Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/3/23

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Alex Murdaugh guilty in murders of wife and son

So, welcome to America in the year 2023, where we are destroying the country we love. That's what's happening right here in America. We are destroying the country we love. Now, to be clear, it's not you, it's not me, we're not destroying our country. It's the President of the United States who's destroying our country. It's the president of the United States who's destroying our country. It's the U.S. Senate that is destroying our country. It's the news media. It's the Democrat Party, academia, Hollywood, Wall Street, and many of our big corporations. Wow. Florida Senator Rick Scott

starting his CPAC speech with a lighthearted and such an optimistic tone. Good morning in Bulgaria. There was plenty of MAGA messaging at the conference. Just as you can see, not a lot of people there to hear it.

That was dark. That was really dark. Donald Trump will take the stage tomorrow. Very Reagan-esque. That's where Reagan said, oh wait, he said, we're a city. Shining on a hill. Shining on a hill for the world to see. No, that was not that.

Town's a little different there. Yeah, incredibly different. So anyhow, this Trump appearance tomorrow is following a campaign announcement that is clearly influenced by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. We'll explain what's going on with those two. Meanwhile, a new decision from the Justice Department connected to January 6th could mean more legal issues for the former president. My God, he has like four or five different legal cases against him going at the same time. How could he get more? Now people can sue him? I mean, they've got like bingo cards.

For January 6th? Yeah. At Moral Law. That's a lot of lawsuits. They have bingo cards, you know, this person shouts out, Georgia prosecution. And then so they'll find out. I don't know how he's like swimming in them. Yeah.

Good morning. I mean, yeah, all over the place. All over the place. You see where I'm going here. Yeah, I do. and then so they'll find i don't know how he's like swimming in them yeah good morning i mean yeah all over the place all over the place i'm going here yeah i do so enough potential prosecutions and civil lawsuits to fill a bingo card it's gonna be a busy couple of years for the former president well it could be why he's running good morning and welcome to morning joe it's friday march 3rd we made it to Friday. Can you believe it? And who also made it to Friday? This I never understand. After all the television he does, the host of Way Too Early and White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire,

is still with us, hanging in there. Amazing. And Pulitzer Prize winning columnist at The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, is here. And White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein. Willie has the morning off. And, you know, Jonathan Lemire, he he he is getting to energize, got into a special club yesterday. It appears that he was attacked on truth social by the former president of the United States. It seems those those scars that he got politically from your question on Helsinki continue to burn. Yeah, the former president weighed in on way too early yesterday and its host suggesting that I don't quite have what it takes. And look, we know Mr. Trump calls it like he sees it. So who are we to dispute his assessment of things? But I think the actual somewhat serious point about this is that you're right, Joe.

He has been talking about Helsinki repeatedly in recent weeks. I think he knows that it's something that he's going to have to face as he ramps up his next presidential campaign. And obviously his assessment of Vladimir Putin is, shall we say, out of step with most of the rest of the country during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Well, and of course, a question for those of the uninitiated. It was Jonathan Lemire in Helsinki in 2018 that stood up and asked Donald Trump, do you trust professionals in the intelligence community or do you trust an ex-KGB agent who called the collapse of the Soviet Union the biggest disaster of the 20th century. And Donald Trump, of course, chose Vladimir Putin over professionals that work every day to keep us safe.

Yeah. And that doesn't really go away. You can't really you can't run run away from that. No, you can't. But I do think Jonathan Lemire has what it takes. OK, I think he's going to be OK. And, you know, I don't lie. I say exactly what I think. And you know what you're getting with me, Lemire. Yeah, that's going to be okay. And you know, I don't lie. I say exactly what I think.

And you know what you're getting with me, LaMere. Yeah, that's rare praise, frankly. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's what it takes. A few other things we need to talk about. A little bit, but that's okay.

You want to start from a good... I'm just an honest person, but this is good. You want to start from a solid base. You don't want to be trying to do lots of tricks and be a comedian and this and that. Straight news. Right down the line. You're doing a great job. I think I'll tell you what you do that. I'm going to. They just delivered the Wall Street Journal. I'm going to read that. You do want to continue this conversation. I was just giving him some tips. I'd love to get some real estate news. All right. We begin in South Carolina. You're welcome, Jonathan. We begin in South Carolina where a jury, you'll find this interesting, has found disbarred lawyer Alec Murdoch guilty of murdering his wife, his son.

And this happened in three hours. State versus Richard Alexander Murdoch, defendant. Indictment for murder. SC code 16 dash three dash zero zero one zero. CDR code zero one6, verdict guilty. A jury of seven men and five women deliberated for less than three hours before unanimously finding the 54-year-old guilty. Murdoch was also convicted on two counts of weapons possession. Following the verdict, the defense immediately moved for a mistrial, which the judge denied. The defense and prosecution then addressed reporters outside the courtroom. We're very disappointed in the verdict, but it did not be appropriate.

Justice was done today. It doesn't matter who your family is. It doesn't matter how much money you have or people think you have. It doesn't matter what you think, how prominent you are. If you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina. Murdoch faces 30 to 50 years in prison without parole on each murder count. He also faces up to five years for each weapons charge. Sentencing is set for later this morning. I've got to say, you know, Gene, usually if a jury's out for three hours and they come back in, I don't know. Since the weight of these charges are so grave and you have so much evidence, usually that means, you know, they're going to dismiss them.

I'm just surprised that they came to this that quickly. Yeah, well, it took them three hours, it seems, to decide between guilty and guilty as hell. I mean, they clearly you have to assume those jurors, you know, I assume jurors do what they're supposed to do and that they sat there in that courtroom for 28 days. They heard the testimony. They didn't talk about it among themselves. They got in the room, and they discovered that, unanimously, they didn't believe this guy. They did believe the prosecutors. They thought he, you know, he, you know, in retrospect, actually, at the time, you knew that when he took the stand in his own defense, that's usually a pretty desperate move.

There's a man who knows the law. He's a lawyer. He knows how risky, how dangerous it is for a, to take the stand, he decided to do so. And I think that's because he knew that the case was going south, and he was repugnant and so easy to dislike and to disbelieve on the stand. He just had to confess to lie after lie after lie after lie. And then the circumstantial evidence just was pretty overwhelming that what happened was not nowhere near what he said happened. And that, in fact, it put him right at the scene of the of the murders. I think, what, four minutes before they happened. It was just it was they found it overwhelming and convincing and, you know, three hours.

Wow. And you look at his response to the guilty verdict. I mean, it looked like he was stone-faced. Stone-faced. Looked like he was walking, you know, to lunch down the street. Let's bring it right on. State Attorney for Palm Beach County, Dave Ehrenberg, also MSNBC legal analyst, Danny Zavala. He is a longtime defense attorney.

Dave, as an active prosecutor, let me ask you, when you heard they were coming back after 30 minutes, what were your what was your thought? Three hours. Three hours. What was your thought? Guilty, Joe. A five-week trial, a three-hour verdict after that mountain of circumstantial evidence. There was no way that jury was coming back in three hours with unanimous not guilty verdict. And it was because he lied. And the jury, I think, was so repulsed by the fact that he lied to them, to their own faces, saying that essentially, yeah, he lied every day about his alibi. But today was the day he was telling the truth because he said it was the opioids that made him so paranoid that he lied previously. Well, look, if the opioids made him so paranoid that he lied and lied and lied, wouldn't it make him so paranoid that perhaps

he would kill? Or is this selective paranoia? The jury didn't buy it. I'm glad they didn't. Justice was done. So Danny Savalos, it also seemed very clear that he was, I mean, he convicted himself practically by choosing to testify. I can't imagine his lawyers were enjoying watching his testimony, which just seemed to open door after door after question after question about his innocence or guilt. And what struck me from watching it is that he talked openly and kind of in a blasé manner about hurting the people he loved. Not only that, he admitted to paranoia when he was on massive amounts of drugs and all kinds of other lies that he told. Look, it's commonly said that as soon as your client, the defendant, loses credibility with

the jury, it's over. And in a strange way, there was such a mountain of lack of credibility here that it was almost lost in the case. And so you're absolutely right. If we go back to the tape, you can hear his attorney say when he's called, they don't say the defense calls Alex Murdoch. They say the Mr. Murdoch would like to testify on his own behalf. That could be a hint as to who really wanted to testify. Was it the defense team or I think more likely the man who believes he's been able to talk his way through absolutely everything. And that is a hallmark of white collar defendants. They believe that if I just get a chance to get to the podium, I can explain everything away, just like Alec

Murdoch presumably did with all of his financial fraud crimes that he's accused of now and that he has to face. So was his testimony planned? I mean, most of the time it's a last minute decision, but he had a constitutional right to go up there and bury himself. So, Dave, there's been some legal analysis, including from Danny last hour, that suggested that the motive actually was remained unclear, was probably the weakest part of the prosecution's case. Now, obviously, that didn't seem to matter to the jury considering how quickly they came back with their decision. But how unusual is that to have a motive that's murky and they kind of even set it aside, but yet still get such a guilty verdict, especially a super quick one. Yeah, well, Danny's a smart guy.

And he knows, right? Yeah, he knows that you don't have to prove motive in a first-degree murder case, but the jurors want to know the why. And the weakest part of the state's case was the why. He was, by all accounts, a loving father, and yet he slaughtered his son and his wife. So why did he do it? Well, he gave prosecutors an additional motive by testifying, which is why his testimony backfired.

Because in addition to the financial crimes, which I thought were convincing, it was the paranoia that he admitted he experienced from the opioids. So here he is telling the jury that not only did the opioids make him so paranoid that he lied, but also they energized him. So he gave the prosecutors another reason to say, look, members of the jury, use your common sense. Here's a guy hopped up on drugs who had nothing to lose. Everything was coming down on him, and he acted desperately. And I thought a powerful moment in the close was when the prosecutors said, yeah, he loved his son and loved his wife.

But Alex loved himself more than anyone else. So I'm going to just throw this open to everybody because I know there are probably a lot of viewers that are like me. I didn't follow this closely. And the thing that whenever I would walk past the TV set and I'd see him and we just showed pictures of his his family, his beautiful family. I would just sit there and go, what? What in the world? What's going on? What happened? Why did he do it? Like, why would any father do this? What does anybody we just heard Dave talk about the motive, one of the motives. Does anybody have a good, good convincing motive as to why this guy would do this? I have an answer to that. And the answer is, who cares?

Prosecutors all the time convict people and they don't even bother to introduce a motive. You know why? Because crime is senseless. It doesn't make sense. You don't always find out the answers to your questions in a criminal case. The defendant isn't talking. And sometimes you'll have some robbery gone bad where somebody robs their someone who was their best friend five minutes before and they get convicted in the average run of the mill case with some nobody in some impoverished neighborhood that you haven't heard of before. This would have been a guilty verdict in 10 minutes, not three hours.

So the prosecution almost buried themselves by introducing this motive theory. They didn't have to. And you know what? You know how I know they know that in the rebuttal they addressed it. They pivoted away from this financial crime sympathy theory and told the jury, we don't need to prove motive. Yeah, it would be great, but we don't have to prove motive. All you need to find is that there was one person there with a gun who killed his wife and son. And it's that man. And they use the old prosecutor tool. I'm sure Dave knows it. Point again and again to that defendant in the room. Look, the prosecution did a great job. Don't get me wrong. But they almost sabotaged themselves with that financial crime evidence. And even that I can't fault them for because they have the burden of beyond a reasonable doubt. It encourages and

incentivizes backing up the dump truck and putting everything you can in front of the jury because there's that paranoia that you might leave something out. Overall, good case. By the way, on both sides, defense did the best they could with terrible facts. Yeah, so Danny just answered. If we can show the whole group right now. Danny answered for the three lawyers that you see on the screen. Me and the guys on the bottom right-hand side. But Gene Robinson for the non-lawyers. There are a lot of non-lawyers out there who say,

I get what Danny's saying, but I want to know. And that's what people are going to be doing podcasts about for the next year or two years. Why did he do this? Well, you know, Netflix and HBO have both done documentaries, both of which I recommend, on the Murdoch family, on this dynasty in this small, insular, low-country county of South Carolina. His great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father, all of them successively were the solicitor, essentially the district attorney for that judicial district in South Carolina. It's a dynasty unbroken for 100 years. And he also was a kind of deputy solicitor for a while. So he'd be kind of a prosecutor in addition to his own law practice. So there they were very, very big fish in the small pond of Hampton County. And he was kind of the end of the line. I mean, he was the one who, after all of that, had become addicted to opioids.

He wasn't that great a lawyer. He made a lot of money, but he he nobody accused him of being the brightest light, certainly at the at the end of this line. His you know, the son he killed had been involved, had been responsible for a tragic boating accident in which a young woman was killed. And Ali Murdoch had essentially tried to cover that up, tried to blame somebody else for it. There's a history of this family. And I think there's a sense, there's a very Southern Gothic sense of him sort of knowing he was the end of the line of this dynasty and and going out in a blaze of annihilation i mean that's kind of what it feels like to me

and and you know sam stein has been obsessed with this trial from the very beginning he's been taking notes he's been sitting in front of the tv set So it's not even fair asking him about it. We're going to move on to the next story and see if he has something to say about the next story. All right. The Justice Department says police officers and members of Congress can sue former President Trump for his role in allegedly inciting violence on January 6th. In a court filing, attorneys for the DOJ wrote Trump does not have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits related to the Capitol riot. It does not say whether Trump is liable for the violence. An appeals court asked for the DOJ's opinion after Trump claimed immunity to several

lawsuits filed by two Capitol police officers and 11 members of Congress. Trump says he was acting in his official duties when he told supporters he would never concede the 2020 election and that they should, quote, fight like hell. The DOJ argues presidential duties, quote, do not include incitement of imminent private violence, urging an appeals court to reject Trump's immunity claims and return the cases to a lower court. A Trump spokesperson said the president, quote,

repeatedly called for peace, patriotism and respect for our men and women of law enforcement on January 6th and that the courts should rule in favor of President Trump

in short order and sat back and watched. And dismissed these frivolous lawsuits. Watched the violence for hours. Rewound, according to his own Trumpers staffers. Families doing little dances. Rewound and watched the violence again on his TV set. The most violent parts he would sit there and revel in. Well,

everybody called him, his family, his aides, his lawyers, everybody begged him to call off the violence and he refused to do so. So lots of luck with that. And in a civil court case and Sam Stein, of course, I know you're not a lawyer, but you can play one on TV. Obviously, the thing with the civil lawsuit as a standard is so much lower. This is yet one more legal headache for Donald Trump. Well, yes, 100 percent agree with that. I think you have to consider this in the broad context of the myriad different cases that he is dealing with, both from his time in office, his actions around the certification of the election,

the recounts in various states, and of course, his business empire up in New York, which is, again, under scrutiny, legal scrutiny, that is. This is just such a weird posture or position for someone to launch into a presidential campaign. It's a diversion of resources for him. He's had to hire so many different lawyers, it's very difficult to actually keep track of who's covering what. It's also very difficult for him to find lawyers. And of course, if you're running for president, you're just having to wait for the next shoe to drop on any of these fronts. It could be something having to do with the retention of documents from his time in the White House, right?

There are just so many different cases. And, you know, in a weird, perverse way, you can make the case that it could help Trump. It could rally his most loyal fans, the base behind him. I certainly think that's what they believe, that, you know, the Republican Party would look at this as an unfair attack behind him. I certainly think that's what they believe, that, you know, the Republican Party will look at this as an unfair attack on him. But I think in the aggregate, this is not something you want to have to deal with when you're trying to win the presidency. Right. And I think that's the issue. If you could just say, look, it's Merrick Garland or look, it's just, you know, Georgia going out. No, I mean, it's coming from so many different directions.

And Jonathan Lemire, it seems it will. It's just quite something to see a man who has gotten away with cutting corners, gotten away with lying, gotten away with cheating, gotten away with stiffing contractors, gotten away with constantly thinking that he's above the law, that all of this seems to be coming together. And we've seen the slow build up over years, but all of this seems to be coming together. And I've got to say, we went over the list yesterday. I can't figure out what causes the most immediate threat to him. Georgia certainly is a problem, as we said yesterday, because he's got the perfect phone call, the perfect phone call for prosecutors. And then you look at the document case in Moralago, it's very clear the guy lied through his teeth. And obstructed an investigation.

Obstructed an investigation. That's a slam dunk for anybody. Anybody else would be in jail by now. The Stormy Daniels payoff money a couple of days before the election that was funneled through different channels. Any member of Congress would be in jail for that. I mean, we could go down the list and then you have the civil lawsuits. You have what's coming in New York State at him for the on the civil side in this business. And now and now you have these cases which, man, you get a family member of a cop who who got the hell beaten out of him on on Capitol Hill on January the 6th. Well, Donald Trump was sitting in the Oval Office and people were begging for him to stop the violence. And he refused. Instead, he just kept rewinding the most violent parts where cops were getting their brains

bashed in with American flags. I, I would not, I would not want to be the defendant in that civil lawsuit. Yeah, we're going to need to add an hour to the show to cover all the legal peril, all the cases that Donald Trump is facing right now. And you're right. He is someone who his whole life has managed to escape without penalty. He's always managed to get out of it. Yes, he lost the 2020 election. So he faced political repercussions there. But he is always someone who has managed to somehow land on his feet. But there is a sense that time might might be ending just because the sheer overwhelming number of legal challenges he faces right now.

And it might only take one to trip him up. And yet there might be, as I agree with Sam, I think there are there could be some short term political benefits to rally his base. But long term, this is going to be very challenging for this man to run for president with all of this burden. So I'm not a lawyer who can rank them illegal peril, but I'm surrounded by two of them. Dave Ehrenberg, let's get your take here. Joe just went through the whole list. We don't need to repeat them. But what is one or two that stands out to you that poses the greatest, gravest threat to Donald Trump? The documents. The documents are the greatest threat to Donald Trump's future freedom because there's a direct tie between Trump and the criminal conduct

there. It's the obstruction. It's not the possession of the documents. So Biden and Pence have nothing to do with this. It's his refusal to give them back. And he has said, yeah, the documents are mine. So you don't need a lot more than that. So I think that's his greatest threat. Now, George is a great threat, too, because the D.A. there has said that charges are imminent. And unlike anything else, there's a recording of Trump saying, find me 11,780 votes. That's powerful evidence. And we saw from that grand juror that it looks like he's going to be indicted. The question is when.

I don't put too much stock in the New York litigation. I think Tish James from a civil side is doing something real there. But from a criminal side, I don't believe that my counterpart, the DA there, is really going to indict the former president. He had the chance to do so, and he didn't. I don't think that's going to happen now. Danny, what about you? What should Donald Trump be most worried about? Candidly, I think the New York AG and the Manhattan DA, their efforts so far have been mostly a fizzle.

They've stopped. They've started. At the end of the day, it appears the only thing they indicted was a company, which at the end of the day there is really about fines and getting money back. And the money they got back was about a million dollars. So not a huge win there, in my opinion. I would have said the Georgia grand jury posed the biggest threat, but not necessarily on the substance. It's more because it is a state, a county prosecutor, and they have something that the federal government doesn't have. The federal government is concerned about institutionalism, separation of powers. You can hear it when Merrick Garland gives a press conference. They worry about

things like whether or not this will violate separation of powers to charge a former president. A county elected DA, they can shoot for the moon. They can try to put the biggest trophy on their wall. And in a sense, because they're elected, they're incentivized to do that. So there is stuff on the substance there. But practically speaking, Georgia does pose a threat. But I do agree with Dave. The obstruction on the documents right now, the greatest pressing threat. All right. MSNBC legal analyst Danny Savalas and state attorney for Palm Beach County, Dave Ehrenberg. Thank you both. A big morning here this Friday morning and still ahead on Morning Joe. We have much more from CPAC. We'll take a look at yesterday's speakers and how they tried to fire up the crowd with dire warnings about 2024 and red meat for the MAGA base. That's a crowd there. Plus, Mike Pence won't say

whether he would support Donald Trump as the 2024 nominee. What he had to say about better choices. Also ahead, the House Ethics Committee has officially opened an investigation into embattled Republican Congressman George Santos. the latest on where that new probe stands and what President Biden is now saying about a potential trip to Ohio in the wake of that toxic train derailment four weeks ago. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Shot in New York. 32 past the hour.

It's been a month since that train derailment and toxic chemical spill along the Ohio Pennsylvania border. And after previously saying he didn't have any plans to go to East Palestine, Ohio, President Biden now says he's looking into visiting the area. I've spoken with every official in Ohio, Democrat and Republican, on a continuous basis, as in Pennsylvania. I laid out a little bit in there what I think the answers are. We put it together, and we will be implementing an awful lot of intuitive legislation here, and I will be on to it. The White House also praised the Senate's bipartisan Railway Safety Act, writing in part, quote, this legislation provides us with tools to hold companies accountable to prevent terrible tragedies like the Norfolk southern derailment in East Palestine and to make those communities whole. The legislation heightens fines for safety

violations and requires more frequent inspections on routes carrying dangerous chemicals. Meanwhile, residents in East Palestine continue to demand answers from local officials and the rail company Norfolk Southern. They expressed concerns about their health during a town hall yesterday, saying they fear dioxins that have not yet been detected will cause long term damage. The EPA says it has ordered Norfolk Southern to begin testing for those chemicals. And President Biden surprised some Senate Democrats yesterday, telling them he won't veto GOP legislation designed to rescind a new D.C. crime law. Multiple senators told reporters that Biden made an announcement at a closed- door meeting yesterday with Democrats on Capitol Hill. The D.C. City Council passed the crime bill in January.

It would get rid of mandatory sentences and lesser penalties for certain violent crimes, including carjackings and robberies. But the House blocked the bill in a bipartisan vote last month. House Democrats who voted against blocking it cited Washington, D.C.'s historical precedent of home rule or self-governance. The resolution still needs to pass in the Senate. So far, Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mark Kelly of Arizona and independent Senator Angus King of Maine have all told NBC News they support the resolution. The Senate is expected to consider the resolution next week. This is fascinating on so many fronts. You have a lot of a lot of Democrats who support D.C. statehood who don't usually usually like to get involved in things like this. But I know a lot of people that live, well, a lot of people, most people I talk to who live in D.C.

talk about quality of life problems, crime problems, and they really want the city to be more aggressive. And this bill seemed to be going the other way. So kind of an extraordinary moment where the Democrats, enough Democrats, are siding with the Republicans here to overturn this law. And Joe Biden's going to step aside and let them do it. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, about quality of life problems in D.C., anybody who's been here for any length of time knows that the quality of life in D.C. is now, you know, much better than it was 30 years ago, much better than it was 20 years ago. I mean, it's an incredible city. The issue right now is that downtown is kind of empty, like every downtown, because of work from home and after the pandemic.

But home rule is, you know, is a Democratic Party position of longstanding. It is an outrage that the citizens of the District of Columbia, nearly 700,000 people have no voting representation in Congress. You know, we had a revolution about that in 1776. I mean, these are citizens of the United States who pay their taxes, and they don't have representation. What they have is a—they're under Congress, essentially, and what they have is a commitment, a law, a home rule structure that allows the district to make its own decisions to a point. But Congress can always intervene. There are a lot of people who don't like this new bill, this new crime bill, and feel it's

too lenient. And Congress has the right to block it. I think President Biden probably doesn't like it either, but he certainly decided that as he looks ahead toward 2024, that he is not going to be on the wrong side of this issue or what he sees as the wrong side of this issue. And he cares about that enough to essentially violate this principle that the Democrat Party has held for a long time, that citizens of the District of Columbia ought to be able to make their own decisions. There have been over the years a number of sort of, you know, originalist constitutional Republicans who have taken the same position. And when they have run the relevant committees, have taken the position

that, no, D.C. ought to be able to make its own decisions. But Congress still has the ultimate say. And apparently they're going to exercise it in this case. All right. Coming up, Steve Ratner says it's not clear what the U.S. can do to punish China if it sends military support to Ukraine without hurting our own economy. He'll join us with charts on that and explain. CIA officer afflicted by the so-called Havana syndrome after an intelligence community assessment found no evidence linking the mysterious illness to any foreign adversary. Plus, we'll be joined by the ranking member of the House Intel Committee. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. If that standard bearer is the former president, if he is the nominee, would you support him? Well, I think we'll have better choices. And I really trust Republican voters to sort it out. Again, I'm very proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration.

I think no one could have defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 other than Donald Trump. But I think different times call for different leadership. That's not a yes in terms of Trump, if he's the nominee. I'm very confident we'll have better choices come 2024. And I'm confident our standard bearer will win the day in November of that year. Former Vice President Mike Pence remaining cagey over whether he would support his former boss in 2024. That bothers you, doesn't it? Well, I mean, he's saying we're going to have better choices.

So he's saying Trump is a bad choice, a very bad choice for the Republican Party, a horrible choice, and that there will be better choices. Is he the better choice? I guess Republicans can decide that. But I mean, you know, Sam Stein, let's say you're running and you want to win the Republican nomination. You know, Donald Trump has 40 percent, maybe 45 percent support on a good day. And that party think it's going to be hard to say, no, I won't support the Republican standard bearer, even though it's deeply offensive to us. If you're still in that party and you want to win that nomination, how do you tell 45 percent of the people that you're not going to vote for a Republican when you want to be the Republican nominee?

Yeah, I mean, this is the this is the existential question right now for Republicans. And we were writing about this in Politico. How big is that always Trump portion of the party, right? We talk about the never Trump portion, but what is the always Trump portion of the party? Those people who will essentially say that they'll sit out the election if Trump is not the nominee. Now, you know, they may be full of it right now. And that's the calculation that I think Pence and others are making is that you can keep them in the fold, but you have to somehow win the nomination without offending them. And winning the nomination means defeating Donald Trump. The flip side of this, of course, is that if you don't go after Trump

by name, you risk something similar to what happened in 2016, which is essentially everyone's trying to be the last man standing against Trump, in this case, the last man or woman standing against Trump. And he ends up getting by with that 35% to 40%. So far, it's really early, obviously, and we only have a couple declared candidates and pseudo-candidates. But so far, you're seeing that same script, right? I mean, Nikki Haley is a great example of this. Someone who's clearly trying to contrast herself with Trump, but not doing so in name. She does it by saying, oh, we need to have mental acuity tests for politicians over 75. Well, that would be Trump. We need generational

change. We need to get rid of the, you know, perma-politician. You know, those are all subtle digs at Trump. But remember, Nikki Haley had said Trump disqualified himself after January 6th. One thing Nikki Haley has not brought up in her early time on the trail is January 6th. And so none of these candidates seem to want to go after Trump for his weaknesses. They're just sort of hoping that he can go away or that they can whisk him away. It's like they're pretending he doesn't exist. Yeah, and it doesn't work. Here's Nikki Haley trying to do it.

I don't kick sideways. I'm kicking forward. I don't kick sideways. I kick forward. You know, I kick forward. I talk about Joe Biden. I'm not worried about Trump. I just, I don't even know.

I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. You've got a primary to win. Who kicks sideways? I mean, how do you kick sideways? What are you? Opponents. How do you kick sideways?

Well, you can kick sideways. You trip. I don't know. I don't get it. And you kick sideways? Well, you can kick sideways. I don't know. I don't get it. And I think at a primary, you need to. What I do get is to win. Kick sideways? Look, I don't.

I mean, is there any way to speak to Donald Trump's base about to be a Republican? Yeah. Maybe Pence, maybe Haley, maybe somebody well-known in the Republican Party who worked with Trump, who decides to address his people, the Trump base, the MAGA base, whatever you want to call it, and say, this man has led you astray.

This man supports insurrections. This man... No, they don't. they don't care about that. They tune to a network that lies to them about that every night, who admits that they lie to him about that every night. They don't care. They're tuned into an alternative reality system. They're they they they they gobble up the lies every day. They love it. They don't care about that. They don't care about the fact that Donald Trump said that he wanted termination of the United States Constitution. They don't care that Donald Trump revved rioters up on January the 6th and that he

sat in his Oval Office and side office and watched the rioting and then would rewind to rewatch the most violent parts while cops were getting their brains beaten in. And while Kevin McCarthy and others were calling, screaming, begging him to call off the rioters, he refused to do it. And they don't care. They are forever Trumpers. And, you know, what's that number? It may not be 40 percent. It may not be 45 percent. It's certainly enough, though, that if somebody other than Donald Trump wins the nomination, doesn't matter what these people are doing going halfway. There's going to be at least five, 10, 15 percent that stay home and will not vote for any candidate other than Donald Trump. But the thing is, you know, Jonathan O'Meara, you know, you you've got the guy. He's king of the

hill of the Republican Party, and he has been since 2016, since early 2016. You're not going to beat the king of the hill without going up to the top of the hill and pushing him off. You can't shout from the bottom of the hill, I kick sideways, I don't kick sideways. I mean, that doesn't work. You've got to go to the top of the hill. I mean, the way you do it, the way you do it, though, is, I mean, it's the whole, he's done a great job for us in 2016. He won an election nobody else could have won, you know, use the Mike Pence line. But we've done nothing but loss since then. Give him a gold watch, thank him for his service. And now let's start looking ahead, because we can't afford to keep losing to Democrats like we did in 2017, 2018,

2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. I mean, it seems to me they're all being too cute by half and it won't work. You can't take out, you know, it's old saying about the king and we'll just say it politically. You know what? If you go after the king politically, you better take him out. Yeah, there is a real sense on strategists from both parties that, yes, Donald Trump was the only Republican who could have won in 2016. He might be the only Republican who would lose in 2024. Now, let's be clear, that underestimates the incumbent President Joe Biden, who, though his approval numbers remain sort of middling, can point to a pretty impressive

list of accomplishments. And certainly the White House feels good about their chances, but the White House feels good about their chances particularly against Trump. We've seen that race before in 2020. President Biden won. There's no sense that Donald Trump is more popular now than he was in 2020. You know, obviously, since then, the insurrection and then, of course, his handpicked candidates lost in 2022 for the Republicans in those midterms. So you'll have a diminished Trump going into this potential rematch, rematch that Joe Biden won the first time anyway. But if it's a different candidate, well, that's a different dynamic. First of all, the age of the president becomes more of an issue.

But also there's simply the old change versus more of the same argument that is often very powerful in politics. That would be, some believe, a more competitive race. But if you're the Republicans, you can be Ron DeSantis and bite your tongue for now about Donald Trump, but that's gonna have to change at a certain point.

At a certain point, whether you're Pence, DeSantis, Haley, Pompeo, whoever it is, you gotta go right at him. You have to change a certain point at a certain point, whether you're Pence, DeSantis, Haley, Pompeo, whoever it is, you've got to go right at him. You have to knock him off. So Donald Trump will make a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, on March 13th, his first trip to the Hawkeye state since he launched his 2024 White House bid in November. His campaign announced the visit just hours after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he's visiting Iowa. The three days before they are three days before Trump on March 10th for his book tour. Joining us now, the co-founder of Axios, Mike Allen.

Axios has new reporting this morning on Trump's plans to attack DeSantis. Good morning, Mike. Well, good morning, Joe and Mika. And first things first, happy Friday. Yay. Still has it. He still, Mike. Well, good morning, Joe and Mika. And first things first, happy Friday. He still has it. He still has it. So tell us about Donald Trump's plan to defeat Ron DeSantis. Yeah, Joe, this is a great contest to see who can get in whose head. So Donald Trump is trying to scare Ron DeSantis out of the race. He's trying to rattle his self-confidence, his support. And that's why he, according to conversations he's having friends with, we've talked Ron DeSantis is the Republican who is most likely to go the distance.

He can imagine the Republican primary winding up as a two person race. And so he's trying to use his fear factor against DeSantis. And, of course, you well know the reason a lot of those candidates aren't attacking Trump is they know what will come at them. And in the case of DeSantis, here's what's coming after him. Trump's going to talk a lot about his past, talk about cutting entitlements, Medicare, Social Security, including when he was a congressman. He's going to talk about the loyalty that he thinks that he should have for Trump, who was a big help in making him governor. Trump has been truthing, as he calls tweeting on his platform, Truth Social.

He's been talking a lot about Paul Ryan, trying to say that DeSantis is a lackey of the former speaker and shares his views. He's going to go after, ironically, DeSantis to say that he was too cautious about COVID. Of course, largely the rap on the governor is the opposite. And fifth, Mika and Joe, he's going to say that he's waffled on Ukraine. Now, as we do this contest of who's in whose head, Governor DeSantis is not taking the bait. He's brushing it off. His staff is not commenting. And the other day, Governor DeSantis dismissed what Donald's saying, his constituent in Palm Beach, as background noise. Hey, Mike, it's Sam Stein here.

I'm just sort of curious of those five. A couple of them actually say more about Trump than DeSantis. The idea that he may be feeling vulnerable on COVID, for instance. But I'm curious about actually number one, the Medicare and Social Security stuff. I presume that this came up when DeSantis was running for governor of Florida, the issue that he wanted to make drastic changes to social security. This is odd to come up in the context of a Republican party, but talk a little bit about how Trump worldviews this as a vulnerability. The fact that DeSantis is sort of married more

towards the conservative idea of reforming these entitlements programs and Trump's vision of it, which is that you just don't touch them at all. No, Sam, those are two very smart points. And just on COVID, you're totally right. And so President Trump is going to try to, former President Trump is going to try and fight that issue to a draw. And then on entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, there's a very interesting window into the voter groups that these two candidates are going after.

Donald Trump, who has said Republicans should shy away, pull away from any kind of talk about cuts of entitlements. He's always been there. And it's because his crowd is older. Those are voters who are more dependent on that, whereas Ron DeSantis, much younger, has a more traditional conservative ideology. And that's where the President Trump is going to try to tie him to Paul Ryan. He's been truthing his version of tweeting about Paul Ryan. I think that you're right about it saying a lot more about Trump. Paul Ryan, not top of mind for probably a lot of people, but Trump is trying to put him there.

The co-founder of Axios. It's amazing. Again, it's amazing that Donald Trump, again, it's just all personal grievance. He's not looking forward at all. There are no issues. You can predict every move. He's talking about Paul Ryan.

Like, who cares about Paul Ryan when they go, yeah, I like Paul Ryan, but who cares about Paul Ryan if you're a member of the Republican base and think, oh, this guy being connected to Paul Ryan is a negative. Like, who's going to go, oh, boy, I can't vote for Ron DeSantis. Exactly. Nobody's out there thinking that. And the same thing on his, oh, he's not loyal to Donald Trump. If you're looking for an alternative, that's probably not the game-changing issue for you.

Exactly. The co-founder of Axios, Mike Allen. Happy Friday, Mike. Thank you, Mike, for being on this morning. Yes. And still ahead, we'll look at some of the stories, making front page headlines in papers across the country. Also ahead, former CIA officer Mark Polymeropoulos explains why the GOP is abandoning its reputation as the party of national security. Morning Joe is coming right back.