Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/14/24

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

Trump: 'Nobody has been treated like Trump in terms of badly'

Mr. President, I'm very curious about what it's like for you, your life. You know, no one's gone through what you've gone through. Nobody in human history has really, and I know you have supporters, friends, family, they say it's lonely at the top. And I'm actually curious, is it ever lonely for you? I mean, no one can fully relate to what you've been through and what you're going through. Are you ever lonely? So I was, over the years, I love history.

I study history. And I was always told that Andrew Jackson, as a president, was treated the absolute worst. He was just really lambasted. And I heard Abraham Lincoln was second, but he was in a thing called the Civil War, so you can understand that. But Andrew Jackson was really, really treated badly.

In fact, his wife died during the process. I mean, a lot of people say she died because of the way they were treated. I mean, she was heartbroken and broken in so many other ways. And I heard that for years. And I look now, even last night, I was saying it I said, there's no, I don't care, Andrew Jackson or anybody else. Nobody has, when you think of the fake things, nobody's been treated like Trump in terms of badly. No, that's true. That's true. That's definitely true.

There is some truth to that, Willie Geist. It's hard for me not to also look at the person asking the questions. I mean, are you kidding me? These networks that are promulgating Trump's lies, and I'll keep it serious. I'm not going to make fun of people or whatever, but it is creating a whole level of lies that people are swallowing whole because they think that's news. They think those are facts. And that's the part that's sad. I mean, it's pathetic that Donald Trump parallels himself to Abraham Lincoln and anybody else. But it's more pathetic and truly pathetic that our democracy is on the line, because if that guy becomes president, look at his last house guest.

And that's our country. Yeah. I mean, that's pure North Korean state media, that kind of interview. Why are you treated so badly? Why are you so great? Why are people so mean to you? Also, another thing happened to Abraham Lincoln that former President Trump didn't get to when he's assessing who was treated worse in terms of just leave that right there. Yeah, we'll leave that right there. But yeah, I'm right there. But to your your more serious point is a good one, which is there are all kinds of media outlets friendly to Donald Trump whose audiences are receiving that message, the one you saw. They're not receiving messages about his stolen documents. They're not receiving messages about his attempts to overturn the election in 2020. All the legal trouble in front of them that we're about to talk about, they're hearing that. And so you have a not a majority of the country, but a large swath of the country that is taking

what you just saw there as news. Right. Exactly. And there's a lot going on, actually, with Donald Trump that they might want to consider, but they'll probably never hear about, or at least in terms of facts. Along with Willie and me, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department's Elise Jordan. And a big day for Trump's legal issues. Former President Trump is expected to be in court today for a hearing in the federal classified documents case against him. In Fort Pierce, Florida, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is set to hear arguments on two of Trump's motions to dismiss

the charges against him. The first argues Trump was allowed to store classified documents in unlocked rooms at his club under the Presidential Records Act. So this, he claims, was all good. The second motion claims the man the main statute used to form charges against the former president is unconstitutionally vague. In that interview yesterday with the right wing network Newsmax, Trump defended his actions. I took him very legally and I wasn't hiding him. We had boxes on the front of the and a lot of those boxes had clothing and a lot. We're moving out. OK, unfortunately, we're moving out of the White House. I had the right to do it, in my opinion and in my lawyer's opinion and everything else. Let's bring in former litigator, MSNBC legal correspondent, Lisa Rubin. Lisa, good morning.

Apologies for putting this to you again, because we've addressed this a thousand times. The Presidential Records Act. Yes. Does it cover what Donald Trump did? It does not cover what Donald Trump did. Well, there's a definition in the Presidential Records Act for what could count as personal and what is presidential. Donald Trump's argument is effectively, it's presidential if I classified it as such in my mind and everything in my mind was personal before I, I'm sorry, it's personal if I say it so in my mind and everything in my mind that I took with me was personal. Therefore, there can be no criminal prosecution against me.

Right. So again, apologies for making you answer that question for the one thousandth time, but we'll keep doing it as long as Donald Trump makes that argument. So more broadly speaking, this classified documents case, where where are we? We're hearing about Judge Cannon and some delays, delays. Where are we in this progress of actually bringing this to trial? Well, you'll remember that a couple of weeks ago, Judge Cannon had a hearing where she took argument from both sides about when this case should be tried. She has yet to issue a scheduling order setting a trial date. And in the meantime, she is hearing argument today on two motions to dismiss. I'm not a betting person. I probably make a miserable one. But the fact that she hasn't set a trial date and yet has set oral argument on two motions to dismiss makes me think maybe she thinks she could get

rid of this case entirely without having to set a trial date. And that really is a frightening prospect, I think, given the gravity of the charges here and the panoply of evidence that supports those charges. So what should we what's going to be the state's defense then? What will we hear from them today if they try to counter what Judge Cannon may or may not do? Your theory, maybe looking to just make the whole thing go away. What's their argument going to be? I think their argument is going to be, first of all, that the Presidential Records Act doesn't support the interpretation and almost the perversion that Donald Trump is trying to give to it, that the Presidential Records Act would hold that any number of the things Donald Trump took with him are inherently presidential.

They should have gone to the National Archives. There was a process to follow that the people in the White House surrounding Donald Trump were well aware of that process and in communication with the National Archives before he left the White House, let alone in a new process that started months afterwards when the National Archives brought to their attention, hey, we're missing a bunch of stuff. That includes the Kim Jong-un letter, the letter Barack Obama left for you, et cetera. And that kicked off a process, basically a cat and mouse game, where the National Archives and then the Department of Justice and the FBI were chasing after Trump to collect all

the things that he took. And as you well know, he was not honest with them at any step of that process. He, in fact, deluded his own lawyers, Christina Bob, Evan Corcoran, sort of suckered them into it by having the boxes moved in this bizarre three card Monty that he was playing with his own legal team. I don't think that'll hold up in terms of the unconstitutional vagueness of the statute here. He's talking about the willful retention of national defense documents. He says, among other things, that the phrase national defense is unconstitutionally vague. He says that the unauthorized retention is another aspect of what's unconstitutionally vague here. We all know that this statute has been used to prosecute many other people of lesser stature in this country who have never made such an argument, let alone have a court sustainable. Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about, because you've recently a national guardsman

in Massachusetts. I believe he got 21 years, 21 years in prison. Yes. Because of what he did, which granted was pretty egregious, but at the same time shows that this classified the classification system is completely broken reality winner. How can with a straight face and nothing will happen to Donald Trump when what he did was equally egregious in terms of the crimes of these other low ranking, very low ranking soldiers and defense contractor police. We see that all around us, right? We see that in the federal election interference case, too, where nine hundred and fifty people have been sentenced and convicted for crimes associated with January 6th when the instigator in chief remains free from trial right now. It's no different here. Donald Trump is immune to arguments that other

people are doing time for the same things he has done. And in many cases, he has done worse. So, Lisa, I'm curious. I understand this is the reality. This is the process. This is the judge that we have in this case. But if Trump is not held accountable for taking classified documents into his possession to his club and leaving them in open boxes, claiming they are his, getting his workers to be involved in what is ostensibly a crime.

What's the precedent that that will set if somehow he skates from this? I think it's a terrible precedent, Mika, which is why people like me are so concerned about the rule of law and its survival in the post-Trump and during Trump era. The notion that a former president can escape to their private residence with boxes upon boxes of hundreds of classified documents or documents that otherwise affect the national defense, lie about it, enlist maintenance workers

and valets in that crime, expect them to take the fall and then walk away scot-free and then potentially get elected to the office again. That's unfathomable. And not just take the documents, but obstruct, obstruct, obstruct all the attempts to have those recovered as well. I'm really struck by the clip you guys played of Greg Kelly interviewing him where he said, no one's been treated worse than Trump. I'd flip that around and say, no one has treated us worse than Trump has treated us. He's skating on this. We'll see if that continues. He'll be in court in Florida today trying to get this dismissed. Meanwhile, just north of there in Georgia, the judge in the Georgia election interference case has dismissed some of the charges against former President Trump and his co-defendants.

Judge Scott McAfee dropped six counts in the case, three of which applied directly to Donald Trump, who still faces 10 felony counts in that case alone. The six counts all focused on accusations Trump and his co-defendants asked public officials to violate their oaths of office. But the judge found the language in the indictment too generic and did not specify which part of which oath of which constitution, state or federal, Trump and his co-defendants had been accused of asking Georgia officials to violate. In that ruling, Judge McAfee writes, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes, but failed to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission,

adding they do not give the defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently. End quote. Trump's attorney in the case praised the ruling. The DA's office declined to comment. The judge left the door open for prosecutors to reindite on these dropped charges. Judge McAfee also expected to issue a ruling by the end of the week tomorrow on why Fulton County DA Fannie Willis should be disqualified from the case. So, Lisa, let's talk about what this is and what it is not, because it's a splashy headline. Counts dropped against Donald Trump in Georgia. It seems what the judge is actually saying is you didn't explain these well enough. What exactly what are you accusing them of? What

are the oaths of the Constitution? Did they violate if you think they did and giving them a chance to refile and indict again? That's right. They can refile and re indict or they can appeal the ruling. But really, I want to point something out to you that Judge McAfee pointed out himself. He said in the federal system, the way that this works itself out is you file something called a motion for a bill of particulars and you ask for greater specificity and detail. And if the court says you deserve it, you get it. We move on. We move to trial. Georgia law doesn't allow for that. And he is basically saying, I'm constrained here. right? I wish that I had the same powers that a federal court does,

but this isn't the case in Georgia. Therefore, I'm going to give you an extra six months from this order to re-indict on these six counts, should you choose to. That having been said, this is not the big deal and the huge victory lap that the Trump campaign and Steve Sato are making it out to be. And here is why. First of all, the RICO count remains. That's a count that for all defendants could lead to anywhere from five to 20 years in prison time if they were convicted. But more importantly, that RICO count is alleged through a series of what are called overt acts. These are the things people do in furtherance of a conspiracy. Rico is a conspiracy. And he's saying, look, you might not have alleged with

sufficient specificity what aspects of the oath you were trying to get these other Georgia elected officials to violate, but you can consider each of these episodes as overt acts in furtherance of the Rico charge here, meaning it comes into the trial still. We can still talk about the Raffensperger call as proof of the RICO charge. We can still talk about the call that, for example, Trump made to now deceased Georgia Speaker David Ralston, imploring him, you appoint the fake electors, right? So all of those things for all of these six counts still are a part of the case. What they are not is separate independent charges with which these people can be convicted. So is it fair to say that these charges, what the judge is saying to the DA,

to Fannie Willis and her offices, these were, I don't know, poorly assembled or poorly argued. We're giving you another chance to make your case because I don't even know what you're arguing is what he's saying. They're poorly pled is how lawyers would describe it. Like you did not put together a charging instrument in the form of the indictment that gives these people enough notice to prepare for trial. It's a violation of their due process rights as a result. But again, big picture here. Rico charge remains. Not a single defendant here got off without remaining charges against them. Trump still has 10. Even Mark Meadows still has the Rico count, having got rid off without remaining charges against them. Trump still has

10. Even Mark Meadows still has the RICO count, having got rid of the other one against him. And this is all still evidence in the case and can be used to prove the conspiracy. So, Mika, for now, the 91 felony charges against Donald Trump becomes 88 felony charges against Donald Trump, but could, as Lisa said, go back to being 91. Right. So that's where I want to ask Lisa about. Are there any other like how did this for those who aren't completely reading into this? How did this come about? Was there a motion to drop? Is there a possibility other charges randomly seemingly could be dropped throughout this process? Does this delay the trial in any way? And what is the timing of the trial as it appears now? And if and when it starts,

does Trump have to appear? And does the timing look like it will happen before the election? A lot of questions. You guys give a very good pop quiz, so I'll try and address those all. Nika, this came about because Trump and others of his co-defendants moved to dismiss these specific counts. It's called a special demur in Georgia is the motion that they filed. They have a number of other motions to dismiss aspects of the indictment or the indictment as a whole. But for whatever reason, this is the one Judge McAfee dealt with this week. What to read into that and how it will affect the trial still remain to be unseen. But you can consider this like an element of judicial housekeeping. If you're preparing for the next stage in pretrial proceedings, you want to move a case along, irrespective of who's going

to be in charge, whether that's Fannie Willis or someone else, you want to sort of like call the indictment. If there is a time to narrow the charges, now is it before we move into a phase where you're going to expect other defendants perhaps to plead out or you're going to bring this closer to a trial date than we are now. I thought it was an interesting choice that Judge McAfee did this before ruling on the Fannie Willis motion. On one hand, it might tell you that he wants to do this before he hands it back to her, as embarrassing as those proceedings were. On the other hand, he might be trying to call the indictment before he says to the prosecuting counsel of Georgia, hey, your turn, go find a prosecutor who is equipped to handle this indictment. So, John, on that point, Judge McAfee gave himself tomorrow a self-imposed deadline to decide whether or not Fannie Willis will be disqualified from this case. He said he's ready, so we expect it tomorrow. Yeah, when we heard there was going to be news from Georgia yesterday, we thought this was coming. There was the Fannie Willis

decision. Instead, it was the surprise move to drop some of these, dismiss some of these accounts, at least temporarily. So Lisa, you just laid it out what this document may be foreshadowing. If you had to hazard a guess, what do you think will happen? Well, I want to take this document out of it because I don't think this really impacts his decision on that. It's a hard, hard call, John. I think Judge McAfee is still struggling with what the right legal test is. If an appearance of impropriety is enough to disqualify Fannie Willis, in his mind, based on Georgia case law, he's going to say that that appearance of impropriety is there. On the other hand, I don't think we saw the incontrovertible proof that she and Nathan Wade financially benefited from his involvement in the case.

This is a woman who makes more than $200,000 a year. The amount of money involved in their vacationing, as lavish as it seems to the normal American, is simply not enough to justify the sort of bizarre concocted scheme that the defendants advanced. And on top of that, it's still a he said, he said, right? We don't have any clear indication of who is telling the truth and the phone records don't change any of that, even if McAfee lets them in. So I think it could go either way. I think this is going to end up being a blemish on Fannie Willis's history, no matter how it turns out. Stay tuned also to see if they face disciplinary proceedings

from the state bar based on accusations that they weren't telling the truth, even if she holds on to the case. All right. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Thank you very much for the full analysis. Yeah. A plus. Yes. For sure. Past. OK, still ahead on. Still ahead on Morning Joe. We'll get to the fight over TikTok. Some top lawmakers argue it's not about banning the app. It's about national security. We'll be joined by a House Democrat who co-sponsored the bill that passed yesterday. Plus, we're taking a look at President Biden's swing through the Midwest as it works to shore up the blue wall ahead of November. And Hunter Biden says he won't return to Capitol Hill next week for a public hearing in the impeachment inquiry against his father, President Biden. What his lawyers are saying about the, quote, carnival sideshow.

You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 60 seconds. Welcome back. The attorney for Hunter Biden says the president's son will not testify next week in a public hearing for the House Oversight Committee. Biden's lawyer, Abby Lowell, sent a letter to committee chair James Comer, declining the request and calling the hearing a, quote, carnival sideshow. Lowell added his client would consider testifying publicly before the committee if the panel also included relatives of former President Trump. Comer responded with a statement dismissing the letter and writing that he still expects Hunter Biden to appear along with three of Hunter's former business associates.

Elise Jordan, let me let me get this straight. So far, they've come up with a nothing, be nothing, see nothing. And if you did look at Donald Trump's family members, you would be able to see that they have benefited in many ways that seem inappropriate, perhaps as inappropriate as some of the relationships that Hunter had that ultimately added up to no lawbreaking. But I don't know, two billion from Saudi Arabia. It just seems kind of it seems unseemly. I could be wrong. I mean, maybe it's OK. No, it's completely unseemly. I mean, wrong. I mean, maybe it's OK. No, it's completely unsingly. I mean, are you kidding me? These people are crazy.

I just wonder, though, why doesn't Hunter just come back and do it publicly and have it air in the court of public opinion? Because he was fighting for a public testimony, I believe, just a couple of months ago. And I think he would benefit from that, frankly, just for more clown show to be shown to the public. And then, you know, he'll come across as likable and as someone who's just, you know, paying his penance for his addiction and trying to move beyond. So I really question the decision not to just show up and do it and submit to what will be definitely unpleasant and uncomfortable, but ultimately gets more of his side of the story out there to the public. Bit of a surprising decision since by all accounts, Hunter Biden got the best of the closed door hearing, the private hearing a few weeks ago.

Republicans came out of it sort of embarrassed and baffled by the lack of questioning and the fact that James Comer, the chair, didn't even take a single question. And Hunter Biden and his team felt really good about how it went. And then their whole strategy in recent months has been really aggressive in pushing back on Republicans. Now, he does have a trial hearings looming out in California on the gun and tax charges, that trial scheduled to start in June. So that may be part of his thinking here. And certainly, you know, people close to him say he does not want to be a distraction for his father's reelection campaign. But Mika, it is a bit of an about face because

Hunter Biden and his team had been the ones really pushing for that public hearing. Republicans saying they still want him to show up anyway. All right. We'll be following that. Still ahead, Steve Ratner is standing by with new charts, fact checking some of Donald Trump's biggest attacks on President Biden. Morning Joe is back in a moment. Still dark over the United States Capitol, 627 in the morning in Washington. House Speaker Mike Johnson says the appropriations bills to fund the government must be passed ahead of the national security supplemental that would provide aid to Ukraine. He made those comments yesterday at the GOP issues conference. He also again claimed the delay was because the White House is slow-walking answers to his questions on Ukraine.

In the sequence of events, it was important for us to not put the supplemental in front of the appropriations bills because it would affect probably the vote tally ultimately on the approps and we had to get our government funded. I made two requests of the president and his cabinet in the situation room, literally within hours of my being handed the gavel. The morning of October 26, I went there and I talked to Jake Sullivan. I spoke within a couple of days to the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the president himself. And I said, there's a couple of things we need on Ukraine. We need these answers to these key questions. What's the end game? What's the strategy? How do we have accountability over the funds that we've sent? Are we sending the right weapons systems? All those things.

As you all know the history of this, it took them not weeks, but months to provide some of those answers. We still don't have all of them. They've done more lately. But that process has been, has drug out, not because of the House, but because, in my view, because of the White House being unwilling or unable to provide the necessary answers for us to process that sooner. So, Jonathan, let me hear the claim here from the speaker now is that the foot dragging from the House on Ukraine aid that's been condemned widely across the West. We've heard from European leaders putting pressure this week from Polish leaders, Ukrainian leaders putting pressure on Mike Johnson to get that aid, that it's the White House's fault, that they are the ones holding that up, something the White House obviously denies. Yeah, we can fact check that. That's not true. The White House has been

urgently pushing for this aid to get to Ukraine. And Johnson does say, he said publicly, he says privately, look, I support getting some aid there. But he hasn't had the ability to follow through and get enough Republicans on board. There are, of course, the bloc on the far right who oppose the Ukraine aid, and that's the same bloc that ousted Kevin McCarthy and threatened to oust him. So he's being very mindful of that, and he is yet to move forward. Now, we have these discharge petitions that are in this House right now. There's a Democratic one circulating. There's a Republican one circulating. Those are possibilities, but they're long shots as to whether or not that will be able to circumvent

Johnson and get this aid done. And as this is happening, I mean, Ukraine's had a little bit of success in recent days with some drone strikes within Russia itself. But on the battlefield, they're running out of ammunition. We reported yesterday about the Pentagon able to scrape together a little bit of savings they found. They'll have a small package head there. That will help, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what the Biden national security package would be. Yeah, at least the Pentagon's having to find these ad hoc pots of money. Funny how they can do that over at the Pentagon. But yes, I guess they have that unique ability in American government to, you know, dip in. But yes, I mean, Ukraine is

going to collapse without continued United States funding. It's not like Germany and the Europeans are going to step up enough, you know, if this really does not come through. But it's really their last go to it, a good, solid chunk of funding before potentially Donald Trump gets reelected. So the stakes are pretty high here. And I do not see how those reticent Republicans in the House come along. It does not seem like they're budging and they're only hardening in their position as it is the position of Donald Trump right now. And no one is going to deviate from Donald Trump and the Republican Party. That's the other piece of this. It's only a matter of eight months or so. If Donald Trump is reelected, Putin gets exactly what he wants.

That's all the time he needs. Meanwhile, in the House yesterday, a bill that could ban TikTok unless it's Chinese parent company divests itself of the app in the U.S. passed. Now it faces a tougher fight in the Senate. NBC News correspondent Savannah Sellers has more. The bill needed two thirds of the House to pass, and it got that easily. The yeas are 352, the nays are 65. Now it goes to the Senate, where it will likely face a tougher road. If signed into law, it would give Chinese parent company ByteDance just six months to divest TikTok or face the possibility of a ban on the app. The legislation prompted by national security concerns,

including fears the Chinese government could access Americans' personal data and feed them content that would influence their views. Our intention is for TikTok to continue to operate, but not under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans voted no. It's an overly broad bill that I don't think will withstand First Amendment scrutiny. It's opening Pandora's box and I'm opposed to this bill. Aligning with former President Trump, who once tried to ban TikTok, but now says he's against that. TikTok

fighting back hard, even flying creators to Washington. Hello, this is my son. Jason Linton shares his life as a dad with his 13 million followers. What would it mean for you and your family if TikTok were to be banned in the U.S.? It would be devastating. Being able to just launch out a positive message would be completely stopped. Wish it was a bad dream, but it's not. J.T. Laybourne uses TikTok to promote his clothing company. Do you think this could impact how people vote?

A hundred percent. There will be people that will not be reelected because of the way they choose to vote on this ban. TikTok says it has 170 million users in the U.S. According to an NBC News poll, 22 percent of voters say they use the app once a day or more. The potential political fallout with those young voters not lost on some senators. Cutting out a large group of young voters is not the best known strategy for reelection. Republican Mike Gallagher, one of the bill's sponsors, says that's not a good enough reason to ignore a looming national security threat.

I don't think courting the cliques of 17-year-olds should take precedence over allowing our foremost foreign adversary to dominate what is increasingly becoming the primary news source for Americans under the age of 30. TikTok says its CEO was on the hill, but it's unclear if he met with lawmakers. The company maintains it is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government. This legislation, if signed into law, will lead to a ban of TikTok in the United States. Savannah Sellers reporting there. So what part of what strikes you here, at least, is the vote. I mean, this was not some small group of extremists.

This was a vote of 352 to 65 to pass this through the House on a very, obviously, bipartisan basis. But there are holdouts. A lot of the progressive caucus says this goes too far, had questions about free speech and other things. And we'll see how it does in the Senate. But what's your and what's your view? It's really disappointing that so many elected officials are willing to take such a draconian stance against free speech. It's a really broad bill. Define what exactly is the limiting mechanism here and how it's not going to extend and creep into other liberties of Americans. It also just, you know, any time the national security state is so adamant that something must be done for

the safety of Americans, maybe we should probe into that and make them explain exactly what the limitations are going to be that are going to be set and what the precedent that is going to be going forward so that more of our rights aren't curtailed. And this will be a closer call in the Senate, John, even here, Leader Schumer kind of having it both ways in his public comments, trying to figure out where his caucus really is on this question. Yeah, I mean, certainly the idea would be this divestment, but I don't know how possible that is. And TikTok aggressively lobbying against this, pushing its users to petition senators and the rest. And President Biden has said he'll sign this, even though the Biden campaign just recently jumped on TikTok. And they know that's where a lot

of voters are, particularly the young voters. They need to they need to reach. Politically, it's so stupid. But but it is, you know, they've trotted out the national security concerns. We've heard Donald Trump, of course, flip flop on this. When he was president, the administration moved on its way to banning it. They didn't follow through, but he was hawkish on it. And now, of course, he's suggesting he'd like to support it because of chance to win votes and because of the donor there who could give him money who was an investor. But and one point about that, though, the wheels might have been churning during the Trump administration, but Donald Trump had probably very little to do with that. Politically now, he sees the winds. He's very good at seeing where the wind of public opinion is going. And

that's why he's suddenly become pro TikTok. I'm sure there's some financial reason involved, too, but he is very good at sensing the mood of the public. He's also very good at being pushed around by rich guys in the patio of Arlando, who are investors in TikTok. We'll talk much more about this story in our next hour. Also, we'll be joined by the co-sponsor of that TikTok legislation, Democratic Congressman Roger Krishnamoorthy of Illinois, on what to expect if this bill does become law. Morning Joe is coming right back. Although it's not official until the conventions this summer,

a Biden-Trump rematch is on the horizon for November. NBC News projects both men won enough delegates to officially lead their parties in the fight for the White House this fall. And as the race heats up, Trump has been sticking to familiar attack lines about President Biden. Joining us now with a fact check is former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. He's got it all in charts. We'll start, Steve, with the issue of crime. Take a look. We are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed and where crime is rampant and out of control like never, ever before. The carnage line. He's always going with the carnage, Steve. Is it true? Well, no, crime is not out of control like it's ever been

before. And in fact, crime is actually continuing to drop under President Biden. So let's take a look at violent crime. This is per 100,000 people relationship to our size of our population. And you can see that violent crime actually since 2020 has dropped by 15 percent, 339,339 violent crimes per 100,000 people. It's below any place it was during the Trump administration. And it's had this huge drop in 2023. The same is basically true of property crime. You can see here, this is people robbing homes and things of that like, down 7 percent, 1,830 per 100,000 people. So this is a complete fiction that crime is up under the Biden administration. Yeah. And at the same time, there are different areas of the country experiencing different things.

And a mixture of crime and homelessness is very personal to people in their neighborhoods. But again, you can't deny the data and the trends that we're seeing. There's also Donald Trump's false claims when it comes to President Biden's energy policy. Listen to this. On day one of our new administration, we will end Biden's nation wrecking war on American energy. He's wrecking the energy business. OK, Steve Ratner again. What are the facts? Yeah, I'm wrecking the energy business. So we have had record energy production under the Biden administration. This combines nuclear, fossil fuels and renewables. And you can see here that we have never had energy production this high. And then the other thing that he says is that he's going

to make us energy independent again. Well, the fact is we are energy independent. We've been energy independent now for five years. And in fact, our energy exports, mostly oil, but also some natural gas hit a record last year. So in fact, America has we produced more oil than any country in the world has ever produced in history. Yeah. And he talks a lot about the economy and how it was better under him and also attempting to rewrite history on the deficit and debt. Listen to Donald Trump. We were going to pay off debt. We were going to reduce taxes further. We gave you the biggest tax cut in the history of our country, bigger than the Ronald Reagan tax cut. Wow. The actual numbers show something very

different, right, Steve? Yeah, he didn't give us a big tax cut. That part is true. But what it did was it actually increased the deficit. So when he says that we were on track to pay off the debt, look what happened to the deficit even before COVID. Even before COVID, because of his tax cut, the deficit was going up, up, up. And then, of course, COVID hit. And under Biden, he's actually brought it down. And in his new proposed budget, he would bring it down further. And so because of that huge deficit, when he talks also about how he was going to pay off the debt during his first term, he, in fact, added more debt than any other president in history.

Some of it, yes, was COVID, $3.6 trillion. But there was also $5 trillion of debt that had nothing to do with COVID. And Trump signed a whole series of spending bills that increased our spending by over $2.5 trillion. So the idea that he was a president that was going to attack the deficit and debt problem is actually completely false. And Steve, when President Biden put out this week, his projected budget, there was a lot of pearl clutching from Republicans about adding to the deficit when they were completely silent for the most part, as Donald

Trump added eight trillion dollars to the deficit. The chart directly behind you on the war on energy, the one you talked about a minute ago, Donald Trump has been posting drill, baby, drill quite a bit lately. Is it fair to say that sounds more like an endorsement of what Joe Biden's doing right now? Yeah, this drill, baby, drill stuff I find astonishing because obviously you only get record energy production by drilling. And we have been drilling. Obviously, there are concerns about fossil fuels. We need to transition away from them. But for now, we need them. And the idea that Biden has been anti energy or somehow curtailed our drilling is completely blied by the fact that we are producing record amounts of oil and natural gas. So morning, Joe, economic analyst Steve Ratner. Thank you. The only problem I see

here, and this is not a joke, is that we could do our entire four hour show fact checking everything Donald Trump says, and we would not even scratch the surface. That's the problem that we're confronting in this election and for this country moving forward. Steve, thank you. Coming up, Pablo Torre joins the table to discuss the top headlines in sports. Plus, we'll get his take on a former NFL MVP being floated as a possible VP pick. OK, that's still dark out, but if you look closely at 6.50 in the morning, you can see the Concord making its way up the Hudson River here in New York City, where it's going to arrive to be on display at the Intrepid once again, if you take my word for it. All right, let's turn to sports.

Major League Baseball opening day just two weeks away. Major, major injury concern for us New York Yankees fans surrounding our ace. The team has shut down Garrett Cole with no official timetable set for his return. The reigning AL Cy Young winner underwent an MRI and his throwing elbow earlier this week after reporting discomfort and since has visited a specialist in Los Angeles who recommended further testing. Yikes. The Yankees hoping to have Cole back in the rotation by sometime in May or early June. Jonathan Lemire, please just suppress your glee for a moment.

For real. This is one of the best pitchers in baseball. I'm a Yankee fan. You're a Red Sox fan. We understand that. But this is not good news. They say a month or two months, but that always feels like the beginning of something. We don't root for injuries, Willie. Did I pull that off? The face was straight. Yeah, no, this is. I mean, Cole, we were talking

just this week about, because there are a couple of major free agent pitchers out there, Jordan Montgomery, Blake Snell, who want these long-term five, six, seven-year deals. And we were talking about what a risky bet that is. No starting pitcher should get that because pitchers get hurt. Cole seemed to be the exception to the rule. He's been an utter workhorse. He signed a huge deal with the Yankees. He's been worth every penny. Look, I admit it. He's one of the best pitchers in baseball. He won the Sion last year. This is a concern. And the tone around it has changed a little bit, where for a day or two, they thought that maybe it would be a month, which is still a big deal. But the Yankees could survive that. And now they think, as you see here, lump of coal on the back page of the New York Post,

that it could be longer. And if he's getting a second opinion, this LA surgeon is one of the best in the business, the guy who performs a lot of Tommy John surgeries. We don't know that's coming here, but it certainly is worrisome for Cole this year, but also his going forward. It seems like his arm's an issue. Do the Yankees now, really, do they try to sign one of those free agent pitchers to make up for Cole if he's going to miss time? But it would come with a major, major luxury tax penalty, $60 million or more. And also, as we've talked about, those guys want seven-year deals. How can you do that?

Which we just learned you can't do that. So Garrett Cole has been awesome for the Yankees. He was a bright spot last year. Let's hope he's OK. All right, let's bring in, you've already seen him in the wide shot. I've just been chuckling over here. Yeah, thank you for the laugh. Our collective misfortune, I'm a Yankee last year. Let's hope he's okay. All right, let's bring in, you've already seen him in the wide shot. I've just been chuckling over here. Thank you for the laugh. Our collective misfortune, I'm a Yankee partisan, too. I don't like it when

people say, don't worry, the surgeon's really good. That's not helping me right now. We don't want a surgeon in the conversation at all. It's Pablo Torre. You know that by now. Pablo, good to see you. Let's look ahead a little bit to the Yankee season. Juan Soto protecting Judge in that lineup, going 2-3 somewhere in there.

The lineup looks good, but you were certainly counting on having Cole at the top of the rotation. I mean, really, let's be honest. There's a binary sort of dynamic to how we should feel about this season. Last season was the worst season in my lifetime. Worst season in 30 years of rooting for the Yankees. Granted, I've only known Roses and the Canyon of Euros, but they didn't make the playoffs. We didn't make the playoffs. 82

and 80. And so this season, it's an all-in sort of dynamic. And so the binary is you win this thing or it's misery. And so Garrett Cole being out after I laughed earlier this week to John in his face about how the Red Sox are going to finish last in the AL East for the third straight year. Come up and careful now. I said that and I now deserve this, I suppose, cosmically. But look, Juan Soto, Aaron Judge makes me feel

great. It does. It's just that I'd like the Yankees. Look, it's not my money, man. Yeah, go. Why are we not spending more 300 million million contracts on these guys? I'd like them to shore up the lineup, please. This generation of Steinbrenner seems less willing to just open up the checkbook to pay for players. Disappointing. But Garrett Cole, injury or not, really, the Red Sox are still going to finish fifth. Don't worry about that. We're destined for last. I think I'm hoping for the best on Cole. That lineup is tough. They're going to keep us in it. Staying within the pages of the New York Post, Robert F. Kennedy says he will announce his vice presidential pick on March 26 at an event in Oakland. Why are we telling you this in a sports segment? Well,

because the source tells NBC News the independent presidential candidate has offered the slot to an individual and that individual has accepted the offer. Earlier this week, Kennedy Jr. confirmed to the New York Times, New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota governor Jesse the Body Ventura were on his short list. This can't be real, right? It's just he's floating these names for fun. Aaron Rodgers, who is an active member of the New York Jets, fully expected to return this season. Would he be on the campaign trail during the weekend playing football on Sundays?

I just want to attack this from the perspective of a Jet fan, because I have lots of takes about just what this means. Why is RFK cornering the market on 9-11 conspiracist Democrats in scare quotes? Like what? Oh, he wants he wants to have the Sandy Hook Democrats, that demo. Right. So that's the story that came out, of course, yesterday, which is that Aaron Rodgers happens to be a guy who told CNN after they identified themselves as a reporter, Pamela Brown. That whole thing is a conspiracy. That was the reporting. So I say all of this to say, if I'm a Jet fan, how do I feel? And so even beyond the human horror of what that means, that conspiracy in specific, like, is that still a line we can't cross? We'll

find out, I guess. I think about football. After all that, I think about this is the guy who said we need to eliminate off-field distractions. Aaron Rodgers is the same human being who had those words exit his mouth. And now to be the first athlete in history to mount a presidential vice presidential campaign is just one of those on the nose things that you would laugh at if you also didn't worry about what it says about, I don't know, democracy and ourselves. Kennedy and Rodgers, of course, first bonded over their vaccine skepticism, denialism. The new report that Pablo just references from CNN highlighting the conspiracy theory allegedly shared by Aaron Rogers about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting not being real. I mean, this is Alex Jones stuff. It's disgusting. It's appalling. Pamela Brown,

one of the reporters behind the piece, said she was introduced to Rogers while covering the Kentucky Derby back in 2013. And upon hearing that she was a journalist with CNN, Rogers immediately began to attack the news media for covering up important stories, he said. According to the report, Rogers brought up the Sandy Hook shooting, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it. Brown recalls Rogers asking her if she thought it was off that there were men in black in the woods by the school. We're not going to even get into this stuff. Rogers, through one of his agents, declined to comment to CNN in response to this. CNN had a second source on this. He's been saying this to a whole bunch of people. It's arguably the most disgusting conspiracy theory in all of the QAnon Alex Jones world that, that has descended on this country in the last decade or so. So I guess, John,

the question for me is at this point, if you're the New York jets, Aaron Rogers is a broken down 40 year old who won one Superbow Bowl a decade and a half ago. Same number of Super Bowls as Jeff Hostetler, Brad Johnson, Trent Dilfer, Nick Foles. Is it worth it to have this guy? By the way, you've got an awful lot of Jets fans in Newtown, Connecticut, I promise. And let's remember Aaron Rodgers. His play was already slipping at the end of his time in Green Bay. He played all of four plays last year before he was injured, suffered a major Achilles tendon injury.

We don't know how he'll bounce back this year. And that's just the football context. It is the most loathsome conspiracy theory out there. And if he believes it, then he's a loathsome human being. He also, we know from his former teammates who have said, told me that he would float 9-11 conspiracy theorists too, that he believes September 11th was an inside job. So that might be the second worst conspiracy theory in American society, Pablo. I just, I don't see how the New York Jets can employ this guy. If this is real, let him go. Let him go be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s running mate. They'll lose in embarrassing fashion. Don't let him play for your team again. Yeah. Can I just posit that this guy doesn't

really care about football anymore? Can I just say that? Like, it should be insulting for Aaron Rodgers to hear someone say that about him. But every indication is that he wants to talk about and complain about and be victimized by and become a messianic figure because of alleged cancellation. And why is it us, Aaron, or is it you? And for Aaron Rodgers, the answer is never. Aaron Rodgers is the problem, despite all the people around who are voting in the other direction. And by the way, those Sandy Hook families have suffered for more than a decade because of that conspiracy. They've been harassed. They've had to move. Insane.

They've had to not disclose where their children are buried. It's the most horrific thing. And if Aaron Rodgers is really talking about this, I don't know how the Jets keep. Now you've got Tyrod Taylor. He's a starter. Let him be the quarterback. ESPN's Pablo Torre. Thanks, Pablo.

Great to see you. Thank you, Pablo. Coming up.