donald Trump to Mark Leibovich. Then they get in front of a camera and they play scared.

And like Mika said, Mike Pence will say off camera, Donald Trump tried to have me killed and my family killed, put my family's life in jeopardy, which he did. You look at the timeline, it's exactly what he did. And then you've got the Dominion lawsuit showing us that the very people that have been at the forefront of spreading the lies about the stolen election on January 6th to each other are saying, this is all garbage. It's all lies. So you have people saying things off the record about Donald Trump that are harsh, as harsh as anything you would hear on air from an MSNBC primetime host. And when an MSNBC primetime host or a New York Times

editorial writer or somebody from the left says the same words that they say in private to each other, they're like, oh, they're crazy. They're communists. They've got Trump derangement syndrome. Not sure how they say that after typing and texting to each other. I hate that he's despicable. And they all hate him and they all know he's lying. Well, Joe, truth may, as Mika said, truth may be in vogue again,

but cynicism and hypocrisy still reign. And what's interesting about Pence Saturday night is that although there is this moment of courage, I suppose, there is a kind of performance of statesmanship and that performance involves kicking the can down the road, that history will hold Donald Trump accountable. So there's a sense in which you want to perform a certain kind of statesmanship, but there's a cynical kind of self-interested politics at work. I don't want to alienate the base. I'm going to act in light of X, Y, and Z. So Mika might be right that there is a kind of truth coming to the fore, but we still have folk who are self-interested, cynical, and will act in their own self-interest instead of in the name of

democracy. Yeah, I think we'll see. It is good the Vice President Pence said this, and will act in their own self-interest instead of in the name of democracy. Yeah, I think we'll see. It is good that Vice President Pence said this. It's certainly an odd venue for doing so. This isn't the White House Correspondents Center, which is broadcast live on the record. It's on C-SPAN. This is, as Jen said, lit by candle, and it's in the basement of a random Washington hotel, and it's done off the record after reporters do skits. So it is an interesting choice of venue for Mike Pence to do this, but it does matter. But I think we should also note that though truth may be coming to the surface in some venues, this is still, we're coming after a week or two where it's become that much clearer that Donald Trump still

has the Republican Party in his grip, that all the polls show him way up on Governor DeSantis and others in all the key battleground states. We know the CPAC was a Trump coronation, certainly a MAGA friendly crowd. And we've had evidence that, yes, another news network is still doing his bidding and trying to whitewash the darkest day of his term. And frankly, one of the darkest days in our nation's history. So there's a long way to go before the Republican Party breaks free of Donald Trump. For sure. So President Joe Biden will address the nation this morning about the government's response to last week's collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the second largest bank failure in United States history. Biden is expected to assure Americans that, quote, their bank deposits will be there when they need them.

On Friday, the country's 16th largest bank and one of the leading lenders in the tech sector was shut down by federal regulators. Its clients include the e-commerce company Etsy, the digital streamer Roku and gaming giant Roblox. Signs of trouble began to emerge on Wednesday when the company announced plans to raise $2 billion to, quote, strengthen its financial position. Tech companies have been hit hard by layoffs in recent months, and SVP indicated it had seen an increase in startup clients pulling out their deposits. In response to the company's ominous announcement, SBP shares saw a massive sell-off by Thursday morning, prompting the CEO to plead with investors to stay calm. His messages had the opposite effect. And by the end of Thursday, shares had fallen by 60 percent. As the situation snowballed, concerned customers started lining up outside of bank locations.

You talk about it's a wonderful life. They wanted to get their money. By Friday afternoon, banking regulators had seen enough and they announced they were taking over SVP's deposits. Despite the historic collapse, Janet Yellen insisted yesterday the federal government would not bail out SVP. I've been working all weekend with our banking regulators to design appropriate policies to address this situation. The American banking system is really safe and well capitalized. It's resilient. We want to make sure that the troubles that exist at one bank don't create contagion to others that are sound. And that was a real concern yesterday and a concern after Janet Yellen's remarks. There had been a flurry of activity all weekend. But after those remarks, the fear was that you'd have First Republic going down today. You would have other regional banks

collapsing as well across the country. There was a fear yesterday mid-afternoon that the White House was not going to move aggressively enough. But at the end of the day, they did. And they worked with other other federal federal regulators to stop the contagion from spreading to First Republic and then to regional banks in the south, the Midwest, across the country. It would have been a real nightmare. And for now, it looks for now it looks like the crisis has been stemmed. Now, all of this sounds a little complicated. Steve Ratner says there's a movie you should see. Take a look. My husband hasn't worked in over a year and I need money.

How am I going to live until the bank opens? I got Dr. Booth to pay. I need cash. I can't keep our kids on faith. How much do you need? Hey, I got $2,000. Here's $2,000. This will tide us over to the bank where he opens.

All right, Tom, how much do you need? $242. Oh, Tom, just enough to tide you over to the bank. I'll take $242. There you are. That'll close my account. Your account's still here. That's a loan.

Okay. I always thought, you know, Tom was just a deplorable creature in that movie. Come on, Tom. You don't need your $242. By the way, Steve, you're right. All of those people look like they were mid-level managers at Roku and investment bankers across Silicon Valley. So you called that right. Before we get to exactly what happened, Steve, I'd like you to follow up on just again, while Americans were enjoying their weekend,

doing whatever they were doing, man, there was a flurry of activity and a real fear that that contagion could spread across regional banks across the country and take us back to 2008. Talk about it. Joe, that's the point. I don't think regulators were concerned about the shareholders and SVB or things like that. They were concerned about one thing, which was that you would have more scenes like what you just showed from It's a Wonderful Life, that you would have a banking panic. We are not in a 2008 situation here with enormous stresses and strains and losses on the entire financial system. We have a few banks, of which SVB was certainly the poster child

that made a bunch of mistakes, frankly, got caught ahead of their skis and created this run that people were wondering, well, what would happen on Monday morning at First Republic? What would happen at some of these other banks if they didn't do something for SVB? And that's really what drove this. So I want to ask you, you say it was just these banks, these one or two banks. Obviously, it could have very easily spread. And what I was hearing yesterday from people involved in talks is could have spread from SVP to First Republic, to regions, to regional banks across America very quickly. There could have been a run.

And the Wall Street Journal this morning has this line, which caught my eye, to suggest that maybe it's not so limited. The rest of the banking system is on edge. Bankers that grew up in the easy money era or following the 2008 crisis failed to ready themselves for rates to rise again. And when rates went up, they forgot the playbook. Steve, so many people that are running the bank industry are higher ups in the bank industry, have never dealt with inflation before in their entire business career.

They've been dealing for, my God, at least 15 years with free money, historically low interest rates. And they just didn't prepare for interest rates to do what interest rates always do inevitably, go back up. So how do we know that this is a limited crisis and it's not going to continue to spread as interest rates continue to rise and markets continue to go down? We don't know for sure. We don't know for sure, Joe. But what this bank did was a classic sort of mistake. And if you go back to It's a Wonderful Life, Uncle Billy lost that money in the lobby of the other bank. In this case, what these guys did was they took all those depositors inflows that came during the tech boom of 2020, 2021, and they put a bunch of

them into long term securities. And the first thing that happens when interest rates rise is that the value of long-term securities goes down. And so then when depositors start to take their money out because of the tech sort of unwind and capital coming out of the tech world, they didn't have the cash and they went to sell these securities. They weren't worth what they thought they were worth. That word got out. And then you had the scene we started with, which is everybody trying to get their money out. I think you'll see people pouring over other banks. First Republic stock will open substantially down today. Another, the next bank on the list of ones people worry about, PacWest Bancorp, will open substantially down today.

The key question is going to be at 9 o'clock this morning or whenever banks open, do depositors take their money out of some of these banks? Most of the other ones we believe are healthy. This is, by the way, we should say one other thing about this from a Washington point of view. This is not just a failure by the management of SBB. This is a regulatory failure that most of what SBB was doing was hiding in plain sight. You just had to really read their financial statements carefully. And so there's going to be a lot of questions here about the regulators and where they were while all this was going on. Yeah, and we'll be trying to figure out. You bring up Uncle Billy, a thoroughly misunderstood character in It's a Wonderful Life.

Poor Uncle Billy. You don't even know what we're talking about, do you? You made me watch it a little bit. Yeah, but you wouldn't watch that much of it. I know. Greatest movie ever. Okay. No, it's all right.

We'll watch it again. I want to have a moon for you, Mary. Jimmy Stewart. My God, he's incredible. Donna Reed. You've got to see it. If you've never seen it, take Steve Ratner's advice. See it.

You'll understand the banking crisis not that much better. But you will cry at the end of this three hour movie. So let's talk, Jonathan Lemire, about the White House. You had Janet yelling at me, go, no bailouts, no bailouts. We're not going to do that. And there really was feeling inside the White House and the Treasury Department, I'll just say to some of the people I talk to, it's kind of like, why should we bail out these young Silicon Valley punks that took horrific risks on Bitcoin, took horrific risks on all of these other startups

and thought that money was... I mean, there was that back and forth yesterday, but at the end of the day, I think the pressure just kept building and thought that money was. I mean, there was there was that back and forth yesterday. But at the end of the day, I think the pressure just kept building and the dangers became too too high. But talk about give us your reporting about what was going on and when Joe Biden finally made the decision to move forward to guarantee everybody was going to get their money, that they were going to get their deposits. Joe, you're certainly right that that debate was held in the Treasury Department and the White House over the weekend as to exactly what to do for this bank, which clearly made some

mistakes. And you note this politically problematic, perhaps, clientele there, not the people you necessarily want to be seen as lending a hand to. But there was just too much risk involved. They couldn't. This is still somewhat of a fragile economy right now in some ways, though it's really a mixed bag where you have these booming jobs reports every month. You've certainly, you know, beating expectations. Unemployment's still low. But, of course, you've got inflation high.

You have Jerome Powell. We expect it to raise rates yet again when we hear from him later this month. And there is, of course, we are just a few months away from what we expect to be President Biden's reelection announcement. So you certainly don't want to do anything that could cause financial panic or concern. They had to step in. And Jen Psaki, of course, we know we're going to hear from the president in just a couple hours. He's going to address the nation this morning before heading to the West Coast. I know you played a role in communicating during the Obama White House when they had to deal with the aftermath in the heart of the 08-09 financial collapse. So what should the president's message be from today? What sort of steady signals should the White House be trying to send? Well, once the policy decisions have been made, which they were over the weekend, which you and Steve spoke to, the key for the president is calming the public. Because as Steve said, the banks are opening, the markets will be

open. And what he needs to project to the public is we've got this. We have a plan. We made some decisions. We are addressing this. And that's what people need to hear from him. Now, it's important to note, President Biden does nothing at 9 a.m. He is a night owl. So the fact that he is doing this at 9 a.m. anyway speaks to how vital the White House recognizes it is for him to have his voice out there conveying that to the American public. All right, Steve Ratner, thank you very much for coming on this morning. And Charlie Sykes, thank you as well. And still ahead on Morning Joe, is Xi Jinping right to name the United States as the force behind the so-called suppression of China? Ed Luce joins us with his take on America's standoff with Beijing. He'll also weigh in on the BBC's suspension of one of its highest profile anchors,

now growing into a wider controversy that is threatening the outlet's reputation. Plus, the latest on the fighting in Eastern Europe and troubling signs pointing to waning unity between the U.S. and Ukraine. Also ahead, our exclusive interview with the first lady of Ukraine and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Beautiful shot of Washington, D.C. at 33 past the hour. People already headed to work this morning on this Monday morning.

Joining us now, U.S. national editor at the Financial Times, Ed Luce. Ed, good to have you with us. Ed, great to have you here. We want to talk about your column on China. Very riveting. Very riveting. But first, let's talk about what happened to the BBC this past weekend. Obviously faced a lot of criticism this morning after a public fight with one of their most popular sports hosts, Gary Lineker, who's a former British soccer star turned broadcaster. It's just a legend in Premier League football.

He was suspended last week after tweeting criticism against England's conservative government's crackdown on immigration. Lineker's tweet seen here calls the policy immeasurably cruel and uses language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, is what Lineker said. New York Times report that Lineker's standoff with BBC has set off a noisy national debate over free expression, influence of the role of a revered if beleaguered public broadcaster in an era of polarized politics and freewheeling social media. This was the most interesting part, though, Ed. The controversy led to loud questions over BBC's close ties with Britain's Conservative Party. And Lenniker and other BBC hosts criticized the opposition Labour Party on social media

without punishment. Anyway, we could go on and on, but I thought it was fascinating, Ed. They had to actually limit coverage yesterday because they faced a boycott from Lineker's peers. Premier League players refused to talk to the BBC. You had some games going on, I guess, where they just showed the images and there were no announcers. Yeah. Gary Liddiker is a beloved figure. He's the highest paid broadcaster by the BBC because he's widely loved, widely trusted. This is a guy who played Premier League football for 16 years and never got a yellow card. I mean,

the guy, you know, is seen as which is unheard of. You know, he's never fouled anybody. He's seen as a very decent, fair minded person. And so when they suspended the BBC, suspended him from his top show match of the day, the rest of the crew and fellow presenters just walked out. They couldn't run it because except with silent, silent clips, because he is so popular, he engenders so much solidarity. So I guess the BBC are now in negotiations with him about his right to free expression and whether he's going to curtail that as a condition for returning to the show, because they have to get him back on the show. And the pressure is now moving on to the chairman of the BBC, a guy called Richard Sharp, who's a Conservative Party donor.

He also arranged a million dollar mortgage for Boris Johnson. So he's a friend of Boris Johnson. So the idea that the BBC is sort of beyond reproach, Caesar's wife, highly impartial, is kind of under scrutiny from completely the other end, and that is conservative influence. Well, Ed, we've got some breaking news, actually, right now, just over the wire. He has been reinstated. He's returning to the airwaves, the BBC announces, after a suspension. I'll just read briefly the statement here from BBC Director General Tim Davey, who says Gary is a valued part of the BBC. I know how much the BBC means to Gary.

I look forward to him presenting our coverage this weekend. They go on to say there will be a review of BBC's social media guidelines to address gray areas there within. So it's not clear yet. This just broke as to what sort of negotiations may have happened behind the scenes, Ed, but he will be returning to the airwaves this weekend. Well, I think that's expected, but nevertheless, very, very good news. I mean, the important thing here is that he's not a politics reporter. You know, there should be different rules for people who are, after all, publicly employed, to stop them from

airing their views on social media or elsewhere, to contaminate their reputation, which is a very important thing for being neutral. The guy is a sports presenter, and, you know, he's going to have views on things. There are other people, like Jeremy Clarkson, who who have shows on BBC who have very different views and they freely express them. So I think gagging people is probably not going to succeed in the long run. Well, Ed, your new column for The Financial Times is entitled China is right about U.S. containment. And you write, quote, This week, Xi Jinping went further than before in naming America as the force behind the containment, encirclement and suppression of China.

Though his rhetoric was provocative, it was not technically wrong. President Joe Biden is still officially committed to trying to cooperate with China. But Biden was as easily blown off course last month as a weather balloon. Today's approach is containment plus. When Xi talks about suppression, he means America's ban on advanced semiconductor exports to China. Since high-end chips are used for both civil and military purposes, the U.S. has grounds for denying China the means to upgrade its military. But the collateral effect is to limit China's economic development. You continue. There is no end game to today's Cold War.

Unlike the USSR, which was an empire in disguise, China inhabits historic boundaries and is never likely to dissolve. The U.S. needs a strategy to cope with a China that will always be there. Well, and on last week on Thursday, when I was talking to Admiral Stravitas, talked about the parallels in China's language and what we heard from Japan leading up to World War Two, that the United States was contained, trying to contain them and keep them sort of lined off in the eastern Pacific or in the western Pacific. And now you have China complaining. Again, you brought up computer chips, but you could talk about the Philippines, Guam, nuclear subs in Australia.

There is no doubt the United States is becoming more assertive in trying to contain China. There is. And the 30s parallels an interesting, if very, very chilling one, because, of course, you know, people talk about chips as today's oil. And it was the Roosevelt administration's cutting off of oil to Japan that the Japanese saw as their cause for war. Yeah, the Americans have been playing a very effective game, the Biden administration. And we're going to see today with the Orca deal in San Diego. You've got the British prime minister, Australian prime minister joining Joe Biden there at the naval base to launch, officially launch this nuclear submarine. We've got Japan agreeing, really changing its character, agreeing to announcing it's going to double its defense spending. We've got the Philippines reopening naval bases for the United States to use. And of course, India closely working militarily closely with the quad countries of America, Japan and Australia. So wherever Xi Jinping looks, what he sees is containment

and what he sees is encirclement. And he's not necessarily wrong. Now, the fact that he is bringing this, he is provoking this reaction from China's neighbors should not, I don't think, blind us to the fact that this is a very dangerous situation. And dangerous situations require talking. The United States is still by far the more powerful of these two countries, has hundreds of military bases all over the world. China's got one in Djibouti with 2,000 Chinese

military personnel there. The last time China invaded a country was in 1979 in Vietnam, and it got a bloody nose. It withdrew. So we need to keep things in perspective here. And my concern is not so much with the Biden administration, but with the rhetoric in this town. It's becoming very warlike. It's bipartisan. There is no peace faction in Washington, as you used to have with the business lobby. And the expectation of war can sometimes create its own reality. This is not a situation where America should be feeling weak. And when you feel strong, when you feel a sense of resolve, then you feel able to talk, which is what I would like to see happening.

And I think that's true of the rest of the world, too. Well, last week, we sat down with Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And we asked Madam Zelenska if her country is getting what it needs from the U.S. and Europe. First of all, I would like to thank you very much for the help that we have already received. It's been right to give this help. Somebody perhaps thinks that it's not, it's out of place for a president's wife to ask for weapons, but I will ask for it because it's our salvation. It's the salvation of people who are shelled by missiles, by Iranian drones. It's the salvation for our armed personnel in the

front line. They are defending their country. And of course, we must continue with this help because any delay right now would be very dangerous. The second aspect of what we need is to hear us, tell our stories to everyone who will hear them. We need to hear voices for change. We need the voices of opinion leaders because still some people in the world believe that it's not so simple. It's not so black and white. And you could have another opinion about the tragedy that is happening in Ukraine. This is a war of invasion. And that's it. Madam Secretary, you know better, I think, than anybody alive about partisanship in the United States and what it's cost our country. The Ukrainian war has been one thing that's brought Democrats and Republicans together

for the most part. Are you hopeful that that will continue despite the fact some House Republicans are being critical of the Biden administration and even Republicans that are supporting the war effort? Well, I am hopeful that it continues, Joe, because I think, as we just heard, this is a war of aggression and invasion. The behavior of the invaders has been barbaric. And it really is a war for not just the freedom of the Ukrainian people, although that is first and foremost. It is a war for our values, for what we believe should be the birthright of every person in Ukraine, in Europe, in the United States, around the world. So I want to underscore that as we support the courage and the extraordinary commitment of the Ukrainian people, their government, their army, their citizens, we're not doing it just because it's the right thing to do, although it is. We're doing it because we have to draw this line and make it very clear that in 2023, this kind of aggression cannot stand.

So we'll have much more on this interview ahead. We'll play the entire interview in our 8 a.m. hour of Morning Joe. It was pretty remarkable. It really was. And Ed Luce, we heard what Hillary Clinton said. Still, the majority of policymakers in Washington and elected leaders in Washington certainly share her view that this is a larger fight than just with Ukraine itself. I'm curious, though, how how are European leaders holding up a year plus into this war? They're holding up reasonably well. I mean, I think it's been the case all along. Poland and the Baltic nations, places like Estonia and the UK are more gung-ho and have been supplying more weapons than, say, Germany or France. I think, if anything, the Europeans are starting to look at the Republican

Party and the evolution. I mean, Ron DeSantis' refusal to be gung-ho on the Ukraine situation, given that he is a very expert sort of bellwether for where the beating heart of the Coliseum is in his own party, that's an issue of concern. The fact that the money that was passed, the $45 billion by Congress for Ukraine, is probably going to be running out in the fall. And the lend-lease will expire. And by then, Ron DeSantis will probably be in the race. We might get a moment of truth later this year in terms of whether the Republican Party is really as strong as some of its more conventional members, like Mitch McConnell, claim it is. And I'm not sure whether the Europeans aren't right to be concerned about the future of the Republican Party and how they view Putin.

Yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see if Ron DeSantis does jump in the race, whether he follows Donald Trump down his left wing peacenik approach, where basically is completely fine with Russian aggression. I suspect in the marketplace of ideas, he's going to find that there are quite a few Republicans that vote in primaries that don't want to see America surrendering across the world stage. But we'll see. U.S. national editor at the Financial Times, Ed Luce. Thank you so much. Eddie Glaude, I am curious from your vantage point. We keep talking about the far right Trumpers and their reluctance. Is there a concern, do you think, down the road from people on the left that the United States may be spending too much money in Ukraine? I think so, Joe. I think generally there might be a concern around treasure and people we love being put at risk. And there's a sense in which as long as we are invested in defending freedom abroad,

we have to defend freedom at home. We have to deal with our own issues, our own problems. We're constantly coming up or facing the claim that we don't have resources to address some of the deep systemic problems that face the country. And so we have to, we're going to start hearing that, I think, in certain places. We're already hearing it in certain places. So I suspect that there's going to be a convergence at some point, but not at this point, Joe. All right. Coming up, another person who was very close to former President Donald Trump expected to testify today before a Manhattan grand jury. We'll tell you who that is and why their cooperation is significant. Plus, we'll play for you some of what Ron DeSantis

had to say to voters in Iowa, speeches that focus heavily on his favorite culture wars. That's ahead on Morning Joe. Thanks, Ron. Jen, very excited. This weekend, you're launching your new show, Inside with Jen Psaki, and one of your first guests is going to be New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and you caught up with him on the subway. What kind of advice are you giving to him

or other Democrats running about how they should talk about crime in 2024? Well, I think it's two different conversations. I think President Biden is a blue collar president. Like, I like to believe I'm a blue collar man. And he's a plain talking producer. He has produced, you know, and it's unfortunate the noise is getting in the way of what he has produced. This has been a president that has navigated us out of COVID, navigated us out of the infrastructure bill. He just keeps putting points on the board.

He needs to keep doing what he's doing. But he is the key singer. His backup singers need to get on key. His backup singers. Right, right, right. I don't know that every member of Congress likes to be called a backup singer, but it's all right.

The rest of the conversation is going to air on Sunday, along with other interviews with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. It premieres Sunday, 12 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC and streams on Peacock. Jim, that looks so exciting. Thank you. I'm extremely excited about Sunday. Just six days to go. But I spent the whole afternoon with Mayor Adams. We rode the

subway. We did talk about his advice for Democrats on crime and how they talk about it, as you just saw. But we also talked about some of the policies he's put in place that have not been received completely well. So more of that on Sunday, including his decision to kind of clear homeless encampments and some of the comments he's made about guns and religion and schools. We also went to Gracie Mansion. We made a smoothie. He's big on health. He's big on mental health. So the kind of stuff that we're hoping to show on the show starting this Sunday is, you know, peeling the curtain back on people's lives and who they actually are, what makes them tick, asking them hard questions, but also hopefully people will learn more about some of the public officials they see every day. So, Jen, congrats on the show. We're all

really excited about it. So, yeah, tell us a little more just about beyond this first episode, but sort of your vision for the show as it ramps up in the weeks ahead. Well, look, I'm both a policy nerd and a political nerd and wonk of both. And our goal for the show, my goal for the show is that every Sunday at noon, people are going to tune in. They'll learn something they didn't know before. We're going to go deep on policy issues. We're going to go deep on policy issues. We're going to have long conversations with people. And hopefully viewers will also learn something they didn't know about people. Because I've worked in politics for 20 years.

And I know that a lot of politicians, a lot of public figures are caricatured. You only know a sliver about them. And I know there's a lot more below the surface. So you saw a little bit about that with Eric Adams. We're going to do a weekend routine feature, hopefully, on most episodes, most shows. And beyond that, we're going to talk about the issues happening every day. We can't wait. All right.

Jen Psaki, thank you very much. We look forward to that. It's going to be great. And still ahead right here on Morning Joe, we'll have the highlights from last night's History Making Academy Awards. Morning Joe will be right back. Even were able to deliver 50 illegal aliens to beautiful Martha's Vineyard. And they said they were a sanctuary area. I mean, I'm taking a moment because I don't want to fall into the trap of saying something that is that is just gross. He wants to do things like that to shock people.

That's right. And I would say if you're not somewhat offended by having refugees coming into a state, having migrants coming into a state, poor, hungry, tired migrants coming into a state and then lying to them and then putting them onto a plane and flying them out of the state and then bragging about it months later. This is like how grotesque it was that you had a governor actually send migrants up to Washington, D.C. and just dump them out on the street outside the Naval Observatory on Christmas Eve, on a cold, cold Christmas Eve, to make a political point on Christmas Eve, one of the most un-Christ-like things I would think, just if you actually read the New Testament and believe what it says about helping the poor and the needy to do that for gesturing. You know, we're not talking about policies here. I mean, I'm really conservative when it comes to borders. I'm really conservative about border security. I'm really concerned. You know, if you want to come to America, do it the legal way. That's what I feel like.

OK, great. So that's right here. Over here is basic humanity and the realities that we face as a country where, because we're such an incredible country, because we're such a great country, our problem is not Russia's problem. Our problem is not China's problem. Our problem is everybody wants to come to America. Everyone wants to live the American dream. Everyone wants to be here. That's our problem. Because we have such a great country. So we've got to figure out how to sort through this. But again, a guy running for president who is bragging about being cruel to 50 migrants because, you know, he thinks that he owned the libs of Martha's Vineyard when

all he really did. Right. All he really did was make those libs on Martha's Vineyard feel a little better about themselves, be able to help people in need. It's the antithesis of Ronald Reagan's approach not just on immigration but on America believing that America is a city shining brightly on a hill for all the world to see and a Ronald Reagan Eddie Glaude who at the end of his administration and his farewell address to Americans said, when we stop letting immigrants into this country, that's the time we become an old withered nation and we become weaker as a nation. Now, I know you have so many disagreements with Ronald Reagan's policy, which is exactly why I bring it up, because for you, even Ronald Reagan understands the importance of immigrants to this nation's story.

And here you have a guy who I'm sure, you know, he talks at the Reagan's Reagan Library, and he's actually bragging about being cruel to migrants. It's like, I'm going to be cruel to migrants because it may own some libs up in North is vineyard. And who knows if I'm lucky, maybe some people in the press will condemn me for doing this. I don't doesn't upset me. It's not, it's not me that he's impacting. It's not people in the press he's impacting. It's poor migrants and their children. And the fact that he's bragging all these months later about being cruel to the poorest and the weakest among us says a lot as you try to look into the soul of Ron DeSantis.