Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/31/23

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Trump indicted and expected to surrender to authorities next week

Trump indicted. The first ever criminal indictment of a former president of the United States came down yesterday when a New York City grand jury convened by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office took the exact charges are unknown. But we do know they sent her around that $130,000 payment Trump allegedly made to porn star Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 election to keep her silent about an affair she claims the two had a decade earlier. According to the star witness in the case, Trump's own former lawyer, Michael Cohen, the Trump organization tried to cover up the payment, falsely claiming it was a legal expense. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, March 31st. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, the host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, president of the National Action Network, Reverend Al Sharpton, the host of MSNBC's Inside with Jen Psaki. Jen Psaki, she's a former White House press secretary. And with us, presidential historian John Meacham, NBC News legal analyst Andrew Weissman, former general counsel of the FBI and served as lead prosecutor in the Mueller special counsel's office. A big news day, also

a sad day as history has been made. Right, right. You know, a lot of yammering going on yesterday. A lot of people talking about police states and about this and that. We don't know what's in the indictment. That's the most important thing to remember. I think also it's important, Willie, to remember that we've crossed the line here. And I've always feared and I've always said of all of the horrible legacies Donald Trump has left us, one of the worst may be becoming the first president, ex-president, to be indicted because of the array of crimes that he may have committed, that he certainly appeared to commit, especially around January 6th. Peter Baker today has, I think, an important article. It says, the taboo is broken. A new

precedent has been set. Will it tear the country apart as some feared about putting a former president on trial after Watergate? Will it be seen at home and abroad as a victor's justice akin to developing nations where former leaders are imprisoned by their successors? Or will it become a moment of reckoning, a sign that even someone who was once the most powerful person on the planet, planet is above the law. And then Jack Goldsmith, of course, Harvard law professor says whether the indictment is warranted or not, it crosses a huge line in American politics and American legal history. Here we are again, two things possibly being true at the same time, and neither one of them good. Well, it is certainly historic, as you say,

that we've never seen this before. It is unprecedented. But as you also point out, it's unknown. We don't know what is in this sealed indictment right now. And there are political questions around what this means for Donald Trump as he runs for president again. So far and very quickly, the Republican Party has rallied behind him, even Ron DeSantis in his own way, putting out a gesturing statement saying he would not allow Donald Trump to be extradited. That may be a moot point. There may not be likely won't be extradition in this case. So that's the political question. But Andrew Weissman, as for the legal question, let's just start with where we are right now and what we do know. There's some talk about perhaps what the Republicans are calling just a business bookkeeping question could lead to something having to do with the commission of a crime in campaign finance.

And that would be a felony. But what do we know right now and what happens from here? has charged is related to the same set of facts that led to a part of the guilty plea that Michael Cohen entered in a federal court where Michael Cohen admitted his guilt in part of this scheme, which was hush payments and then falsifying, covering up those hush payments, which were made to keep information allegedly from the American public voting on whether to elect Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton president. So that was the purpose of the scheme. This has obviously been charged under state law after Bill Barr forbade the Southern District

from pursuing individual one, the co-conspirator with Michael Cohen, who was the then president of the United States. It remains to be seen exactly how this is charged by the DA. There reportedly are some 30 or so counts. Those could all relate to this sort of cover-up of false business records. There could be campaign finance sort of predicate crimes. We don't know that yet. We apparently will know that at least by Tuesday when the reports are that there will be an arraignment of the former president, and he, like anyone else who is charged, will be afforded all of the due process rights that anyone has, whether they're

facing state or federal charges. And again, so important to underline, we don't know the nature of the case, the charges in the case yet. We'll know that on Tuesday. John Meacham, I want to go back, though. I want to obviously get your insight on this historic moment, a grim historic moment, but a historic moment all the same. And I just want to read this line again from Peter Baker's front page story in the New York Times today. Will it be seen by many at home and abroad as victor's justice akin to developing nations where former leaders are imprisoned by their successors. Or will it become a moment of reckoning, a sign that even someone who was once the most powerful person on the planet is not above the law? And I in reading that line, I was just thinking about, obviously, our calls repeatedly to to have a judicial system where no man is above the law.

I also remember, though, Gerald Ford in his final years getting the Profiles in Courage Award for for making sure that Richard Nixon did not go through the trauma of of trials and an ex-president being sent to jail. So how does history look at this? Yeah, you know, there's a lot of interesting revision about President Ford's decision in 1974, an incredibly unpopular decision politically in September. He framed it in terms of mercy. He announced it on a Sunday morning, had the largest one day drop in presidential polling in the history of presidential polling. And it helped cost him the election in 1976. And then you're right. 20 years later, there was this shifting view that he had, in fact, as President Carter put it in his inaugural address, that he had done so much to heal our land by pardoning Nixon.

The interesting revision of that revision is that it created a sense that presidents are above the law, that there is in the vernacular that Peter wrote about in that wonderful essay that you've quoted, that there's a line has been crossed. The one thing I'd suggest is that a line being crossed suggests that there was a limit that was beneficial. That's usually the way we mean that. I just think a new chapter is opening here. And that's a little different because Trump is so different. And Thomas Paine wrote on the eve of the American Revolution, a revolution made possible in part because of great words and what words mean. He said in America, the law is king and there are innumerable nuances. I understand that. But this is a genuine test of how mature we are as a democracy that believes in liberty under law.

And I don't know how we're going to do. Yeah. Reverend Al, maybe you can provide some insight on the prosecutor, Alvin Bragg. This is a man who, to the consternation of people who voted for him, to the consternation of his own prosecutors, refused earlier to charge Trump because he didn't believe they had enough on Trump. His prosecutors were so angry. They went to The Times and they talked about how they had Trump dead to center, but he just didn't have the courage, the power, the strength to go after Donald Trump. And even went out and wrote a book about it. And yet here we are with Alvin Bragg being, well, threatened, physically threatened,

having death threats, having the president post a post that has a baseball bat right next to his head. And he moved forward with the charges. Can you have any insights on why the same D.A. that wouldn't bring this six months or a year ago when everybody in his office was saying you've got Trump dead to center legally, why he wouldn't do it then but would do it now. Alvin Bragg is a solid, a rock solid kind of person who is very deliberate, very methodical and born, raised in Harlem, but was always a very studious person. I've known him last several years. He's a family man, Sunday school teacher, solid kind of person.

So when you would see him say, no, I'm not going forward with this case, even though it would have been politically expedient, I don't see it. Then you also should say that now that he has gone forward, there must be some things that we probably won't know till trial that convinced him that there is something to go forward with a lot of the hoopla that is coming from Trump and some of the Republican candidates are the same ones. They're saying this is politically motivated. Well, then they need to explain why he didn't do this case in the first place. If it was politically motivated. If it was based on some sponsors, they were the same sponsors that he had or didn't have a year ago. I think that

they're underestimating the solid, quiet strength of this prosecutor. And because of that, I don't know if he has something more than a Michael Kahn, if he has Weisselberg or someone else that might end up that we haven't factored in. Don't underestimate that Alvin Bragg would have not brought these charges unless he was convinced they were winnable. Well, he obviously feels like he has something now that he didn't have a year ago, Mika, or else he wouldn't have brought the charges. I've started getting calls and communications with legal people several days ago saying, watch Weisselberg. I didn't know what it meant then. I still really, we still really don't know. And we'll see if Weisselberg's involved, possibly when the indictments come down. We also hear about 30 count indictments. Maybe there's a lot more here than we expect, or maybe they just parsed the charges 30 different ways, which they can do.

Right. Now, given the unprecedented nature, the historic nature of the case, there are plenty of questions about exactly what comes next. According to Trump's attorneys, the former president will be arraigned in Manhattan next Tuesday. If he turns himself in, Trump will likely avoid the public perp walk that we usually see for those charged with crimes. If he refuses to surrender, prosecutors would need permission to extradite him from Florida back to his old home city of New York. That's something Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is already saying he will not help with. But while DeSantis could resist a move

to extradite Trump, he can't stop it. The New York Times reports that under Florida law, the governor has the power to call for an investigation of the extradition request to determine whether the person ought to be surrendered. The governor must also sign off on a warrant before the person who has been charged in another state can be arrested and detained. However, the Washington Post points out DeSantis would need to build a solid legal case to decline an extradition request. According to Article 4, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution, no state has the right to decline an extradition request from another state. Federal

law also outlines that states are required to comply with other states' extradition requests. There is no word on which option Trump will take. But according to multiple reports, Trump was welcoming the idea of a public spectacle in conversations with friends earlier this month. That's when he had announced he would be arrested. Regardless of how he enters the courtroom, Trump will have his fingerprints and mugshot taken like any other person charged. He will also hear his charges and enter a plea before a judge details the terms of his likely bail. It is unlikely that Trump will be held without bail. Jonathan Lemire, anything more you want to add to that reporting? But also the word from the White House is absolutely no word at this point. Yeah, that's right. Let's start there, Mika. The White House's strategy here is to say nothing at

all. They do not want to be accused of politically influencing the case. They don't want to be seen as putting their thumb on the scale. It's an active investigation. They will be quiet. They also, though, are very well aware of the political benefits of this split screen of Donald Trump being indicted while President Biden goes about his business running the country. Today, of course, he heads to Mississippi to meet with storm victims there. And they do have the same evaluation that many do in political circles, that though this may help Donald Trump in the short term in the GOP primary, it's certainly not going to help next year in the general election and that potential rematch with President Biden. As for Trump camp, talking to people in his orbit yesterday, there is no sense at this moment anyway that he will fight this indictment or extradition, that he will willingly go

to New York City to turn himself in early next week. So Governor DeSantis' bluster will likely be just that. There is people who have closed the door. President says that, well, this is a reality now. his bluster will likely be just that. There is people who have closed the poor president says that, well, this is a reality now. It's one thing to muse publicly about a fun perp walk when you don't think you're actually going to get charged. And now that he has, I don't think he's looking forward to that at all, people say. But he will go through this process. He will have to turn himself in. There is a sense that he'll need to be careful what he posts a little bit about this.

We know he's already been wrong about the timing of the indictment, but you don't want to be muzzled by the judge. You don't want to be perceived as intimidating the process or a juror, because if you were, you might lose your social media privileges or even the ability to travel. And he's got a campaign coming up, so that would complicate that. And lastly, I would say this, though. In New York State, it is not policy to release mugshots, unlike other jurisdictions. These do leak from time to time and certainly wouldn't be shocking if Donald Trump, considering he's already fundraising off of this indictment, if he were to leak his own mugshot, put it on a T-shirt, raise some money from supporters for his campaign. Willie, a couple of other things coming out from around Moralago.

First of all, he's already been warned by his lawyers repeatedly after the Alvin Bragg baseball bat to the head post to be far more careful with the social media posts for the reasons that Jonathan just pointed out. Also, we got that strange announcement yesterday that Alvin Bragg, that the grand jury was going to be taking a couple of weeks off. We joked about it yesterday about how long they were going to be taking off. That obviously lulled the Trump camp into a false sense of security. Donald Trump even thanking this grand jury in a post the day before saying how much he respected this grand jury and how much he thanked this grand jury. They actually thought they were going to beat this. They actually thought that

if he did face any possible indictment, it would be for weeks. But here you have him saying just a couple of days ago, I have gained such respect for this grand jury and perhaps even the grand jury system. So yesterday, obviously, Willie, Donald Trump and his team of lawyers, everybody at Mar-a-Lago shocked at the timing of this. And he had a misspelling in his post. He was so upset. Well, I don't know that that has anything to do with emotions. That's just sort of par for the course, isn't it? Yeah. That post that you just referenced, Joe, was 48 hours ago.

And now last night, we're back to being a third world country. So he's a little bit all over the place with his view of the grand jury. Jonathan's right. There is, of course, it goes without saying, fundraising happening on Donald Trump's behalf. He is selling T-shirts already. So get yours by midnight. I stand with Donald Trump to fight this indictment. And as you would expect as well, most Republicans are publicly supporting Donald Trump, many of them leaning into that familiar word weaponization.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy writes the Manhattan district attorney, Adam Bragg, quote, has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our presidential election. McCarthy goes on to write Bragg has weaponized our sacred system of justice. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise essentially had the same message, calling the indictment, quote, one of the clearest examples of extremist Democrats weaponizing government to attack their political opponents. You get the idea. Senator Rick Scott of Florida using similar language in his tweet about the indictment, as did Ron DeSantis, who called it a, quote, weaponization of the legal system. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also mentioning weaponization in his post on Twitter. And then there is Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,

who was on television last night begging people for money. They're trying to destroy Donald Trump because they fear him at the ballot box. To the conservatives out there, make sure you vote. If you got friends, make sure they vote. If you don't have any friends, go make some friends. But you need to help this man, Donald J. Trump. They're trying to drain him dry. He spent more money on lawyers than most people spend on campaigns. They're trying to bleed him dry.

DonaldJTrump.com. Go tonight. Give the president some money to fight this. Joe, I was going to say Lindsey Graham was dispatched to do that, but they don't even have to get the order anymore. They know their job is to run out on TV and to raise money. We go back to this again, Joe. Donald Trump so constantly hustles his supporters for money. Is he a billionaire or is he not? Legal fees should be a rounding error in his checking account. But he's constantly hustling his own supporters for money to pay his legal bills. And again, he's always lying to his supporters to get them to give them money for

something else. And then he spends it on his legal fees. But I got to say, looking at that, that was Rev. You know, I always talk about the Jim and Tammy Faye Baker approach to politics, scamming people like my grandmother out of their Social Security checks. Twenty five dollars here, fifty dollars there. I'm going to say that Lindsey Graham moment, he's tearing up. Lindsey knows what a bad man Donald Trump is. Lindsey's the one who said that if we make him our nominee, he will destroy the Republican Party and we deserve it. But Lindsey almost crying there. Almost. Yes.

Get pleased. Because that reminded me of Oral Roberts climbing up into his tower back in the 80s saying, give me three million dollars. I'm not coming down from this tower. He did. He said he was going to lose his life. He said he was going to lose his life. He said he was going to die. Yeah. Give me $3 million or I'm going to die up here in this tower.

But the thing is, just like Kevin McCarthy, Kevin McCarthy knows what a bad man Donald Trump is. He says it privately to anybody who will listen. Then he goes out and he's willing to throw America's judicial system under the bus. And Lindsey Graham, they're crying like Oral Roberts on top of his tower on. Give us more money. I mean, how much money is Donald Trump raised off of the big lie? How much money is he raised for legal fees already? No, it is.

It shows really how low they can go. But I think what this indictment does is expose the best and the worst in American politics in the 21st century. like some snake oil and trying to sell some bad goods to their followers to support something that not only is clearly been decided to be something that they would criminally charge, but something that they don't even know what the evidence is of states accountable and that there is no one above the law. So I think we need to try to, in the moment we're in, look at the good and the bad. the fact that you have a black man whose great grandfather had no rights anyone was bound to respect could indict the former most powerful person in this country. That gives me hope that this country is evolving amidst all of what we're going through in terms of the trauma of the moment. So we were kind of taking all in the information, Jen Psaki, over the past 24 hours and a lot on the on the far right and in some media outlets and some in the middle of major defamation lawsuits, making countless claims that this is the Biden White House colluding with the DOJ, that this is a police state, that this is the weaponization of the Biden White House.

And I guess I speak to you as someone who worked in the Biden White House and worked on the front lines of messaging. Does the Biden White House, does President Biden at some point speak out about this or how do they push back against what appear to be, since nobody knows what's in here, false claims or leaps forward being made by certain news outlets and commentators on the right. Absolutely. I mean, Juan Mika, I think for now what they're very mindful of in the White House in a moment like this is past precedent, which is, of course, that typically White Houses do not speak to an ongoing criminal investigation, which this is, right?

So that has been standard practice for many, many decades, putting Trump team aside. What they're also mindful of is what you just talked about, Mika, is that there is this accusation of politicization, right? And even in that Quinnipiac poll that came out earlier this week, while Democrats didn't think it was politicized and Republicans did, a large percentage of independents thought it was politicized. I think it was about 70 percent. So while this is not a problem for them in their view, if you're sitting in the White House in a general election, they're mindful of not trying to add more fuel to the fire to make it look more politicized. So I think when the president does speak to it, which having been there before and spent

a lot of time with him over the year and a half I was there, he will be stopped either on a rope line or he'll be stopped when he's going to the helicopter and he'll say something. My bet is their goal is to have that aligned with what Speaker Pelosi said, former Speaker Pelosi, or what Leader Schumer said, which is very 50,000 feet respect for rule of law and the legal process, because that's what this is a test of. And that's where they're going to want to stay when they speak to it. And Andrew Weissman, we have to underline again, we don't know what's in this sealed indictment. We will find out perhaps next week when the president is arraigned. But there is a reasonable chance that Donald

Trump goes to trial, has his day in court. A jury could roll its eyes at these charges and he is found innocent. That's the way the system works. So what do you expect to see just for people? There's so much emotion around this excitement on one side, outrage on the other. What is reasonable to expect? How will this play out? How long might it take? Great question, because I think for so many people, they've waited for the state to see some accountability in terms of criminal acts by the former president, whether they were before he became president, which apparently that's what's going to be charged here, or while he was president, or after he was president, which are investigations in

Georgia and at the federal level. All of that remains to be seen. With respect to Manhattan, there's a really good sort of roadmap for the time that this is going to take, which is looking at the case against the Trump organizations and Allen Weisselberg, the CFO, the chief financial officer, that case took 16 months to go to trial. And it's important for people to know that there's a reason for that, which is the same rule of law that leads to the accountability of even a former president. That is the same rule of law that requires that he, like everyone else, be accorded due process rights.

So he'll be entitled to discovery from the state. He'll be entitled to make motions like any other defendant challenging the legal viability of the case to ask for additional discovery, maybe change of venue, protections in choosing a jury. All of that and that delay that could be very frustrating is what people have to be prepared for if they believe that this is a rule of law country, the way many other countries are. And we are not the only country that has held current or former political leaders to account. So we are going down a path that's unique for us, but is not unique in terms of the world where people are held to account if they commit crimes. But it does require people to be patient because that's what due process requires. All right. NBC News legal analyst Andrew Weissman, thank you so much. And John Meacham, how ironic that a man who really launched his political campaign by

getting his audience and getting his staff members to chant, lock her up while mocking the Fifth Amendment as as a tool only of the mob ends up having his legacy defined by insurrections, riots, indictments, and a string of depositions where all he's doing is using Fifth Amendment protections that he once mocked. Yeah. You know, the other part of this culturally for the former president is the ghost of Roy Cohn, right? Cohn used to say, don't tell me what the law is. Tell me who the judge is. His entire métier, his entire identity, not just politically, but in business and in the culture of New York, has been that the fight is all, that the fight is what this is about. And, you know, we started talking about President Ford. After you mentioned it, I was thinking, you know, before the pardon on August 9th of 1974, when Ford said that our long national

nightmare is over in that same speech, he said, we are now once again, a government of laws and not of men. And one of the most unsettling things to me over the last, what, 12 or 14 hours has been the uniformly human-centric, personality-centric response of the Republican Party. The series of statements and tweets you laid out there. The governor of Virginia is the favorite of the 401k Republicans who think that somehow or another Trump is just going to disappear. And it's going to be the party of Reagan again. And there he is talking about following the talking points. And perhaps as remarkable as the indictment itself is the fact that the governor of Florida said he would not follow the Constitution

and extradite someone who's indicted to a different state. We sort of moved quickly past that for all the obvious reasons. But just for a second, sit back and think about that. And that's not because we're a government of laws. That's because too many people who are in the grip of this fever. And I hesitate to use that image, actually, because fevers break. And this shows no evidence of that. Quite the opposite. Who are in the grip of this cult of personality are willing to put the interests of a person and a party above the interests

of the Constitution. And so that's the fundamental question here. I don't want to be glib about it. I don't want to be hyperbolic about it. But straightforwardly, this is a test of citizenship. Are we a country of laws or are we a country where personalities can overwhelm the law simply by the force of the political passions of the moment? That's the issue we're living through. Well, and John, you could expand that out, actually.

It surprises me every day that many of my former colleagues, my former party members, they're willing to trash the rule of law. They're willing to attack the rule of law. They're always undermining America, either attacking American courts or attacking the military or attacking the Intel services or attacking higher education in America. They're attacking everything all because of a failed reality TV host who started a riot, tried to overturn an election, tried to undermine the Constitution by saying you wanted to terminate the Constitution of the United States because it got in his way. And now they're calling us a police state. I heard it on Fox News last night about a thousand times. You talk about somebody in the middle of the Dominion lawsuit just throwing just throwing

kerosene on the fire. It really is remarkable what so many people are willing to do who support Donald Trump, what they're willing to. And these main so-called mainstream Republicans you talk about, Yunkin, who tried to have it both ways. They tried to be country club Republicans and they nod and wink and they say they hate Donald Trump behind closed doors. So when they're at exclusive clubs across America, they can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then they go out and somebody like Glenn Yunkin trashes,

trashes the rule of law so he can play to the other side of the party. It's really sick. And it's this it's this. John, I want to just get to you. We got to go to break, but I just have you brought it up. I have to say it. There are a group of mainstream Republicans that Donald Trump hates that will still say quietly behind the scenes, oh, but, you know, it's just a passing fever. The Republican Party is the Republican Party. And it doesn't matter if it is Donald Trump, even if he tried to overthrow an election, even if he started riots on January the 6th, even if his actions led to the death of police

officers, even if he said we should terminate the Constitution, even if, even if, even if they will still stand behind that person, Donald Trump, despite the fact they detest him. And I just talked about Fox News. They say all the time they detest him. They loathe him. And then get on the air, say something completely different. That's the same thing with Glenn Youngkin. It's the same thing with I could go down the list of people you and I have spoken about these so-called mainstream Republicans. They say he's destroying the Republican Republic, but oh, they'll support him if he's a Republican nominee. I would love to know where that comes from. It's elemental, Joe, right? I mean, these, these are men's grill enablers, right? These are

19th hole enablers of a quest for power above all. This is really elemental, right? It's about Genesis. It's about that there's knowledge, there's power, there's something that you are told you can't have, and yet you want it. And so you take it. And once you take it, you don't want to let it go. And the remarkable thing about the United States of America is that our framers fundamentally understood this. They would be shocked that it took this long for us to be having this conversation. They understood the fallen, frail, fallible, appetite-driven nature of humankind. They were Calvinists. They believed we were depraved and fallen. And so what did they do? They built guardrails. They built a system that would check

our worst impulses and try to balance out our ambition. And it held, it has held for a long time. The interesting thing about the country is that it depends on our moral disposition. It depends on our ability, capacity, willingness to actually follow the law. And so the law is not as clinical as we sometimes want it to be. We have to, as Vodisky wrote, we have to follow the spirit of it. And that's the test we're facing. And if those who put power above all or tax rates above all could in fact be fatal to this experiment. That's what we're facing.

Yeah, the men's grill enablers of Trumpism, a form of fascism. I hope those drinks on the 19th hole are enjoyable for them. Willie, just in closing, just following up on what John said, another important line from Peter Baker's brilliant essay in The New York Times today. Well, the indictment of Mr. Trump takes a country into uncharted waters. The authors of the Constitution might have been surprised only that it took so long. A president impeached by the House and convicted and removed by the office by the Senate, quote, shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to the law. Article one, section three of the Constitution

declares. Willie. Yeah, and that's a point John was just making. The fact that it took this long maybe is the only surprise in the long history of our republic. And now we've already heard some Republicans saying, OK, we've crossed this bridge now. Maybe we find a grand jury. We find a prosecutor somewhere in a Trump friendly area that's going to try to indict sitting President Joe Biden or former President Biden when he becomes president. So it does open this up. That's not a reason not to pursue justice. Nobody's above the law. But it is a fact now, given the political culture we're in, that that is a possibility. We also should just make one final point, Nika and Joe, which is that the Justice Department found the circumstances of this case, a payoff to a porn star right before a presidential election. They found Michael Cohen guilty in 2018.

That was Donald Trump's Justice Department. So all this talk about the Biden Justice Department and Democrats weaponizing the Justice Department, the facts of the case that we're talking about right now were compelling enough for Donald Trump's Justice Department also to pursue those in 2018, five years ago when Donald Trump was president. So just one other layer to this story. John Meacham, thank you. We're going to be bringing John back a little later in the show because I think a little a little bit here about what happens at the morning Joe table. I think the history of this moment is the big story today. I think if there were viewers or people coming right now expecting to see hysteria or glee, there's nothing to report on. We don't know what is in this indictment. air about weaponization of the government or collusion with the Biden White House or

all sorts of other things that have led to this moment that are baseless, completely baseless. It's not responsible right now. We don't know what is in there, but we do know that this is a really sad moment and a perilous moment in American history because of the potential consequences of a former president being indicted and what that might open the door to. But if the indictment has legitimate laws broken, then there was no other choice but to move forward. And that's sad. Well, and I think we've all been saying it here, which is, again, two things can be true at once. This is this is crossing the Rubicon. Yeah. And there's no going back. And the consequences of this could be horrific.

You could have a prosecutor in West Texas decide to go after the next Democratic president. And and then you could have a Democratic D.A. doing the same thing. And so, yeah, that may be the Rubicon that we've crossed at the same time as Peter points out. And as John's pointed out, you also have the very, very American concept. And there are those of us who still actually believe in America, love America, and want to defend the rule of law in America, love America, and want to defend the rule of law in America, despite of the fact that a lot of people love a former game show host who started riots and behaved abhorrently. There's a lot of us that still believe that in this country, no man is above the law. And so there is a balancing act.

Two things can be true at once. If you turn this, I will say, if you turn this on and expected anybody to be gleeful on this show, you're not reading the room right. This is, these are very perilous times. It's not to say that perhaps after we read the indictment, we won't say, well, that makes a lot of sense. But there is so much at stake, so much on the line that we should probably treat this a little bit differently than we treat, let's say, Red Sox baseball games. Right. Which on that point didn't start. We'll get to that. OK, still ahead on Morning Joe.

We have much more reaction to the indictment of former President Trump, including what his former vice president, Mike Pence, is saying. Plus, New York City police are stepping up security on the heels of yesterday's announcement. Former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton joins us to weigh in on that. And Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and veteran Watergate journalist Bob Woodward will be our guest this morning. Also this morning, newly released 9-1-1 calls show the chaos and the terror that unfolded during this week's mass shooting at a school in Nashville and what we're learning about the detainment of an American journalist in Russia and how the White House is responding. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Forty six past the hour, live look at New York City, a beautiful shot as the sun comes up over the Big Apple.

Law enforcement is preparing for potential protests in the wake of the indictment of former President Trump. The NYPD issued a memo yesterday requiring all officers to be prepared for deployment in the case of, quote, unusual disorder. There is reason why police are taking seriously the potential for violence in the wake of Trump's indictment. Nearly two weeks ago, Trump called for mass protests. He referred to the Manhattan D.A. as an animal and a danger who should be removed. He told his supporters the country is being destroyed and that prosecutors are doing the work of the devil. Call them the Gestapo. He amplified a threatening image, suggesting the D.A. could be beaten with a baseball bat and warned of death and destruction if he is held accountable. Couple that with his loaded language in the past about guns and Hillary Clinton.

And his continuing praise of the January 6th insurrectionists, including his collaboration with members of a prison choir who were incarcerated for attacking police. Joining us now, former New York City police commissioner, the now executive chairman of the Teneo Risk, Bill Bratton, and former secretary of Homeland Security under President Obama, Jay Johnson. Mr. Commissioner, what would you be doing this morning as commissioner of NYPD? I'm sorry, Joe, I did not hear the question. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm just curious, what would you be doing just to prepare to prevent the next January 6th if you were running the NYPD again? Well, the police commissioner is very busy. Her and her department began to see some of that yesterday with the increased security around the courthouse, district attorney's office. Security has been increased significantly,

certainly for the district attorney and others. And the good news is that New York has great experience dealing with every type of experience in terms of whether it be terrorism or large crowds demonstrations. And in this event, they will be watching very closely, monitoring social media, intelligence sources. I don't think you're going to see huge crowds churning out for this thing, particularly from the Trump side. Mr. Trump is not thought

very well of here in New York and in Manhattan. I think you're going to have larger crowds that will be demonstrating against him rather than in support of him. In any event, the police department will be prepared to deal with it. Commissioner Bratton, good morning. When Donald Trump first said, I'm going to be arrested on Tuesday, a couple of weeks ago, there was a small smattering, a handful of Trump supporters downtown protesting. Can you speak, though, as someone who has obviously served at the top of the New York Police Department, about the kind of resources it has, the kind of intelligence it has, and why it would be much, much more difficult and probably unwise for people to try to incite violence in lower Manhattan. My predecessor, Commissioner Kelly, after the events of 9-11, created an entity, almost

1,000 officers working on intelligence gathering, counterterrorism. Jay Johnson, who I worked very closely with, sitting beside me here when he was only a security secretary during my last time as commissioner. It's an example of the close collaboration that exists here in New York City. And New York does an extraordinary job analyzing, gathering intelligence, monitoring social media. So these demonstrations right now, they're not picking up much information about planned demonstrations. They're actually more concerned about the lone wolf, the person that they don't pick up on social media, they don't hear from. At the same time, they have phenomenal resources to bring

into this issue. Last week, in anticipation of an action last week, they fielded what they call mobile field forces. They put out 10 of them. That's over 400 officers scattered around lower Manhattan that could respond very quickly to any unplanned merging situation. Now, the NYPD, working in coordination with their counterparts and other agencies, will be very well prepared for this. So, Mr. Secretary, we just went through what could happen, may or may not happen, in lower Manhattan. And there was just a small group of protesters last week. We also know that this morning in Palm Beach near Mar-a-Lago, a very small group of demonstrators there as well. But it's a big country. From the sitting, taking a look back from your former job, looking at the entire nation,

there certainly, Donald Trump has fervent supporters throughout the country. What steps do you think federal law enforcement right now is taking in case something else were to erupt, perhaps not outside the courthouse, but in a Trump stronghold? Well, first, I want to echo what Bill said. I have a lot of confidence in the NYPD. In 2015, when Bill was commissioner and I was secretary, we managed probably the largest domestic security operation in history with the UN General Assembly of 170 world leaders plus the Pope. So I'm sure the NYPD will be prepared here in New York. They know how to do this kind of thing. On the national scale, I am very concerned that former President Trump has abandoned all moderation in his rhetoric.

It is overheated rhetoric. What he is essentially doing in talking to his base, those who, as John put it, are still under his spell, is basically take up arms against our government, state and local. And particularly after January 6th, Mr. Trump ought to know the consequences of this kind of rhetoric. You know, he will swear that I did not intend violence by my rhetoric. But there's a point where you do intend the consequences of your actions. And we've seen this with January 6th. I'm very concerned that this could be a repeat of that. I know that the Department of Homeland Security

right now, as we speak through its intelligence and analysis directorate, is closely monitoring social media, all of its sources, just as is the NYPD and the FBI, looking for potential demonstrations that could turn violent on a national level, whether it's here in New York or Mar-a-Lago or anyplace else. And I think they need to be vigilant right now, given the former president's very overheated rhetoric. Secretary, having said that, on the other side of it, there are a lot of emotions. People that have been anti-Trump, anti-what he stands for. I among them. How would you counsel them? Because one of the things we've been saying overnight is don't play into it. Do not be the ones that come out and try to go, as we would say, tit for tat with those that

would express anger and would want to see violence. How would you counsel people that we're looking at a moment that we ought not be celebrating because it's a sad moment to see a former president have to do this, even though we feel it could lead to justice? How would you counsel the anti-Trump crowd that may show up as the police commissioner here said? Peaceful demonstration. The right to protest is part of our values, our heritage, our history, and our culture. As you know, Reverend, Martin Luther King would counsel demonstrations, protest, but

always peaceful. After George Floyd, many people, millions of Americans, took to the streets and protested in a peaceful manner. I count myself as a protester for some of the marches I was in after George Floyd, as you were. And so peaceful demonstration, the peaceful exercise of our First Amendment rights and our freedom to assemble is part of who we are as Americans, but always peaceful. Commissioner Bratton, we want to turn to you for a fact check, if we can. One of the talking points emanating from the right in the aftermath of this indictment is saying the DA bragged that he's too focused on Donald Trump and ignoring the crime that's happening in his backyard, the crime that's happening in Manhattan. Can you provide some context as to whether there's any truth at all to that point? What is the DA and

NYPD doing about crime each and every day here in New York City? The district attorney's office in Manhattan is a very large operation. They have the capability to do multiple things at the same time. So the idea of the focus of his office on this case, certainly attracting a lot of resources to it. At the same time, he's got a very large operation that continues to focus on the crime situation. I've been a critic of the district attorney relative to his crime fighting in this city, so make that known. But at the same time, his office is very capable of doing the investigation of Mr. Trump's activity, while at the same time trying to focus more actively on the crime situation in New York.

Thank you. Former New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and former Homeland Security Secretary Jay Johnson, thank you both very much for your insight this morning.