Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/29/23

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Police release body-cam video from Nashville shooting

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, March 29th. We have a lot to get to this hour, including a major development in the investigation into former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. A federal judge has ordered Mike Pence to give testimony. Meanwhile, former Trump ally Chris Christie appears to be willing to play the anti-Trump role if he gets into the 2024 race. We'll have more on that new reporting. And we're still on so-called indictment watch since the president announced the former president that he was going to be arrested. But we'll have the latest on the Manhattan grand jury's investigation into the hush money payments to a porn star, plus an update on the continuing protests in Israel and what President Biden is saying about meeting with the country's leader, along with Joe, Willie

and me. We have the host of way too early, White House beer chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, just ran over from his set. How does he do that? Yeah, I know. The set of his show. And member of the New York Times editorial board, Mara Gay, is with us. Also with us this morning, presidential historian, John Meacham. Very good. Thank you.

So, tomorrow, opening day tomorrow, guys. It is. The Yankees get the Giants, which I kind of like. I like that a lot. Cross-country interleague game to start the season. Kind of a fun three-game series. Right. The Yankees will be starting a 21-year-old shortstop by the name of Anthony Volpe,

a kid from New Jersey who grew up a Yankee fan, was drafted by the Yankees, was supposed to go to Vanderbilt, but he was so good he stayed in the pros and now as a 21 year old gets the starting nod at shortstop couple of our pitchers on the dl to start the season that's not great yeah but we are excited about the prospects well i tell you the red socks we're feeling good uh there are a couple prospects from pensacola catholic high yep uh that uh 14, 14. But let me tell you something. He's got this good sweeping motion. So the 74 mile an hour fastball that goes across deceptive, you don't always see it coming. Yeah. Tough to pick up from the kid who's like four foot eight. Yeah, the batter's not used to that. So so here. And so let's just say let's do over unders because that's, of course, what we do.

Yeah. We can put on the show, of course. Remember? Macron. Boom. Everybody said it every time. Why did I say that? Macron? 57.5. Put the over-under there. That's where it was. Boom. Made a lot of money on that. We made a lot of money on that. Indictments. It's a two and a half over-under. You guys figure out which

way you want to go. Boston Red Sox wins this year. The over, under, I'm putting it at 83.5. Are you going over or under? That's not bad. I'm still going to go under. I do. I am going to go under.

The schedule helps. That's why the Yankees are opening with the Giants, is that every team plays every team this year, so therefore you play fewer division games, and that means the Red Sox have to play fewer games against the Yankees, Blue Jays, Rays, and so on. The spring's been optimistic. I'm so glad opening day is here. They have a lot of holes. The pitching staff is a lot of question marks in terms of health. The lineup is okay. We have a bunch of 38-year-olds, an odd blend of 38-year-olds and high school kids on the team. We have a lot of 38-year-olds and high school kids on the team. Yes. We have a lot of 38-year-olds.

We have a lot of 38-year-olds. But it is opening day, and we should know that tomorrow on Morning Joe, to talk about opening day and the rules changes coming to Major League Baseball, one Theo Epstein will be on the show to talk to us. What? It's amazing. Mike Varga. Yes.

Oh, boy. Mike and Theo. You're excited. Oh, boy. You're so excited about it, aren't you? What would you like to know about? You're going to have to come back. I'll be watching.

You're over, under, maybe, you know, a year or two ago, we could have said, like, fights, excited about it aren't you what would you like you're gonna have to come back under maybe you know a year or two ago we could have said like fights feuds inside the new york times it's gotten so cold there oh it's so calm you know what i've always found i've always said it like with bands you can't have any egos in bands and i know you feel that same way about the new York Times. There's no egos at the New York Times. No egos there. They're just there going, come on, how can I help you? Big team effort.

Yeah. It's like Cleveland Mac. No egos. No egos. No egos. No drama. No personalities. A lot of cocaine, a lot of fighting, a lot of divorces.

Oh, my God. I'm talking about Cleveland Mac. Yeah, yeah. Not the New York Times. A lot of bankruptcy. This is more exciting than I thought. It's very exciting. A lot to get together any time soon. We have one more over under with Meach thought. Let's not get together any time soon. We have one more over under with Meechum.

That's right. Mentions of the French-Indian War. Oh, here we go. I've got it at five and a half. Our first global struggle. Oh, my God. There you go. It's going to be a good morning.

All right. Let's get to the news. A lot to get a good morning. All right. Let's get to the news. A lot to get to this morning. And we are learning a lot more this morning about the heroic actions by Nashville officers to get inside the school and confront the shooter during Monday's attack. Nashville police released body camera video from officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, who are credited with taking down the shooter. It shows Officer Engelbert arriving to the school immediately, grabbing his rifle from the trunk of his SUV. He has a brief interaction with a staff member outside the school who tells him the

students are on lockdown, but two children are missing. After that video shows, after that video shows Engelbert, Tlazo and other officers rushing through the halls, checking and clearing classrooms. They moved quickly to the second floor where they fire on the shooter who was reloading near a window. The officers were able to confront and kill the shooter in about three minutes. Police say the shooter was under a doctor's care for an emotional disorder whose parents thought should not own weapons. The parents told police they believe the 28-year-old shooter only owned one gun, but it turns out the shooter had seven guns stashed around the house, all of them purchased legally, including two assault-style rifles and a handgun that the shooter had during the attack.

Nashville's police chief says the motive has not been determined, but investigators believe the school and the church were the main targets, not the victims themselves. Willie, what a big difference you've evolved. And also Parkland, where we saw an officer hiding out in the bushes while kids were getting shot. That video is about six minutes long, if you can stomach it. It is just extraordinary to watch on a couple of fronts. I found myself getting emotional watching it, number one, because of the heroism of those officers led by Officer Engelbert and Kalatza. Just no hesitation whatsoever.

None. Charging into rooms where they didn't know what was waiting for them in the room, looking into bathrooms where they didn't know what was behind the door, and ultimately confronting the shooter and stopping the shooter. God knows what else would have happened if they hadn't done that. The other part of it was the emotion that you're seeing right now of these officers sprinting past these little cubbies, sprinting past these artwork from preschoolers and kindergartners. And another reminder, this one's so vivid and horrifying that this is what kids deal with now, that there is the possibility that in your little school or your big school or whatever kind of school you go to, there may someday be police officers charging through with weapons drawn to confront

a shooter. So this video, it just it takes your breath away on many fronts. It really does. And Maura, we again, lessons that we we law enforcement officers were supposed to have learned all the way back at Columbine. We see tragically here that when you rush in even if you have victims on the floor which i'm afraid we saw here right they rush past and they get the shooter and again all the things that weren't done in uvalde were done here of course the fact that we're even here is so grotesque and and and but but first just they actually did this right i mean i i do find myself with similar feelings to willie here which is kind of this one-two punch of on the on the first hand you're looking at these officers and you're thinking yes this is what we want our police officers to do. The amount of training, the heroism, the lack of hesitation,

they're going to defend the defenseless. I mean, they did everything right, it seems, and they are heroes, and they should get full credit for that. And in a time when I think police-community relations, there are a lot of questions about police accountability, this is an example of police officers doing their job exactly as society asks them to do and going above and beyond. I also have to say, I guess you watch it and you think, is this really the way we want to live? Is this the best solution? Do we have to have these children exposed to this violence on a day-to-day basis?

And then similarly, if you're the wife or the family member of one of these, or I don't know, husband, police officers, why is your loved one's life being put into danger because we refuse as a society, the only modern society in the world, democracy in the world that refuses to deal honestly and directly with the reality of what it means to just have guns legal or not, you know, lying around. And that's the other part of this story that we brought to you just now. And that is that this shooter, they thought she had two guns. Turns out there were many more and two assault rifles. I mean, is this how we want to live? You see, the thing is, Jonathan Lemire, it's a choice.

That's the thing. People are saying, well, there's so many guns. What can we do? No, this has been a deliberate choice. Forgive me for sounding like ideological here. But I say this as a former guy with 100% record with the NRA. This is a deliberate choice by the gun lobby to whip people into a frenzy of paranoia. So they think they have to go out and start getting AR-15s, weapons that were intended for war. So police officers have to run into the line of fire.

Police officers have to deal with this every day. The possibility of like one out of four Americans having weapons of war, weapons of war. And why do they have those weapons of war? Some of them just like to go to a gun range and feel like a real man because they obviously don't in their regular life. So they have to go to a gun range and shoot AR-15s. Other people love guns. They just do. So they go there for that purpose. They like collecting guns. But the vast majority have been whipped into a frenzy by paranoia that has been fed by the NRA to raise money and for gun manufacturers to make tons of money. Again, this is so important. This is a choice Republicans have made over the past 25 years. I tell my children who were just, and I tell young mothers who were crying on this

day going, my God, I, my kids, I worry about this every day. I send them to school talking to a dad who wants to get a gun. Now he and the other dads in the neighborhood around a school, because they don't know they live close to it. They want to be able to protect. They want to be there faster than 14 minutes. And of course, that feeds into the gun lobby, too. But all data shows you more guns, more deaths, whether by violence or by suicide, more guns, more death. But after Columbine, that was a one off.

This started happening. And Steve Ratner had charged yesterday. This is skyrocketed in the past 20 years because now gun companies make the most money selling weapons meant to kill human beings in Vietnam and on battlefields. That's where we are as a society. And it is sick. And I swear to God, sometime we're going to get past this. I know we are. And people are going to look back at us and they're going to go, what the hell were they thinking? Why did they sacrifice a generation of children to fear and nightmares and death and destruction. That will be asked of us. What the hell were they thinking? Because at some point we're going to get past this,

but we're in the middle of it now. And it's all about money. Freak people out, make them paranoid, make them think they need weapons of war. And we, the gun manufacturers, make tons of money. And on that, data shows that every time there's been a mass shooting, gun sales go up in the immediate aftermath because there's this fear that the government's going to take your guns, fear stoked by the NRA. Therefore, people want to arm themselves after shootings like this. And we have moments where we saw at Novaldi, these officers rushing into the school yesterday who performed so heroically, they didn't know if they might be outgunned, like that they were concerned this shooter may have had

as much weapons as they did. In this case, they were able to, thankfully, taking a moment where the shooter was reloading as they burst into the room, they were able to shoot first and take the shooter down. You know, I had a guy tell me last summer that I know very well and respect in all areas, but have real problems with his politics. He he was saying after Ubaldi, he said, well, you know, though, you know, we can't take the guns away because that's what Pol Pot did. That's what Hitler did. That's what Stalin did. I was like, dude, dude, you had one 18 year old mentally deranged guy that had more firepower inside of an elementary school than 300 scared cops outside. Don't even start with me on somehow the great masses having, you know, no firepower. It's now the cops.

Listen to me, everybody. Stop and think. We now live in a society in 2023 because of Republicans, because of the NRA, because of the gun manufacturers who make millions and millions and billions of dollars. We now live in a society where the cops are afraid of the convicts. We're former presidents, former presidents. They make martyrs out of convicts who stormed the United States Capitol. These these Republicans are the enemy of the rule of law. Everywhere we look, they're so worried about drag, what book hour, drag show, whatever they do, all of this stupidity. They're so afraid somebody's going to read a book

about Hank Aaron. They're so afraid they're going to read a book on Roberto Clemente, but they're perfectly fine with AR-15s all over the freaking world. They're sick. And they're silent. Republicans yesterday on Capitol Hill who are spoke, reporters approached them. They said, there's nothing we can do.

There's nothing we can do. There's nothing we can do. They'd rather talk about anything other than guns. That's not to suggest there aren't mental health crises in America right now. Of course there is.

But there's also far more so a guns crisis. There are other things that have to get done. And we should know. Hey, by the way, mental health crisis. OK, good.

Fund it. Yeah. Triple the funding, quadruple funding for mental health crisis. Yeah. And Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the person who could bring legislation to the House floor, who would be the gatekeeper for any discussion of any sort of gun reform legislation that could follow this shooting. We did get a modest proposal that got through last year. Any chance for this year, McCarthy has to get it to the floor. McCarthy has not said a word about the shooting. He's a coward.

Not a word. Not a statement. Not a tweet. Not a word. Speaker McCarthy didn't even give thoughts and prayers. He didn't even do the sort of boilerplate response to a school shooting. And there's video yesterday. He's jogging through the halls of the Capitol.

Literally running from it. You just wonder if responsible gun owners could also organize themselves and speak up in some way. Because as somebody who grew up, you know, in a city who did not have guns in the house, though I do have family who, you know, who had guns out in Michigan, they hunted, they fished, that's fine. You know, but when that just further deepens the divisions, because you think to yourself, well, everybody in America is telling those of us without guns, oh, well, it's OK, because there are many responsible gun owners.

And I believe that. I know that to be true. And yet when you don't have guns in your house growing up, you cannot help but look at this scene and think this cannot be. How did those guns get in the wrong hand? You know, just about everybody I know owns guns. I own guns. I trained. I have my permit. I waited a year to get my carry permit. Everybody now has guns and everybody I know that has guns. Every one of them, every one of them says, why do you need a weapon of war? I don't need a weapon of war to kill a deer. I don't need a weapon of war to defend my house. I don't need a weapon of war i don't need a weapon of war to kill a deer i don't need a weapon of war to defend my house i don't need a weapon of war no no and and you know the bizarre thing is they see these shootings and they say to mika and they say to me this has to stop this has to stop and yet there's no connection between who they vote for, who they vote for, what they watch on TV, what they read on the Internet. They're plugged into a propaganda machine that says the government is coming to take all of your rights. And if you don't have a weapon of war that was actually engineered for Vietnam, then the government, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and

AOC are coming to take your freedoms. Yeah, it's a disturbing disconnect. And it's one that a lot of Americans who live in households without guns can't abide by. Yeah, it's John Meacham. I wanted to get all that out of the way and then have you talk about this personally. You know, my oldest son lived by you in Nashville. This is right down the street from where he lived and right by where you live. They know families who unfortunately were tragically, tragically touched by this.

This this horror. Talk about it and and how it's just shattered your community. Well, it's about a mile away from where we live, about a mile away from our girls school. They went into lockdown on Monday, an eighth grader and a senior in high school with their classmates, not knowing how the violence would unfold. My high school senior daughter yesterday simply said there's they were nine years old. They were nine years old. And we had a long and painful conversation touching on a lot of the issues you've been raising on Monday night, which is why can't the public sector respond in some way to try to take the means, the means of these massacres down?

How can we not lower the temperature and reduce the possibility? You won't get rid of all of it. But my view of this for a long time has been you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I'm one of those responsible gun owners you're talking about. I cannot imagine wanting one of these weapons. My great grandfather, my grandfather, I have a gun that my great, great, great grandfather made. That's just a whole different thing. The culture we're talking about that defends these assault weapons and the centrality of them now in the American imagination, particularly on the on the right, is really a post 1968 phenomenon.

You know, it's it's it's something that has. Can I interrupt you for a second? A guy that you know very well, President Bush, Bush 41, was a lifelong member of the NRA. A lot of his friends were. And in 1993, 1994, Wayne LaPierre and the NRA started to radicalize and they started calling they started calling federal authorities jackbooted thugs. And the radical Bush said, I've had enough of this. Other people who saw the NRA as something to belong to so their children could take gun safety courses and learn how to use a gun safe, safely. A lot of those people just quit. People quit the NRA. Yeah, it was in the wake of Oklahoma City. The NRA put out

a fundraising letter referring to federal agents as jackbooted thugs. President Bush in Houston sat down and at his word processor wrote a letter saying that it violated such an attack on federal agents, violated his concept of duty to country and service and was not at all in sync with the federal agents that he knew. He spent every day with them as with the Secret Service and resigned his lifetime in our membership. That was two years after former President Reagan came out in favor of the Brady bill. So it's another example of how far from reality and sensibility this conversation has gone. The reason I bring up my family conversation is I tried, as we are doing right now, to explain this culturally. You know why this passing this kind of legislation is so hard.

And I felt so inadequate. I would say, well, you know, this has a lot to do with the reaction. One of the last things the Great Society did was the Gun Control Act of 1968. And my children were looking at me as if, you know, the way you look at me most mornings. It was just admiration. It was it was what what are you talking about? Right. They were.

They were nine years old. Right. I'm talking about the last act of the Great Society. They said they were nine years old. So all I'm saying on the policy front is we did this for 10 years. These shootings, I think the statistics will show you, went down. We did not lose our liberties. The government did not come for us.

It's a it's not a sensible position. And to those who say and there will be many of them, many of them in federal office, you can't stop every shooting. Here's my response. What if it had stopped this one? What if those nine year olds, that head of school, that custodian, that substitute teacher were going to school this morning? Yeah. And isn't that worth it? Yes, it is. I mean, the other side of that is what if she had not been reloading? Yeah. Might be a whole different story. And just to touch on Meechum's conversation with his kids. Yeah. After Newtown, I had a conversation with my children who were in school and one was especially concerned about a school shooting coming

to their school for a long time. And I remember being incredibly invalidating because she was trying to tell me that this could happen. And I was trying to tell her that it couldn't because it's so unusual and data. And now as a parent in America, you can't say that because it's not true. It's not true. At any time, at any any moment there will be a mass shooting potentially at a school every day yeah every day you can't even tell a child it's okay to feel safe and to think that this is so unusual and you're going to be okay you can't yeah and it's wrong you know uh just really quickly on what john meacham said about Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan also supported the assault weapon ban. And and but but, you know, Willie, I remember after I heard a lot of progressives and people

center of left, you know, going on and on after the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. Oh, how would you know, how did this happen? How did I said, well, jury instructions that the state legislature made. There is a connection. And why is there gerrymandering? Because who gets elected on the local level, who gets elected on the state level? And we're starting to see difference in Michigan. But here this happened. How could this woman who had serious problems that was was being treated for serious problems? How can this one by seven, eight guns? Well, there is no one knowing. There is a cause and effect. Tennessee has one of the most lenient gun cultures in America. And I've had friends that have left the state of Tennessee because

of permitless carry, because people can walk around with AR. Can't they? It's open carry. So people can walk around with long guns. You walk into a grocery store, you walk, you know, walk into a restaurant, you wherever you go, people can what you're going voting. People can walk around with long guns in Tennessee. Cause a fact they're they're arming themselves to the teeth. The state legislature is and the governor signing bills. They can't be shocked that this is happening. The data, more guns equals more deaths from guns. Check the data. And even that issue of permitless carry, which is not just in Tennessee, but we see across the country, is framed as constitutional carry, meaning everyone has a right to carry a gun without training, without a permit. That's just not true.

Because it's in the Constitution. No, but that's not true. And that's the argument from those governors and those state legislatures. They should leave Heller. Yeah. I mean, that's the argument from those governors and those state legislatures. They should leave Heller. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. Even Scalia said, Scalia wrote Heller and said, you can regulate this stuff. Weapons of war, you can regulate it if you want to regulate it. Look at Connecticut.

After Newtown, they passed expansive, Supreme Court never overturned it. But you love Tennessee. Yeah. You just love it. I mean, this has to, again, never overturned it. So but you love Tennessee. Yeah, you just love it. I mean, this has to again for you, too. It's just it's heartbreaking for everybody. You see where Tennessee has gone the past couple of years. It's just it's a race to the bottom on all of this. Yeah, I know.

Like John, I know exactly where that church is and exactly where that little school is as well. And it's devastating. We know people who are worried about their kids or had friends who had kids at the school. And tragically, those three nine-year-olds and three other adults, including the head of school, were killed there. The head of the school. The head of the school, yeah. So, you know, I think John's point is a good one about this generation talking to his kids.

If you look even at the polling, even among Republican young people, among kids, they go, we got to do something better than we're doing right now because they've lived it. We're sort of on the other side of the glass. We were fortunate to grow up where I never thought about getting shot at school. Of course, ever. Fire drill was the worst we did.

This is very real for every kid in America. And this next generation, when they get into power, they may ultimately be the ones to do something about it because they've lived it. They've had the fear of walking into school every day. Yeah. And also being trained to what what to do if there's a school shooter. One of my daughters, literally the drill was not only what to do in the classroom, but how to confront a shooter, how to run, where to run. It was crazy. It's like she called me absolutely mortified, terrified, terrified. It's happening every day. It's happening every day. And Jonathan, this morning, mom's dad's taking their kids to school scared like they like they have been. Because again,

what parents talk about now it is the pace of it is picking up more and more uh and and joe biden just basically said i've done everything i can do without congress yeah i talked to my own kids last night about this about shootings they of course worried worried too and it is president we heard the president yesterday he's done just about everything he can on executive action, executive order. The White House is looking to see if there's a little more that can be done, but they're not optimistic. Nothing will get done without Congress. And Congress, Republicans, they won't even engage on the issue. They are silent on the issue. We know the data. When the last assault weapons ban lifted, the spike in

mass shootings is dramatic, absolutely dramatic. And we're still there. And it's getting worse by the day. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe, a federal judge says former Vice President Mike Pence must testify in the Justice Department's probe into Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Also ahead this morning, the latest from Israel is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Biden trade words as protests continue across that country, plus amid a stalemate over the debt ceiling. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy demands a meeting with the White House. Oh, OK. But the administration wants to see a GOP budget proposal first and later. A look at the morning papers from across the country, including a new report about a first of its kind Alzheimer's

study. And as we go to break, a note about our show as we approach one year since we expanded to four. Guys, has it been one year? We're going to eight. OK, there are now even more ways to watch Morning Joe. We're, of course, right here on MSNBC every morning from six to 10 a.m. You can also now stream us live on Peacock every weekday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern. It's through the morning news live offering. Head to PeacockTV.com slash Morning Joe to learn more. Plus, if you're not already listening to our show cast, find us wherever you get your podcasts. New Road Test, what are we doing this for?

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Please. Please. Sunday. Thirty six past the hour. Beautiful shot of Washington this morning for you. NBC News has learned a federal judge has ordered former Vice President Mike Pence to comply with a subpoena. I'm shocked, said no one in the world. In the investigation into former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, that's according to a source familiar

with the decision. The ruling issued on Monday requires Pence to testify before the grand jury tied to the probe led by special counsel Jack Smith. Smith is currently investigating Trump's actions surrounding January 6th and his mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. This guy, he's not coasting down the hill. No, he's not saying I'm just going to take this easy. Yeah. See how long I mean, he's he's he's aggressively trying to get the facts lined up to see if a crime was committed. He is. And as many people wait to see what's going to happen in lower Manhattan, if there be an indictment of the former president, the truth of the matter is what Jack Smith is looking at, even what's happening in Georgia, may end up being much more consequential here and worse for Donald Trump in the long run.

The judge ruled that while Pence does have some limited protections because of the speech or debate clause of the Constitution, which can protect lawmakers from being compelled to discuss legislative activity, that immunity does not prevent him from testifying about conversations related to alleged illegality on Trump's part. It's not clear if Pence will appeal the ruling. Here's what he said last night on the right wing pro Trump channel Newsmax. I have nothing to hide. I have a constitution to uphold. I upheld the constitution on January 6th. I believe we did our duty that day under the constitution of the United States. We're

currently speaking to our attorneys about the proper way forward. And as I said, we'll have a decision in the coming days. Really? A lot of a lot of modifiers. Did I get them all? You know what else you could say? Newsmax. That's what I said. No, I saw you reading the prompter by the right wing.

I think you have to do it these days. Pro Trump. But there's another. Well, there's a large. I don't want to start a whole other conversation. Is it really right? Can you right wing used to know it these days. Pro-Trump. I agree. Well, there's a large amount. I don't want to start a whole other conversation. Is it really right wing used to be conservative? Right.

That's true. There's a difference between being conservative and just being a Trumpist. Uh-huh. Right. Exactly. Maybe that. I never say conservative because they're the antithesis of conservatism. And you can't even say they're the right wing because right wing

usually denote somebody that's pro military, pro law enforcement. They're not. They hate the military. They always talk about how they'd rather us be Russia. They they they they hate law enforcement. If law enforcement was like the FBI or Capitol Hill cops, if they're getting the way of of their sort of radical, anarchic behavior. They're not even a right wing. No. And also, they've just spent an entire event in Waco, Texas, celebrating the people who beat up cops on January 6th. They have. Can you imagine if the left did this?

Oh, they have the leading candidate for president for their nomination for the presidency, praising, they have put together a choir of convicts who beat the shit out of cops with an American flag. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Would you like me to say it in a nicer way? Yes, I would. Well, OK, but that's not that's not appropriate. They beat the crap out of cops. There you go. With an American flag, Willie. And four died. Yeah. And their families directly blame the

assault. The rioters, they defecated in the camp. Can you imagine if left wingers did all of that? And then go crazy. And then Bernie Sanders says, I have a good idea. Let's make it quiet, quiet. They can sing like they can sing and we can celebrate. We can celebrate the fact that they beat the hell out of cops. And then they defecated on the Capitol. We can do that, right? That'll help us. I mean, think about that.

What would Newsmax say? What would Fox say? What would all these right wing... They are openly praising rioters and convicts. You can see Bernie at Burlington, Vermont, having a rally, a big rally with his puffer coat on. Bring out the quiet. It's insane.

It's deeply sick, actually. It's deeply sick. Oh, by the way, here's the choir on their debut. These are your heroes. These are your heroes. This is the hero of the Republican Party. This is the, these are the heroes of Donald Trump. These are the heroes of MTG. This is who they love. Willie, they're visiting them in prison as if it's Birmingham.

And 63 is something political prisoners. It's wild. Let's bring in NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delanian. Ken, let's go get back to Mike Pence here and this subpoena. He's sort of talking about it last night in that interview as if it's up to him, his choice. He's going to talk about it with his people. Should he answer the subpoena? Subpoena is a court order to show up there. So what happens from here? That's right, Willie. Well, unless there's any effort to appeal this ruling, and there may well be, Mike Pence is going to have to testify. And most legal experts believe the Justice Department has a really strong hand here, particularly on executive privilege.

So there are two issues here, right? Pence argued that he might be subject to executive privilege, but also the speech and debate clause because he was presiding over the Senate. And this is about the Trump team's efforts to pressure Pence to act in his ceremonial role presiding over the electoral vote count on January 6th. He researched it with his people and he concluded he had no authority to do anything but preside. And the Trump team kept pressing him and people like John Eastman and special counsel Jack Smith wants to get his testimony about that because he may have information that no one else has, particularly about conversations with former President Donald Trump. special counsel has won on these issues and has gotten court orders to compel the testimony of a variety of former aides to former President Trump, including Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and people like Dan Scavino and senior national security aides like the former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and Robert O'Brien. They're all going to have to come and testify

before this grand jury that's investigating January 6th. But even more dangerous, I think, than any of that stuff was the ruling requiring the president's own lawyer to testify in the documents case. And he did that last week in front of the grand jury. That is very, very dangerous for Donald Trump, guys. All right, Ken Delaney, and thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. And John Meacham, I mean, we've all known, it's been a fait accompli from the very beginning. Mike Pence was going to have to testify.

The Supreme Court has knocked down every privilege claim that Donald Trump has weakly thrown up. And he's going to, they're all going to have to testify because they believe a crime may have been committed here. And so we're going to I mean, we're going to see Mike Pence. We're going to see all of the president's men. We're going to see the president's lawyers, all the president's women go testify here. Where does this end? Well, it was a coup, right? I mean, that's what we're talking about here.

The fact that it didn't work is in no small measure to the credit of Vice President Pence. That should be noted. I think that we need to know as much as possible about what unfolded in the fall and into the winter of 2020, 2021, because it was a remarkable set of factors, but they were factors that could recur. And I think both the law and the legal question is essential. And I think the historical and cultural one is we almost lost the Constitution in December and January of 2021. And the fact that we didn't is quasi miraculous. And we just need to do all we can to understand and to at least increase the odds that we can pull off a couple of more miracles as we go forward. All right. Coming up, the most explicit anti-Trump pledge yet from a potential Republican presidential candidate. Plus, one of our next guests says Ron DeSantis just made himself

unelectable as president. Do you notice that Trump keeps doing all these Italian things? But they're not very good. He thinks he's a Queens guy from like 1947. He goes, meat days, let's go to Meatball Run. And then he just said he was going to work in a pizzeria, a pizza parlor. And Trump is thinking, yeah, exactly. Trump's thinking that that's funny he doesn't realize that anti-italian thing passed for most people a long time ago and his attacks on desantis by

the way drew silence at that waco rally yes we did that was the one time we'll explain that newsweek article by the way also ahead the House Financial Services Committee today will hold its first hearing on the recent U.S. bank failures. A member of the panel, Congressman Richie Torres, is our guest. Morning, Joe. We'll be right back. By the way, if you look like Donald Trump, are you really calling anybody a meatball? We'll be right back. Live look at the White House 10 minutes before the top of the hour. Time now to take a look at the morning paper as we begin in New Jersey, where the Courier Post reports the number of anti-Semitic incidents has reached historic levels. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the state saw a 10 percent increase in anti-Jewish incidents last year.

Nationwide, there were 3,700 reported incidents. That's a 36 percent increase from the year before and the highest the organization has ever seen since it started tracking acts of hate back in 1979. Again, not a coincidence. It's just like the guns. Not a coincidence here. You have somebody after Charlottesville that says they're good people on both sides. You have Donald Trump inviting neo-Nazis and anti-Semites to eat with him. It sends a message. It sends a message, but I think we like to pretend that it doesn't. There's such a plausible deniability, this attitude of, oh, well, I was just suggesting something the other day. I think it was last week when Alvin Bragg was called.

I don't even want to repeat it on air. Right. There was an anti-Semitic and anti-black, you know, racist slur used. Those things give cover to people with guns, God forbid, to do whatever they feel like doing in their sick heads. And anybody who is a black person or a Jewish person in America knows that. We know that. So all you have to do is ask us. We understand what it means. Yeah. And, you know, we make it our business to know how to survive. So I really it's disturbing. It's depressing. And I have to just say just on a generational note, I mean, I grew up with the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Holocaust survivors came to our classrooms. It just was not that long ago.

Exactly. And you would think that we would the lessons would hold at least this long ago. And they're not. And so, you know, you don't have to pull the trigger to put someone in danger. And I think that's that's where it is right now. The Wichita Eagle has a front page feature on Kansas lawmakers considering moving away from caucus elections. The GOP controlled state legislature is fast tracking a bill that would allow the state to hold the presidential primary instead. Right now, Kansas holds party run caucuses. Supporters say switching to primaries will lead to more residents casting a ballot. But Jonathan Lemire, if they switch my caucus to primary, more people will be able to be involved and the results will actually matter. Why would

they want to do that? It's a great question, Joe. Certainly, this is a large irrelevant. Kansas, what are you doing? It's a large trend, though. Certainly, caucuses in particular, we've seen some debacles in recent cycles. Our people are moving away from those. It does seem like primaries are going to take even more center stage going forward. So the Florida times union leads with the Mayo clinic in Jacksonville, securing a $41 million federal grant to study Alzheimer's disease. Researchers will analyze medical data from thousands of living patients and study donated

brain and blood samples. The goal is to identify a way to treat the disease. Officials say the study will be, quote, the first of its kind in its scope and reach. And in Michigan, the Grand Rapids Press reports the Federal Highway Administration wants states to stop making funny traffic safety signs. Don't make them funny. Late last year, the agency sent a letter to New Jersey asking it to cease and desist with its jokes and pop culture references along the highway. State officials say the signs command more attention. But they're willing to work with the federal agency on a compromise.

Well, Willie, I mean, it's like Phil Griffin telling us when we first started Morning Joe, be more dull. I'd rather them put phone slammers along the highways to stop texting. As a native of New Jersey, we apologize for nothing. Personality, we have an edge, we have an attitude. Our rest stops are named after John Bon Jovi, James Gandolfini and Whitney Houston. That's going to end Frank Sinatra and Vince Lombardi. Our official Twitter account at NJ.gov spends most of its time trash talking other states about bagels and pizza.

So we make no apologies. Yes. Maybe I should be. Yeah, I think I should be. I love that. I've been on that. I have driven that hundreds of times. John Meacham, and you're sort of ahead in this trend. You stopped being funny a long time ago. I think about right when this show started years ago. Yeah. It's one of the few things where I've been ahead of a curve. Exactly. Exactly. So. So, John, we we've we've had Donald Trump once again play everybody. I'm just you know, we we we none of us ever learn. He two weeks ago said he was going to be arrested on Tuesday. He raised money off of it, though not as much as he wanted to. You have Ron DeSantis challenging. Are we going to end up with a Trump

Biden rematch in 2024? I think so. I don't see any. I know that all of our establishment Republican friends, you know, will solemnly put on their Peter Millar vest and tell us that Trump is going to. How about that? That's pretty good. That was a good guess. That was a good guess. That actually is pretty good. That was, he didn't say like, lands in, like he, Peter Millar. That's pretty good. This year. In fact, I'm not going to finish the point. Y' I like he Peter. That's right.

This year. In fact, I'm not going to finish the point. Y'all just keep going. But, you know, they want it's on, you know, they're there. They're telling us solemnly that Trump is done. On what evidence is Trump done? Right. None that I can see.

Look, I'm always wrong, but for what it's worth, it seems to me that the elemental forces that Donald Trump has managed to manage and marshal, provoke and put into action are still there. And there's not any significant data that would suggest that somehow or another there's going to be this lightning strike and suddenly it's going to be 1986 again. And Bob Dole and George Mitchell are going to go on Capital Gang. Yeah, I mean, see, there's a reference. Sorry, back to you. Pulled it back. Yeah, pull it back. Nice save. Well, I've got to say, and to our... You pulled it back. Yeah.

Pulled it back. Nice save, Dr. Well, I've got to say, and I think... I've got to say on brand. Staying on brand, baby. Very on brand. Duckhead khakis. So I think if we...

And bass weeds. You know what I'm talking about, baby. I do. I've still got some. No socks. So does anybody around this table have any doubt that that donald trump is like doesn't have the best chance of both winning the republican nomination and losing the general election is a i think we i think we could very well look not to take that chance look back and say my god it was

so evident but i think there was this moment or there maybe we're still in this moment where Ron DeSantis was the alternative. He represented some version of the alternative for people wish casting Donald Trump away. Donald Trump has DeSantis having gotten the race. It remains to be seen how he might perform on a national stage. But Jonathan, I mean, if you just look at polling, for starters, and the question will be, do any of these indictments impact anything? There's not really any evidence that Republicans are that worried about any of these cases. Even if Donald Trump is indicted four times

in these four major cases, he's still going to keep running. Yeah, no, he's made that clear. He's the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican nominee. And we'll see when DeSantis officially gets in if he does this summer. But Trump is the overwhelming favorite, but also would therefore be the clear underdog in the general election in 2024 if there's a rematch with President Biden. But it's his way out of jail.