Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/12/23

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

'Top of the line': Trump praises 'brilliant' Xi, Kim Jong-Un, Putin

And we need to take this grief and turn it into action. I am a person of faith. I was raised in the church. We've raised our kids in the church. Please, if you are a person of faith and you want to give us your thoughts and your prayers, we want them and we need them. Our community is hurting, but we need policies in place that will keep this from happening again so that thoughts and prayers do not have to be offered to yet another community ripped apart by the savage violence coming from guns. That's Democratic Congressman Morgan

McGarvey making a plea for action on gun violence after Monday's mass shooting in Louisville. It comes as we're getting a look at the deadly confrontation between police and the gunman. We'll have that and the latest in the investigation just ahead. Plus, Donald Trump back on Fox News last night, making truly outlandish claims about his arraignment in Manhattan and, yes, offering praise for authoritarian leaders around the world. We'll play those comments for you. Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney now is suing one of Trump's top allies in the House in the latest escalation in that political fight over the former president's indictment.

Plus, we'll get a live report from Northern Ireland as President Biden prepares to mark 25 years since the Good Friday agreement. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, April 12th. With us, we have U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, and White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein. Joe, Mika has the morning off, so good news. We can talk about baseball for four hours.

I know Katty's very excited about that. Where shall we begin? Well, Mika has the morning off. She was very upset last night watching the Red Sox and the Rays, and she said, I need you to talk about this, and I need you to do it for Cady. I can hear you. Because Cady loves whenever we talk about baseball. I have some emails to do, so I'll just get on with those.

Well, first, I've just got to say a couple of things we're going to be talking about in a second. First of all, Donald Trump's fulsome praise of the worst tyrants in the world once again reveals himself as an authoritarian at heart.

I'm not sure why that guy worships authoritarians the way he does, but it certainly does reveal what's in his heart and what's behind all the things he does. Also, I must say, Alvin Bragg has sent a memo to Republicans. Just don't, you know what, don't mess with me. Just, you know, play your little political games, but keep me out of it. Going to be talking to Josh Gerstein about that. We just haven't seen anything like this. And but but now let's get to what Katty wants to talk about really quickly.

The the race. I mean, listen, their stadium is about as packed as Fulton County Stadium was when I was a boy. And there would be 4,000 people there that hit a foul ball down the left field line and would all sprint down because nobody was in the seats. But, yeah, they're just – I must say last night against the Red Sox in Hope Springs Eternal, beginning of the year, we were feeling good. Adam Duvall messed up his wrist, has a fracture, I think, in his wrist. So our one hot, hot bat is gone for at least four to six weeks.

But we were hoping we could at least take one from the Rays. But, Willie, I'm not joking here. They're just in another league. Yeah. They're in another league compared to the Red Sox pitching-wise, batting-wise, in every metric. It's as if we're a double-A team coming up to play the pros. Well, it's not just the Red Sox, Joe. They are dominating everyone. I mean dominating. These games are not close. They're hitting the ball like crazy. Nobody can touch their pitching. And they're the third team since, really, in modern baseball history.

There's a Braves team in the 80s and the Milwaukee Brewers, I think, in 87, who made it this far in the season undefeated. This is already getting to the point of making history. They're 11-0. And as you say, just head and shoulders above everybody else. It's 162-game season. We say this every year. There will be ups and downs and the Yankees will play well and the Orioles and the Jays and the Red Sox will all play well.

It'll tighten up for sure. But man, we just haven't seen anything like this in the last, gosh, 30, 35 years. A team going undefeated this deep and doing it so dominantly on both sides of the ball. And they're looking great. And yeah, it's only April and it is only April. I remember telling a friend, a close friend who's an Indians fan back when they were the Cleveland Indians and they reeled off 22, 23. He'd come and he'd be so excited every day. And I didn't want to tell him, dude, it's August. You need to do this in September and October. And I'm not being facetious.

You know, the Braves caught fire a couple of years ago. Other teams, anything is possible. And usually in baseball, things balance out. But again, looking at this Rays team, top to bottom, they are pretty incredible. Yeah, and fun to watch. It should be a fun season keeping an eye on them. Let's start with the news Joe mentioned a minute ago, and that is the effusive, truly effusive praise for authoritarian leaders from former President Donald Trump during an interview last night on Fox News. Here's what he said.

They're all top of the line. Our guy's not top of the line. Never was. These are top of the line people at the top of their game. President Xi is a brilliant man. If you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of President Xi, you couldn't find him. There's nobody like that. The look, the brain, the whole thing.

We had a great relationship. We got along so well. There was a great chemistry we had. Great. We talked about everything. A great chemistry. But people ask me, how smart is she? I said, top of the line.

You never met anybody smarter. How smart is Kim Jong-un? Top of the line. People say, oh, this and that. Really smart. When you come out and as a young man at 24, 23, even though he sort of inherits it, most people, when they inherit, they lose it. And that's easy stuff. He took over a country of very smart people, very, very energetic people, very tough people at a very young age. And he has total dominant control.

That's not easy. These are these are very smart. Putin, very smart. It takes your breath away. I mean, Joe, he really does. Talking about she like a matinee idol, the Hollywood look, the look, the brains, all of it. And we have to remember the case of Putin. But we can go through all three of those. Putin right now is for more than a year conducting a war in which he's killing Ukrainian children. He's killing civilians, attacking their infrastructure. So he's always praised Vladimir Putin. But to do it at this moment in history makes it all the more extraordinary. Well, and she has become more dictatorial over the past five years. There are two people I read, two people who just got a small group together to protest in a seaside town.

And they're going to jail for over a decade. You look at what Putin did. Very smart, really. You seize a Wall Street Journal reporter. Very smart. I mean, he's been again, you look at the people that he praises. And first of all, it's abhorrent that he's praising some of the most evil leaders on the world stage. And this is something that he did starting here in 2015 when he came on our show and talked about how great Vladimir Putin was and how horrible Barack Obama was. And when we said, yeah, but he kills journalists, he kills politicians. He said, well, we kill people, too. Again, there's something really screwed up in the way he looks at the

world. And I must say, very disturbing for the cult-like followers that he still has that will worship a guy who worships the biggest tyrants on the globe. Katie Kaye, on top of that, Donald Trump is alone in calling Vladimir Putin very shrewd, very smart. The guy has wrecked Russia's military. He's wrecked Russia's economy. I don't care what all of these articles say about, oh, it's not as bad as that. No, he's wrecked the economy. He's he's ruined their their trade, at least for now with Europeans. As far as energy goes, he had Europe energy dependent on him. No more. And President Xi, one mistake after another over the past five years. And here's a guy who wants to run for president against Ron DeSantis' COVID lockdowns.

He's worshiping President Xi, who had the most tyrannical COVID lockdowns on the globe. And again, this is, I don't know, is it projection? Is it confession? I'm not sure what. But it is so unbecoming of a former American president. It speaks to his lust for authoritarian power. You almost wonder whether he's doubling down on previous positions because he can't bring himself to admit that maybe he was wrong when he was president in his assessment of these authoritarian leaders. And so he has to say, no, no, no, you know, I still believe it. But I mean, you run through the list of what those people have done. President Xi, who has crashed the Chinese economy during the course of his covid lockdowns, is on the point of,

you know, doing exercises where he looks like he really might make a serious attempt on Taiwan. President Putin, who has just managed to expand NATO's border by 800 miles with Russia, doesn't look like a very good strategic move, has lost hundreds of thousands of his own troops in Ukraine in a war that just hasn't won him anything. And perhaps the most startling at all is his assessment of Kim Jong-un in South Korea, where he says he's totally dominant and that he had inherited this, but he has a very energetic, very smart people. Well, he has a people that is totally oppressed by a police state and risk going into a concentration camp if they do anything in terms of trying to oppose him. And the degree to which Trump admires these leaders who are dictators, and in the case of Kim Jong-un, certainly a really aggressive police state,

ruthless leader of his own people. It's astonishing to hear him say this, you know, let alone she's the look, whatever that means, the Hollywood look. I mean, is that really perhaps what it's really all about, that he likes the look and the feel and the power of these people and wishes he had had it himself? Absolutely. That's always what it's about, the look for him. And Michael Steele, we know that Donald Trump continues to grow his lead in this early, early polling in the Republican primary. Another poll yesterday showed his lead over Ron DeSantis even bigger than it was before the arraignment last week. But we also know that that ABC episodes poll shows broadly he has a 25 percent favorability rating in the country,

talking about Donald Trump, a man running for reelection, not just in a primary, but he has to run in a general election to become president again. When you hear this as a Republican, even if you're a staunch Donald Trump ally, if you're somebody who's maybe looking around a little bit at Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley or Tim Scott, who we expect to hear get into the race today, what do you do with what you heard last night? I know it's not new and I know he's given praise to these men before, but is this something you want to run back again another time as president? Yeah. I mean, look, from Donald Trump's perspective, first, let's start with that. So you kind of set the floor. And I think the bottom line is Donald Trump looks at these men and he says, if I had that kind of power, I wouldn't be where I am right now.

I wouldn't have to worry about a rogue prosecutor in New York. I wouldn't have to worry about a rogue prosecutor looking into January 6th. January 6th wouldn't have happened because the election would have been a foregone conclusion. The outcome would have been exactly what I wanted it to be. He admires these men for the power he wishes he had. And that's the kind of power he wants to laud over the American people, particularly those who stand in opposition to him, which brings you inside the party. What do they do with this? Well, they will do exactly what they did with it over the last seven years. Nothing. What do you think they're going to do with it? Who's going to stand

up and tell Donald Trump to shut the hell up? He doesn't know what he's talking about. And he is as bad as they are, which is why he shouldn't be within 10 feet of the White House. No one, not one, not one. Nikki Haley and her memos. She wrote a memo. She didn't call a press conference. She didn't stand in front of a bank of microphones. She didn't come on Morning Joe and have this conversation with this panel to say exactly what she wrote in a memo to donors. So, look, let's understand the landscape here. Nothing changes unless they want to change it. Donald Trump is, has been, and will be through this cycle, the preeminent political dominant figure in the Republican Party.

Why, Willie? Because that's what they want. They want him. They like this idea of a powerful leader who can own the libs. Cavorting with dictators and mass murderers, eh, okay, you gotta give up something, right? So that's the attitude. There is no leadership that's willing to come to the table,

look the American people in the eye and go, we're done, we're checking out of this. All the protestations and the complaints and go, we're done. We're checking out of this. All the protestations and the complaints and the whining mean nothing because you end up at the exact same point. So Donald Trump goes on Fox. He sits down with Tucker Carlson, which is laughable in the first place because Tucker hates him passionately. And yet here we are having the conversation with the guy he hates passionately and looking seriously at him and just taking in every word. I mean, so, guys, this is where we are with this party at this point.

No one's prepared to come into the fore and say enough of this. And this is the direction we want to lead the country. We want to put together a governing majority. We want to these are the policies we want to fight for. There's there Joe Scarborough who's, you know, sitting in Congress saying, wait a minute, hold up, time out. I get what these guys want to do in the caucus, but that's not what the party should be doing. So, you know, we talk about it, but we end up at the same spot every time. Yeah, every time, Sam. And you have a leader running that party that, again, has this bizarre, disturbing, and it is so disturbing, obsession with tyrants. And suddenly it makes sense when you start reading about Hitler's, about how Hitler's name came up during a European trip with

John Kelly, General John Kelly, who said that Donald Trump was admiring Hitler. The exact quote that Kelly said was, Hitler did a lot of good things, too, to John Kelly. There, of course, were reports from The Independent and Vanity Fair that that in the 1990s, he kept a book of Hitler speeches by his bedside, according to his wife, Ivana. And and it sounds it sounds so shocking. But then you look at the most tyrannical people alive today and that's who he's praising. And during his presidency, that's who he praised. He had contempt for Macron. He had contempt for for every British prime minister. It seemed that he dealt with. He had contempt for democratically elected leaders, Angela Merkel.

But if you're a tyrant, you get his full praise. Yeah. For the record, there's not anything to praise about Hitler. I just want to clear that up. And then secondarily, yeah, this is a theme for Trump's presidency, which is an affinity towards strongman politics. You know, we could sort of guess as to why that is, whether it's just some sort of philosophical agreement with the governing approach or yearning to have that type of power himself. But the record's pretty clear. Throughout his presidency, bent over backwards to apologize for Putin, famously took Putin's word over the word of his own intelligence community when it came to meddling in the elections. Really sort of had an interesting relationship with Xi.

Obviously, the love letters to Kim Jong-un. I mean, there's a pretty lengthy record of this. And I would just piggyback on what Michael Steele said there, which is Trump has molded the party in this way to a large degree. You remember, it wasn't that long ago where Ron DeSantis had to answer the question of how he came down on the war in Ukraine. And I thought that was a very illustrating answer, which is that he basically said it wasn't in our interest. That's not a position that I think a mainstream Republican presidential candidate would have taken in a pre-Trump era. It certainly would have been shocking in a pre-Trump era. Trump last night was appearing on a program, Tucker Carlson's program. It's the most watched cable news program in the evening. The host is of the same sort of philosophical bend, which is that

he doesn't think the U.S. should be in conflict with Russia, that it should be aligned with Russia. So I would just argue, you know, Trump's imprint on the party and on the movement is vast. And so that's the real sort of legacy here. It's not his own personal fascination with these people. It's how he shaped the conservative media ecosystem and the Republican Party writ large around these issues. Well, Donald Trump, perhaps distracting a bit from his other problems, the Manhattan district attorney leading the prosecution of Donald Trump is now suing a top House Republican. Alvin Bragg filed the lawsuit against Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan yesterday in response to what Bragg calls a brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress on an ongoing criminal prosecution. Bragg has come under increased scrutiny, to put it mildly, by the Ohio Republicans,

since it became likely the former president would be charged in New York City. In addition to calling on the D.A. himself to testify before Congress, Jordan issued a subpoena last week ordering a former prosecutor in the case to appear before the Judiciary Committee. In the new lawsuit, the D, the DA asked the court to block that subpoena, arguing it could cause irreparable harm to the case if certain secret material is disclosed. Bragg's attorneys also argue that subpoena is unconstitutional because Congress has no power to conduct oversight of a state prosecution. The federal judge has scheduled a hearing on the lawsuit for next week. Joining us now, senior legal affairs contributor for Politico, Josh Gerstein. Josh, good morning. prosecution the federal judge has scheduled a hearing on the lawsuit for next week joining us

now senior legal affairs contributor for politico josh gerstein josh good morning so uh talk a little bit more if you would about what prompted this lawsuit from alvin bragg and what the specific complaint is and where it goes from here well willie the lawsuit is aimed at this subpoena to mark pomerantz who is actually not a current prosecutor for Alvin Bragg, but had a falling out with Alvin Bragg about a year ago when Alvin Bragg, who had recently come into office, signaled that he wasn't going to bring a broad tax and insurance fraud kind of case against Trump in criminal court. That led Pomerantz and one of his aides to resign. And but since then, there's been an effort by Jordan and other House Republicans to try to use Pomerantz as kind of a vehicle to get inside Bragg's office and Bragg's thinking, not only on that criminal case that wasn't brought, but the one that was just brought in the last couple of weeks, dealing with narrower issues relating to Trump

and those payments to Stormy Daniels and to another woman. So Republicans hope that Mark Pomerantz is their way into this investigation, and Bragg decided to sort of take a preemptive move, go into federal court, interestingly, in New York, not down here in Washington, D.C., and see if he can halt this subpoena. But I do think it's going to be an uphill battle for Bragg. Yeah. Josh, it looks like Republicans are going to come back and say, look, hold on a second.

Pomerantz has already written the book. This is all out there in public. And so how can you stop him from testifying when people have already read what he has to say? Right. I mean, that's the trickiest part of this, Katty. Given that Pomerantz wrote the book, it's hard for him to sort of take the position that I can't say one word to you now. I need to zip my lip because of this current prosecution that's going on. The other thing going on in this suit is kind of turning the tables. Remember back when Trump was in office, you had all these Democratic led investigations out of Congress trying to get various documents like his tax returns. And then Trump would often say, well, those aren't legitimate investigations. This is something Congress is doing that's purely political.

And now we have Bragg trying to basically you know, basically adopt those arguments and say Congress has no legitimate business looking into an investigation being conducted by a Manhattan district attorney. Hey, Josh, a quick question for you here. So if this is an uphill battle, why bring the suit at all? And then secondarily is, you know, does this impact the timeline for Bragg's own investigation? Do you have to just deal with this sideshow first before we can get back to the original matter, which is looking into Trump's conduct? Well, I mean, he's tried, Sam, to bring in outside counsel. He has outside lawyers, actually a lawyer out of Los Angeles, Ted Boutros,

who's handling this sort of affirmative litigation, this aggressive step that Bragg has made here. I don't think it will really derail the prosecution. At the moment, the ball is kind of in Trump's court. The way the judge up there in New York set a very sort of long deadline going through August and a calendar to hear motions through the end of the year. So I don't think Bragg's under a lot of pressure up there to push his investigation forward. He's sort of waiting for Trump to return this volley. So I don't see it derailing the investigation. I think the concern

is that if they did get Pomerantz on the witness stand or in a deposition, that we might see a lot more of the inside baseball within Bragg's office being spilled out publicly. And I think Bragg's just not eager to see that happen. It would certainly be a distraction to the indictment and the case that he brought last week. And Michael Steele, what a great example of Republican hypocrisy. Here you have Republicans, certainly when Republicans used to be Republicans like myself, saying whenever possible, you take all power, money and authority to states, local governments, to the people. All power is not specifically given to the federal government.

The Constitution are reserved in states and the people. Right. And here you have a Republican Party that uses uses. First of all, if you look at Ron DeSantis, uses his power to go after baseball teams, to go after Mickey Mouse, to go after cruise lines, to tell small businesses what they can and can't do, to go after school librarians, to go after teachers, to go after local school districts. It is the opposite. It's it sees local power consolidated in state government. Well, here you have these guys who I know probably went around when they first started campaigning saying, let's get the power out of Washington and get it down to the people. And yet here you have a man elected by the people

of Manhattan and big brother doesn't like it. So they're going to come from Washington, D.C. to a local D.A. and try to interfere in his investigation. It's just, again, more Republican hypocrisy. Well, it goes to the rot inside the party writ large, and Sam put his finger on that point, in talking about how this infection of Trumpism, MAGAism, has coursed through the veins of the party at all levels. So, the idea of federalism, independent state action, independent power of the states to govern their affairs on behalf of the people in those states only applies if it doesn't touch on a particular interest of ours.

And that particular interest of ours is none other than who? Donald Trump. Because, you know, you would not have this level of interference but for Donald Trump. If it's anyone else, they're going to be hard-pressed to make the case for why they're doing and saying the things they're doing with respect to this prosecution. So, again, it's a further example that all levels, all factions of our society are not immune to this infection. It is our judicial system. It is our political system, obviously, our economic system, certainly our international relationships. Everything has been touched by this. And the idea is culminated in that interview last night with Donald Trump praising individuals who in their own regimes, in their own countries,

have infected their systems in the same manner to the point where they have absolute and total control. There is no questioning of that authority. You know, Jim Jordan perceives himself to be something he's not. He is a very small man in an even smaller pool relative to Donald Trump. But he's going to use the authority that he has with that gavel in his hand to do his bidding, to do what's necessary to make sure that he stays in good favor with someone like Donald Trump. That's the rot reflected in pictures like this, who in any other circumstances would not have the power he has or be in the position he is. And the same is true of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, go down the list. But the infection doesn't let, you know, the cream doesn't rise

here. This is sour milk, baby. And the reality for the party is going into a pivotal 2024 election cycle. It's curdled milk. What are you going to do with it? You're going to you're going to put a bow in the container and you're going to you're going to serve it anyway. And that's what you're seeing play out in these prosecutions, in these efforts to go after prosecutors and others. In the meantime, Jim Jordan, other Republicans still planning that field trip to New York City next week to talk about Alvin Bragg and crime here in New York. Senior legal affairs contributor for Politico, Josh Gerstein. Josh, thanks so much for your reporting. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Louisville police released body cam footage from the first officers to arrive on the scene of

Monday's deadly mass shooting. We'll have the latest officers to arrive on the scene of Monday's deadly mass shooting. We'll have the latest on the investigation and the calls from local leaders for federal and state lawmakers to take action on gun violence. Plus, the mayor of Louisville will be our guest. Also ahead, we'll speak with Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar about what members of Congress are doing to push back against restrictions on access to abortion medication. And the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs joins us with an update on efforts to free Wall Street Journal reporter, the one wrongfully detained in Russia. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. It's no use. I can't see what you see.

When I look at the world. Police released body camera video showing officers confronting the gunman who killed five people at a bank on Monday. NBC News correspondent Maggie Vespa has the latest. Echoes of gunfire as officers speed up to the scene. A firsthand look at police say seven minutes of horror playing out inside a Kentucky bank. Police body camera and cell phone video showing Louisville Metro officers view Monday morning as they race to confront a lone gunman. One taking gunfire as windows shatter, falling, then jumping right back up. Minutes later, killing the shooter. I think he's down. What was it like to watch that body camera video?

It really shakes the core. It shakes the core to know that life was being lost. Investigators say Connor Sturgeon, seen here on surveillance cameras, was armed with an AR-15 rifle, which he bought legally from a local dealership six days before the massacre. Adding the 25-year-old was a current employee at Old National Bank and knew the colleagues he targeted. Officials confirming a fifth victim died, 57 year old Deanna Eckert. Meanwhile, dispatch audio indicating the shooter may have tried to warn a friend before the attack. On the shooter, 25 year old white male, Connor Sturgeon, 6'4". He's texted a friend, called a friend, left a voicemail. He's going to kill everyone at the bank, stealing food title. We know he left a note. We know he texted or called at least one person to let them know he was suicidal and contemplating harm. Neighbors of Sturgeon's home, which investigators

searched, shocked by the news. Can't say nothing really bad about the guy. Very quiet, quiet, soft spoken. Hi, bye. I just don't understand. Doctors also struggling. There's only so many times you can walk into a room and tell someone they're not coming home tomorrow. And it just breaks your heart when you hear someone screaming mommy or daddy. It just becomes too hard. Three remain hospitalized, including Officer Nicholas Wilt, still in critical condition. The chief, adding Wilt, was on his fourth shift less than two weeks out of the academy. His twin brother just started. Also wounded with minor injuries, Officer Corey Galloway, who investigators say killed the shooter.

I can't hear her voice anymore. I can't hear her voice anymore. I can't touch her. I can't tell her how much I love her. The details do nothing to numb Monessa Bard's pain. Her 45-year-old daughter, Juliana Farmer, among the dead. Amid a successful career in banking, she was just recruited back to Louisville and Old National Bank three weeks ago. How do you make sense of that? She just got back there. There is no sense to be had. I just feel like that man stole her from us. I don't understand his reasoning. I don't understand why she's gone.

NBC's Maggie Vest with that report. Let's bring right now MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle. And here we are, Mike, another massive human tragedy, another American street, American business, American school, American church or synagogue turned into a war zone. desperately tried to do their duty to protect and serve, to save lives, and being outgunned by somebody that just waltzed into a store a week before and was able to buy a weapon of war, another person who was suicidal, and decided, well, I just watch the news. What do I do? I go into a store, I get a weapon of war and I kill a lot of people and I take a lot of people with me. And for this party, Republicans, this is all on Republicans. This is all on Republicans. These weapons of war are protected by Republicans. The lack of background checks protected by Republicans. It's all on one party, all on one party.

They claim at the same time to love men and women in blue, but they're OK with cops getting their brains bashed in on January the 6th. They're OK with with law enforcement being defunded if law enforcement gets turned sideways with Donald Trump. And they're OK with cops from Uvalde to Nashville to Louisville having to rush in overmatched, over outgunned by one mentally disturbed human being with an AR-15. It's just it's sick. These are these these people. They should listen to cops. They should listen to law enforcement organizations who beg them to get these weapons of war off the street. But they just don't want because in the end of the day, they care more about donations from the NRA than they do the safety of police officers. You know, Joe, the clip that we just showed and that we'll show it a lot more, I assume, during the coming days shows that being a police officer, if you're a young Nicholas Wilkes, you're on your fourth or

fifth tour of duty, having graduated from the police academy less than a month ago, you see him, you see his legs dropped on the ground. He's perhaps 15 to 20 feet from the cruiser that he arrived at the crime scene in. He is in critical condition, obviously shot in the head. But you see that You see it right on the clip that we just showed, dropped to the ground. You see his legs. This happens every day in America. It's seemingly we cover these things at least once or twice a week in America. You heard the heartache from survivors of people who were shot and killed in Louisville.

We see it all the time. Because of the nature of the news business, it's so quick and swift and things happen so rapidly, we move on from one incident to another, from one news story to another. But the ache, the heartache, and the loss that was expressed in the clip that we just showed, that lasts forever. It affects a community forever. And it's inexplicable why, as you point out, largely the Republican Party is responsible for standing in the way of any substantive progress, even the smallest elements of progress

in terms of getting control of this virus that is crippling America, the gun virus. It is truly inexplicable. There's no way you can talk about it without, there's no way you can understand what their motives are. Are they that afraid of one outfit, the National Rifle Association? It's crazy. I mean, it's inexplicable. I don't know what else to say. It's just inexplicable. I don't know what else is inexplicable. It's just inexplicable. And Willie, we're now seeing images that resemble a film that we saw out of Vietnam. Video that we saw out of Fallujah. Video that we saw out of Kandahar. Video that we see when our soldiers are fighting foreign wars and they take gunfire. Except this is happening in local banks. It's happening happening in elementary schools.

It's happening at country music concerts. It's happening in churches. It's happening in synagogues. It's happening in grocery stores. It's happening in colleges. It's happening everywhere Americans live. The war, you know, Republicans always said we've got to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over there, but we're fighting ourselves over here. We're fighting a Republican Party that will not do what 90 percent of Americans want them to do on universal background check. Well, checks will not do what a majority of Americans want them to do. Overwhelming majority Americans want them to do nationwide on red flag laws.

Who will not take a serious look at regulating weapons of war. So so they they are are not just handed over to people who have who are in the middle of middle crises. But that's where we are. We we're seeing video that looks like it's from Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam. It is really sickening. You watch that body cam footage. You watch the body cam footage from Nashville a couple of weeks ago and you say, thank God, how blessed are we to have men and women like that who just run in? They just run. They hear gunfire. They don't know what's around the corner. And we're asking them to run into a situation, as you say, where they're being met with weapons of war. And people go, oh, they're not weapons of war. No, they are.

That's what the AR-15, the original AR-15 was designed for Vietnam, a version of it, because it was a more lethal killing machine. So we're asking a lot of our police, as we said yesterday, if people who don't want tighter gun safety won't listen to little kids who don't want to die in school, maybe they'll listen to police officers who they claim to love, who are saying we are outmanned, we are outgunned. Please help us at least regulate. You don't have to ban AR-15s or semi-automatic rifles, but help us regulate the kind of people who can get them at least. And when you listen to that doctor that we heard in the piece, his name is Dr. Jason Smith, the chief medical officer at the University of Louisville, who we're going to have on the show live just about an hour from now. He said something that really struck me. He said, to be honest with you, we barely had to adjust our operating room schedule

to be able to handle this. That's how frequently we're having to deal with gun violence in our community, Mike. He said, this is not actually as horrific as it is. This is not an abnormal day anymore. You know, the bitter, tragic irony of this story and stories that we do way, way too often, mass shootings in schools and banks and hospitals, things like the bitter irony is that progress, Joe, you know, this progress is being held up by one political party who advertises itself daily, almost hourly as pro-life. Yeah, pro-life, pro-cop. I salute still, and we always do, the 10 Republicans who were willing to work in a bipartisan way in the United States Senate to come together for some gun safety measures. And let me

say, in this political environment, any step forward is a significant step forward. And we're so grateful that they did that. But it's time to take the next step. 90 percent of Americans believe in universal background checks. Over 80 percent of Americans believe in red flag laws for states all across the country. And and I know they're not ready for it now, but sometime soon we're going to have to figure out a way to regulate, as Willie said, AR-15s in a much tighter way. Nobody's talking about coming to anybody's houses and kicking down the doors and taking them away.

We understand how many millions of Americans have AR-15s. But it's usually not the ones who have the AR-15s over a long period of time that's a problem. It's people who are disturbed, who go in on their 18th birthday and buy AR-15s and then shoot up elementary schools. People who feel suicidal walk in, get AR-15s, go to a bank and kill innocent people working, just hoping to work, get a paycheck, go home, see their families at night. There's such a long way, Willie, such a long way to go to make America safer, to make kindergarten safer, to make elementary school safer, to make church synagogues, country music festivals safer. But what is so maddening is there are 147 mass shootings so far in 2023.

More Americans have died from gun violence this year when we're just in April this year than died over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guns are the number one cause of death among our children in America in 2023. It doesn't have to be that way. That's what's so maddening. You know, it'd be one thing if, you know, you send a soldier to war and if the country supports the war, everybody understands what's at stake and what's what's to be done here. These cops, they don't have to live in a world where they have to rush in and choose between getting their heads blown off and saving somebody working in a blank bank, getting getting shot down in a hell of gunfire

and saving a nine year old girl or a nine year old boy from a Christian elementary school. That is a choice. We're we're putting police officers and our children in kindergarten and first and second and third. For that, we're giving support that are completely in line with the Second Amendment and the reading of the Second Amendment by the Supreme Court of the United States of America and make our streets safer. They won't do it. They need to. Dr. Smith said, who, again, we're going to speak to in just a moment. He said, I'm just a doctor. I don't know what the answer is. All I know is the way we're going right now is not working. Something has to change. I don't want to staff up my emergency room because I know gunshot victims are going to flood in every night. We'll talk to him about an hour

from now. Coming up, some other news. Another Republican is making moves that may signal a presidential campaign. We'll tell you who that is. Also ahead, President Biden is in Northern Ireland this morning. We'll go through his schedule today and what we can expect out of this trip. It's all ahead on Morning Joe. And welcome back to Morning Joe. You're looking at live chopper shots. Quite dramatic, Willie. And they're going straight to the tennis courts. Of course, Willie, that reminds me of what we were doing in 76 and 77

when we were running the chopper for WNBC. Those were some crazy days, right? We were on a whole bunch of stuff we shouldn't have been on when we were flying that thing. I still feel bad about it. There was a 70s, though. Everybody was doing it. Yeah. Well, everybody was doing it, Willie, and seriously, who remembers now anyway? That's why we can talk about it and we don't worry. Statute of Limitations ran out in 1982 for most crimes committed in that chopper, but we'll get back to that later on right now. Well, we're looking back over history and getting warm and fuzzy feelings about all the things that went wrong in the 1970s for Willie and me.

And quite frankly, that we got away with Sam Stein. I don't think Republicans in Congress are going to get away with what they've done over the first 100 days. This is I remember when we had our 100 days, our 100 day celebration after getting elected first Republican majority in 40 years. We went out and we said, these are the 10 pieces of legislation we promised you we were going to pass through the House. These are the 10 pieces of legislation that we passed through the House. Promises made, promises kept. And we did. I mean, we really did. And yet this House GOP is off to such a slow start. Here's the Washington Post actually saying in its first three months in charge, Gingrich's Republican majority had approved 10 planks of the contract with American, including balanced budget law, presidential line

out of veto, overhaul of welfare laws and a huge tax cut proposal. What we've seen from this Republican Congress has been a circus. The first the first week was a circus. I mean, I got to say C-SPAN loved it because it was like C-SPAN viewing like you never saw. Other than the time Willie charged the fool when I was there and we both passed out. That's another story. It was 89. People don't remember what happened in 89. No, no, I can keep going all day. I got four hours. But think about this. They ran saying the Democrats were only focused on marginal issues, that they needed to care about inflation. They needed to care about immigration. They needed to care about crime.

And yet you look at the clown show that they've put on. They're going and they're celebrating convicts. They're holding field hearings in prison to praise convicts who stormed the United States Capitol. They're now trying to interfere with an investigation, a local DA's investigation. That's their look into crime. And on immigration, which I think is the most remarkable thing, they can't even get an immigration bill on the House floor that can pass because Republicans don't even agree with each other on that immigration bill. So 100 days in, what do they have to show for it, Sam? This is why you're the best in the business, man. An absurd close-up of an empty tennis court to a son of a queen about the House Republicans 100 days.

Seamless, baby. Seamless. Unbelievable. And mixed in between with weird asides about the 80s and the 70s. Look, it's been a weird 100 days. I think if you go back to our original concept here of how Trump has re-engineered the party, this is yet another example about it. The investigations, keep in mind, the House Republicans always knew that whatever legislation they passed, it was going nowhere for the first 100 days, right? It was all about sort of what investigations they could launch and how they could maybe put a dent in Joe Biden's armor. And yet, 100 days in, the primary investigative pursuits really are engineered around Trump, not Biden. You know, you have oversight hearings on Twitter and whether it's suppressing information.

That's like a Trump, that's a major Trump issue, obviously. You have Jim Jordan going hard after Alvin Bragg. That is obviously engineered around Donald Trump. Donald Trump has sort of commandeered the Republican Party, at least the House Republican Party. And for that, you have 100 days that is, you know, fits and starts, very little legislative accomplishments and investigations that were supposed to be about denting Joe Biden that have instead become about being defensive towards Trump. Yeah, it's not been too great, Sam. It's not been unlike my stories, which, by the way, I'm sorry you can't stay with us. Yeah, but I mean, next hour, I'm going to be telling you how in 1993 1993 Willie and I tried to break into the Louvre with nothing but gauze pads and 38 ball bearings.

No, no, we had time to kind of figure it out. But the ball bearings and gauze pads for some reason didn't get us in there. But we'll tell that story on the other side of the break. Sam Stein, thanks so much. I'd say go Sox, but right now it seems futile. All right.