Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/26/24

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Major bridge in Maryland collapses after being hit by a ship

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, March 26. We're going to begin with that breaking news out of Baltimore this morning. The Francis Scott Key Bridge, part of Interstate 695, partially collapsed overnight. It happened when a large cargo ship struck the bridge. The vessel was leaving Baltimore for Sri Lanka. A local Coast Guard received a report of an impact at 1.27 a.m. this morning, Eastern Time. It's worth noting the port of Baltimore is one of the nation's largest shipping hubs. And according to the Associated Press, emergency responders are searching for at least seven people believed to be in the water. The Washington Post reporting now they are looking for up to 20 people. Those numbers unclear at this point. It's too early to know exactly how many people overall

were affected. The Baltimore Fire Department called the collapse a developing mash casualty event. And we're hearing from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, he tweeted moments ago that he has spoken with Maryland's governor and Baltimore's mayor to offer the department support following the incident. We'll be going live to the scene. But, of course, this again happening at 1.30 in the morning. And the video that shows the actual moment when this large container ship hit the bridge, you can see it right there. It is a direct hit, causing, look, the entire bridge to collapse on one side. It raises a lot of questions as to what was going on on that cargo ship and what happened

in those moments, which will be, of course, the focus of a massive investigation that Fed's getting involved as well. Horrifying moment, Willie, in this announcement coming just now from Governor Moore on the statement of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. My office is in close communication with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. I've declared a state of emergency here in Maryland, and we are working with an interagency team to quickly deploy federal resources from the Biden administration. We're thankful for the brave men and women carrying up efforts to rescue those and pray for everyone's safety. Obviously, really, there's a bridge that anybody that's driven up and down the East Coast corridor is keenly aware of.

And a bridge that really is a lifeline for Baltimore residents and people across the East Coast. It is at 695, a bypass around Baltimore, but a major thoroughfare. This video is just breathtaking. Every time you see it, it stops you in your tracks as the major ship of almost a thousand feet hits one of those stanchions and the bridge just collapses. That's a bridge of over a mile and a half. It's a huge, long bridge for people who haven't traveled across it. And obviously, as Mika said, a very critical port to the United States, but a major roadway. But right now, the concern is over people in the water. The first of Baltimore Fire Department said seven people were missing that they were looking for, perhaps those

working on the bridge. Now, as Mika just said, some reports say it could be as many as 20. A major search and rescue operation underway right now. And NBC's Ryan Nobles has arrived on the scene. He's there for us live now. Ryan, what more can you tell us? Willie, good morning. We are expecting a briefing from first responders and officials here at the base of the Francis Scott Key Bridge at 7 a.m. Eastern time. That's where we're expected to get an update at the scale of this devastation. And right now it's difficult to really just take in just how big this tragedy is because we are still under the cover of night. As the sun rises, we'll get a much better sense of just how much damage there is and how much work there will be when this recovery begins in earnest. But right now, the number one concern for first responders and the people on the scene is helping those people that may have been on this

bridge when it went down. As you rightly point out, it happened at 1.30 this morning. We do know that there was a crew of construction workers that were on the bridge at the time. And in fact, my colleague, Julia Jester, caught up with a group of family members who had stationed near a convenience store near the bridge looking for answers. They were searching and trying to figure out what had happened to their loved ones. They had not gotten any communication as to what had happened to them. They basically went to that store just so that they could get as close to the bridge as possible, but had yet to learn anything about the status of their loved ones. As you have also pointed out, the governor, Wes Moore, declaring a state of emergency as it relates to this tragedy. And I think it's

also important to point out just what kind of chaos this could potentially cause this region. This is a main artery that's around the city of Baltimore, a mile and a half span that thousands and thousands of cars drive over every single day. As I was driving up from the Washington, D.C. area, you could already see signs posted along the highways warning drivers to stay away from this area, to find alternate routes to get around Baltimore as a result of this bridge no longer being passable. And it's also going to be a lengthy recovery, a long time to rebuild this bridge no longer being passable. And it's also going to be a lengthy recovery, a long time to rebuild this bridge

because as you've shown over and over again, almost the entire bridge appears to collapse after this cargo ship hammers into the base of the ship, or of the bridge, I should say. And so it's gonna require a massive rebuilding effort in order to get this bridge back up and running. But again, the number one concern right now is the potential loss of life, the effort to recover the people that may have been on the bridge at the time. And just to give you an idea of what it's like here right now, it is very cold. We are in the

high 30s right now, between 35 and 39 degrees. The water temperature is going to be somewhere in the 40 degree range, maybe 45 to 48 degrees. It would be very difficult for someone to survive in conditions like that for a lengthy period of time. So that's why you saw first responders rush to the scene as quickly as possible. One of the other things we're noticing right now, in addition to the police cars and first responder vehicles that are coming in and out of this area, is that there are a number of helicopters that are circling over the bridge and that area right now looking down onto the scene, trying to see whatever they can. But I have to say, it is basically pitch black right now. It is hard to see anything because it is so dark.

They certainly have just had to be waiting for the sun to rise in order to be able to see exactly just what they're dealing with right now. But there is, by any measure, this is a serious tragedy and something that's going to take quite a bit of time to recover from. Yeah, an incredibly difficult rescue operation under the cover of darkness. And as you say, every minute counts with the temperatures in that water. Very early hours here, Ryan. I know it's just been over four and a half hours since this incident took place. Is there any sense from people you've talked to since you got there about what might have happened? I mean, this is routine. As you say, these ships come in and out of there, even ships of that size, constantly, all day, every day. Often, you know, escorted out by tugboats that pass under that bridge that have for many, many years.

Do we have any idea of what may have happened here? No, there aren't many answers as it relates to that right now, Willie, because the complete focus has been on the search and rescue effort. But this is one of the busiest ports in the world. So you would think that this is something that these these ships, ships of this size come in and out of this port on a regular basis. Something had to have gone catastrophically wrong for something like this to happen. There's no doubt about that. All right. NBC's Ryan Noble will be checking back in with you. We appreciate your coverage. And of course, as anything develops with this breaking story, we will Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, joins us on a very busy news day this morning. We've got a really busy news day.

We're, of course, going to be talking about what's happening between Israel and the United States right now. Tensions about as high as they've been in decades between those two countries. Also, of course, yesterday, a massive day in court for Donald Trump. He got a bit of good news. He got some bad news as far as he was concerned. We're going to get to that in a minute, too. But first, some swing state polls that show what I think most of us expected,

that actually the president of the United States and his performance in the State of the Union address was going to impact Americans and undercut this lie that he somehow was a doddering old man that couldn't complete a sentence. This lie that the Republicans continued to push actually now appears to be backfiring. Let's briefly check in on that. This is new general election polling showing a neck and neck battle for swing states between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And the latest Bloomberg Morning Consult poll, Trump and President Biden are tied at 45 percent in Michigan and Pennsylvania and in Wisconsin. Biden leads by a single point,

which is within the margin of error. So an uptick. Yeah, an uptick. And let's keep those three states up there because there are other swing state polls taken. Biden still he's down two in Nevada, a little bit further behind in other states. Trump is maintaining his lead in the state of Georgia. Gene Robinson, though, as you look at these numbers, these are the three states that matter. If Joe Biden wins these three states, Donald Trump is. But that is that is a so-called blue wall that everyone talked about in 2012. That would never be broken until Donald Trump did it four years later.

But you look in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, those numbers breaking Biden's way. And I suspect, you know, we've talked about how confident the Biden team has been all along when everybody else has been ready to panic and run for the hills. Right now, at least, this poll suggests that these these voters and these polls suggest that maybe they know what they're talking about. Maybe they do. Maybe the Biden political team actually is pretty good at politics. There must be a giant sigh of relief and, you know, certainly lots of welcoming noises from inside the White House this morning about those polls. As you said, those are states that President Biden has to has to carry polls in Michigan, especially and in Pennsylvania, where had been scary for the White House for a while, but they were quite confident—the political team was quite confident that things would turn around, that Democrats would come home

to President Biden as time went on. And so, but now we're still in March. There's still a long time to go, but with the needle moving in what they would see as the right direction, I think there'll be some, you know, some some smiles about this in the White House, along, obviously, with deep concern about what's happening in Baltimore. It's a busy news day, as you said. It is a busy news day. And, Willie, you know, it's so interesting when we've talked about this since 2015, that Donald Trump always runs against people who stand there stiff and take it. And when, you know, he's a disruptor on the campaign trail. And when he disrupts, people sit back and say, oh, he shouldn't be mean. The Biden campaign. I mean, I saw a couple of days ago when Donald Trump was bragging about another one of his his club trophies,

where I suppose if you're a member, you have to let Donald Trump win because he wins all of his club championships. And he's bragging it. And, you know, Joe Biden just mockingly goes, nice job, Donald, or something like that. But yesterday, after Donald Trump came out and ranting and raving and claiming that he was Jesus and all this other stuff, as Drudge put it, this is what they said. And I guarantee you, Donald Trump is not used to the incoming that he's facing every day. Quote, Donald Trump is weak and desperate, both as a man and a candidate for president. He spent the week in golfing, the Trump is weak and desperate, both as a man and a candidate for president. He spent the week in golfing, the morning comparing himself to Jesus and the afternoon lying about having money that he definitely doesn't have. His campaign can't raise money.

He is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club. And every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda. America deserves better than a feeble, confused and tired Donald Trump. And I must say on that last part, there have been people who have been been irritated and count me as one of them, that there are countless stories about Joe Biden after the her report being old and feeble and oh, poor man, he can't remember the things that I can't remember, the things that you, you know, well, I won't say you, you're a young man, but the things that a lot of us can't remember in a five hour deposition, we have to be asked

about it. And yet it's Joe Biden campaigning day by day by day, going to event after event after event. It's Donald Trump who has been a hold up in his country club and a hold up in other places, only holding one event. And that's an event that he held for a Senate candidate because they don't have the money right now to put on a lot of these events. Yeah, I mean, the criticism of Joe Biden was that he was the basement candidate. That was from the Trump campaign in 2020. This is the beach club candidate in Donald Trump. He's running a presidential campaign from Mar-a-Lago. He's doing the occasional rally where he flies in for an hour and then flies right back to Mar-a-Lago, ostensibly sometimes for another candidate, but it always becomes about him and his persecution. You weren't exaggerating

when you mentioned Jesus. He affirmatively reposted something from one of his supporters yesterday that suggested he, in fact, was a Christ-like figure taking the arrows for the people. But he's walking into a lot of this. We can play tape almost every day, including yesterday when he was speaking at 40 Wall Street about the decision to have his bond changed. And it truly is objectively incoherent. If you watch the full clips, even if you watch one of his rallies, I'm not sure this is a fight he wants to have talking about Joe Biden being a doddering old man. And clearly, as you just read in that tweet, the Biden campaign is happy to have this fight too, Jonathan Lemire. So there has been, it appears at least in recent weeks, a shift in posture from the Biden campaign being much more aggressive, especially on this issue of age and mental fitness for the job. And the president himself has gotten far more aggressive in taking it to Trump.

His new favorite joke that President Biden has been trotting out at fundraisers and the like as he talks about his efforts to relieve student debt. And he says a man approaches him on the street and says, look, I'm dead. I owe you all this money. And Biden says, well, sorry, Donald, I can't help you. So we have seen this. And we have a rapid response team that has grown in the Wilmington campaign headquarters. And they're taking it to Trump every chance they get.

And these numbers are what his aides, Biden's aides, thought were coming. The first and foremost mission of the State of the Union Address was to reassure nervous Democrats, to show them, look, the president is up for the job. He can deliver a strong performance. Clearly, that happened. A lot of the whispers that Biden even should step aside, that's all vanished. There's much more confidence in the party now that he's up for this fight. And then they thought, well, we'll accompany that with a two-week blitz of campaign travel. And he has been all over basically to every single swing state, while Donald Trump, to Joe's point, has only held one event, and they had to pull down another, one that was scheduled for Arizona. They had to cancel it because they didn't have the money to pay for it. And that is a real concern

for Trump world, is that President Biden and his team have a massive, massive cash advantage. And the president has a major fundraiser. Hold on, Jonathan. Yes. Jonathan, did you just say Donald Trump, you have reporting that Donald Trump had to cancel an event,

the only event he's had, would have had on his own in a long time. He had to pull it down because they didn't have the money to run the event. It was an event that was not publicized yet. It had not been officially announced, but they were planning an Arizona event that they had to pull down because they couldn't afford it. They thought it was they didn't want to use their resources there. So it was not that not that it had been advertised yet.

But still, this was something they wanted to do and they couldn't. They didn't because they decided to use the resources elsewhere. Have you ever heard of a political campaign that didn't have the money to run political rallies? Well, let's recall that there are some in the Trump world that feel like, let's remember, Trump had a cash disadvantage in 2020 as well and had to go dark for a few weeks that fall. They had to pull down advertising. And they think there are some in the Trump world who think that was one of the differences why they lost, is they had to go dark there for a stretch in September, early October, while Biden and his team were advertising nonstop. And that's going to happen again this time around. It's very clear that the Democrats are going to have a major fundraising advantage.

In fact, President Biden is appearing in New York City later this week with former presidents Obama and Clinton. And what they hope will be their biggest single fundraiser to date, which will just pad that advantage. And we should know we're seeing some reflection there in the polls. Georgia, Democrats tell me, remains concerned. I think that they feel like Georgia may be out of reach this time around, Joe and Mika. But they feel like other states in play, in particular, that blue wall where they're seeing movement, even in a state, Michigan, where they know they've had trouble because of the Gaza conflict. Yeah, they're going to have some problems, at least right now in Georgia and in Arizona.

Two strong Republican leaning states that went Democratic in 2020. Concerns there. Nevada, of course, I always say when people always predict that Nevada is going to go to Republicans by two points in presidential races. I always talk about somehow Democrats. You know, if it's within two points, that that is I'm giving that to the Democrats because they always seem to pull it out there because of organization. But again, make no mistake. Let's put those three states up again. Dan, those three states. And we're going to talk about this a little bit later. This is the election right here. These are the three states that determine who the next president of the United States is going to be. If Joe Biden wins those three states, he's the next president. We're going to return back to these polls and have the

Bloomberg reporter on to talk about the more a little bit later. We're also going to go back to the scene in Baltimore of the Key Bridge collapse. There's a massive rescue operation underway right now. And I just got word from a White House official that they are closely monitoring the collision of a shipping vessel with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. The U.S. Coast Guard conducting a search. Senior White House officials are in touch with the governor and the mayor to offer any federal assistance they need. And there is no indication of any nefarious intent. That, again, is a statement from the White House on this breaking news story happening right now in Baltimore, where a massive thoroughfare, a bridge right outside the port of Baltimore, has completely collapsed into the water. Some reports indicate up to 20

people could be in the water. So right now the focus is on preserving life, but it is more than three hours since the collapse and the water is cold and the ability to survive in those waters goes down as every moment goes by. So we will, of course, come back to you if there is any new information on this breaking story of Baltimore. But now to foreign news. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Fourteen countries voted in favor of the measure yesterday, but the U.S. abstained. Officials say while they support a ceasefire as part of a hostage release deal, the measure does not have language that condemns Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then criticized the Biden administration's decision accusing the U.S. of retreating from a principled position. In protest, Netanyahu announced he will no longer send a delegation to Washington to discuss Israel's looming offensive in Rafah.

Senior Israeli officials were supposed to meet with the Biden administration later this week as the White House has raised in America's policy and that the resolution does not stop Israel from going after Hamas. Richard, take us through the events of the United Nations and beyond yesterday. Yeah, Joe, I mean, the previous resolution the United States introduced four or five days ago, that was vetoed by Russia and China, largely because it did criticize Hamas and because they didn't want to let the United States off the hook. This time, the United States abstained on the resolution. If you recall, three resolutions we vetoed since October 7th. This is the first one that's passed in the U.N. Security Council with the U.S. abstaining. It does call for an immediate ceasefire. It does open up, does call, by the way, for the release of all the hostages. There's a big emphasis on getting aid into Gaza. And the ceasefire it calls for, by the way, Joe, is simply for two more

weeks. It gets you through, I think, to April 9th, to the end of the holy month of Ramadan. So it's totally consistent with the U.S. position since October 7th that there ought not to be a complete or open-ended ceasefire. So, Richard, let me ask you a question. I know it's going to sound very naive, but why in the world would the United Nations not allow a line in, the Security Council not allow a line in, the Security Council not allow a line in that condemned Hamas for the brutality that they not only showed on October 7th, but that they've been showing in Gaza since 2005, 2006? Because it reflects the politics and bias

of the UN. All the focus right now is critical of Israel, of what's going on, what's going on in Gaza. So that's just simply a political, a truly unattractive, unfortunate political fact. So the question is, should we have vetoed this resolution because of that absence? And I think the administration made the call, I think it's the right call, that that's a symbolic issue. It doesn't have anything that's actionable as a result. But I'll be honest with you, Joe, what's really interesting to me is less the textual analysis of these resolutions than the Israeli response. And if I can, I'll pivot to that. Look, over the last 76 years, the United States and Israel have had their moments of friction, shall we say.

You may remember Reagan, his phone call with Menachem Begin over what was going on in Lebanon, where I worked for George Bush, the father. And we had all sorts of frictions then about Soviet Jews and the subsidies bringing them into the occupied territories. But every one of those Israeli prime ministers, his goal was to calm things down because he recognized the United States is the most important partner for Israel. And what this reminds me of is something very different. when the United States under Eisenhower had a really confrontational relationship with Israel over Israel's participation with Britain and France in the invasion of Egypt after the nationalization by Nasser of the Suez Canal. You literally have to go back to 1956 for such a confrontational moment in U.S.-Israeli relations. And what this tells me is Israel now has a prime minister. Let's put aside the fact that many of us think what he's doing is ill-advised, that we have a

prime minister who seems to be politically thinking that his prospects should improve not by managing Israel's most important relationship, but by upending it, by saying he's the only force that stands between Israel and American pressure. That is something qualitatively different. So Richard Netanyahu has pulled back this delegation that was supposed to travel to the United States. We should point out Defense Secretary Austin is still going to meet today with the Israeli defense minister. But as you say, there's obviously some major friction here. So I guess the question is, what's the way forward in this relationship as it pertains to the war in Gaza? We heard Admiral Kirby yesterday saying we haven't changed our policy.

We always said there had to be a temporary ceasefire as part of the hostage deal to get the hostages out. We haven't changed. And I think the White House feels like Netanyahu, to your point, is just making a public show of this. Absolutely. And the United States is still have seen Bill Burns has been in gutter. We're still trying to negotiate a prison release, the hostage release and a temporary ceasefire longer than the one called for in this resolution. That hasn't changed. I think the real question, Willie, is whether the Israelis go ahead with the Rafat military offensive. And if so, what does it look like? How big is it? How much care do they take to avoid civilian casualties? If it's big, if there's a lot more civilian casualties, then this bad situation between the United States and Israel and between Israel and the rest of the world simply gets worse.

All right. We're going to continue on this and other stories. But Mika, right now, we have our first press conference. Police are briefing reporters right now on the bridge collapse in Baltimore. Let's listen in. As we're responding, they began to receive numerous calls indicating multiple people in the water. At some point during that chain of events of calls, we began to receive indications that a ship may have struck the Key Bridge. We got further information through multiple calls that the Key Bridge, portions of the Key Bridge had actually collapsed. At about 0150 hours, our first unit arrived on scene and reported a complete collapse of the Key Bridge. We were also given information at that time that there were likely multiple

people on the bridge at the time of the collapse and that as a result, multiple people were in the water. We were able to remove two people from the water. One individual refused service and refused transport. Essentially that person was not injured. However, there was another individual that's been transported to a local trauma center that is in very serious condition. At this time, we have multiple air assets from the Maryland State Police, as well as the Baltimore Police Department, as well as multiple marine assets from around the region, including Baltimore City, Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, as well as multiple local and state police agencies, National Resources Police, BPD, Special Ops Unit is in here,

Maryland State Police is here. We have multiple resources. We are still very much in an active search and rescue posture at this point, and we will continue to be for some time. We have a large area that we have to search. This includes on the surface of the water, subsurface, as well as on the deck of the ship itself. We believe at this point we may be looking for upwards of seven individuals. That's the latest information we have. However, what I will say is, is the information that I'm giving you right now is as of right now. That's what we know right now. This is a very large incident. It involves a very large footprint. Multiple agencies are operating. Therefore, information is subject to change as we get more intel and as our crews work through the morning.

Over the next 8 to 12 hours, you can expect to continue to see our air and maritime assets functioning out on the water and in the air above. We need to do damage assessment of the ship itself before we can board that ship and we need to continue our subsurface search which is including different types of sonar. We have side scan sonar, we have other sonar capabilities here, we have underwater UAVs that we're working with and And throughout the night, we've also been working with infrared technology, both from the air and on the water surface. So I'm going to wrap up here with just saying this continues to be a search and rescue operation. It continues to be a very dynamic operation with multiple local, state and federal resources involved. With that, I'm going to turn it over to our Mayor, Mayor Brandon Scott.

Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Everyone, this is an unthinkable tragedy. We have to first and foremost pray for all of those who are impacted, those families, pray for our first responders, and thank them, all of them working together, city, state, local, to make sure that we are working through this tragedy. This is an ongoing active research that we're having right now. We're going to continue, as you heard from Chief Wallace, throughout. As long as we have to be doing that, we will do it. But we have to be

thinking about the families and people impacted, folks who we have to try to find in safe. This is what our focus should be on right now. We're going to continue to work in partnership with every part of government to do everything that we can to get us through the other side of this tragedy. And with that, I'll turn it over to County Executive Oshuski. Thank you, Mayor Scott. I think we all awoke this morning to an unspeakable tragedy. As the mayor indicated, we know that there will be families and individuals impacted by this regardless of what happens the rest of the way out. So I would just echo the mayor in lifting up prayers for those who are impacted, but also ask that our residents pray for our first responders. They have been on scene since very early in the morning,

not only conducting initial search and rescue operations, but planning for the additional ones as the sun comes up. And the work that they do cannot be understated. And I want to just thank them for all that they are doing and will do in the hours and days ahead. We know that we have a long road ahead, not just in the search and rescue, but in the fallout following this. I think we appropriately have our attention on the search and rescue efforts currently. And just here alongside our partners in the city to say that they have our full support, just as we want to thank our state partners for the resources

they've offered up, as well as the federal partners who have already reached out. The mayor and I have talked to the governor. We've heard from the secretary of transportation. So collectively, we thank everyone for their thoughts, their well wishes. But again, this is a very active situation. And we want to just thank the chief and our teams for all the great work they're doing. And with that, I'll turn things back over to the chief. Thank you, County Detective Olszewski. We're going to do some Q&A right now. Now, we're just going to go around and have everyone put in. Chief, can you tell us

where the crew of the ship is? You also mentioned too that two people were rescued. Who made the first 911 call? And there were reports that it was a crew on the deck of the ship working at that point. Can you confirm any of that? The latest information we have on the crew of the ship is that they are still on board the ship. There's been comms between the ship crew and the Coast Guard. So as part of the overall operation, we communicate through the Coast Guard with the ship. And I'm sorry, your other questions? There were two people taken. Who made the first 911 call?

I don't know who made that call yet. Okay. And were there other workers on the deck of the ship or deck of the bridge at this point? We have heard that information. Can you confirm that? We were being told there were workers on the bridge. We have yet to confirm that. We'll work with MDTA to, you know, obviously to get that information. About how many cars were on that ship? Last question. On the deck of the bridge at the time of collapse. Don't have a number. I can tell you our sonar has detected the presence of vehicles submerged in the water. I don't have a count of that yet.

Thank you. Chief, you mentioned upwards of seven individuals that you're looking for. We heard reports of as many as 20 individuals. Can you just paint a more clear picture of about how many people actually fell into the water, how many people you might be looking to rescue, and also if you can give an idea of how many vehicles, although you might not have the answer, but really just sort of. Yeah, I'll start with the last one. So I don't know how many vehicles yet. I know that we have detected the presence of vehicles. As far as the number between the 7 and 20, that's been a dynamic count throughout the morning.

Just given the fact that we haven't yet nailed that number down, we do believe that at least seven are involved in that, at least seven at this point. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, and I know you said the crew was accounted for for the Coast Guard on deck. Do we know if any of the crew members were part of these, of the seven people that may have been in the water? We do not. Thanks. I just want to ask, survivability of courses around this temperature is not very long.

How long do you shift focus to more of a salvage operation? So we'll be guided by our dive teams. We will determine what the temperature of the water is. The other issue that we have out there is this water is current influenced. So right now we think the tide is coming back in. That adds a bit of a challenge to us also. We can certainly dive in these conditions, but we have to take a lot of factors into play. The fact that there may be trauma involved, they have been in the water an extended period of time. So we can certainly dive in these conditions, but we have to take a lot of factors into play, right?

The fact that there may be trauma involved. They have been in the water an extended period of time. But also remember, we're battling darkness. So, you know, it's quite possible that we may have somebody there that we've not seen yet. And as they work closer to the debris field, you know, they'll obviously make those determinations. But we're going to rely on the experts, which are our dive masters that are here, our dive team, to tell us when they believe we've reached that non-survivability point. Thank you. Yes, sir. Jeanine?

Chief Wallace, was there any indication that there was a problem on the ship? Was it landing in by some people? Is there anything that so far early on that you can talk about? We do not have that information with regard to the investigation. I would refer that to law enforcement. My focus since 1.40 this morning has been that rescue operation.

So far there's been no indication that any kind of like an emergency dispatch came from that ship before? I have no information about that, ma'am. Have you been able to talk to the pilot, the American pilot on that bridge? The pilot on the vessel? Yeah. We have not talked to the pilot on the vessel. The rescue personnel, the rescue operation, we have not interacted. Just back over here. Can you tell us about the state of the war? I don't have age and gender on either.

One patient refused service, right? Really, they weren't injured. The second patient, however, was seriously injured and is at an area trauma center. Are you including that in the seven, at least seven people? We don't know yet if they're part of that seven. The patient is injured severely enough that we've not been able to debrief that patient. That seven number, did that come from even witnessing cars down? Where did that number come from? Or is that just from the sonar hits that you got? No, that was the initial information that we got

as we were arriving on the scene, that number. And that number, again, as I said earlier, has fluctuated, right? That seven has been a consistent number. How many agencies are here assisting right now? Oh, wow. Dozens. Yeah, dozens. I mean, locally, you know, fire department-wise, Baltimore County's here, Howard County's here, Hartford was here, PG was here, Anne Arundel, of course, Baltimore City. And a lot of those agencies are here by virtue of the fact that they may have specialized

equipment that we need during an incident like this. So we're bringing in the equipment specific to the operation right now. And then even law enforcement agencies have a lot of the same Marine Ops equipment as we do. So given the incident is so big, we try to force multiply and just bring as many resources in as we can so that we can really blanket a large area for a search. We don't, we've not been able to confirm that we actually have an active fuel spill from the vessel. We've had odors of diesel fuel. The Maryland Department of Environment is here, as well as the Coast Guard. So they would take leads on that as well. We hope as the sun comes up a little bit with the air assets that are up to get a much better picture, if we do have a fuel

spill, what the impact has been so far. All right. First responders in Baltimore, still very much in the middle of this ongoing disaster and bridge collapse after a cargo ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge around 1.30 this morning and the bridge then collapsed. We've been listening to James Wallace, the fire chief in Baltimore and other city officials, and we did get some new information. It was about 150 this morning when they ascertained the bridge officially collapsed and that there were multiple people in the water. They started getting calls at 130, multiple calls, 911 calls to rescue people in

the water. When they got to the scene, they were able to rescue a person who was not injured. Another person has been sent to a trauma center with severe injuries. We know the crew is still on board the ship and they are still very much in search and rescue mode using air and maritime crews, sonar devices, infrared technology to search above the water and under the water. And they're also looking on the ship as well. The scene has a large footprint as this bridge was the main thoroughfare really for commerce that does not want to go through the tunnels in Baltimore, but along the port of Baltimore. That is a major shipping hub for the East Coast. And again, that is now completely

shut off. And that will create another set of massive problems that officials will have to deal with later. Right now, even four or five hours after this horrendous tragedy, they are still holding on to hope, looking for life. But as every moment goes by, the concept that a person could live in those waters diminishes. And as you can see, the shipping containers are another issue. Some of them are stuck to the bridge, dangling off the bridge. There are so many moving parts here. And, of course, we will be hearing back from city officials throughout the day.

They say they will be checking back in. And, Willie, you know, a lot of people may be asking how in the world could this happen? How unusual is this? The fact is, unfortunately, it's happened quite often. Of course, for anybody from the state of Florida, they'll remember if they're old enough. I remember what happened on May 9th, 1980, when a freighter struck Tampa's Sunshine Skyway Bridge. That killed that tragedy, killed 35 people, six cars, a truck truck a greyhound bus fell 150 feet into the water in 2002 the arkansas river the i-40 bridge collapsed barges collided with the bridge

that killed 14 even uh in in china a few months ago a barge hit a bridge uh killing several people there. So unfortunately, this has happened before. It seems inexplicable why it would happen. But obviously, a lot of investigators on the scene right now and the answers will be coming in the coming days and weeks ahead. Yeah, the fire chief said we don't have an explanation yet for this. We're just trying to get people out of the water as fast as we can. The crew, he said, still on that ship with a lot of questions to answer. But as the light begins to come up, we're still about 15 minutes away from full sunrise, but we have enough light now to see here just a breathtaking scene of a massive ship of almost a thousand feet, fully loaded with cars there that rammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge

that's been there since 1977. Chief Wallace there in Baltimore said he called it a complete collapse of the Key Bridge. Certainly sections of it anywhere are completely in the water. One other thing that was chilling was he said our sonar has detected vehicles in the water, indicating that there were cars even at that late hour, 1.30, 1.45 in the water, indicating that there were cars, even at that late hour, 1.30, 1.45 in the morning, passing over that bridge that have gone into the water now. So I think when he says we have upwards of seven people we're looking for, that might be the low end because they don't know who's in the car, how many people are in those cars. And as Mika pointed out, we're now five hours along here in very cold water here in late March.

So even with the sun coming up, it's a very difficult rescue. And just these pictures now as light comes up are stunning and so tragic to witness something that is, yes, there are incidents, but relatively routine. As we've been saying all morning, this is one of the busiest ports in America. Those big ships come in and out of there all day, every day. And at about 1.30 in the morning, this one hit the bridge, collapsed. And now we're waiting to see how many people may have died and how many hopefully can still be rescued. And Willie, when you talk about the number of vehicles that so far have been detected by sonar, one explanation may be is there were

reports that there was construction happening on the bridge and there might have been multiple workers on that bridge at the time of the collapse, also slowing traffic, putting multiple vehicles on the bridge. Again, we're waiting for confirmation on all of these details. But these are the reports that are coming into us. Ryan Nobles, live for us earlier, met with people who were gathering at a nearby store waiting for people who they knew were on the bridge. So that leads to some deduction that the construction worker angle on this could be a real issue. And there might have been people working on that bridge as it collapsed. As you can see, this is a massive disaster and it will have ripple effects across the East Coast as this is an economic thoroughfare up and down the East Coast, a major one over a bridge right near the

port of Baltimore, just as bad as it can get, raising a lot of questions. The White House put out a statement saying that they're reaching out and offering all the assistance they can to state and local officials and also pointing out at the end of their statement that nothing nefarious appears to be the reason for this. I will add at this point, we just don't know. The crew is still on the ship. That will be that will be a very, very key part of this to see what the status of the crew is, what the status of the captain is. And if something happened on the ship, what caused this mass casualty event as officials in Baltimore are calling in. And of course, the bridge is completely out of service indefinitely.

We're going to be continuing this, Mika, throughout the morning. I'll be seen throughout the day as more details come forward. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Donald Trump gets a break in his civil fraud case. A panel of appellate judges granting the former president a reduced bond and more time to come up with the cash. Meanwhile, a trial date has been set in the former president's hush money case. We'll go over the legal development straight ahead on Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Flat picture of the sun coming up over Washington at 650 in the morning. We're going to get back to the latest on that bridge collapse in Baltimore in just a moment.

I want to talk about some legal news and what now, I guess, amounts to a legal victory for Donald Trump. The former president now has 10 days to post a one hundred seventy five million dollar bond in his civil fraud case. That 11th hour ruling came yesterday from a panel of New York State Appellate Court judges. They reduced that bond from $464 million. Did not explain why exactly. This comes despite Donald Trump's claiming on social media Friday he almost had the cash he needed. Two people with knowledge of the former president's finances told the New York Times he should be able to pay the new bond amount, though doing so will effectively drain much of Trump's cash. He'll have to put up about 200 million dollars in cash and other investments as collateral to a company willing to cover that bond.

New York Attorney General Letitia James seemed to brush off the ruling in a statement, writing in part, Donald Trump is still facing accountability for his staggering fraud. The court has already found that he engaged in years of fraud to falsely inflate his net worth and unjustly enrich himself and his family and his organization. Joining us now, former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, NBC News investigations correspondent Tom Winter, and NBC News legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman. Good morning to you all. So, Lisa, Donald Trump was claiming victory yesterday. It's a huge reduction, obviously, of the original number, which was staggering, almost half a billion dollars. It's still one hundred and seventy five million dollar bond. Is this a win for him legally? I think it is a win for him, but it shouldn't be considered something that will be easy for him to do.

As you noted in the New York Times piece, he's still going to have to fork over almost $200 million in cash or collateral. He said yesterday at a press conference that NBC News was present at that he intended to put up the collateral solely as cash. And then later in the day, Willie, he also said that he would like to fund his own campaign, but for the fact that they don't want me to take my money out. And people think he was referring to both Tish James and Judge Angouran. So count on this bond being a way that Donald Trump communicates to his supporters that the bond itself is a form of election interference, that he would do this with his money, but for the fact that he has to put up this $200 million to satisfy a judgment he still thinks is invalid.

And, Tom, predictably, Donald Trump railing against Letitia James yesterday outside 40 Wall Street. We should point out when he talks about these cases against him, he always adds a link to donate to help pay for his legal bills. So what is your sense of why this bail was knocked down? The bond, excuse me, was knocked down so significantly. Again, it's almost $200 million. That's no small amount. But why was it knocked down so far? I think there's two schools of legal thought on it. One is perhaps the appellate court is signaling that they have some issues with the

total disgorgement there, that over $450 million that Judge Angaran put forward. So that could be number one. And so they're kind of signaling here, hey, we don't maybe believe it should be that high. On the other hand, it's perhaps the best option because if you're going to move forward and Donald Trump says, you know what, I'm not going to pay any bond here, you really kind of put the courts and the AG in a tough position. It's going to be difficult for them to be able to enforce this. You're going to put liens on properties, but yet those properties have debt instruments on them. So the ability to actually enforce that is going to be a bit of a challenge. It's probably one of the reasons why the former president is having such a hard time

being able to put those things up as collateral. He doesn't necessarily own them. They're owned by the banks. So I think that's a big challenge here. And perhaps the appellate court is looking at this and saying, you know what, half a loaf is better than none. So that's column two. Ultimately, though, they did not provide a specific reason in their order yesterday. We just know that based on the schedule of it, as Lisa has pointed out yesterday, look, these briefs and all the filings are going to have to be in in time for the fall. That means by the time this is argued and decided upon, it might be a little bit less than a year from now. So, Andrew Weissman, in layman's legal terms here, what is the $175 million bond?

It's 10 days to come up with it. What does that mean to the trial? What does it mean to this case? So that's a great question because I think people can be sort of in the weeds too much about what's going on. There still is a judgment against Donald Trump for the $450 million. This is just a question of how much he has to put up to make sure that the money is there if he loses the appeal.

So yes, of course, it is a win for him in terms of what he has to put up now. But he ultimately may be paying $450 million. And there are two notable parts of the ruling that I think need to be flagged. One is normally the appellate process in New York can take nine months for someone to even file their briefs. It is a very slow process that was significantly shortened by the court. They said if you want this reduced bond, you have to file essentially in July. That is something that's really significant for people who practice in New York, that they are saying you have to move this up if you want to take advantage of this. We're not going to have the risk of your dissipating assets for months and months and months while this appeal goes forward. The second thing they did is they said that both of the monitors that had been appointed by Ginger Goron. He had said there needs to be not one, but two monitors overseeing the Trump assets and organization are going to be in place.

That has not stayed pending the appeal. So there are going to be two separate and independent people overseeing the Trump organization to make sure that there's no, to put it in legal terms, funny business going on. So that's the civil fraud case that we're talking about with Attorney General Letitia James. Now let's look at the criminal trial facing Donald Trump. His hush money case now scheduled to go to trial in three weeks. April 15th will be the start date. In a Manhattan courtroom yesterday, the judge overseeing that case scoffed at the defense's ongoing fight to delay the case or to throw it out completely because of a recent document dump by New York prosecutors.

At the end of the 70-minute hearing, the judge determined the district attorney's office had given Trump's lawyers a reasonable amount of time to examine all of the newly disclosed evidence. Trump's team is vowing to appeal that new trial date. We very much believe that starting this trial in April or even starting this trial at any point before the election is completely unfair to President Trump. It's completely unfair to the American people

who are evaluating who they want to be the next president. And we're going to continue to fight. I don't know that you're going to have the trial. I don't know how you can have a trial like this in the middle of an election, a presidential election. So, Lisa, that's the political argument outside the courtroom. Let's go back inside the courtroom where Judge Marchand was clearly annoyed with the defense and kind of seeing through this tragedy to delay, delay, delay. Yeah, he was incredibly annoyed. I would say even more than annoyed, beyond irritated, very piqued by this strategy. And the reason is because he said to Todd Blanch, who's one of the president's lawyers here, look, you were a former

prosecutor. How many years did you spend in the Southern District, Mr. Blanch? And he had to admit 13. He was paralegal for four. He was prosecutor for nine. He said, you know how this works. If you thought that there were documents that should have been brought to your attention at any point in time between last May, when you were first given documents by the DA's office in January, when you issued a subpoena or a request to the Southern District, you could have either called the DA, called the Southern District, brought to anybody's attention that this was out there. Why didn't you do that? And the excuses that Todd Blanch gave were just really lacking as far as Judge Marchand found them. He said, basically, we couldn't do it because we were already going through the million,

11 million pages of discovery we had. We couldn't do it because we were doing this, we were doing that. The truth of the matter is, Willie, Todd Blanche is overextended. He represents former President Trump in three criminal cases. They have lots of high paid counsel directing the strategy in these cases and not enough what I would call worker bees, people like I used to be staffing cases by looking through pages upon pages of discovery and understanding what you need for your defense. That's not going to cut the mustard for a delay here. And there's so it's so easy to get lost in the day to day machinations of this. We should not lose perspective in history is what's happening here. Donald J. Trump is about to become the first former president to face criminal

charges in court. Andrew Weissman, that date has now been set for April 15th. So that moment in history under a month away. So let's get your perspective here in terms of, we heard the Trump people going to, lawyers say they're going to appeal. Do we think that April 15th date will stick? And if it does, about how long do you think a trial like this could last? On the date sticking, you know, no one ever likes to be in the prediction business, but I will tell you the chances of this trial getting moved because of some appellate court saying that it should not go forward on the 15th are zero. This case is going to go forward. yesterday by the judge where he heard from both parties, I think, as Lisa put it, the judge created a really strong record that he almost went as far to say that he found bad faith,

which is sort of that is that is code in the legal terms for you're lying to me. He really excoriated the Trump team in terms of their submissions and their claims, saying that they have zero evidence for their claims of bad faith or prosecutorial misconduct and rejected all of that and found that the D.A. way beyond what he was required to do under the law in this case. And so this is an example of the DA actually bending over backwards in this case to make sure that there's a fair trial. So this case is going to go forward. The trial, I know it's scheduled to be about a month or two, but I would say keep your eye on the prosecution trying to make this, you know, slim to win going very, very quickly. That's what they did in the Trump organization trial, which they won about a year and a half ago. So I would think it's going to be a very quick trial. All right. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, thank you very much.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman, thank you as well.