Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/27/24

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Coast Guard starts recovery mission, says survivors unlikely

All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It's my favorite book. It's a lot of people's favorite book. This Bible is a reminder that the biggest thing we have to bring back America and to make America great again is our religion. Religion is so important. It's so missing, but it's going to come back, and it's going to come back strong, just like our country is going to come back strong. I'm proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again. Oh, God. OK, well, at least he's holding it right side up, Willie, I guess, you know, remember? Yeah, that part Lafayette

was upside down. There he is hawking a new product to supporters using religion. It's fabulous. We'll have more about the former president's latest effort to raise cash. It comes as he's under a new gag order this morning. We'll have that also ahead. A case challenging a popular abortion drug went before the Supreme Court yesterday. We'll get expert legal analysis on the arguments and how the justices responded and what it means for women's health care rights. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, March 27th, and we begin in Baltimore, where the urgent search and rescue mission has shifted to recovery efforts following yesterday's

bridge collapse. Last night, the U.S. Coast Guard called off the search for six missing people who were on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it was struck by a container ship after it lost power. Those individuals, all part of a construction crew who were filling potholes on the bridge directly above where the ship hit, are presumed dead. Though none of the victims have been identified, they are all believed to be immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. We're also learning that moments before the collision, the ship's crew issued a mayday call that allowed authorities to stop traffic before impact, likely saving many lives with just seconds to spare.

Portal traffic on the Key Bridge. There's a ship approaching. It just lost their steering. So until you get that under control, we've got to stop all traffic. C-13 dispatch, the whole bridge just fell down. Start, start, whoever, everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed. Joining us now from Baltimore, Washington correspondent for NBC News, Alice Barr. Alice, what more can you tell us? Good morning, Mika. We are just down the road from where you should be able to see the Key Bridge. Of course, it is now in the water.

And as you pointed out, the focus really remains the human cost. Those six construction workers, they were just out doing routine road repairs, filling potholes when the bridge collapsed from under them. The governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, said that he has spoken with their families and that they want to be remembered. They want their loved ones to be remembered as the family members that they were, the loved ones they were. So a lot of focus still on going back in and finding them. We are expecting that the recovery mission could resume really any time now. Last night, we were told it could start around 6 a.m. And the very sad update is that it is no longer

search and rescue. It is recovery. Governor Moore did say that the state of Maryland was going to put every resource possible into still recovering those bodies and bringing closure to the families. At the same time, there is this wide-ranging effort underway to try to figure out exactly what went wrong. The National Transportation Safety Board has a number of crew members on scene. They are speaking to witnesses. They are looking through debris of the bridge on the cargo ship. They're looking for recorded data and also looking through past safety records to try to piece all of this together. What we do know is that evidently that massive cargo ship, the length of the Empire State Building, lost its power and propulsion just as it was approaching the bridge.

We're told that crew members did everything they could to try to stop it and to avoid that collision. But it was not possible. And that stunning video that we've all now seen hitting that support pillar, sending the bridge crashing down. Fortunately, there was that effort to close the bridge and make sure there were no other cars that were on there. Back to you. Washington correspondent for NBC News, Alice Barr in Baltimore for us this morning. Alice, thanks so much. With us this morning, the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief of Politico, Jonathan Lemire, Deputy Managing Editor for Politics at Politico, Sam Stein, and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four-star Navy Admiral James Stavridis.

He is Chief International Analyst for NBC News. Guys, good morning to you all. Admiral, we're lucky to have you with us this morning on many stories, but particularly on this one here, because you have guided ships under that bridge. You have sailed up that river. When you hear the loss of steering and propulsion, we all saw the video yesterday where the lights blink. They go off for a while before coming back on. What do you see as such an experienced man in this area of what you saw in the video yesterday? Yeah, the Dali, the name of the ship, is about the size of the aircraft carriers that I've had the opportunity to drive well over 100,000 tons. And, you know, because of their size and scale, once you lose control of, in this case, it appears both the propulsion and the control of the steering, it's very difficult to stop the ship. And frankly, the only way you can stop it in that circumstance is you could drop the anchors of the ship and it would sort of drag itself to halt.

But unfortunately, where the casualty occurred was exactly the wrong place. There wasn't enough time to drop the anchors. You could also have tugs come out, the small boats that push these monsters around the harbor. And you could use tugs to kind of stop it. Or in a real extremist, you could have turned it. You could have used the tug to kind of nudge it in a different direction. But they just didn't have time to do any of those things. The way the Navy thinks about this, every time a Navy warship gets underway, it practices, it drills for this kind of

circumstance. And there are means on board the ship to maneuver it by hand, if you will. But it takes time. And unfortunately, where this failure occurred, just literally yards ahead of the bridge itself. The ship just kind of drifted over to the right. And as we saw, hit the the pier, if you will, the the support system on the bridge and collapse it. So obviously, this will be drilled into in excruciating detail. It'll probably take a year to unpackage all of what I've just said. But the NTSB has plenty of maritime experts they'll bring in to take a hard look at this. Yeah, a ship of almost a thousand feet fully loaded, obviously, as you say,

can't stop on a dime in that moment. We did quickly get that radio dispatch traffic that we heard. Pretty extraordinary, actually, from the time the Mayday call goes out. We've lost steering. We've lost propulsion. It's only 22 seconds before police stop traffic on the bridge, saving further loss of life there, you would have to assume. Are you struck by how this was handled? Obviously a tragedy, but given the circumstances, the Mayday call goes out, the police do their job at the bridge. One officer even say, I'm going to drive on the bridge and get those those construction workers off the bridge. But it was too late. The bridge had collapsed by the time he got into his car.

Just knowing what we know in these 24 hours, what strikes you about how this was handled? Exactly. As you say, the extreme professionalism here. And you know what really struck me, having been in a lot of fairly tense situations over the year, was the calmness of the voices. You know, it just, hey, we've got a ship. It's lost propulsion. It's headed toward the bridge. He could be ordering a cheeseburger in a McDonald's. He's so calm. And that's what you have to do in those situations like a really superb active shooter kind of response. They're there. They immediately take exactly the right action. They save hundreds of lives, certainly if cars had just kept swerving across that bridge, not knowing it had collapsed. So kudos to the emergency response teams, the dispatchers.

We're going to have to pull hard at the human error factor and the maintenance in that ship. But certainly the responders in Baltimore Harbor can wake up this morning feeling very proud. So, Jonathan, the president went out yesterday, gave an address on this issue, said the federal government will give whatever help Baltimore needs, said the federal government should bear the entire cost of rebuilding. Army Corps of Engineers already out trying to clear the channel to get traffic in and out of there. Again, obviously a priority yesterday for the White House. Certainly we heard from the president and aides suggest that when the time is right, he may pay a visit to Baltimore. He wouldn't want to go there now because it takes too many resources for a presidential visit. We should note that when the bridge collapsed in Minneapolis last decade, Congress moved very quickly in a bipartisan fashion to pass federal funding, and that

moved within a few weeks. Certainly, we hope that can happen here again, but politics now even more polarized than before. Admiral, I just want to get, this is sort of outside your area of expertise, but you're so familiar with all things nautical. To Willie's point of a moment ago, what would your estimation be? How long will it take to clear the debris, the wreckage from the collapsed bridge once the recovery operation is over? What would be your estimate as to when that port, one of the busiest in the hemisphere, can be up and running again? I think it's going to be measured in months, but certainly not in years. It'll take a couple of months for sure to float the sections of the bridge.

Then they can be towed out of the way. The ship will be towed out very quickly. The problem will be what's under the water will have to be floated, towed away. Then they'll have to be significant dredging through all of that. We had a somewhat similar circumstance. Car carrier down Brunswick, Georgia, Georgia took a couple it took months to clear it. So the good news is the entire maritime expertise and infrastructure of the United States is we have a big network of ports up and down the East Coast. There are alternatives. Maersk, the largest shipper in the world, just put out a statement indicating how they'll handle this kind of disruption. All of it, however, will require some number of months before that port can be fully reopened. All right. Retired four star Navy Admiral James Tavridis, thank you very much for coming on this morning.

We appreciate it. So the judge overseeing Donald Trump's hush money trial has issued a new limited gag order on the former president because he was spouting off again disrespectfully. Under the new ruling, Trump is barred from making public statements about likely witnesses and jurors. He must also refrain from discussing lawyers, court staff, employees in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and their family members. In his order, the judge said the move was necessary because Trump's prior statements establish a, quote, sufficient risk to the administration of justice. And with his legal bills piling up, Donald Trump is turning to religion of sorts for some help, though not in the traditional way, more culty, actually.

In a social media post yesterday, the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee announced he is hawking his own version of the Bible. Take a look. I'm proud to be partnering with my very good friend Lee Greenwood, who doesn't love his song, God Bless the USA, in connection with promoting the God Bless the USA Bible. This Bible is the King James Version and also includes our founding father documents. Yes, the Constitution, which I'm fighting for every single day. Christians are under siege. We must protect content that is pro-God. We love God. I'm proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible. We must make America pray again. I think you all

should get a copy of God Bless the USA Bible now and help spread our Christian values with others. Trump's version of the good book is selling for $60 before shipping. This, of course, follows his other business ventures, such as Trump Stakes, Trump Water, Trump University. Last month, he also unveiled Trump branded sneakers going for $400 a pair. And in December, he even started selling pieces of the suit he was wearing when he got indicted last summer. The Trump Bible website states that none of the profits will go toward his 2024 campaign. There is no mention, however, about whether the money might go toward his legal fees. Let's bring in MSNBC contributor and author of the book, How the Right Lost Its Mind, Charlie Sykes. He has a new piece for MSNBC.com entitled Republicans Are Not as United Behind Trump as They Appear. I definitely want to hear about that. But I first want to get you and Sam in on this. This Bible seems to me

to be a new level of culty. It also, if you listen to his comments, it's painful, but I did. He blames America for everything he's done to it, which is especially culty. What can be said, Charlie, to a person who hears that, gets out their credit card and purchases a God bless the USA Bible? Well, the first thing you say is, oh, my God, I mean, it is not only culty, it is grifty. It is so much on brand for Donald Trump. I mean, obviously, he's playing on the themes, you know, that I am the defender of Christianity, encouraging the Christian nationalists out there. But I think the thing that you can't take your eyes off of is that he's commodifying the Bible during Holy

Week, that he's selling it for $60. And this money might go to pay some of the legal fees for his relationship with a porn star that he paid off. You know, let us pray here. I mean, the cynicism here is not a new story. But can I just remind people that Donald Trump has been asked in the past, what is your favorite verse of the Bible? And he has no idea. He talks about two Corinthians. He's been asked by faith

leaders, do you ever ask for forgiveness? Do you ever pray? And not really. And yet, you know, conservative evangelical Christians have swallowed this. And so I don't expect that they're not going to swallow, you know, that they're going to draw the line when it comes to this, but this is so much Donald Trump. I mean, it is such an artifact of this political moment where this, this Elmer Gantry grifter who sells, you know, who sells the golden tennis shoes is now selling the Bible to Christians at this particular moment. And you cannot make it up. And this is this is the this is Earth 2.0. And Sam, Charlie makes the important point here that while he's on trial for paying off a porn star for an affair he had while his wife was home with their newborn child, he's asking his supporters to buy his version of the Bible for $60, undoubtedly going to pay legal fees for that same case and many others. The idea that Donald Trump espouses, quote, Christian values, as he said in that ad, is ludicrous on its face,

but people are going to buy the thing. We know that. It is quite the contrast, right? The gag order filed by the Bible video. You know, this has been something that's been evident with Trump for a while now. There was sort of an infamous poll in the 2016 race where white evangelical voters were asked for about their support for Trump both before and then after the revelation of the Stormy Daniels allegations. And their support went up, which was the shocking thing. I suppose it says more about the voters than Trump. Obviously, this is part, as Charlie said, of what Trump does. He sold everything from steaks to Bibles to water to shoes.

And this is just his brand, and people buy into it literally. I think the other element of the story that probably should be noted is that it does raise kind of important questions about our campaign finance system. Not the steaks in the Bible so much as he's going public. His company, Truth Social, is going public right now on the stock exchange. And it has raised a huge amount of money in valuation. That money will be used, likely, by Trump to pay off not just his legal bills, but potentially he could use that money to help his own campaign efforts. And that really does raise questions about the porous holes that we have in our campaign finance system

and how easy it is, frankly, for not the people who buy Bibles, but the people who want to influence Trump with huge checks to get around our laws and get money to a candidate. And Charlie, Trump is also clearly showing some anxiety about the state of this campaign. He was on Truth Social early this morning. I note 1.52 a.m. a post from Donald Trump attacking Robert F. Kennedy Jr., suggesting that he's very liberal and clearly concerned that RFK Jr. may draw some support from Trump himself. He also, as you write in your new piece for MSNBC, has made little to no effort to actually unify the Republican Party. He was rebuked by his former vice president, Mike Pence. And we recall that when Nikki Haley dropped out of the race earlier this month, she implored him, make the party a bigger tent,

try to support, to court my supporters, even suggesting she herself might come along. But he has made zero effort to do so. No, and I don't think that he necessarily will, given his demeanor. And, you know, I mean, you know, the caveat here is, of course, you know, we've all seen the polls. We know how Republican the Republican grassroots is rallying around Donald Trump, that he has complete control over the party and the RNC. But I do think it is notable when you look at the number of United States senators now who are saying that

they're not going to vote for Donald Trump. You have Lisa Murkowski being the latest. You have Todd Young, Bill Cassidy, Mike Rounds declined to say that he was going to vote for him. And then you add in Mitt Romney. And one of the questions I think people should ponder for a moment, but imagine if this was the Democratic Party, if this many members of the U.S. Senate were saying, yeah, well, you know, we're not going to support Joe Biden's bid for reelection. But the larger frame, though, is you look at the fact that I don't know in American history when this many leading members of the party, including his former vice president, including his former chiefs of staff, have come out publicly and said that we work with him, we've seen him up close, and we're

not supporting him again. As far as I can tell, the only living Republican nominee for president or vice president in this century that is supporting Donald Trump is Sarah Palin. Everybody else is out, whether you're talking about Dick Cheney, whether you're talking about George Bush, whether you're talking about Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan, none of them have lined up. I don't think there's any parallel in American history. So while on one level, Donald Trump has complete control of the Republican Party, there are these cracks in the Biden administration. The Biden campaign is beginning to exploit this. All right, Charlie Sykes, thank you so much for coming on this morning and still ahead on Morning Joe.

We're going to continue to follow the latest out of Baltimore in the aftermath of the Key Bridge collapse. Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott will be our guests this morning. Also ahead, we'll go over yesterday's oral arguments before the Supreme Court in a case that could restrict access to a popular abortion drug. Plus, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota will join the conversation. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Twenty six past the hour, the Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a case that could threaten the widespread use of the abortion pill Mifepristone.

The case centers around the Food and Drug Administration's approval and expansion of access to the pill by mail. In 2016, the FDA said research showed the drug was safe enough that rules around its use could be relaxed. A lower court disagreed and reimposed restrictions on the pill, including requiring women to make three in-person visits to a doctor to receive a medication abortion. A group of seven doctors and anti-abortion groups challenged the FDA's decision to lift restrictions and said the agency did not adequately consider potential safety risks. But the justices seemed skeptical. The doctors had a legal standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place. The group does not perform abortions or prescribe Mifepristone. They're also not legally required to do so. NBC News reports under well-established precedent, when people file a lawsuit, they have to show that they've been injured and that their injury can be redressed by the person or entity that they are suing. Justices from both ideological extremes of the court questioned why the why existing laws that allow doctors to object to treatments are not enough.

Under federal law, no doctors can be forced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion, correct? Yes, we think that federal conscience protections provide broad coverage here. The obvious common sense remedy would be to provide them with an exemption, that they don't have to participate in this procedure. And you say, and you've said here several times, that federal law already gives them that. So I guess then what they're asking for in this lawsuit is more than that. They're saying because we object to having to be forced to participate in this procedure, we're seeking an order preventing anyone from having access to these drugs at all. And I guess I'm just trying to understand how they could possibly be entitled to that,

given the injury that they have alleged. All I can think about is women who are waiting for the health care they need while all of this is being discussed because of Dobbs, because of the overturning of Roe. The case is the first major abortion issue the court is considering since it overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. Joining us now, MSNBC legal analyst Danny Savalas. Danny, explain what happened yesterday and where this goes from here. So as many observers have said, this is likely an issue of standing. In other words, the court may not even reach the merits of the case.

And standing is a constitutional requirement. It requires a case or controversy, and it requires a plaintiff who has an actual concrete stake in the outcome of the case. It can't be speculative. And that's really one of the main issues here. The idea that these doctors are talking about a possible injury that might happen if, for example, another doctor prescribes the abortion pill. There are complications. And then they're called into the ER to provide treatment in a way that is against their conscience, that is against their religious beliefs or really anything. And as we talked about, there are already federal protections for exactly that. And standing really is designed to prevent a kind of tyranny, a tyranny. If a Supreme Court justice was watching this show and said, you know,

hey, I have an opinion about this. Maybe I'll just issue a judicial opinion and change the law. Or it prevents a single plaintiff who has no interest in the outcome, just a citizen from saying, hey, I don't appreciate or I don't agree with a war in the Middle East, so I'm going to sue the federal government and bring it to a grinding halt. That's standing. You need a real plaintiff with a real, at least at minimum, imminent harm that that plaintiff is suffering. So that's the standing question, Danny. Let's talk about the actual argument. I didn't need to have the brilliant legal mind of a Danny Savalos to deduce, listening to that yesterday, that these justices were unpersuaded by the plaintiff's argument. Perhaps Justice Alito, perhaps Justice Thomas were entertaining it. But even, you know, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, those justices seem very skeptical of

the plaintiff argument. Yeah, a couple of different things. So if they reach the merits, number one, who should be making these decisions? Should the court, which is composed of lawyers who, like me, probably didn't have a lot of science in school, should they be second guessing the FDA process? Or is there already another system for that? One of the good points I thought the Solicitor General Prelogar made was that, look, there are other mechanisms. There's even tort law. Lawsuits are a way to change whether or not drugs are legally allowed or legally safe. I mean, there are many different mechanisms other than challenging FDA in court. And then the other thing that the justices seem to question, which was that the idea

that should they grant this gigantic, broad relief where they prevent anyone from having the pill when you're really talking about a small sliver of people who really may not even be able to articulate a specific concrete injury. On the whole, if you're betting, this is probably a case that does not go in the way of the doctor challengers. And I think the court bounces it on standing, which means they don't even have to reach the issues. And the court loves doing that, kicking a case out on standing, because that means they have to write a much shorter opinion. They don't even have to reach the sticky merits of the issue. All right, Danny, stay with us. We appreciate that. Joining us now, Democratic Senator Amy

Klobuchar of Minnesota. It's really good to have you on the show. I want to talk to you about the specific case around Mifepristone. But I first I have to ask you, due to the overturning of Roe, is why we're here today. And we know that abortion health care, as I call it, is not based on religion or the history of Christianity. It's not. It's not where America is on this. detail why this health care is needed as women are bleeding out, becoming sterilized, becoming traumatized, having their lives threatened because they can't get the abortion health care they need. Which brings me back to the cult leader hawking his Bible, the guy who did all this. And we'll tell you, he himself overturned Roe by bringing Leonard Leo and others into the fray to create a Supreme Court that was able to do that. It's easy to call the Bible grifty that he's selling online and to

make fun of it because he usually holds Bibles upside down and things like that. But Senator, what can be said to the person who is all in on this and who will pick up a credit card and buy this Bible? Because I actually think the abortion argument and everything that's happening to this country, it's summed up in his presentation and his selling of the Bible. But I think it's lost on the folks who want to buy it. Are they lost? Unreachable. So, okay, I'm going to separate the issue of where people are on abortion, their own personal views from him hawking Bibles. I just keep going back to the Ten Commandments and, you know,

those commandments about keeping the Sabbath holy as we approach the Easter weekend, the commandments about not using the Lord's name in vain. And here you have someone who is literally taking a holy book and selling it and putting it out there in order to make money for his campaign. Can he legally do it? I assume that he can. But usually, candidates are selling things like T-shirts, or in the case of my presidential campaign, we had Amy earrings. OK, these are things to allow supporters to have some fun and show they support the candidate.

He's going this way. And I think the way that he has degraded people with disabilities, I still will never forget when John McCain was on his deathbed, the fact that he went after John McCain, a hero to this country. These things are not consistent with the teachings of the Bible. So he can be out there hawking it all he wants. But to me, it's just one more moment of hypocrisy. And I hope people step back and look at some of the things he's said and done in his life,

many of which are wielding through these legal proceedings all over the country, including asking a Republican secretary of state to find him more votes after an election, and look at that and look at what the teachings of the Bible are and make a decision about who they're going to support or not. As many moderate Republicans just was pointed out on the show, like Lisa Murkowski and people like Mitt Romney are coming to a different conclusion about who they're going to support for president. Senator, good morning. It's good to have you with us. I want to bring you back to the Supreme Court oral arguments we heard yesterday about Mipha Pristone. As Danny just laid out well for us, the justices appeared very skeptical of the plaintiff's argument standing

and then the merits of it as well. But larger point, let's just say for argument's sake that they don't find for the plaintiffs in this and they don't take up the case. Is this case like the Alabama IVF ruling, the Supreme Court down at the state level? Do you believe all of this is the product of what we saw almost two years ago in Dobbs, which is to say there were people after Dobbs who said, don't be alarmist about this, mostly conservatives saying, don't be alarmist. This is about abortion. It's not going to be about IVF.

It's not going to be about Mifepristone. It won't be about birth control. And yet here we are. Exactly. And number one, legal analysis, correct. They were deeply skeptical. My guess is they're going to throw this out based on standing when you have people like Gorsuch saying things like this is a small lawsuit with big implications.

Elena Kagan said it best when she said, who's the person? Where's the harm? But let's put that aside. These are the Trump appointed justices, a number of them that were the ones that got us into this mess in the first place by overturning Roe v. Wade. And this is a natural outcome. They said they wanted to give it back to the states. Well, guess what? It's coming right back to this court.

And now you have a situation where challenges are being made to the FDA's authority, which, if they went that way, would not only mean about mefapristone, an abortion drug used by over 60 percent of women seeking abortions, but would also apply to things like birth control. If you can just have a group of random doctors come in and say, hey, this is not consistent with our beliefs to that or HIV drugs or other things or IVF, if you point out, then you have chaos. You don't have expert decisions being made to protect the safety of people. You're not allowing these decisions to be made between a woman and her doctor.

This is the natural outcome of these Trump-appointed justices. And clearly, the public is not with these extremists, 70, 80 percent of them, depending on the poll. In states like Ohio, in Wisconsin, when there have been ballot measures or elections relevant to this, they have sided with a woman's right to make her own decisions about her health care, not politicians. Senator Sam Stein here, to your point, last night there was what would have been a relatively obscure statehouse election in Alabama, where the candidate ran well ahead of margins in the last election, the Democratic candidate, largely on a platform of protecting IVF and abortion rights in her own personal story. I'm wondering, based on that and, you know, what is now a fairly lengthy record of special election results in which Democrats have outperformed expectations in the post-Dobbs era, one, you know, do you feel confident that this issue still has resonance and will still have resonance up and through November? And two, are there plans in place for the party to capitalize a bit more aggressively

on the issue? And by that, I mean, you mentioned ballot initiatives, but also maybe perhaps congressional votes or hearings or things that could put this issue more front and center for voters in the lead up to the vote. I don't know that the word is capitalized, because the voters are bringing it to us. You know, when you go way back—I was thinking of Mika's comments about the horrific nature of this, when that girl, victim of incest, young girl, age 10, ends up getting pregnant and then has to go to another state to get her healthcare. People are outraged by these stories. And they've been starting to go on all over the country. I know because Minnesota is in the middle of a number of states that don't

allow for access. Clinics have had to move to our state. So this is happening on its own without anyone capitalizing on it. I will say the Alabama outcome in that state legislative race gives support for why the president, vice president, heading down to the South on various issues, everything from work done on the economy and the like. But a lot of this is because people value their freedoms in the South, in the Midwest, anywhere in the country. Race after race after race, from the prairies in Kansas to what we just saw in that ballot measure in Ohio with an 11 vote margin have shown that whether people are Democrats, moderate ago. They don't want to go back to the 1950s and they don't want to go back to the 1850s, which is exactly what this Republican Party is arguing that they do with the Comstock law. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, we always appreciate

your time. Thanks for being here this morning. It was fun. Thanks for having me on. Thanks, Senator. So while this is playing out at the Supreme Court, John, Donald Trump is very busy here in New York with a couple of different cases on his hands. But yesterday, as we mentioned at the top of the show, a gag order. He's received this previously in other cases. But the judge saying now he can't talk about witnesses. You know, you can come after me. You come after Alvin Bragg. You can do whatever you need to do, but you may not go after witnesses. You may not go after other people inside the courtroom. We'll see how that holds. Or potential jurors, which would be part of this as well.

We have seen Trump like defy some of these gag orders before. We will see what he does here. As noted, he was up all night on Truth Social weighing in on a variety of topics, at least to this point, hasn't touched this one. So, Danny, let's talk about this gag order. How will it be enforced for someone who is running for president? He's a presumptive Republican nominee. He has a major platform whenever he wants it, either online or at his rally stage. Talk to us whether you think this gag order is appropriate and how will it work? Gag orders raise a number of First Amendment constitutional issues depending on not only who they protect, but who they're directed to. So, for example, the weakest gag orders are always those directed against the press. Those are people not involved in the court proceeding. They're outside observers who have First Amendment rights. And then on the sliding

scale, the easiest people to gag in a case are the lawyers like me. And that's because to some degree, we've already consented to control by the court. We're officers of the court. And so it's much easier from a First Amendment perspective to keep us from speaking. Parties are somewhere in the middle. That's what Donald Trump is. And then, of course, who are you protecting? For example, who we protect the most are jurors and witnesses. If we don't protect jurors, no one will show up for jury duty. And if we don't protect witnesses, no one will show up, whether at grand jury proceedings or at trial, to actually give testimony. So protecting them is a lot easier to do. And in this case, for example, it appears that Trump will continue to be able to make comments case, for example, it appears that Trump will continue to be able

to make comments about, for example, the judge. And in a sense, judges are politicians. They kind of consent to that kind of criticism. We've just never seen it like this with somebody who is an ex-president who maybe we would expect not to do this kind of thing. But the gag orders are always challengeable in a sense. And Willie, of course, gag order needed because of the threats of violence. And that's the political moment we're in right now in 2024, when others who have been involved in Trump legal cases have received these threats and they feel that Trump could stir that up further. Yeah.

Judge Mershon saying in that order yesterday that Trump's statements establish a sufficient risk to the administration of justice, noticing his past threatening and inflammatory statements. Danny Savalos, thank you very much as always. We appreciate it. Sam Stein, thank you as well. We'll see you soon. Coming up next here, hostage negotiations stalling now between Israel and Hamas. Again, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blaming the United Nations ceasefire resolution. We'll talk about that and how the White House is reacting next on Morning Joe. This morning, Israel and Hamas are no closer to securing a ceasefire and hostage release deal. Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Hamas has rejected the latest proposal, calling their demands extreme. Over the weekend, Israel agreed to free about 800 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom are serving

life sentences in exchange for the release of 40 hostages. Hamas, though, still demanding Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu refuses to do that. The prime minister blamed the deadlock talks on America's decision to allow the United Nations to pass a ceasefire resolution. In a statement, Netanyahu wrote, Hamas's stance clearly demonstrates its utter disinterest in a negotiated deal and attests to the damage done by the U.N. Security Council's resolution. The United States denies that claim, calling it inaccurate in almost every respect. Joining us now, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass. Richard, good morning. Let's take the last part of that first. First of all, Prime Minister Netanyahu is right that he does not

have a good faith negotiating partner in Hamas. But the U.N. resolution, the abstention by the United States from that to allow it to pass, Netanyahu says that's why these ceasefire talks are being stalled. What's your sense of things? That's not even close. The United States announced that it had heard from Hamas that it wasn't going to go ahead with the ceasefire before the U.N. Security Council vote. The fact that the prime minister misrepresented the timing and the sequencing, blaming it on the United States.

Again, he is doubling down on criticizing Joe Biden. You know, Willie, I'm old enough to remember when one of the ways you would measure an Israeli prime minister at home and abroad was how well he managed Israel's most important relationship with the United States. You now have a place in Israeli prime minister who increasingly is hinging his political future, not on managing Israel's relationship with the United States, but on damaging it. And it's interesting. This is beginning to get traction in Israel. You read the Israeli newspapers yesterday and today, more and more commentators coming out questioning why he is essentially running against Joe Biden, running against the

United States. So is this just politics? Is that what it is, Richard, at home? He's trying to save his own skin at home or what's he doing? Why so aggressive with the United States right now? Yeah, I do think it's politics. And he's increasingly hitched his wagon to a strategy that I believe cannot succeed. Look, if you're going to go after Hamas, as he would say, to destroy it, there's got to be two dimensions. One's a military dimension, and we can argue over Israeli tactics. I think they've been counterproductive and heavy handed. But there's got to be a political dimension. You can't sideline or marginalize your group without offering an alternative. He refuses to do that. His strategy literally cannot succeed. We're already seeing signs in areas of Gaza where Hamas has suffered military setbacks.

They're beginning to come back again. If there's a vacuum, it will be filled. So I really believe the prime minister cannot succeed on his strategy or his policy. So therefore, he's falling back on his politics. To that point, Israeli forces had cleared al-Shifa hospital months ago. They had to do it again because Hamas had moved back into the area. So, Richard, we just read the statement there, the White House deeply frustrated with Prime Minister Netanyahu. But what other cards does the Biden administration have to play, carrot or stick, to sort of nudge Netanyahu to where they

want to go, which is eventually a real ceasefire here, and then beyond that, a two-state solution? Well, we've seen three cards so far. We've seen the sanctions against settlers involved in violence. We've seen the aid drop. And now we've seen the UN vote. There could be further sanctions against Israel. Just this week, I think it was last Friday, the Israelis announced that 2,000 acres have been taken by the state for new settlements. That could be something. I think we're getting very close to the conditioning of U.S. military aid. We're going to say you can have this weapon system, but you cannot use it in the following way or the following purposes. They might even have denial of some weapon systems. So I think what we're doing is going down the road where Israel is defying American policy and the United States

is going to have to go up the escalation ladder. So, Richard, let's take a look at this from the view of the Israeli people who want their hostages back, who suffered a horrific attack on October 7th that they will never forget that Hamas, many Israelis believe, deserve to be rooted out, as the prime minister has said. So what is what is the Israeli government, what is the prime minister supposed to do with a terrorist death cult on the other side of the negotiating table that's asking for 800 prisoners released, some of them serving life sentences in exchange for 40 hostages. How do they negotiate reasonably with that group? Look, you may not be able to. I think Hamas from the beginning took the hostages because they knew it would give them leverage and wants to keep a lot of the hostages because they fear that without them, Israel will act in a really unconstrained way. So I can't give you a satisfying answer to that. Willie, this is an entity that has

an awful lot of autonomy. And I understand the Israeli frustration. Just yesterday also, you had these terrible stories of the sexual depravity that came on about the violation of this Israeli woman and so forth. So I understand the frustration. All you can do is hope a negotiation works, this combination of military pressure, freeing prisoners and so forth. But the Israelis are not going to move out of Gaza 100%. They're not going to agree to a total ceasefire and they shouldn't. My view is they should rule out major military operations, but they shouldn't agree to a total ceasefire. If they have intelligence that they can get this or that Hamas leader, they should they should be prepared to do that.

So, Richard, I want to move to your latest piece for Project Syndicate, and it's entitled America's Year of Living Dangerously. And you're right in part, quote, the near future consists of three distinct phases, each with its own challenges and dangers. The first phase already underway and will continue through Election Day, November 5th. The problem is already in plain sight with politics taking priority over policy. It has become nearly impossible to enact important legislation. The second distinct set of challenges will follow Election Day, the peaceful transfer of power. A hallmark of the American system can no longer be assumed. The 75-day window between election and inauguration could well become the most perilous phase of a dangerous year. And the third and final challenge will begin early next year on Inauguration Day.

If Biden is reelected, much will depend on whether his election is accepted by Trump supporters and on which party controls the Senate and the House. And Richard, I guess it's a I don't know, it's probably close. But what worries you the most about these three phases that you say are fraught with danger? What worries me the most, Meek, is the 75 day phase between Election Day and Inauguration Day. Now, before the election, after the inauguration, the real challenge is dysfunction. But I'm worried about potential for real constitutional and political crisis and violence if we have a situation where the election isn't accepted, where there's

challenges to the electoral college. That's what we saw January 6th. I think it's possible that we could see a reprise of it, and we should worry about that. Again, one of the basic norms in American history that used to be defining to us the peaceful transfer of power. We can no longer assume it. And if there's a close election that Joe Biden wins, you know, and I know it will be challenged, not just in the Congress, but potentially in the streets. Yeah. It's why when someone, you know, brushes off January 6th says nothing. That's just a line. It's a line that's being crossed in our country. Richard Haass, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. We'll see you again very soon.