Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/11/23

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Louisville gunman kills at least 5 and injures others in bank shooting, police say

Today, I'm hurt, and I'm hurting, and I know so many people out there are as well. We lost four children of God today, one of whom was one of my closest friends. Tommy Elliott helped me build my law career, helped me become governor, gave me advice on being a good dad. He's one of the people I talk to most in the world and very rarely are we talking about my job. He was an incredible friend. We also lost Juliana Farmer, Jim Tutt, Josh Baric, each amazing people whose families grieve them, whose community will mourn and will miss them.

These are irreplaceable, amazing individuals that a terrible act of violence tore from all of us. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear making those comments about the deadly mass shooting in Louisville hours before a Fifth Bank employee died at the hospital. We'll get a live report from Louisville for the latest on the surviving victims and the investigation in just a moment. Plus, one of the two Tennessee lawmakers expelled from the statehouse for protecting gun violence gets his seat back.

We'll have more on that development and what's next for the other lawmakers straight ahead. Also, this morning, we'll take you through the legal battle over a commonly used abortion pill as the Justice Department fights a ruling from a conservative federal judge in Texas. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is taking steps to prevent Mike Pence from cooperating with a federal grant jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Speaking of Trump and elections, Republican senators want him to stay away from the races in 2024 following losses by his handpicked candidates during the last cycle. And if his legal issues don't take him off the ballot, maybe his poll numbers will. A new survey shows Trump is losing support rapidly, dropping like a rock. And his, Willie, his favorability ratings have never been great, nor as strong as his job approval ratings.

But if you look at those favorability ratings, when we sit here and talk about all the things that he's doing and wondering why it doesn't seem to catch up to him, he now has a favorability rating that's collapsed down to 25 percent and actually lost four percentage points post-indictment. And all the numbers that we saw in this ABC News Ipsos poll showed really what Chris Christie said was true. There's no such thing as a good indictment. People can whistle past a political graveyard and say, oh, the indictment's going to help him. At the end, you look up and down on this ABC poll, which I suspect will be like all the other polls. It's all bad news for him, especially the fact that only one in four Americans now have a favorable impression of him. Twenty five percent. You're starting to dip into being a fringe political candidate. Twenty five percent is just a terrible number. You're trying to win a general election.

Now, again, his numbers inside the primary grid. We understand that. But the goal is to win the general election. Now, again, his numbers inside the primary are good. We understand that. But if the goal is to win the general election, I think that's why just even in the last week, looking at the arraignment that we saw last week, looking at the result in Wisconsin, looking at this new ruling out of Texas on abortion, there are a whole lot of people, even when the Republican Party now saying out loud, we got to figure out another way. Twenty five percent. This guy can't win. So we're not saying he can't win or that he won't win. But the numbers are very bad for Donald Trump. And so you are hearing more and more. This isn't going to work. What else do we have? Well, let's bring in right now, former White House press secretary and MSNBC host Jen Psaki. Jen, you look at those numbers along with John Heilman. Jen, you look at the 25 percent.

I've never seen that number attached to any candidate who was actually three and four Americans do not have a favorable impression of him. If we actually start seeing that trickle down to the base, who suddenly after I mean, maybe after all these years realizes that Donald Trump is not good for the Republican Party, he's not good for the conservative movement, he can't win elections anymore. Right. I mean, and also you see 25 percent sometimes you would see maybe for a candidate who's on the rise, who people still don't know yet. But everybody knows Donald Trump. He has 100 percent approval rating or something like that. So that's his other problem here. Right. There aren't undecided voters who may come his way. I think, Joe, remember back in November, he had a drop.

DeSantis had a rise after the November elections because it was very clear at that point in time that he was a loser. I mean, he was supporting losers. That has faded a little bit in terms of people being as concerned because DeSantis hasn't appeared to be as strong as some in the Republican base wanted him to be. So maybe, maybe if there's a clear alternative, people will go for them. But right now, there isn't one.

So that, I think, is the challenge for a lot of these Republican candidates, senators who are running for re-election, people who want to take out Democrats. They need somebody who's strong at the top. And it's really not clear who that might be. Well, I mean, that's a great point, John Heilman. There are a lot of people that may have an unfavorable impression of Donald Trump and the Republican Party, Republican primary voters, but give them Donald Trump or a Democrat, they're going to vote for Donald Trump. It's an old yellow dog Democrat thing that even vote for a yellow dog if they were a Democrat in the old South. In this case, though, favorability sitting at 25 percent. I know that's not the same thing as approval rating, but but his favorability collapsing to 25 percent. Man, it just proves

what you've been saying, what so many people have been saying. Yeah, he may be able to win a Republican primary, but there's just not not any any way this guy is going to win a general election unless some really dramatic things shift. I mean, look, there's a lot of time between now and November of 2024, Joe. And God knows, the rule in our politics now is unpredictability and stuff that we never imagined happening. Having said that, I mean, I was sitting here scratching my head trying to think about last time we saw a major politician in America, someone who was either a leading candidate for a nomination or a sitting president or a leader of a party who had numbers this bad. And as I listened to my friend Jen Psaki, it came to me. The last time we saw this was George W. Bush at the end of the Bush presidency presidency in 2008 with the financial crisis on top of him in eight years of finally people had

played out, Bush fatigue had set in. And you thought about what that meant for the Obama campaign in 2008 when all of the negativity of an outgoing president in George W. Bush transferred itself onto John McCain. It was like the McCain campaign had a lot of problems, but one of the problems it had was that incredibly unpopular president sitting in the White House. That's the last time I've seen a number in the 20s, sitting at 25. Again, think about what that meant back in 2008. I think Republicans, with the same old story, you know, if you're a rational Republican and you want to win in 2024, is it possible Donald Trump could win? It's possible. Anything's possible.

But, man, the weight of the evidence is getting to be so dispositive, so overwhelming. And I think you guys are right. There's just no world in which, I mean, you are going to get the people who love you, who love you around Donald Trump. His getting indicted makes them angrier than ever at the deep state. For anybody else, it's like that guy's just got an albatross around our neck and we got to get rid of it if we're going to win. All right, we're going to come back to these politics in just a moment, but let's get to the latest developments in yesterday's mass shooting in Louisville. Police say a bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire on his co-workers yesterday morning, killing at least five of them. Eight others were injured, including a police officer who was shot in the head.

Police say the 25-year-old male shooter was live streaming the attack as it happened. He was killed during a shootout with officers in downtown Louisville. Joining us now from Louisville is NBC News correspondent Morgan Chesky. Morgan, what's the latest there? Yeah, Willie, good morning and a tragic update overnight with police confirming that a fifth person has died as a result of this workplace shooting that took place inside Old National Bank. That's the building behind me that for the better part of yesterday was surrounded in crime scene tape and investigators as they tried to gather evidence in search of any potential motive that this 25-year-old gunman would have when he walked inside armed with a long rifle and began opening fire.

Willie, we're just now hearing the last few minutes that there has been an ominous voicemail recovered that the gunman left with a friend shortly before this shooting took place. He was shot and killed at the scene by police who responded to the shooting within just three minutes. I can tell you, though, being in Louisville for the last 24 hours or so now, there is a real sense of sadness here. And I want you to hear how one of the witnesses described the aftermath of this shooting. Take a listen. I was close enough to be able to hear gunshots this morning, close enough to be really, really frightened. Very thankful that my kids were at a school today.

It is terrifying. I cannot explain to you what it feels like to just be alone in a room by yourself in your home, afraid to come out, afraid to move. Schools aren't safe. There is no safe place. There's no safe place for us. And so we have to do something to make this world safer. And I really do believe that this is the time for us to come together again across lines of politics. It doesn't matter about the political party, Republicans, Democrats, independents, black, white. I don't care. People have got to figure out a way to pass smart gun law reform.

We have to. We cannot live like this. Now, police did search a home yesterday that allegedly belongs to the gunman no word on what they were able to recover there willie but as for those two louisville police officers who were injured responding to this shooting we know one of them was sworn into the force just two weeks ago he had to undergo emergency brain surgery at At last check, Willie, he is listed in critical but stable condition. Willie. Sworn in two weeks ago and ran to the sound of gunfire inside a bank yesterday. The other victims are 40-year-old Joshua Barak, 63-year-old Tommy Elliott, 45-year-old Juliana

Farmer, 64-year-old James Tutt, and now the fifth victim, 57-year-old Deanna Eckert. Morgan Chesky from Louisville. Morgan, thanks so much. Let's bring in NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delaney. Ken, there are reports we've heard that it was an AR-15 or at least an AR-15-style semi-automatic assault weapon used in this case by an employee who perhaps had been informed he was going to be fired from that bank. What more do we know here?

Yeah, good morning, Willie. So we're learning a little more about this employee. He had a master's degree in finance from the University of Alabama. He was a former basketball player. We don't know exactly what type of weapon was used because the police didn't tell us. And I find that curious. They didn't even say initially whether it was a rifle or a handgun. And if you recall, when they initially put out the first reports about this incident, they called they call it an active aggressor instead of an active shooter.

So so police being very conservative about discussing the type of gun used in this crime. Well, and Ken, what about the gun laws in the type of gun used in this crime, Willie. And Ken, what about the gun laws in the state of Kentucky? We took a close look at those in Tennessee after the shooting at the Covenant School two weeks ago that killed three nine-year-olds and three teachers, staff members there. What about in the state of Kentucky? Well, I think that's perhaps the context for the police's stance on this. Kentucky is about as loose a gun law state as you can find. Back in 2017, they repealed all state requirements. So it's a permitless carry

state. Anyone who passes a federal background check can carry a weapon anywhere in the state without applying for a license. There are no red flag laws. There's no checks on mental health, no prohibitions if you have a domestic violence conviction. But more than that, Willie, just a few weeks before this incident, the Kentucky legislature passed a law, a so-called Second Amendment sanctuary law, that prohibits law enforcement officers in the state from cooperating and enforcing any federal firearm regulations passed after 2021. That would appear to include the law that Congress passed after the Evaldi shooting, beefing up some background checks. Now, there's a lot of debate about whether that

law is constitutional, and Governor Beshear did not sign that law. It passed with veto-proof majorities, but that gives you an idea. I mean, these kinds of laws are passing in some red states, and they make it really difficult for federal agents, ATF agents, to do their jobs in those states because local officials can no longer cooperate with them under those kinds of laws. Well, Jen Psaki, it's just it's heartbreaking. You see what happens and it's got to be so frustrating and and so maddening inside these states. You look at Tennessee where you had this horrific tragedy, little children and and their their teachers and principal gunned down in a Christian school in Nashville. And the legislature's response was not to actually talk and act on gun laws. It was to kick two black members out of the legislature.

And I say whenever whenever you get to any debate on on on innocent people being slaughtered America, and you're talking to extremists on this issue, they always change the topic. And I will tell you, one topic they always change, too, is mental health. Which is to say, okay, great. Let's quadruple funding for mental health in America. Of course, they don't want to do that. If you talk about something else, they'll always switch the subjects. But, you know, 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks. They don't have universal background checks in Kentucky. No red flag laws from what I've seen.

Concealed carry over 21. You can have a carry a weapon and conceal it in Kentucky as well. Yeah, they have concealed carry. You can carry around AR-15s in Tennessee where the shooting was. And Ron DeSantis wanted Florida to move in that direction where people could carry around AR-15s to Publix, to Costco's, to Little League baseball games. I mean, it is just absolute insanity. It's it's just like what we're saying on abortion, where Americans are actually going down pretty conservative socially on a lot of these issues. Most Americans do believe in the right to keep and bear arms and would agree with the outlines of Heller.

But these legislatures have gone to such an extreme place on guns, on abortion. It's why Republicans are losing year after year after year. And not only are they losing elections, people keep dying every day. Women keep having to make horrific medical decisions every day, fearing for their own lives. That's right. I mean, and we just we can't have this conversation without talking about an assault weapons ban, which universal background checks, red flag laws, those have a great majority of support in the public. Why they aren't the law of the land everywhere is insane. It's because of the NRA and money and Republicans, many and some Democrats being fearful of the NRA. But an assault weapons ban. I mean, even gun owners do not necessarily all think that people should have assault weapons.

And certainly, Joe, you are referencing some of the recent shootings. The people who are responding to a shooting in a school, the teachers, the first responders are essentially the teachers, the the emergency medical responders, the police. They don't want assault weapons to be easily accessible to people. So this notion that that the Second Amendment guarantees your right to an assault weapon, which is another point that is often made by the right wing, is just ludicrous. I mean, it guarantees your right to bear arms. It does not guarantee you the right to an assault weapon. And I have heard that point from Republicans. I've heard that point from Democrats. I've heard that point from a lot of people. And that, I think, is something that we just have to keep calling out as people are using assault weapons to literally kill people in hundreds of shootings across the country. And they always say it's not the time to talk about it during. Well, it is the time. And once again, Joe, Republicans might be edging

away from Trump, seeing that that's maybe a losing proposition. But they keep adding to the list of issues that they're on the wrong side of, whether it's health care, Obamacare, which they never had another option for guns, abortion, you name it. They're on the wrong side of where most Americans are. And you take Social Security, Medicare and other Republicans talking about it in code. It's just it keeps going. And, you know, John Heilman, we've always grown up and you've just followed up on what Jen Psaki said. It's so maddening when people just spout something out with such authority about what the Constitution says, what the Second Amendment says, and it just doesn't say it. They'll say if you if any gun safety measure is enacted, they'll immediately yell

or go online saying they're taking my Second Amendment rights away. They'll have to pry my gun out of my cold, dead hands, which is something I heard all the way back on the campaign trail in 94. And actually, if you read if you read Scalia's own words, own words in the Heller decision, which is the framework for what the Second Amendment is. He says military style weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment right now. That it's gun, that it's handguns, it's shotguns in a person's home. And beyond that, states can regulate

however they want to regulate it. And again, the lies that are spewed out and these cowards of politicians, you know, if somebody screams and shouts, that's my right, that's my second right, doesn't mean it is. In fact, most of the time when people say it, it's just not anymore. And yet you go state by state by state by state where these killings continue to happen. And you see some of the most lax gun laws. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, Joe, even if you don't know about Heller,

you know, if you just read the language in the Constitution, I mean, I would say the vast majority of people that you run into at Republican events, at Trump campaign rallies, wherever you want to go. They have no idea even that the frame around the Second Amendment speaks of the context of a well-regulated militia. These are just the words in the Constitution, not even what you would need to know if you'd ever read a Supreme Court decision. And I got to say, to echo another thing that Jen said a second ago, I mean, you've been listed as long as all of our arms put together of all the awareness that people have of the fact that

these laws, the laws that we have on the books and the laws that we don't have on the books, that create the context, create a world in which first responders of all kinds, police officers, people in the health, in the emergency services, parts of the healthcare world, teachers in a lot of cases, are just being fed into the maw of the unregulated gun culture that we live in now, where there's obviously victims to the left of us and victims to the right. But just to see the body count pile up, the most tragic children, the next most tragic has to be peace officers, the first responders who have to go into these situations. And so many of the body count piles up, the

mortality count piles up, and they believe as much as anyone that this militia, I use that only in the context of the constitutional invocation of it, that this has got to be well-regulated. We must get a better notion of what a well-regulated citizen militia would be if we're going to have a white right to bear arms. Those regulations have to be much more sensible than they currently are. Yeah, I encourage people to read the Heller decision, 2008. It says Scalia, Justice Scalia said the right to own a weapon is not unlimited. You can read his full opinion, the majority opinion there. But just to piggyback off what John was saying, I had the same thought watching this come in. If people who don't want some gun safety laws on the books can't be compelled by the death of children in schools, nine year olds in Nashville,

six year olds at Sandy Hook to do something a little more, maybe to prevent one or two of them. What about police officers? When you have police officers and police unions, not exactly known over the years as liberal squishes saying, we are outgunned. We don't think people should be walking around with AR-15s. And when this 26-year-old officer in Louisville, two weeks out of the police academy. Here's gunfire, does his job, runs in and now is in critical condition, laying in a hospital. What do you say to his family? What do you say to police officers who are asking, please help us out here? We're outgunned now. We are the law and we are the ones who are outgunned. Exactly. And, you know, I had a conversation with a friend who was who is a Trump supporter after Uvalde. And we're sitting around there talking and he brings up guns and says, you know, Democrats are just they're trying to take away our Second Amendment rights.

You look and I talked about Uvalde and I said, well, look what happened in Uvalde. He goes, yep, you know what? You're sounding like Hitler. You're sounding like Stalin. You're sounding like Pol Pot. Those leaders, what did they do? They took away everybody's guns. So the state had all the power. And I said, hey, dude, look at the scenes from Uvalde. Look at all of the officers outside standing there because things have become so skewed that one deranged 18-year-old has enough firepower to stop 200, 300 police officers, peace officers from three, four, five different agencies. Don't talk about the state having more power than individuals when you're talking about guns, because that's a perfect example of what you just said, Willie. Our police officers, our cops are the ones who

are outgunned. They're the ones who, in the best of times, risk their lives every night when they go out. But now they are seriously outgunned. And all these people who say support the blue, of course, they're the same ones that were cheering on cops getting their brains bashed in on January the 6th. They're the same ones that are saying defund the FBI right now, who, by the way, stops us from being attacked by terrorist organizations at home and across the globe. And they're the ones who are saying, like Willie just said, send our cops into a situation where they have no fighting chance. And by the time they get there, a cop's most likely going to get killed

after five, six, seven little kids get gunned down in schools. I'm telling you, this is going to get fixed in America because it is so insane. Yeah. But by the time we do, how high is that body count going to be? It's like Vietnam. It's like Vietnam. It's like Vietnam. Kennedy knew Vietnam was a mistake and he said it to his advisers. Johnson knew Vietnam was a mistake. He said it to his advisers.

Nixon knew we could never win Vietnam, said it to his advisers. And yet it went on. Fifty seven thousand Americans dead in Vietnam. I swear to God, we're going to look back on this time and people are going to ask the same question. More people dying in America than died in Vietnam and Afghanistan, U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan over 20 years. do wake up, when Republicans do get shamed in doing the right thing for our cops, the right thing for our kids, the right thing for our grandmoms, the right thing for people who just go to work in the morning and want to get home at night and see their kids around the dinner table and ask how their day was at school. By the time Republicans finally get the message that this insanity has to stop, it'll be too late for so many people and historians to look back and say, my God, my God, what took them so long? Well, the question will be, I mean, you know,

Republicans right now have kids at the dinner table asking if they're going to get shot at school. But as this issue, because it's an epidemic, gets closer and closer to home for Republicans. Yes, the walls are closing in. Young people get it. But when will these Republicans get it? And it's the same issue with abortion. It's not just about unwanted pregnancies. It's about health. It's about life. And there will be women in their lives who die or have

unbelievably traumatic experiences because of these new laws. They both will come back. Well, it's a haunt Republicans. That's happening. And and and sadly, it's such a tragedy that it's happening as much as it is. And on abortion, we're seeing abortion move as quickly as we saw marriage equality move over the past 10, 15 years. Abortion is moving quickly. Look at more to that. Guns seems a little more stubborn. Republicans seem a little more stubborn. They're willing to allow the body count to keep piling higher and higher and claiming and claiming

Second Amendment rights that were never written into the Second Amendment, that our founders never anticipated, and that even Justice Scalia said didn't exist. Ken, stay with us. We want to get your reporting on former President Trump's new efforts to keep his former vice president from cooperating with the January 6th investigation. Also ahead, one of the Tennessee lawmakers expelled from the state house last week is reappointed to his seat. Plus the latest in the new legal battle over reproductive freedom. We're also following President Biden this morning as he prepares for a trip to Ireland,

marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. We'll get a live report from Belfast ahead of his arrival. You're watching Morning Joe. We will be right back. Beautiful day in Washington as you look at the White House, 6.34 in the morning. Former President Donald Trump is taking steps now to block his former Vice President Mike Pence from cooperating with an investigation into the effort to overturn the 2020 election. According to a source familiar with the matter, Trump filed an appeal with the U.S. Circuit Court yesterday seeking to prevent Pence from testifying before a federal grand jury. In a major blow to the former president last week, Pence's team announced it would not appeal a judge's ruling, ordering the former VP to testify and to hand over documents in the Justice

Department's special counsel probe. The federal appeals court also denied a separate motion from Trump's lawyers last week, looking to block the testimony of several other ex-White House aides, including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. So, Ken Delaney and the former president not having a lot of luck sort of intervening in this case with the special counsel Jack Smith. What about this latest attempt? Does it have much hope? Most legal experts don't think so, Willie, because as we've discussed on the show before, a criminal investigation generally overcomes executive privilege, even by a sitting president. And Trump obviously is a former president. He has less claim to executive privilege. And that's what this that's what this appeal is about. He's asserting executive privilege over certain conversations with his vice president, Mike Pence.

You know, it's not even he's really trying to narrow the scope of Pence's testimony. It's very clear Pence is going to have to testify. And as you said, Pence himself interestingly decided not to appeal this separate ruling by a federal judge who decided that the speech and debate clause did not forbid Pence from testifying before a grand jury. That was Pence's move. He had argued that because he was presiding over the legislature, he was protected by the speech and debate clause. He lost and now he's not appealing. So it looks like Pence himself is prepared to testify. This is a last ditch effort by Trump to try to stop it. It probably

won't work. And it's just a reminder, Willie, that Jack Smith is chugging along. And this is in the January 6th investigation into whether Donald Trump broke any laws in the effort to overturn the election. He has managed to secure the testimony of most of Trump's top aides who refused to testify before the January 6th Congressional Committee. So he is getting the full picture of what happened in the efforts to overturn the election and leading up to the January 6th insurrection. Yeah. And as I said, former President Trump lost another bid to try to block the testimony of the very people you're talking about there. Mark Meadows, most importantly, Dan Scavino, Stephen Miller and some others. So Ken, what is your sense of where the special counsel is in this investigation around January 6th? Also,

in the Mar-a-Lago documents, we talked about Trump's approval rating or his favorability rating at 25 percent in that one poll. And that's just the tip of the iceberg with the New York case. There's so much more still ahead for him. Yeah. As we're handicapping these cases and reading the tea leaves, it feels like the Mar-a-Lago case, the classified documents case, is much further along. And some people think even close to being ready to be charged, assuming that they make a decision to go forward with charges. Even former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr is of that opinion. He expressed it over the weekend because they secured the testimony, if you recall, of Trump's lawyer, Evan Corcoran,

under the crime fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. And there was a report last week, we haven't confirmed it at NBC News, but that there were subpoenas that went out to some of the Secret Service agents at Mar-a-Lago, which is a pretty drastic step by a prosecutor and feels like one of the last things you would do in an investigation. So the Mar-a-Lago case feels pretty ripe. The January 6th case is a bit more of a wild card. And, you know, a lot of people I talked to about that case are concerned about the legal theories that it would require to actually bring a prosecution. So that and and they say that that could take much longer. And so then you sort of have to ask yourself, well, if Jack Smith decides to indict former President Trump, does he do one case and then wait on another? Does he bring them all

together? That's sort of up in the air. But what Bill Barr himself said over the weekend was, you know, they didn't hire a former war crimes prosecutor, Jack Smith, to decline prosecution in these cases. Right. And what's clear is this is going to go on through the presidential campaign as Donald Trump tries to run to visit the White House again. NBC's Ken Delaney. And Ken, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Coming up next, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg calls out House Republicans for a planned hearing in New York City. Jim Jordan and others going on a field trip, it appears, will explain what's going on there. Plus, a Hall of Fame coach who trip, it appears, will explain what's going on there. Plus, a Hall of Fame coach who does not stick to sports will have the comments from San Antonio's head coach, Greg Popovich, the Spurs coach on the issue of guns ahead. I'm Morning Joe.

Well, that was fast. It was fast for one of them. One of the two Democratic lawmakers expelled from the Tennessee Statehouse last week has been sworn back into a seat. State Representative Justin Jones was unanimously reappointed by the legislature by the governing municipality in his district. NBC News correspondent Kathy Park has more. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I would like to nominate Representative Justin Jones. A political showdown in Nashville. With former Tennessee lawmaker Justin Jones back to the statehouse just days after his expulsion. The Metro Nashville Council voted unanimously in favor of his reappointment. This is a message that partisanship has gone so far as to be a force in violating basic

principles of democracy. This special meeting comes after a rare move by House Republicans to remove three Democratic lawmakers after they joined a gun control rally on the House floor, which Republicans say violated the rules. You can call it peaceful, you can call it whatever, but they had a protest against House policy on the floor. No action, no peace. Among the Tennessee three, only one survived the vote, Gloria Johnson. It might have to do with the color of our skin. GOP leaders say their decision was not based on race, but that Johnson didn't go as far as her two freshman colleagues. Representative Justin Pearson will learn his fate Wednesday in his own district with a special meeting in Memphis. Meanwhile, the political battle doesn't

end for Jones as he awaits a special election and he's vowing to return. That's NBC's Kathy Park with that report. Let's bring in right now the host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, president of the National Action Network, a man who has got a very busy weekend ahead of him, the Reverend Al Sharpton. Reverend Al, I want to talk about your conference in a little bit because it's going to be so big and so timely, especially if you look at Tennessee and what's happened there. But we've been talking a good bit about how Republicans are just just politically damaging themselves over and over again. And here you have them taking two relatively unknown state legislators in Tennessee's lower house, kicking them out and so doing just just subverting

democracy, certainly for those districts and turning them into national figures in the end to no effect. Absolutely. Very, very bad foresight in terms of how the right wing wants to deal with this. And the thing that becomes striking to me is that as Jones was voted by the local council to become the interim state rep until the special election, which clearly puts him back in. We see shooting going on in Kentucky in two areas. So let's not miss the forest for the trees. The issue here was gun control. That's what Jones and Pearson was protesting about and and Miss Johnson. And Jones was on our show politics nation on sunday

night and he and i was talking beyond the reinstatement of jones and pearson is the problem of guns six people were killed in nashville in a school three of them are children nine years old as he is re is voted a voter confidence in effect by the by the city council in Nashville, you have shootings in Kentucky. So I think the issue we can't be lost now in the drama of the craziness that the Republicans and the right wing did in in the state of of of where in Nashville, Tennessee. I think that the real issue is what they're fighting about, which is still alive with two shootings just yesterday. Where are we going to arrive and when are we going to arrive at dealing with gun control?

That's the real issue here. Yeah, and three mass shootings over over Easter weekend and as well as a fourth. John Heilman, you have again, you see what happens in Tennessee. It puts Republicans in the worst of all lights, especially because they only expel the two black members and don't expel the white member. You look at the elections that are going on at the same time of these shootings, of the abortion laws, Wisconsin, Chicago, and you see young people actually getting out. I've always been skeptical. And people say, oh, young people are going to save this election. They never have in the past. They just haven't.

It's just a reality. They're starting to now. They're getting engaged. And you look at this Tennessee case again. They kick somebody out. It has no effect. He's right back in. But what do they do? They engage young voters. They engage black voters. They engage voters who care about democracy. And again, they just keep turning the very people, energizing the very people they don't want energized for 2024. Yeah, I mean, look, one of the fundamental truism, Joe, is that young people in America in the 21st century just despise, loathe, have no interest in party politics. They don't like the parties. They don't like either one of them. They don't like that system. They don't like those labels.

What they're animated by is by issues. They're animated by causes. They're animated by whether that's the environment or whether it's in the case now with abortion, where a fundamental right of theirs has been taken away and they're animated by guns. They're animated by things in a powerful way. This is not an apathetic generation. It's just a generation that doesn't behave in the way that a lot of politicians would like them to, in the sense that they don't reliably conform to what people think of as the norms of political behavior that goes along partisan lines. It happens because Republicans have put themselves on the wrong side of so many of those issues. They now are being driven into the column of Democrats. A lot of these voters, these young voters, had this attitude even as far as 10, 15, 20 years ago, which was, you know, to hell with both of these parties. But as they increasingly become animated

by these particular issues that they think are either central to their lives or central to the future of the planet, they look again and again and find themselves aligning with the Democratic candidates and with the Democratic Party, even though they don't particularly care about the Democratic Party as an apparatus. And it's one of the many self-inflicted wounds of this Republican Party in this contemporary era is that they have done so much to take a voting group that would not normally be reliable voters for any party and made them into reliable Democrats in some sense by pushing them away on issues that are so tangible to so many of these voters who are coming up right now and seeing

a future they don't want to live in if they don't get active in politics. Yeah, I will also just add to what John said. I mean, this is a generation. I mean, you look at Justin Jones, Justin Pearson. You look at people in Congress like Maxwell Frost. You look at David Hogg. They have grown up doing gun violence drills in their elementary, middle schools and high schools. This has been a part of their lived experience. That was not a part of my lived experience going to elementary school and middle school and high school in the 80s and 90s. This is a part of theirs. So this issue is motivating a group of people who young people who may hate politics, they may hate parties they relate to because they've lived it, too. And that

should be scary to the A-rated NRA members out there who think they're going to hold on to the same laws across the country that they've had for decades. And Reverend Al, this is a big topic at your convention this week, of course, side by side with the NRA convention. But tell us how you plan to tackle this issue. Well, the NRA is meeting, ironically, in Indianapolis at the same time we have a National Action Networks convention. And Friday, the vice president, Kamala Harris, will be speaking at our conference. And I'm sure she will be dealing. The contrast will be Donald Trump will be at the NRA. Kamala Harris will be at National Action Network. And for the four days, we start tomorrow with mayors. Mayor Eric Adams is going to have a forum with mayors talking about how we deal with public

safety and at the same time undercut people's rights. Magic Johnson is going to do workshops on entrepreneurship. We are going to have Tyler Perry getting our cultural award. It's going to be four days of people that have exceeded, but that want to show how others can exceed, but deal with social issues like crime, like criminal justice reform, the families of people like Tyreek Nichols, all the way back to Trayvon Martin. So we're very excited about it. And it just happened to contrast at the same time as the NRA. I was telling Martin Luther King III, who's one of our speakers, that you couldn't have planned this better. But I think it's something that needs to happen.

This is the issue of the day. We need gun laws. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. John Heilman, what are you working on today? What am I working on today, Joe? It's a good question. I'm trying to focus on hopefully getting through this day without another mass shooting in America.

That would be a positive thing. And trying to keep track of all this stuff is always on the Trump legal front. There's so much going on. Trying to kind of look at what's going on in the front of Georgia and particularly looking at the cases that what special counsel is doing, special prosecutors doing down in Washington, D.C., and trying to figure out which of those is the next shoe likely to drop on Donald Trump's head. John Howman, thank you very much for coming on this morning. We'll see you soon and still ahead. We'll take a look at some of the stories making front page headlines across the country.

And Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson joins the conversation on abortion rights with his latest piece for The Washington Post. Morning Joe is coming right back. A few minutes before the top of the hour time now for a quick look at the morning papers. We begin in Georgia, where the Ledger Inquirer reports Atlanta is now a hub for illegal drug trades. Officials say the city's proximity to the interstate system is a big reason why it's become a hotspot for trafficking fentanyl along the East Coast. It's caused the number of overdose deaths in the region to increase substantially. In 2021, Georgia reported nearly 1,400 fentanyl-related deaths.

The Kennebec Journal has a front-page feature of the governor of Maine considering stockpiling abortion medication. It comes as federal judges in Texas and Washington issued contradictory rulings on the drug Mifepristone. Now, Governor Janet Mills is considering following in the footsteps of states like California, Massachusetts and Washington, where officials have already gathered years worth of the abortion medication. The Capital Gazette leads with Maryland lawmakers passing new gun safety laws. The Democrat controlled legislature approved a measure

that restricts where guns can be carried, such as school playgrounds, hospitals and polling locations. Another bill tightens gun storage laws and ends a requirement that people have a good reason to carry a concealed gun. That provision was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. Governor Wes Moore called the bills common sense policies. And finally, the Gazette reports Iowa lawmakers want parents to give their consent for children to use social media platforms. The state house advanced the measure, which amended a previous bill banning anyone under the age of 18 from having an account. Under the new measure, social media companies cannot collect data on users under the age

of 18 without parental consent. That includes information required to create an account. That is interesting. We'll be talking more about that in the coming days. It's now exactly the top of the hour on this Tuesday, April 11th. Reverend Al Sharpton is still with us and joining the conversation. We have former U.S. Senator now on NBC News and MSNBC political analyst Claire McCaskill joins us. Pull of surprise winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post and MSNBC political analyst Eugene Robinson is with us and director of polling at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University.

John Della Volpe is here. His latest book is entitled Fight. How Gen Z is channeling their fear and passion to save America. It's out today in paperback. And boy, does that ring true? Boy, it really does ring true. I've got a pop culture question for everybody here. I know Willie doesn't usually watch Succession. We're not going to give away anything. Did anybody watch Succession this week? Yes. Hello. You did?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I've been on DVR. Yeah. We've got DVR. So, you know, it's so terrible. You're going to give it away. We're not going to give it away. It used to be in the good old days of like, oh, I don't know, five, six, seven years ago,

when you had a big event happen on a show that so many people watch, Claire, you could talk about it the next day. We can't talk about it because people see it through the year. But I will just say, what a shock, Claire, what a shock. Yeah. And, you know, I actually think so much about that episode is going to go down in the annals of TV history. You know, there's episodes of shows throughout the years that are famous for a lot of different reasons. This one was extraordinary. The directing, the way they laid it out. I mean, it was really something. I watched it by myself yesterday morning because I knew that all my friends were going to give it away. And it was so hard to watch it by myself because I go, you're kidding.

Oh, my God, you're kidding. I'm like screaming by myself watching this show. It was really something. For the record, I don't think it's true what happened. Oh, come on. You're a succession conspiracy theorist. It's true. Willie, listen, I've got to tell you, you need to catch up with succession because I agree with what Claire said. And I've heard other people say it as well, Willie, that I think this episode will go down as one of one of the most uh i just one of the most remembered one of the

the best tv episodes for any series in some time it was it was pretty stunning it was they had one scene that was like 20 i think 24 minutes of just straight uh camera shooting uh and and the whole thing was really dynamic. But what season are you on, Willie? Are you like on season one? I've never seen a frame of the show, but I hear it's great. And people I really, really trust love it and insist I see it. So I am going to do it, I promise. And I'll be caught up for our discussions. Because you need to have a Sunday sit down. You know. Logan Roy. I know.

These elitists. Or Sunday Today. Well, wait a second, I've got that backwards. If you don't watch Yellowstone, you're elitist. So what is Willie? I don't know what he is. He's busy is what he is. For those who haven't seen it, catch up. It really,

again... Don't give it away. But I don't think it happened. I'm with Claire. Okay, to the news. The Justice Department has filed a request in a federal appeals court seeking to halt the ruling from Friday by a Texas judge that would block the FDA's decades old approval of the drug Mifepristone. As of now, that ruling is set to go into effect by the end of the week. The Biden administration asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to put the Texas ruling on hold by Thursday to allow more time for the case to go through the appeals process. The appeals court later asked the plaintiffs in the Texas case to respond to the Justice Department's request by midnight tonight. If the appeals court does not grant the request, the government's only option would be to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. Both the Fifth Circuit Court of Appe on Mifepristone. That ruling only applies to 17 liberal leaning states and Washington, D.C.,

which sued in February, challenging the FDA's regulation over the drug. Willie? Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry is uniting in opposition to the Texas judge's ruling that threatens to block the abortion drug. More than 400 leaders at some of the drug and biotech industries, most prominent investment firms and companies issued a scathing condemnation of the ruling contending the reach of the case extends far beyond the parameters of abortion and that it could challenge the foundation of the regulatory system for all medicine in the United States. Statement reads in part, if courts can overturn drug approvals without regard for science or evidence or for the complexity required to fully vet the safety and efficacy of new drugs, any medicine is at risk for the same outcome as

mifepristone. Most of those who sign the letter are not involved in reproductive health, and none of the companies manufacture that drug. Claire, it's very telling that at last check, exactly one Republican senator, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, came out in support of this Texas judge's ruling. Senators who never miss a chance to tweet or find a microphone on any issue are very silent on this, perhaps because they understand the political ramifications. Well, and those that are lawyers, if they look at the opinion and spend more than two seconds on it, are going to go, OK, this is a circus. This is really stunning incompetence in terms of this judicial opinion for some pretty conservative legal principles. They blew up

standing. They blew up the statute of limitations and timeliness. They blew up having to exhaust administrative remedies. And maybe the silence was the most deafening from Josh Hawley, because his wife, a Yale-educated lawyer, is one of the plaintiff's lawyers in this case. And even he didn't say anything yesterday. So it is really just a hall of fame of hypocrisy between activist judges and we're going to let the states decide. No, no, they're not. No, they're going to try to outlaw abortion everywhere in America and they will not stop until the people of this country say no. And we're going to talk more about what this actually means and how it's impacting the lives of women across America. And it's far more harrowing for women right now. Women are going through horrendous experiences because they're being pushed out of hospitals

with babies that are in jeopardy that could jeopardize their lives and giving birth in bathrooms and at home and or bleeding to death. These things are happening. Being told that a baby that was being born would suffocate right after birth and go through a horrific few minutes. Forcing a woman. And they would have to do that. And then burying the baby that they knew was going to suffocate to death early in the pregnancy. And the ramifications of having that baby potentially makes it so you cannot have any more children. It is insane.

And they don't care. They don't care. These men, these Republican legislators in states do not care. It's that simple.