Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/12/24

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

The Morning Joe panel discusses the latest in U.S. and world news, politics, sports and culture.

Well, former President Trump's hush money trial is set to start on Monday. And for the third time in three days, a judge just rejected his attempt to delay it. Yeah, Trump is trying everything. He even requested a delay so he can mourn the loss of O.J. And that didn't work. Jimmy Fallon last night. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe.

It is Friday, April the 12th. Donald Trump's hush money trial is on track to start on Monday. And now we are learning who may take the stand in that trial. We'll be joined this morning by the legal advisor to Michael Cohen, a key witness in the case. Also ahead, Speaker Mike Johnson leaving Washington for Mar-a-Lago to meet with the former president. This comes as his speakership hangs in the balance over funding for Ukraine. And we'll have the latest on efforts to repeal Arizona's abortion ban ahead of a visit today from Vice President Kamala Harris. With us this morning, the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at

Politico, Jonathan Lemire, president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson and former senior aide to both the Biden and Clinton campaigns, Adrian Elrod. Good morning. It's great to have you all with us. Joe. Morning, Joe. Conversation kind of continued a few blocks away in New York with you and Rev yesterday. I'll tell you why. Rev, you you you had quite an event there yesterday. And you, of course, always, always the convener and the star of the show. But but Mika Brzezinski was was was given an award.

It was very moving. The entire the entire thing was so moving. No, Mika was awarded by the women of National Action Network. And it was very moving. Hundreds of women thanking her for raising on a global level their value. And she was moved. I think she underestimated the kind of emotion they had. And then I think you underestimated your impact among this kind of community. We had a couple of thousand people in the room and had a fireside chat and talked about how our relationship evolved. And the way people cheered, I mean, I thought you were running for president or something. I mean, I've had presidents. In fact, the president is going to do a viral speech this afternoon at our conference. And I've had presidents there. They didn't get a better reception than you got yesterday. People need to really look online and see how they treated Joe Scarborough.

I was a little jealous to be honest. I was not jealous at all. Not jealous at all. It was, you know, what I've heard about National Action Network through the years, and I tell you, Phil has told me about it for some time, how closely he's worked with it, is that you're always there. The organization's always there for the people who need it the most. I mean, most people don't know that when you get off of this show, you know, you get on the phones and you're calling around and asking people what they need for help, how you can help an individual who's in trouble right now. Of course, these things that get on national news, these tragedies of young black men usually, but sometimes young white men, sometimes young Hispanic men, people see that, but they don't see everything that goes on day in and day out.

You helping people with their rent. Just, again, helping when when when people need something. Well, you can't, in my opinion, use victims as props. They are victims. But once the cameras are gone, you need to still be there. That's why we build an organization, not just me out there. And we've been able to do that. But also as history, Joy Reid was there with a book on Medgar Evers later yesterday afternoon and she was received well. Medgar Evers assassination was what helped galvanize the March on Washington in 1963.

And I can go on and on and show where these tragedies become the turning point for changing social policy. If you use it right. So my feeling is you must protect the families, the victims. But you also must change the policies and the laws so you don't continue to have the victims. You must do both. You can't just drop them and just go for whatever else you see as the next item. Make. Yeah, exactly. I turned that tragedy into into promise. And of course, again, the president of the United States is going to be speaking National Action Network today. So, Jonathan, this isn't really a shock. What's on the front of the tabloids? O.J. Simpson, a great running back for USC. And then and then the bills accused of murder eventually quitted.

But obviously other charges spent time in jail. But that's what much of the discussion on TV has been over the last 24 hours. Yeah, it's been striking. O.J. Simpson's not a name many people have said the last few years. He's faded from the headlines. He was, as you said, convicted for a robbery trying to steal sports memorabilia in Las Vegas. He spent nine years in prison. Other than the occasional social media video, has largely faded from the spotlight. But when the news came yesterday that he had died, it really was a thunderclap for a lot of people who remembered not only his time as a star athlete,

but particularly the trial of what we're seeing here, the chase in the white Bronco. People of my age and older, it almost almost the Kennedy assassination in terms of people remember where they were when that slow speed chase happened on the Los Angeles freeways. And then, of course, this trial, which was so divisive in many ways. And then the stunning verdict of not guilty, which really divided the country. So, yeah, his to his, you know, certainly there are not many tears shed, I think, for O.J. Simpson's death in many places in this country yesterday. But an important figure and one that really touched on of celebrity and murder and sensational. They really captured a lot of what America was.

And Willie changed the media forever for better or for worse. Most would say for the worst. Chief TV critic for The New York Times has a new piece titled O.J. Simpson Made in America, Made by TV. It reads in part this. It was a tragedy, too, of course. And viewers could not agree which part of it was a tragedy. And that, too, was a tragedy. It was also a preview of coming attractions. It was a model for the all in immersion coverage that 24 hour news would apply to everything from wars to missing person cases to sex scandals. The all O.J. all the time news would seamlessly become all Clinton Lewinsky all the time, complete with legal commentators reprising their roles. And that

really is that's that is created the media landscape that we inherited from 1994 forward. It is. And it started even before the trial, as John said, if you remember the slow speed chase, it was on one of the nights of the NBA finals, the 1994 NBA finals between the Knicks and the Rockets. All the networks were going wall to wall. Ultimately, almost 100 million people in this country were watching. And the NBC took the NBA finals and put it in a split screen. So you had this bizarre scene where Marv Albert was doing play by play on one side for a basketball game where Patrick Ewing and Akeem Olajuwon were going at it. But on the other side, you had Tom Brokaw, of course, the anchor of NBC Nightly News, narrating this surreal slow-speed chase as crowds gathered on those overpasses. They had made signs

it was going on so long, cheering O.J. on, many of them. Truly a bizarre spectacle. And Gene Robinson, you're writing about this this morning. For people who aren't old enough to remember kind of what news and cable news looked like pre-OJ, pre-1994, when every story, major, sometimes we could say not so major, is covered wall to wall with analysts brought on set and talking through whatever is happening that day. It was truly yesterday a moment to stop and think about, wow, 30 years of obviously the victims of the crime, but also 30 years of the way our business has changed as well. Absolutely. This was a day one of the media landscape we live in now. And, you know, people certainly my age, your age, we remember that trial, the drama of that trial. The characters were so vivid. It was really the first time, I think, that the nation collectively got to watch the process of a trial, got to watch a really skilled and expensive defense team sort of pick apart a prosecution case or at least create enough reasonable doubt that to convince a jury to acquit, you know, in a verdict that a lot of people think was unjust and that even more people think was just fundamentally wrong. I mean, I think it was wrong. I think

he did it. But a different question as to whether the case was proved beyond a reasonable doubt. And we saw the sort of messiness and I would argue the greatness of our legal system because it is weighted in favor of the defendant. And that's the way it's supposed to work. And it left, I think, nobody really happy except O.J. Simpson and his defense team. And then, of course, O.J. later got sentenced to 33 years in prison, an incredibly harsh sentence for armed robbery. He was trying to get back some sports memorabilia in Las Vegas, had a gun. A lot of people saw that as a make up call to to to sort of make up for the fact that he didn't get convicted for the murders. You know, Willie, we're we've got a lot to talk about today. Seven o'clock, we're going to have Fareed Zakaria on. He's going to be talking about how the United States is in the top general over to Israel.

And he's over there to help coordinate military strategy on what many fear is a pending Iranian strike. But also just to send the very strong message to Iran. Don't even think about it. Don't even think about it. And I will say we I think this is very helpful for the Biden administration. I don't think there's any doubt that that Vladimir Putin mistook Joe Biden's actions in Afghanistan as a sign of weakness, when in fact, we were all predicting anybody that read anything that Joe Biden said about Afghanistan since 2009 knew that he was going to get us out of Afghanistan. He was opposed to Barack Obama's policy of tripling the number of troops there. He thought that that that the United States, he thought 65 percent of Americans. Right. America needed to come home from Afghanistan after 20

years of war. Russia misread that. Vladimir Putin misread that as a sign of weakness. And and I think it's very important that we've sent our top general over from the region into Israel to say, don't misread what we're saying about Gaza. We're friends are in a fight right now trying to figure out the best way to sort through this. But Iran don't even think about attacking Israel right now. And it's a very strong message is being sent, I think, to Iran and across the world. Yeah, I think this is important tactically, but also symbolically, as you say, Iran and Hamas and others think they see cracks in the relationship between the United States and Israel. There may be some in this moment of the way that that Israel's handled the war. But President Biden sending this message, say, no, we stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel.

Be clear. We just have a family squabble about how this is going on. Much more on that in just a minute. But let's get to Vice President Kamala Harris traveling to Arizona today, just three days after the state Supreme Court ruled in 1864 law criminalizing nearly all abortions can be enforced. While in Arizona, Harris expected to underscore the stakes of the 2024 election for abortion, health care and reproductive freedom. The vice president also expected to emphasize Tuesday's ruling by Arizona's high court was made possible by Donald Trump. The campaign released some experts from her prepared remarks, including this quote. We all must understand who is to blame. It is the former president, Donald Trump. It is Donald Trump who during his campaign in 2016 said women should be punished for seeking an abortion.

Donald Trump, she goes on, is the architect of this health care crisis. And that's not a fact he hides. In fact, he brags about it. Here's what a second Trump term looks like. More bans, more suffering, less freedom. But we are not going to let that happen. That's an advanced look at prepared remarks today in Arizona from Vice President Kamala Harris. And Joe, she's right. Just a couple of days ago, Donald Trump stood in that tarmac and said it was an incredible achievement to get rid of Roe and saying, quote, we did that. He's now living with the consequences. Living with the consequences.

Senatorial candidate also living with the consequences of what she said a couple of years ago, though she is. She is trying to sound as moderate as humanly possible and picking up the phone, calling around people. But Carrie Lake, of course, going to be spending the rest of this campaign outrunning earlier comments. New York Times headline Democrats hammer a simple attack on abortion. Donald Trump did this and he did. And the consequences are absolutely terrible for women and also for Republican candidates. Yeah. While Willie was bringing in this story, I wrote four words on my paper. Donald Trump did this. That is what the that's the message. And that's what the Biden

campaign has said. And it's simple and powerful. I think we're going to hear Donald Trump did this about a lot of issues as the year goes on, including those connected to assaults on the democracy on January 6th. But most also, also Donald Trump. And we're going to be talking about this, too. He's desperately trying to run away from all the times he said he wanted to do away with Obamacare. Yes. No, no, no. Obama, I forget what I said about John McCain going like this. Maybe maybe I like Obama.

So he's flip flopping. He just looks so weak and desperate. A truth social video yesterday. He tried to say, no, I'm for Obamacare. I want to change it. And we can fact check like without a thousand times. He said he wanted to overturn it. Donald Trump did this.

And it's in as much as the Biden administration knows they have to put forward a positive message, so much of what they're going to say between now and November is like, look, this is what Trump did. He has changed your life. He has taken away your freedoms. He's threatening to do more. We can't have this again. And Donald Trump did this. Adrian, it's squarely going to be about abortion. And the vice president, who is this administration's best messenger on this issue, heads to Arizona, which is now trying to enforce a Civil War era near total ban on the procedure, very much putting a battle run state, but one that seemed like it was slipping away from the president now firmly up for grabs again.

Tell us a little more about what we about that message we'll hear from the vice president. Donald Trump did this. That going to work? Yeah, look, I think sometimes, Lamir, the simplest words are the most effective message. So I think you're going to see the campaign really playing out. Not only Donald Trump did this on abortion, but as Joe was saying on a number of other issues. But look, the vice president is an incredibly effective messenger on protecting a woman's right to choose to make her own decisions, not only about her own health care, but her own financial decisions, her own economic decisions. So I think obviously you're going to see the

vice president continue to travel across the country. But I'm also very proud of the campaign and the White House for getting on top of this, for going to Arizona immediately, which, of course, meant that the vice president had to sort of change around her schedule. But they jumped on top of this because there is there is so much at stake. Arizona, of course, is a top battleground state in this campaign cycle. And, you know, we narrowly won, the campaign narrowly won Arizona in 2020. It's going to be a very close race this time around. But they want to make sure that every single voter, the vice president wants to make sure that every single voter, the entire American electorate is squarely aware of who is responsible for this

decision for putting three Supreme Court justices on the court that were against a woman's right to choose that made it very clear before they joined the court where they stood on this issue. And then, like you said, Donald Trump is flip flopping around. He can't really figure out what the right message is right now. He's not going to be able to run away from what he did in this campaign is not going to let them forget this. Yeah. You know, Rev, I've talked for some time about how pro-life conservatives have seen the extremes of 10 year old girls who've been rape victims, having to flee states of of mothers, of children being denied treatment and having you know possibly being sterilized or having their lives very lives put at risk changing the view points i found it fascinating talking to people yesterday the national action network and hearing

you uh talking uh about how uh you know your your organization you've got a lot of churches from across America coming together, some of them fundamentalist. And even people from that church who are traditionally pro-life, from those churches, are saying, this is too extreme. We want no part of this. This is too much, especially for our for our daughters, for our wives, for our children, for our communities. And that's exactly the attitude and opinion I get, even from those that are pro-lifers, that are part of the civil rights movement generally or National Action Network, is that many of them say what I would guide myself by or advise my daughter by does not mean that I think you ought to criminalize it. We talk about criminalizing people's choices or that I ought to force government to make that choice. You have a choice in religion. I mean, you can do good or evil, go to heaven or hell, as we believe.

But that's your choice. But you can't force people to do what you think is right. And you can't make them criminal if they don't. And that's what you saw yesterday. And I think what the right wing and the Trumpsters have done is they've gone too far with their criminalizing it, where they're robbing women of the dignity of making their own choice. And that's why even some pro-lifers are saying, wait a minute, I can be for life and at the same time say, but wait a minute, it is up to a woman to make her own choice. Right. And Willie, we're seeing this in the Christian community. We're seeing in the Jewish community, the Muslim community. We're seeing in the secular communities where people who may have had a

position closer to a traditional pro-life position being pushed away by the extreme positions of, well, you look at what's going on in Arizona, you look at what happened up in Wisconsin when they were still clinging on to an 1849 abortion law? You look all across the country, places like Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, really conservative states. Just saying enough. We are not signing up for this extremist MAGA approach to women's health. Yeah, I mean, there are many people in this country who on moral, religious grounds, whatever they may be, think maybe a 16 week ban, 15 week ban, something like that would be appropriate. But once you get below that and you start talking about six weeks in Florida,

Arizona, excuse me, Alabama starts talking about getting rid of IVF. And now you're talking about no exceptions except for the health of the mother and putting doctors in jail for two to five years based on a law from the Civil War era. Even people who don't like abortion are going, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's a bridge way, way too far. So, Adrian Elrod, I suspect that we're going to hear much, much more about this, as you've been saying, because this could just be the beginning of what we're going to see in these states. Now that Roe has been gone for almost two years, we've seen some of the trigger laws go into effect with abortion bans, and they seem to just be getting more extreme as we go along in the process here. Yeah, that's exactly right, Willie. I mean, what's coming next, right? Like what's next shoe that's going to drop on this? And this is why, again, going back to Donald Trump's strategy, it's not effective because he says, well, you know, we'll leave it up to the states. That's where it should be.

But every time that he says that and something else happens in a state that affects a woman's right to choose, it's disastrous for him. And, you know, if you are the average voter looking out there and saying, you know, man, how do we stop this? Obviously, every measure that's put on the ballot to allow women to have access to their own reproductive health decisions has passed overwhelmingly by both Democrats, Republicans and independents. But it still is a Herculean effort to get something on the ballot and to get it passed. It's not an easy feat. So sure, Donald Trump can say this is left of the states. But I think if you're, you know, the average voter out there trying to figure out who you're going to vote for in this election cycle, maybe you're, you know, kind of teetering back and forth, not quite decided yet.

You're looking at this and you're saying, you know, man, I don't think it should be left to the states because it's such a disastrous consequence when you look at what happened in Alabama, when you look at the fact that Arizona is going back to an 1864 law that's been on the books since women even had the right to vote, since Arizona was a state. It's crazy. So, you know, the contrast could not be more clear. And again, President Biden and Vice President Harris are going to make sure that every single voter in America knows who is responsible for putting this in the position that we're in today and who's responsible for giving women these very difficult decisions they have to make about their own health because the government is not protecting them. And again, the Biden campaign only has to play videotape of Donald Trump as recently as two days ago, saying, quote, we did that.

President Biden and Vice President Harris saying, yes, you sure did. We'll have much more on this issue coming up this morning. Also ahead, barring any last minute delays now, jury selection in former President Trump's hush money trial is set to begin on Monday. We'll talk to the legal advisor to Michael Cohen, who will be a likely key witness for prosecutors about what to expect in court. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll a con man. He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair and to lie about it to his wife, which I did. Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds

from a home equity line of credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign. And I did that too, without bothering to consider whether that was improper, much less whether it was the right thing to do or how would it impact me, my family or the public. And I am going to jail in part because of my decision to help Mr. Trump hide that payment from the American people before they voted a few days later. That is Donald Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen,

testifying before the House Oversight Committee in February of 2019 and taking responsibility for the things he did on behalf of Donald Trump. NBC News has learned Cohen is on the list of witnesses expected to be called to testify in the former president's hush money criminal trial with jury selection set to begin on Monday in New York. Cohen, you'll remember, pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance charges related to hush money payments made to two women just before the 2016 election, including adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Joining us now is legal advisor to Michael Cohen, Lanny Davis and state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave Ehrenberg. Good morning to you both. Lanny, let me start with you. Can you confirm that Michael Cohen will be a witness in this trial? Yes. He will be a witness in this trial. So we should remind people that Michael Cohen went to jail for over a year for charges related to this.

He served home confinement for another year and a half or so, almost three years of time served. So as you look at this, Lanny, what is this trial about exactly? We've got some distance from it, about eight years since these payments were made in October of 2016, just before Election Day. What is this a trial about the way you see it? Well, let me quote Donald Trump's Justice Department's prosecutors in public when they made the charge that Donald Trump, and they wrote this, directed Michael Cohen to pay this money to Ms. Daniels. They said this case is about the impairment of democracy by allowing wealthy people such as Mr. Trump to buy silence a few days before the election to prevent the American people from gaining information they need. They describe this case as about democracy.

That's the federal district of New York, Southern District of New York prosecutors in a public document, hiding in plain sight. So every time someone describes this in a disparaging way, as about sex or something else, quote Donald Trump's prosecutors describing this case as seriously about the undermining of democracy. Lanny, can Alvin Bragg in a state court in New York make that connection? Can he go beyond the narrower violations of, you know, falsifying business records and how that became a felony? Can he go beyond that to make the connection to the election? Not so narrow. He has charged Mr. Trump 35, 34 felony counts, and those involve 34 times that he booked as expenses for legal services, what federal prosecutors working for his administration described as payments to silence somebody right before an election, which made

them illegal. So the answer is yes, he can connect the federal violation of fraud to New York state crimes, at least three of them. And he laid them out in the indictment. But yes, Eugene, that is definitely part of the case. So, Dave Annenberg, you're a prosecutor. We can already figure out what the Trump defense is going to be about Michael Cohen. They're going to paint him as an untrustworthy witness. They're going to say he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. They're going to say you shouldn't believe a word this man says. So how do you then, as the prosecution, how do you use Cohen effectively with that as the backdrop? Jonathan, the reason why Michael Cohen went to prison for lying and

for other felonies was because he was lying for Donald Trump. And it was, as Lanny said, for the felonies that are at issue here. So he's going to try to attack Michael Cohen, but Cohen will have corroboration. That's key for prosecutors, corroboration in the form of Stormy Daniels herself and even perhaps Hope Hicks, a loyalist to Donald Trump, including David Pecker, the head of the former National Enquirer. Also, I think that Trump will try to use the John Edwards defense, which is these payments were not for campaign reasons. They were to protect his family. But that can be easily debunked. You know, he's going to try to say I was trying to protect Melania from finding out.

But Coleman and Stormy Daniels lawyer first spoke about this affair in 2011. So this was known for years within Team Trump, and yet no money changed hands until two weeks before the election. So that is really damaging. Plus, as far as falsification of business records, why do that if you're just trying to protect the information from Melania? Melania was not likely to pour over the books of the Trump organization, which is a private company. So I falsified these internal records just to keep it secret from her, unless you knew it was a campaign election crime. But also, Trump allegedly directed Michael Cohen to delay paying Stormy Daniels until after the election, because he didn't want to pay her at all. And after the election, it wouldn't matter. Why? Because Trump knew this

was about the campaign. So there are a lot of good facts for the prosecution. And after the election, it wouldn't matter. Why? Because Trump knew this was about the campaign. So there are a lot of good facts for the prosecution. And in the end, I think this is headed towards a conviction. You've seen some of the names, Dave Ehrenberg, on the prosecution, possible witness list for the prosecution. Is there anybody in particular you would call that you'd be interested in their testimony? Hope Hicks. Hope Hicks gave some different testimony when she appeared before Congress, Joe. And I'm interested in seeing what she says now.

She did testify before the grand jury, and she is a Trump loyalist. She was the one who was like steaming his pants on Air Force One. And now she's going to be there to corroborate Michael Cohen. And we'll see what happens there. But that'll be a powerful witness. Trump will try to bring in politics in this, trying to say that Joe Biden is behind this. But the judge is not going to allow this to become a circus. And besides, I must add, as a state prosecutor, the thought that Joe Biden is somehow involved in this is ridiculous.

I can tell you in 12 years as a state prosecutor here, I've never gotten a call from the White House about any case. It's not how it works. And for those who think, well, that's Manhattan and he wouldn't call here. Remember, in my jurisdiction in Palm Beach County, I oversee Mar-a-Lago. So if anyone would get a call, you would think I would and never got a call. So I do think that Judge Marchand is going to keep this case tight. He's going to keep it moving. And the jury poll has to really concern Donald Trump. That's an area up there where Trump got like 12 percent of the vote. That's got to scare him a lot. Lonnie, I've known you a while and worked on various issues.

In fact, we're working on the transplant justice issue without be sure now. So I know how passionate you are about people being about what is right. Tell us what Michael Cohen, who I know I've had prayer with before he went to jail. What does he represent to a jury when he's sitting there? Because he is a guy who went to jail for lying, but has been passionate about what he did and why he did it. Why do you feel as an experienced attorney that this would resonate with a jury? First of all, thanks for getting that question from Reverend Sharpton, who is a preacher who knows about sinners taking ownership. And the testimony

that you just showed, Michael, I happen to be sitting behind him wearing the same tie just to show you all that I'm the same person. He owned, Reverend, what he did wrong. He started out by saying that I am ashamed and I am contrite and I don't expect to be forgiven. I only expect to be heard. Nobody on national and international television can doubt that he took responsibility and did his time. But the federal prosecutors who work for Donald Trump, let me repeat this because this has been missed, Reverend, found that Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to pay the money for which he did time. And they also found that he falsely booked, or at least the bookings were for legal expenses that he knew

did not exist. And the new witness that we know this morning, a woman who was there when Donald Trump, as president of the United States, Joe Scarborough and I were on TV together on Crossfire about Bill Clinton. Well, this is a sitting president of the United States writing these illegal checks. That's the federal prosecutors called them illegal, not me. And they work for Trump writing checks from the Oval Office, Joe, signing his name to Michael Cohen to reimburse him not to pay for his legal expenses. The federal prosecutors said that was false. So I quote the prosecutors working for Donald Trump who charged Michael Cohen, targeted Michael Cohen and never said a word.

They called him individual one until the media found that he was Donald Trump. So now we're going to have the truth come out under cross-examination. And remember, Michael Cohen went through brutal cross-examination in the New York attorney general case. The judge heard that and found him to be truthful. So we know at least that during a cross-examination, he told the truth and the judge made a verdict finding him to be truthful. Calling this the hush money trial only tells a part of the story. It is that, of course, one hundred thirty thousand dollars to a porn star, but this is also about interfering in the 2016 election. Legal advisor to Michael Cohen, Lanny Davis, confirming for us this morning Michael Cohen will be a witness and jury selection gets underway in that trial on Monday.

Lanny, thanks for being here. And state attorney for Palm Beach County, Dave Ehrenberg, thank you as well. Still ahead this morning, Donald Trump repeatedly has said he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We'll take a look at what he's saying now amid new attacks from the Biden campaign. Morning Joe's coming right2 on a Friday morning after eight years of vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act without offering a viable replacement. Donald Trump now says he only wants to make Obamacare better. In a video posted to Truth Social yesterday, Trump claimed President Joe Biden is misrepresenting Trump's position on the health care plan used by about 40 million Americans. But as recently as last year, Trump still was saying, quote, he was looking at the alternatives to the ACA and bemoaning the failure of the 2017 Senate vote to repeal it. Here is what Trump said yesterday, followed by a few of

his many comments over the years. I'm not running to terminate the ACA, as Crooked Joe Biden says all over the place. I'm running to close the border, stop inflation, make our economy great, strengthen our military and make the ACA or Obamacare, as it's sometimes known, much better, stronger and far less expensive because it's much too expensive now and it's not very good. We're going to create great health care. We're going to get rid of Obamac good. We're going to create great health care. We're going to get rid of Obamacare. We're going to terminate it. We're going to win by knocking the hell out of Obamacare, terminating it with Obamacare. Getting back to the boring subject.

It's almost a waste of time talking about it because when we terminate it, all we'll do is say it was a bad experience for the American people. We are decimating Obamacare. We got a bad vote the evening. We got a bad vote the evening that we were going to terminate Obamacare. Hopefully we'll win at the appellate division and go to the Supreme Court to terminate Obamacare.

We want to terminate Obamacare because it's bad. Look, we're running it really well, but we know it's defective. What we are doing is we want to terminate health care for under Obamacare because it's bad. Look, we're running it really well, but we know it's defective. What we are doing is we want to terminate health care for under Obamacare because it's bad. We almost got it done, but John McCain voted against it. That was a bad day. Remember that? Thumbs down after campaigning for 10 years. Thumbs down, everybody. Donald Trump through the years saying, Joe, he wants to terminate Obamacare, which is very, very popular in this country. And by the way, it's only getting more popular as the years go on. There were questions around how it was going to work, how much it costs in the

original stages when it was implemented. And now it's more popular than ever. Forty million Americans use it. People with preexisting conditions now get coverage. And yet Donald Trump has picked this issue, which even in polling, Republicans say, eh, let's stay away from that one. He seems to want to drill down. And now in that statement yesterday, just like with abortion rights, he's scrambling to cover himself, but he can't run from all that tape we just showed. No way. Gene, way too much tape. And you have starting in 2016, it's going to terminate Obamacare, 2018 decimate Obamacare, even in 2023, talking about terminating Obamacare. And as you see, he at one point, he gets carried away and says, we're going to terminate health care. He's really focused on this. But but let's let's be clear in that recent post, he said it's not good health care.

There's no running away from this. He's he's even recently said it's not good health care and wants to get rid of it. Yeah. I mean, what's the saying in politics? If you're explaining you're losing. I mean, he's explaining all over the place. Right. He's now trying to back off of what he said a zillion times about Obamacare. He wants to get rid of it. He's very, very clear. And now he's saying, well, I didn't mean get rid of it. And he's doing the same thing with Roe v. Wade. He's doing the same thing with abortion and trying to back away from what he said very clearly and what he did. And he's trying to have everything both ways. That's really hard to do. And he knows he's in danger of either losing some of his base or losing independence

and others who disagree with these radical positions. And that's where he is. It's not been a good few weeks for Donald Trump. So, Adrian, certainly that video shows that Donald Trump has been pretty clear on his position about wanting to overturn the Affordable Care Act. Maybe some of his supporters will just believe what he says now. But those independent voters who often decide elections, they're going to see the tape. They're going to remember what Trump has said before. Trump did this or Trump is going to do this. That's the Biden argument going forward.

What's the best way for this administration, this reelection campaign, to frame this argument? Because the polls show the Affordable Care Act popular in red states, too. Yeah, it sure is, Lamir. And like, I don't know when Republicans will finally learn that repealing the Affordable Care Act is not a popular thing to do. Of course, you know, we mentioned the 27 vote, 2017 vote in the Senate that failed by one vote to repeal it. And that's what really catalyzed a lot of excitement about wanting to make sure that the Affordable Care Act is protected. And Republicans have tried multiple times to dismantle it. And it's not popular. It's a strategy that does not work. But I think what the Biden campaign is doing very effectively is using Trump's own words against him. They're literally playing video after video of him saying, I want to afford I want to repeal the ACA. I still

want to repeal the ACA. I also don't think that these truth social posts that he's doing of these kind of like three to four minute monologues are really very effective. You know, you know, we saw him do that on the situation in Arizona and it didn't really play very well. He's kind of scattered all over the place in terms of where he stands on abortion. And he's also scattered all over the place in terms of where he stands on the Affordable Care Act. So bottom line is we got him on record multiple times saying he wants to repeal it.

The campaign, the Biden campaign is using his words effectively against him. And voters are going to remember that. I mean, you cannot take back, you know, multiple years of trying to repeal the ACA and all of a sudden now try to try to, you know, come up with some different position on, oh, maybe I want to, like, fix it, but I don't want to completely repeal it. People are confused on where Trump stands on this. The truth social posts aren't working. And, you know, he can't run away from his past position. Well, I mean, the only thing the social posts do is they actually give the Biden campaign more video to show how weak he looks.

He's just he's flip flopping like a fish and and looks just looks so weak here. I mean, and when you're talking about terminating Obamacare for eight years, which is what he's been doing. Talk about how that impacts working Americans. How important is Obamacare to working Americans? It's extremely important because most of the people that we're talking about did not have any health care before Obamacare or they had inadequate health care. Right. And we're talking across party lines, racial lines, which I think the Republicans underestimated that this affected their base. That's why you started seeing in town hall meetings, people coming out by the hundreds, attacking their congressmen that they voted for, saying, what are you doing taking away our health care? Which is why, as you pointed out, it was ironic that Trump slipped and said, I want to repeal health care. Because that's exactly what he was doing. Exactly. I mean, and Willie, you just he's on the wrong side of all of these issues.

He's taking the most extreme position. He's responsible for the most extreme positions on abortion. I mean, these are 80-20 issues. Same thing, you know, with Obamacare. He wants to terminate Obamacare. As Adrian said, popular even in red states. You just go down the list of positions. If even guns, universal background checks. He's with the 10 percent.

I mean, he's with the 10 to 6 percent of Americans that don't want universal background checks. He won't come out for red flag laws on guns. I mean, you go to all these issues. And I think the thing that's so fascinating to me is when when I was coming of age politically and when I was campaigning, Democrats always seemed to be on their back heels when it came to social issues. Now it's Republicans on their back heels because MAGA extremism has staked out the most extreme positions on abortion, the most extreme positions on Obamacare, the most extreme positions on universal background checks, the most extreme positions on red flag laws. You name it. These social issues that Democrats used to be afraid of are issues now that they're going to use to beat Donald Trump in swing states. And as you say, it's not that difficult a political position to be

in when you have the support of a vast majority in some of these cases, as you're saying, of the country. And Obama people, it turns out people like health care, reasonably priced health care. And it doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat. So this could hit him among independents. We also know he's on the wrong side of the issue of democracy. What he still believes that the 2020 election was stolen. And we know he's if he loses, he's going to call into question again. Majorities of Americans don't buy that story. They don't believe the lie. And yet he digs deeper into that. So you're right. He's staking out the extreme positions and has now for so long that no matter what overnight social media post he puts out to

try to suddenly reverse his position, people with eyes and ears are not buying it and are not going to believe him. Still ahead this morning, Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas will join us to discuss President Biden's reported plans to limit crossings at the southern border. Plus, we will speak with NAACP President Derek Johnson on what he's hearing from Black voters ahead of this election and how their support for either Biden or Donald Trump will impact the election. We're back in just two minutes. Former Cornell University students pleaded guilty to making online threats against Jewish students in the weeks that followed Hamas's attack on Israel. On Wednesday, 21-year-old Patrick Day admitted to writing the messages that sparked security concerns on campus in October.

In one post in a student forum, he threatened to, quote, bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig Jews. He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced in August. Let's bring in right now the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt. His group is out with a new report grading how 86 colleges, including Cornell, Alex Corson's own, have responded to anti-Semitic incidents on campus. I notice in these gradings you do have you do have schools of interest here. We do. You have Williams, Vandy, Cornell. You must have heard of it. You left Alabama out of there. But we know we would have graded an A plus on that anyway.

So that's good. I want to talk, first of all, about something we said off the top of the show that you and I were discussing. And that is that is that Iran, a country since 1979, that's been the epicenter of terrorism across the world, that is considered the United States, the great Satan since 1979. I'm so glad to see we're sending our top general in the region to Israel and sending a very strong message to the Iranians. Don't mistake friends having heated arguments with friends not backing friends in times of trouble. We're going to be there for Israel, especially when it deals with Iran. Yeah, look, Iran is Israel's enemy. Iran is America's enemy.

Iran is the enemy of all liberal-minded people in the world. I mean, this is a fascist theocracy. We've seen what they've done to their own people, shooting protesters dead in the streets. We've seen what they've done to their own people, shooting protesters dead in the streets. Right. We've seen what they've done around the region, destabilizing countries, weakening economies. No one is happier. No one is happier about the rise of anti-Semitism here in the United States, about the rise of extremism everywhere, about things unfolding in our streets than the mullahs in Tehran. They love this chaos. And let's be clear,

they are no real supporters of the Palestinian people. They support Hamas and jihad. They want violence. And they, you know, I'll just say here, I'll just say here, not only are the Iranians not supporters of the Palestinian people, Very few Arab countries across the region are supporters of the Palestinian people and never have been. That's why I think we do have an opportunity right now with the Jordanians, with the Emiratis, with the Saudis, with a group of Sunni Arab nations saying we want to help in Gaza. Yes. We want to figure out a way to come in and help out if the United States is there with us. I think that's that is a hopeful and positive development after the hell of this war comes to a conclusion. I want to talk about this report card.

But before we get into the report card, which we know is going to be bad, I could have had this conversation with you in 2003 on Scarborough Country. And we could have named 15 incidents that had happened over the past couple of months. I mean, it is is unfortunately it's just happened with left wing professors for a very long time. But now it's infecting the rest of I'm afraid too many administrations and also the students. I'm curious, though, from October forward to now, have you noticed some universities realigning and being more responsible and supporting free speech at the same time supporting the rights of Jewish students who many times have fled to their dorm rooms in fear for their safety. Oh, yeah. Look, I spent the day at Harvard Law School yesterday

and the stories there were shocking. This is Harvard Law School. And to hear how so many of the students there don't seem to understand the First Amendment, think freedom of assembly means the freedom to assemble around your Jewish students and intimidate and terrorize them. And I've heard stories not just about students retreating to the Hillel or retreating to their dorms, but leaving campuses altogether, Joe, because the environment is so uncomfortable. But look, to your point, there are some good stories here. Ron Leibowitz, the president at Brandeis, stepping up and shutting down this group called Students for Justice in Palestine,

the main progenitor of all this chaos and all this intimidation on campus. At Elon University, they've done some really good stuff to bring students together. At Dartmouth, President Belloq has been really, really important. By the way, can we talk about Dartmouth really quickly? From the very start, it wasn't an us or them. You had professors, one who who who sympathized with the Palestinian people, even even in those even in the days after the attack, was not afraid to stand up and do that. And you had an Israeli professor. And these two people were friends before October 7th. They were friends after October 7th. And they came together and they brought the student body together.

The president brought the student body together and said, listen, we disagree with each other. Couldn't disagree with each other anymore. But we're going to have a conversation and we're going to talk through this. I entirely agree. Isn't that incredible what they did? Yeah, look, I mean, there may be things that Dartmouth could do better, but the way that those professors stepped up and President Belloc, who'd been at Barnard, she knew she had to do something. President Julio Frank at the University of Miami has been a stalwart. Ben Sasse at the University of Florida.

I mean, you have seen these people, these presidents, and that's a good point. Leadership is the difference between an A and an F. Demonstrating you don't just have academic standards, but you also have moral standards. And all the students on the campus, irrespective of how they pray or where they're from, deserve to get the right treatment and respect and have their identity supported. There's just something deeply wrong for these schools that talk about, you know, diversity and inclusion when that involves the exclusion of Jewish students. Well, and Rev, when you have what happened on college campuses where you have Israeli

professors, Palestinian professors coming together, you not only protect Jewish students from from hate, you you attack, you stop attacks against Muslim students and you send a message. This is not acceptable. We will talk to each other, but Muslim students will talk and walk around the campus in peace and Jewish students will do the same. No, absolutely. In fact, you can't protect Muslims or others if you don't protect Jewish students as well as vice versa. And, you know, Jonathan, you and I, ADL, Nash Action Network, Urban League and Unitos, we got the first hate summit at the White House with President Biden year before last around these things. I think, one, what I'm asking you is a lot of the anti-Semitic attacks we saw happened even before what we're seeing now going on and has only been exploited by many haters on what

is going on in Gaza and in Israel. And you and I have had frank discussions. I disagree with Netanyahu. I think Netanyahu is bad for everything. But at the same time, you can be anti Netanyahu, not anti Israel. Of course, you can be anti Hamas and not be anti Gaza. Talk about how we must have the kind of situation where we can unite, even if we disagree on some things and disagree openly. But we unite around stopping the hate that this report brings out about what's happening to Jews. Because even though you and I may have different views on some things in terms of Netanyahu's leadership, we still work together, talk together often on how we stop the hate. Of course, like just hate attacks.

Of course, like just because you don't like a politician doesn't mean you can't find common ground in so much else. And the Jewish and black communities have so much in common, including the vast majority of American Jews want dignity and decency for Palestinians. But the anti-Zionism that's coming out, Rev, that exploded on October the 7th here in America, to your point, with slander and intimidation and attacks, clearly that's not OK. So I think what we really need to see in this report card is designed to create a conversation, to create like an objective baseline. So universities, colleges, all them will realize, again, if you want to support all your students,

you need to make sure that they all feel equally protected, including your Jewish students. That's what this is about. And again, let's be entirely clear, just because you don't agree on politics or on every single issue doesn't mean you shouldn't agree on the decency of all people. Exactly. CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt. Thank you. Before we let you go, tell us about the dog tag you're wearing. The dog tag is for the hostages, including five Americans, 130 some odd people, men, women, elderly, sick and disabled being held in tunnels, in cages below Gaza. This war will end tomorrow if Hamas would commit to handing over the hostages.

That's what this dog guy is for. It's almost 190 days. Over six months. Over six months held in caves beneath Gaza. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you.