Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/19/24

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Biden to Netanyahu: Rafah invasion would be a 'mistake'

Former President Trump's lawyers said that Trump is unable to pay the $464 million bond in his New York civil fraud case. In his defense, how is a billionaire ever supposed to come up with half a billion dollars? Come on. Do the math. Yeah, today Trump handed over everything he had and the judge was like, I'm still going to need the other 463 million. Yeah, Trump is pretty desperate for the money right now. If you go on Airbnb, you could rent Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago and Eric. Oh, boy. And Eric.

So there are a lot of questions this morning about Donald Trump's finances and assets. It's six o'clock in the morning. Oh, God. Why'd you do that? It's the alarm. That is just too loud. Wake up, everybody. Anyhow. Sort of muted.

Let me start over again. There are a lot of questions this morning about Donald Trump's finances and assets after he failed to pay the bond in his civil fraud judgment. So how much cash does the self-proclaimed billionaire actually have? What happens if he doesn't come up with the roughly half a billion dollars bond by Monday? And how quickly could the New York attorney general seize his assets and properties? We're going to dig into all of that just ahead. Meanwhile, the Trump-appointed judge in the classified documents case issues a controversial order that seems to benefit the former president. Who's surprised there? Anybody? No. You're not. Plus, the judge overseeing Trump's hush money case rules on whether Stormy Daniels and Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, can testify. We'll have the expert legal analysis for you on all of these developments. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe.

It is Tuesday, March 19th. Do I ring that again? No, please don't. It's very loud. I almost regret getting that for you. I was going to say you're the one that got that for me. But doesn't it hurt your ears? No.

I think we should use it only at really opportune moments. Like? Like? Like? When you, what should, Alex, what should it be? Like when Joe. How about when TJ gets like one of the camera shots right? Well, that'd be a lot of bells. When he gets it.

When he gets it right. He said that'd be a lot of bells. Okay. With us, we have. All right. I think we got it. All right. That's good. T.J. I shot Richard. They look so lovely. All right. With us, we have the host of Wait to Early White House, Bureau Chief of Politico, Jonathan Lemire, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations,

Richard Haass. He's the author of the weekly newsletter, Home and Away, available on Substack, and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, the great Eugene Robinson is with us this morning. Let's start with a shock here. Vladimir Putin, Richard Haass, won re-election. Who saw that coming? Cliffhanger. No opponents. Definite cliffhanger.

He got a pretty good turnout, high 80s. Look, a lot of the experts were wrong. If you remember, Joe, after the Prigozhin challenge, a lot of people were saying Putin is fatally weakened. Guess not. He's hung in there. He now, in some ways, I think, controls what is today's Russia more than ever before. The only positive thing I thought was

a lot of courageous people in Russia. And there's still some civil society, the Navalny supporters. And I think that suggests down the road, the day will come when Vladimir Putin no longer rules Russia, most likely because he's dead. He'll be taken out of there horizontally. And it just suggests to me there's some possibilities there that Putinism is not necessarily the permanent future of Russia because he's in so many ways weak in the country. So, yeah, that's my one positive takeaway. And it's the bad news that for the next six years, this is it's going to be pressing the war in Ukraine, crackdown at home and you name it. Well, and and, you know, his his he's had such bad news, Gene Robinson, such bad news over the past two years. You can name it.

Whether you look at the economy, people say the economy is still going. It's kind of like they said the economy was still going in the old Soviet Union. And they found out that they were just moving things around, created a Potemkin village. But you look at the number of troops that have been taken off the battlefield by Ukraine. You look at the number of military vehicles that have been destroyed. You look at the fact that not a single U.S. serviceman or woman has gone over and fought that battle. It has been one of the best military investments the Pentagon has ever made. And yet you still have Donald Trump in a House speaker saying, no, no, no, let's give Vladimir Putin a fighting chance to still take

Kiev. Yeah, this is a really cheap deal for the U.S. taxpayer in terms of what it's done to Russia. And, you know, yes, the economy is still going in Russia. But what is the economy in Russia? It's more or less the size of the economy of Texas. And it's a distorted economy, you know, based on Russia's resources. had to rev up the arms industry. He's making, has to replace all the armament that he's using in Ukraine. He is, so that's another sector, but kind of a dead end sector in terms of modern economic development in the rest of the wealthy world. It's just, you know, this is not good for Russia. And as long as Putin is the head of Russia, then not good for Russia is good for us. But again, we're still at the stalemate over aid to Ukraine, which is just unspeakable

at this point. It really is. It really is. It's unbelievable. Well, we're going to move to Israel for our top story this morning. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sending a team to Washington to discuss Israel's plans to launch a major military operation in Rafah. President Biden's request for Netanyahu to send officials to the White House came during a phone call yesterday, their first time speaking in 32 days. Biden voiced his concerns about deploying ground forces in the southern Gaza city. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters the president warned Netanyahu the Rafah operation could be disastrous and lead to more civilian deaths. They have nowhere else to go. Gaza's

other major cities have largely been destroyed. And Israel has not presented us or the world with a plan for how or where they would safely move those civilians, let alone feed and house them and ensure access to basic things like sanitation. The president has rejected and did again today, the straw man that raising questions about Rafah is the same as raising questions about defeating Hamas. That's just nonsense. Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed to save Haven and Rafah or anywhere else, but a major ground operation there would be a mistake. It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis,

deepen the anarchy in Gaza, and further isolate Israel internationally. And Jonathan O'Meara, the White House, obviously increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu. And this argument also, you can see it, Wall Street Journal editorial page. You can see it. You can see it on on the right with with a lot of Trump supporters who, by the way, we're going to get to the story a second said that if you're a Jew and you don't vote for Donald Trump, then you're a bad Jew. Who would ever imagine that religion thousands of years old would be reduced to those simple terms by Donald Trump? Well, I would because it's happened to the evangelical church as well. But there seems to be this argument,

follow Benjamin Netanyahu and exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu wants you to do or you are against Israel. That's obviously not the case. But those are the headwinds politically at home that Joe Biden seemed to be pushing against. Yeah, Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, explicit there in that sound we played. And I reported on this call last night. It was professional. It was tense at times. We are told by those who heard it. But President Biden was voiced publicly to Netanyahu in that call what administration officials have been trying to convey to other members of Israel's government for quite some time. The idea that this Operation Rafah should wait, and if it happens at all, it needs to be

done carefully, with real attention paid to limiting civilian deaths. And as I reported last week, the White House considering if Israel goes ahead into Rafah on a full-scale operation, that they would consider conditioning or withholding military aid there. We should be clear, there's no signs that that operation is imminent. So Richard Haass, let's get you in on this moment in the conflict. There are still ceasefire talks being held, but there doesn't seem to be much momentum there. The fighting continues. We know there was an Israeli raid at a Gaza hospital just yesterday. But as noted, the Rafah operation seems not imminent.

But this is Prime Minister Netanyahu under an extraordinary amount of international pressure, including from Washington. And Jake Sullivan said that Netanyahu made sure to bring up how unhappy he was about Senate Majority Leader Schumer's call for elections. Is Israel going to listen to the president this time around? I think what you'll see, you know, this team will come to Washington. My guess is, Jonathan, there'll still be an operation in Rafah, but it won't be the whole thing. It'll be something smaller. And this way... To not cross that red line. Yeah, but the won't be the whole thing. It'll be something smaller. And this way- To not cross that red line.

Yeah, but the red line is vague. So I think there'll be military action, continuing open-ended military action, including Rafah, but it will be of a scale that will be less. And this way, the Israelis can say they took on board American point of view. I think it'll reduce the number of civilian casualties. I don't think it'll change the fundamentals, but it will calm things down a little bit between the United States and Israel. But it doesn't change the fundamentals. It doesn't change the question of getting in enough humanitarian aid. It doesn't change the question of the occupation. Above all, what Bibi Netanyahu keeps saying is he wants to destroy Hamas. You cannot destroy Hamas militarily alone.

There has to be a political dimension. You have to marginalize Hamas politically as well as defeat them militarily. Bibi Netanyahu's government refuses to introduce a political dimension of policy. That's why this cannot succeed as it's currently constructed. And, of course, everybody's waiting for word on the hostages and any developments there, which doesn't seem to be moving. And of course, families are waiting. Back here at home, Donald Trump says that any Jewish American who votes for Democrats hates their religion and hates Israel. OK, the 2024 Republican nominee made those comments yesterday during a podcast interview.

Take a listen. Why do the Democrats hate Bibi Netanyahu? I actually think they hate Israel. Yes. I don't think they hate. I think they hate Israel. When you see those Palestinian marches, even I am amazed at how many people are in those marches. And guys like Schumer see that, and to him it's votes.

I think it's votes more than anything else because he was always pro-Israel. He's very anti-Israel now. Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves. Gosh, speaking of being ashamed of themselves, my God, here's a guy that runs around and trashes the United States of America every day because he's not president. He trashes the United States of America before he is president, despite the fact that before and after the United States, as I say all the time, strongest economy in the world, easily strongest militarily, Terry in the world, easily the most soft power in the world, easily the greatest institutions of higher learning, easily the

greatest medical doctors and health care professionals in the world easily. You could go down the list. And yet, Gene Robinson, everything is personalized to Donald Trump. That's what happens in a cult. If he's not president of the United States and he says America is horrible, America is awful, America is a joke. He says it. If you are a Jew and you don't support him, then you hate your religion and you're a bad Jew. Again, this is something Ed Luce was talking about it yesterday when we were talking about his column. This is something that if any other politician had said before or if they say after, they would be drummed out of politics. But not Donald Trump. His people, his cult just grows stronger.

Yeah, they just, but the thing is, they sort of take it on board, too. It becomes part of the MAGA creed, which is just, it's a tragic thing, really, for what used to be the Republican Party and and just for American decency. My goodness. To say that Chuck Schumer, who has been one of the most pro-Israel officials, politicians in the country for eons and who is the highest ranking Jewish official in the country. And to say that he hates Israel and that he is that anything he says about Israel is is angling for anti-Israel votes is just obscene. It really is. But of course, you know, we're used to obscene from Donald Trump. And so we'll talk about this now. And then probably by the end of the show, there will be three or four more obscene things that he says that would get would have gotten anybody drummed out of politics 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And that

will we'll talk about until the next thing. It's that, you know, he goes 90 miles an hour down this down this road. And it is hard for for us and for voters and for the country to to keep up and to really process these these horrible things that he's saying. Right. Well, and everybody's numb to it. I mean, again, this is something. That's the challenge. This is something that, you know, he said before, but if anybody else had said it, again,

they would be drummed out of politics. And we said at the beginning of this year, we're not going to grow numb to it. We're going to keep bringing this up. People can go, well, why are you talking about it? Because this is anti-Semitic garbage. That's why we're bringing it up. To tell somebody that they hate their entire religion unless you support their politics or their political party. It's not a joke.

It's the same thing that freaks have been saying in the evangelical church over the past six, seven, eight years, a lot of real just freaks and people who really don't understand the Bible at all, obviously politics means more to them than their faith, where the argument is if you're not for Donald Trump, you're not a Christian. You're not, you know, and it is. I've talked about it before in very personal terms. My mom's funeral and, you know, Tim Alberta told a similar story. I mean, these are these people are not well.

They are in a political cult. And that's why Donald Trump can say this. Get away with it. Why we bring it up, because you could be numb to it if you want. We're not. And America should not. They should understand, even if he does this every day, that this is foul. You said if even if he does it every day, it's not the first time Trump has expressed similar beliefs. In September, he posted on social media on Rosh Hashanah that liberal Jews were voting to, quote, destroy America and Israel. As president, he also said that American Jews were showing, quote, great disloyalty to Israel by voting for Democrats. And in a statement yesterday, Trump's 2024 campaign manager called the Democratic Party, quote, a full blown anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist cabal. Richard Haass, again, the disinformation spews so easily from their lips and their pens and their word processors.

It's almost like, well, it's almost like Orwell said, fascists are much better with propaganda. Because it's easier. They just throw things against the wall. And the Trump camp has said in the past that Steve Bannon has said they're going to throw so much stuff at the wall that they're going to numb America. That's what they do every day. Joe, it's hard for me to listen to this conversation. It's just so offensive for someone to tell me what it means to be a good Jew.

It is just it's so beyond the pale. Let me just say that. But let's let's put that aside for a second, if possible. I think there's an interesting kernel in this, which is what does it mean to be pro-Israel? And this association of pro-Israel with Bibi Netanyahu or current Israeli government policy, that's not what it means to be pro-Israel. Governments have been known for time immemorial to do things that are often against their own country's self-interest. We have done things in the United States. People opposed the Iraq war or Vietnam, you name it. It doesn't mean you're anti-American. It just means

you have questions about the wisdom of the policy, whether it's in our own self-interest. So what Chuck Schumer did the other day, what I tried to do the other day in the Wall Street Journal, to be critical of Israel, it means to be critical of Israeli policy. I actually think that's pro-Israel. I actually think in the long run, that is something that's good for Israel. You need to have people pushing back, questioning. The government of Israel is not perfect. Bibi Netanyahu, God knows, is not perfect. So this whole idea of you're critical of Israeli policy, you're somehow anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist or anti-Israeli, that's just nonsense. And we've just got to be straight up about it and not give the Trumps or anybody else ownership of that argument. Indeed,

I actually think what Bibi Netanyahu is doing, what this Israeli government is doing, and we've talked about it on this show, is bad for Israel and it's bad for the U.S. Israeli relationship and people who care about Israel. I actually think we have the obligation to call them out on it. Yeah. And that's what we've talked about before. Jonathan O'Meara, you look, I often quote the Wall Street Journal editorial page positively, but you look at this headline, Democrats turn against Israel, and you read the body of it. And again, it's a very dumbed down, simplified approach. There are those of us who have supported Israel for our entire lives. I would say adult lives,

but this goes all the way back to me being a young kid and being in church. We always have supported Israel. But the suggestion that you have to support Bibi Netanyahu, you have to support policies that deliberately undermine the possibility of there ever being peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the idea that you have to support total war at a dense space where we understand, I guess, maybe the Wall Street Journal editorial page doesn't understand it in this case. I guess other people don't understand it. But there is a cost, and it has nothing to do with Michigan, or I think they brought up Nevada, has nothing to do with what happens in 2024. It has a lot to do with what happens in 2029, 2034, 2044, Israel's future. And this lie, and I just said this yesterday, I just have to put it out there again. This lie that if somehow Israel doesn't do a carpet bombing of Rafah, that Hamas will spring

back to power. I spent this weekend talking to people across the Middle East, to foreign policy experts. And I had one question. The question was the same. Is Hamas ever going to be in charge of Gaza again? Everybody said no, no, that's over. Their best hope, their only hope is escaping the tunnels and getting the hell out of Dodge. They will never, ever regain power in Gaza. And this argument somehow that they are is ridiculous. You have a lot of Arab countries that want to come in and help the United States and help them rebuild. Now, unlike Bibi Netanyahu, they have always seen Hamas as bad actors. They have always, you know, unlike Bibi Netanyahu, they would not have turned a blind eye in 2018 to Hamas's funding or sent his Mossad chief to Doha, as he did a couple of weeks before with the instructions for Qatar to continue funding the Hamas terrorist group. That's what he did. That's what he's done. And they're defending Bibi Netanyahu and saying

that Chuck Schumer is somehow not strong, strong enough in his pro-Israeli positions. I mean, we could go down the list of what Bibi Netanyahu has done to make Israel weaker, to make them open to that attack. But again, the focus now is on a Senate majority leader instead of the prime minister who allowed all this to happen. Right. Hamas may not rule Gaza again, but if there is that carpet bombing campaign, it's going to radicalize more people who live in Gaza, making life that much more dangerous for Israel and the West. And certainly no government is infallible. It's a sign of patriotism at times when you criticize your own government, even as you love that country. And people who do love Israel, whether they live in Israel or live abroad, do have the right to say, look, I love this nation. I love Israel. But I disagree with this

particular government, this particular prime minister. And you know who is doing that? President Joe Biden, who is a significant Zionist, who has been pro-Israel for his entire political career, who comes of an age where U.S. support for Israel was completely reflexive. He still feels that way. But he also now believes that Netanyahu is self-interested, is trying to prolong the war to remain in power, and is conducting it the wrong way. And that's why we've seen this break. That doesn't mean the president doesn't support Israel. He does. But it's about Netanyahu. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we're going to have expert legal analysis on Donald Trump's reported inability to pay the multimillion dollar bond in his New York fraud case. Plus, we'll dig into the new order from Judge Aileen Cannon in the

classified documents case out of Florida. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in a moment. Will you still love a man out of time? Will you still love a man out of time? So Judge Engeron says that he wants this $350 million within 30 days. Now, I know that you're planning on appealing this, but you've still got to put up the full amount pending that appeal. Does Donald Trump have that kind of money sitting around? Yes. I mean, he does. Of course he has money. You know, he's a billionaire. We know that.

I don't know. That might not be true. Was that is a lawyer, Alina Haba? I don't think she's got that right. Well, I mean. I mean, unless, you know, he comes up with the money, he has it sitting around. But there are a lot of a lot of billionaires that wouldn't have that kind of money sitting around on their side table. Well, they have things. They have things. So anyhow, Donald Trump's attorneys now say he cannot secure the roughly half a billion dollar bond for the civil fraud judgment. They asked a judge yesterday for an

emergency stay, claiming a bond for the full amount is, quote, a practical impossibility after reaching out to 30 companies. Trump and his company need to post the full amount by Monday to prevent New York Attorney General Letitia James from being able to collect while he appeals, which could include seizing his assets. While Trump claims to be a billionaire, he does not have the liquidity to pay the bond himself, as The New York Times points out. Most of his net worth is from the value of his things, his real estate, which bond companies really accept as collateral. So let's dig into this. Joining us now, investigative reporter for The New York Times, Suzanne Craig. She won a Pulitzer for an exhaustive

18 month investigation into former President Trump's finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth. Also with us, former deputy chief of the criminal division for the Southern District of New York, Christy Greenberg. She's now an MSNBC analyst. Good to have you both. Suzanne Craig, just curious, are there any other avenues Trump could use to pay this? What what do you with all the research that you have done into his finances, what do you think could happen here? Right. You know, the filing does sound dire because he can't come up with the cash. And what was made really clear yesterday was that they need cash. They're not willing to accept buildings. So he, in the next week,

has got to find it. You know, there could be a last minute sale of a building where he comes up with the cash. Somebody could offer it to him in a transaction. I mean, that's sort of something that will be a taxable event and I think be pretty headline grabbing. But I think there's still some options available to him. I wouldn't say this is a closed story until, you know, we're right at the deadline and we, you know, he makes a filing just saying, I can't pay. Right. Like a family member? Could a family member like Jared, with the money that he received from abroad, could he pay? I don't know if he could through that specific fund, but that's certainly one option. And if something like that happens, I think, you know, this is all new territory.

So you don't want to say anything for certain, but I think we're going to have some transparency into where the money came. But if, let's say, a family member came forward, that would be considered a gift or a loan and there would be tax consequences to it that would cost him. But so far, we haven't seen that. I don't want to say for sure if that was going to happen, that we would know about it already. but so far that hasn't materialized and he's in a situation where a number of companies have just said we're not willing to go near a a appeal bond of this size and we want right cold hard cash wow so uh suzanne first of all uh there would be quite a few billionaires that wouldn't have this cash laying around, wouldn't be liquid. That's one. Two, let me know if you agree with that. And number two, Donald Trump's problem right now, if he did have to sell some of his properties, commercial real estate post-COVID has just been pummeled and continues

to go down. So he would be selling distressed assets, wouldn't he? Assets that certainly are not at their highest level. Well, I think A, not at their highest level and B, not an ideal circumstance. This is really tough to close a transaction on a major commercial building in a small amount of time. You know, I keep thinking about one particular building that could be a possibility. He has a 50-50 venture in Las Vegas with a fellow named Phil Ruffin, who is a big supporter of his. There could be, we could see a sale like that where Phil Ruffin buys him out of that tower. I don't know if that would get him to the magic number. But those are the sort of things I'm thinking that just may be options that they're looking at just to get that cash together quickly. That may not even be an

option. Sort of just one of the things I've been thinking at is I've been looking at his portfolio and what could be sold in a short amount of time to meet this. But it's a lot of money. Most people don't have that sort of money sitting around. And keep in mind, he already had to come up with cash for the E. Jean Carroll bond. So that's already put a squeeze on what resources he has available. So, Christy, he's got about a week's time to do this. From your perspective, how do you see this play out? Well, one thing Donald Trump is asking for is to just pay 100 million and not pay the full amount. But he cites in his brief a number of cases for that to support that. They're all federal. None of them are New York state cases.

There is nothing in the New York state code that says you can pay some, you know, 25 cents on the dollar for this or that you can, because there's a monitor's oversight, that somehow that should change the analysis. By the way, it wasn't being completely forthcoming with the monitor as it is. So I don't see him legally being able to get out of this. He can appeal all he wants, but if he wants the judgment to be stayed, he has to put up the full amount. So on another legal matter, also here in New York, the judge overseeing Donald Trump's hush money case has denied the former president's request to keep two key witnesses from taking the stand. In a court final last month, Trump's legal team sought to block Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels from testifying. But the judge denied that request in a new ruling released yesterday.

We also learned the judge will allow testimony about Trump's infamous Access Hollywood tape, but prosecutors will not be permitted to play the video itself. So, Chrissy, what's your reaction to this ruling? And Michael Cohen, as we should note, is potentially a problematic witness. In fact, he's been convicted for lying under oath. So give us your reaction to this. How do you see it playing out? So there were various attempts to limit the testimony and limit the evidence that the people are going to be able to present. And the judge really played this clearly. He said, look, you want to argue that Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels are lying. You argue that to a jury and a jury will decide whether or not they're credible.

But that's not evidence I'm going to keep out in advance. And that was the right decision here. Really, most of the evidence that the Manhattan District Attorney wants to come in is coming in. And then there are some close calls, like the Access Hollywood tape, where the judge said, look, some of this, if they see it, may be inflammatory, but you can hear about it. And I think he's really trying to be very clear in his decisions and make sure there's nothing here that's admitted that

could be so inflammatory as to raise an appeal issue. So I think it's a good decision. It's a strong decision. I also think it's very clear from this decision he is moving towards trial. I think we are going to see a trial in April at the latest May. Yeah, I'm just going to ask you that, Gene. Gene, Gene Robinson, that was my concern. She anticipated the question whether or not this is still going to happen in the coming months ahead of the election. The answer seems to be yes. Yeah, it looks like it's going to happen. You know, the schedules for all these trials, of course, keep getting moved around, which is what happens with trial dates. Right. They tend to get pushed back a little, pushed back a little, just in the normal course of business.

But this one does seem to be on track to happen before the election, and perhaps as soon as next month. So we will see. I did have a question for Suzanne, just in general, because you're kind of one of the great experts on Donald Trump's finances, and you've been looking into them recently anew with an eye toward what he's spending now. Do you have a sense that he's really in the middle of any sort of cash crunch right now, given that, you know, he has this demand, he's just had to pay the money in the E. Jean Carroll case, he's got these huge legal bills that are a drain, even on a billionaire's finances.

What is your sense of where things stand in terms of the Trump bank accounts? I think on the legal fees, his donors are picking up a lot of that tab. But setting that aside, you never know for sure what somebody's cash situation is because it can just change day to day. But I think you can't imagine a situation where he's not in a squeeze. He's had to meet the Carroll bond. And then he can't come up with the money for this bond, according to the affidavits that were filed yesterday. But I think just stepping back a little bit, you've seen over the last several years a number of significant asset sales at the Trump organization. He sold the hotel that he owned in Florida,

and he's also sold other assets. And you're seeing, you know, that can be normal course of business for a real estate company, but you're not seeing any expansion or any acquisitions in the meantime. And you remember going back to 2015, when he announced his run for presidency, when he came down the escalator and he attacked Mexicans and made that now very famous speech, he saw licensing deals go out the door. So he saw those really important licensing deals that he has, their one cash hits that he was relying on, they went away. And his businesses lose money year in and year out. And so he has had to sell assets just in order to keep the business going and keep plugging the holes that he has to plug for his business. So I can't imagine a situation

where he's not in a bit of a cash crunch right now, or more than a bit of a one. know, plugging the holes that he has to plug for his business. So I can't imagine a situation where he's not in a bit of a cash crunch right now or more than a bit of a one. So in Trump's classified documents case out of Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon issued an order last night that some legal experts say could swing the case in favor of the former president. The judge issued an order to special counsel Jack Smith's team and Trump's defense attorneys, requesting they submit jury instructions in anticipation of a trial. In her two-page order, the judge said prosecutors and the defense team

must engage with the following competing scenarios. Option one is to let a jury examine every record a former president retains at the end of his or her presidency and determine whether or not it's personal. Or jurors must be told that, quote, a president has sole authority under the Presidential Records Act to categorize records as personal or presidential during his or her presidency. Wait, wait, that that makes absolutely no sense at all. Wow. Since it's not the law. As The Washington Post notes, that second hypothetical would appear to be one in which Trump seemingly could not be convicted

under almost any set of facts of improperly possessing classified documents. Wow. Christy, help us understand how. Very helpful. Well, it also just ignores what Presidential Records Act has been defined as through the years. How could that be a jury instruction? I'm a bit confused. It's not in terms of those two options.

The answer should be none of the above. He's not charged with anything relating to the Presidential Records Act. He's charged with committing violations of the Espionage Act. The jury instruction should track the language of that statute, which says you cannot possess if you didn't have authorization to possess national defense information. And nothing in the Presidential Records Act would have authorized him to possess national defense information after he was president. It's very simple. And she continues to try to muddy the waters. That is that's fast. All right. Investigative reporter at The New York Times, Suzanne Craig and MSNBC legal analyst Christy Greenberg. Thank you both very much for your analysis this morning. And coming up, we'll have a live report from Capitol Hill on the funding

negotiations ahead of another shutdown deadline. Plus, we'll get some insight on the mounting pressure Speaker Mike Johnson is facing over aid for Ukraine. That's all straight ahead on Morning Joe. We've had a beautiful shot of New York City with the sun rising. Thanks, Chopper 4. You know, TJ's actually a pilot for Chopper 4. Chopper 4 in New York is iconic. And getting this beautiful shot for us this morning at 47 past the hour. Yeah.

Okay, so we can now move on to the news. I have seen enough. Have you seen my chopper work? It's just kind of cool. I'm kind of scared. Look at his chopper work. It's sometimes of cool. I'm kind of scared. Look at his chopper work. It's sometimes. I get nervous.

There you go. Let me just hand it over and zoom in. Sort of scared. There we go. All right. Thank you, TJ. You're welcome. Taking a look at traffic there.

Boy, I'm getting dizzy. Thanks, Chopper 4. All right. Let's go to the news now. Our former advisor to former President Donald Trump is slated to report to a federal prison today. Yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected Peter Navarro's attempt to stay out of jail while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction. Earlier this year, Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas. The House Select Committee investigating the

January 6th attack on the Capitol said the former advisor had information about Trump's attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. So he heads to prison today. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina visited Kiev yesterday, meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the hours after Russia's presidential election. In comments to the press later in the day, Senator Graham accused Russia's Vladimir Putin of being not a legitimate president and said he's, quote, in charge of a terrorist state. Posting on social media, Zelensky said he and the senator discussed the latest on the battlefield and Ukraine's key military needs. Senator Graham said 2024 will be decisive for the future of Europe and the world at large. But as the future of the USA to Ukraine is unclear,

Senator Graham again pushed Donald Trump's idea of helping Ukraine only in the form of a loan. I've learned that there's $380 billion of Russian sovereign wealth assets frozen, 200 billion are in Belgium, and we need to get that money to help Ukraine and help ourselves. So I told the president, I'm all in for helping Ukraine, but we have to do it in a form of

a loan, no interest waivable if necessary for all of our allies. This is going to be a new way of doing business. I think it will get more public support back home. I can't even. It's so painful, Richard Haass. That hurt. I've known Lindsey for years. John McCain would so mock him for, you know, he has completely changed his position on helping countries under attack. For our own security.

For our own security, for NATO security, for the West security, because Donald Trump told him to. And I'm sure Zelensky would have preferred him to actually vote yes on aid against the Russian invasion and flying all the way over to Ukraine to make that stupid remark, to promote Donald Trump's lame brain attempt to weasel out of supporting a country that's under attack from Vladimir Putin's forces. Yeah. Also, what Ukraine needs right now is not loans. It needs ammunition and arms. Let's just be blunt about it. The only only possible sliver of good news here, maybe this is my mourning for being optimistic, is that it shows to me that people like Lindsey Graham and the Republicans know they've put themselves in an untenable position here. And the fact that they're

at least beginning to say, OK, we have the 60 billion dollar package that we are not willing to approve. You know, 40 to 50 billion would be spent here in terms of stimulating basically the American arms industry. Give Ukraine a loan for some amount that would down the road be forgiven. If there's ways of slicing and dicing this so Ukraine can get military help at the same point, at the same time, Republicans can can claim some victory. I don't care. What's essential is Ukraine needs to get military help there. Essentially, they're getting worn down and moved back on the battlefield. And as we've talked about, it's terrible for Ukraine. It's terrible for European security and these so-called people who are tough on China, this is terrible for Asia. This sends the message to Taiwan and others that the United States can't be trusted and can't be counted on.

So, again, my instincts are to see how this plays out. But it's not the loan. We've got to get the military help. Yeah, the idea of a loan not immediately rejected by some Democrats, who this was run past last night, also not immediately rejected by Senate Minority Leader McConnell, who, of course, has been pretty strong on Ukraine. But Eugene Robinson, there's only really one voice that seems to matter here for so many of the Republicans, and that's Donald Trump. He hasn't weighed in on this particular proposal yet.

I know I spoke to some Republicans last night who said they hoped Trump would either sign off on it or at the very least just go quiet so that would allow people to vote for it. But we don't know that he'll do that as he has reflexively sided with Moscow time and time again during his political career. Tell us what you think happens and also just this continued fall from grace for Senator Lindsey Graham. Well, what's happened to Lindsey Graham is pathetic. It really is. But it's typical of what we've seen from Lindsey Graham during the Trump era. And I just can't imagine what John McCain's reaction would be. In terms of what happens now, look, there are two things that matter, what Donald Trump ultimately says and what Speaker Mike Johnson ultimately does, because I think they can get Ukraine aid through the Senate, but Speaker Johnson won't

bring it up in the House. And so now there are indications, well, maybe he will at some point, maybe it'll be a standalone thing. And, you know, yes, it would pass the House if he would bring it forward, but he doesn't yet seem to have consensus in his caucus for it. And he's too timid to bring it up, even though he must know how desperately this is needed. The clock is ticking. They need these weapons. Europe has supplied what it can supply for the time being. They need these American arms and they need them now.

And Johnson just won't pull the trigger on this. Well, and the message is, again, and you all are so right, the message is not just to Moscow. The message is to Beijing on Taiwan. Taiwan certainly becomes far more vulnerable if the United States won't stand up and support Ukraine against this invasion. It was hard to watch Lindsey Graham go all the way over there to say that, by the way.