Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/14/23

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

President BIden wraps up his Ireland trip Friday; DeSantis signs six-week abortion ban into law

Well, mom, you said it would happen. As the proud son of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden, well, you knew I'd be coming. It's so good to be back in Ireland. If you forgive the poor, tempted Irish, tamasawalja. I'm at home. I'm at home. I'm at home. The only thing I bring to this career after my age, as you can see, how old I am, was a little bit of wisdom.

I come to the job with more experience than any president in American history. Doesn't make me better or worse, but it gives me a few excuses. President Joe Biden bringing some jokes with him during a speech yesterday to the Irish parliament. The president wraps up his visit to Ireland today, marking 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of violence. Meanwhile, back here at home,

the FBI arrested a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman who was suspected of leaking classified documents. We'll have the latest in that investigation and sort through how that young man got his hands on those documents. Plus, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took a break from his nationwide book tour to sign an extreme abortion ban into law late last night. We will dig into the legislation and how it could impact his potential presidential campaign. Also ahead this morning, what we are learning about Donald Trump's long day in New York yesterday after sitting for eight hours of questioning at the state attorney general's office. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, April 14th. With us this morning, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post,

Eugene Robinson, former White House director of communications to President Obama, Jennifer Palmieri, and White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein. And Joe joins us from Ireland, where today President Biden will wrap up that trip. Beginning in Dublin, the president will make his way to his family's ancestral home in County Mayo, where Joe is now. President Biden will deliver remarks this evening outside a cathedral in Balina. The BBC reports a crowd of up to 20,000 people is expected to line the streets for that event. Following those remarks, the president will return to Dublin before returning home to the United States, landing in Delaware later tonight. Joe, it's good to see you there. Set the scene for us.

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm standing in front of what looks like Mike Barnacle's second home in Nantucket. Just just a wee bit larger. I'm telling you, it has been just such a joyful, joyful trip for Joe Biden and for the people of Ireland. And you can see that in the headlines. I know back in the States, a lot of people focusing on a few gaffes. They're not focusing on that in Ireland. You see here a very Irish welcome for President Biden. It just had a joyous welcome to Parliament yesterday. And in fact, the front page story here, it said Biden's happiness and enthusiasm was so infectious because it was obviously so sincere. And Joe Biden has had headlines like this since he first got here. Biden joy. It's been, again, it's been it's been a moment that Joe Biden has enjoyed immensely.

People in the White House have been saying for some time that this trip is actually a trip he's looked forward to the most since getting into the White House. And he appears very, very comfortable here in Ireland and the people of Ireland also very comfortable. As Matt Visor and Tyler Pager wrote in the Washington Post late last night, Biden may have been born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, spent a half century in Washington and owned two houses in Delaware. But this week, Ireland sounded like his true native land. Quote, it feels wonderful. It feels like home, he said Wednesday afternoon. It feels like home, he said in the evening. When you're here, you wonder why anyone would ever want to leave. And as we just heard, Biden also told Parliament, I'm at the end of my career, not at the beginning, as he was growing

reflective. The only thing I bring to this career at my age, as you all can see how old I am, is a little bit of wisdom. I come to the job with more experience than any president in American history. That doesn't make me better or worse, but it gives me few excuses. So we're going to actually be catching up with the president, Willie, later today in County Mayo. We're going to talk to him obviously about the historic peace accord signed 25 years ago when we get up there but for now

going to be following obviously following news throughout the day here in Ireland yeah Joe we'll be sitting down with President Biden later today in an interview we will bring you Monday on Morning Joe we'll be back to Joe in just a moment back here at home the Justice Department has arrested a 21 yearold Air National Guardsman in connection with the leak of highly classified documents online. The documents, some of which may have been altered,

included assessments of the war in Ukraine. NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell has details. Backed up by an armored SWAT vehicle with guns drawn, the FBI arrested a 21-year-old airman first class in the Massachusetts National Guard, working in IT in their intelligence wing, who the government says is the source of that major intelligence leak. The Justice Department arrested Jack Douglas DeShera in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information. The Washington Post was first to report that Teixeira, under the moniker OG,

shared classified intelligence, including photos of the leaked documents, in a private group of mostly young men on Discord, an online chat platform popular with video gamers. The Post spoke with an anonymous member of that chat room, populated by gun enthusiasts who frequently shared racist memes. I don't think that there was a goal nor some sort of accomplishment that he was looking for in sharing these documents. Of course, there's some anti-government sentiment. Teixeira had enlisted three and a half years ago.

The anonymous group member told the Washington Post he was a natural leader, but not a whistleblower. Oji was not hostile to the U.S. government. However, he had disagreed with several occasions such as Waco and Ruby Ridge and thought that the government is overreaching in several aspects. There was no heavy Snowden-like conspiracy here, like some people may believe. The leaked intelligence was online for months, with photos of classified documents visible for weeks. Some of it was in public. Right, clearly the administration was slow on the uptake.

How was it not discovered? And how is it that an individual like this could have the access that they did? In Ireland, President Biden downplayed the impact. I'm not concerned about the leakages. I'm concerned that it happened. But there's nothing contemporaneous that I'm aware of that is of great comfort. According to The New York Times, one of the leaks reveals broad infighting inside the Kremlin over the scale of their casualties in Ukraine. And The Washington Post is reporting that the U.S. expects the war to continue into next year. Kristen Welker asked Poland's prime minister about that.

Is that your assessment? I think so too, because Russia has huge and vast natural resources, human resources. Now the Pentagon is reviewing who has access to top secrets. We do have stringent guidelines in place for safeguarding classified and sensitive information. This was a deliberate criminal act, a violation of those guidelines. And if there are any areas where we need to tighten things up, we certainly will. Andrea Mitchell reporting there. Let's bring in former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four-star Navy Admiral James DeVritas. He is chief international analyst for NBC News. Admiral,

it's good to see you this morning. So two parts to this, just how damaging some of this information is. President Biden downplaying that in Ireland yesterday. And then just how a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman got access to it, was able to distribute it and leave it up on a social media platform, it appears, for months. I'm going to go with door number two as the bigger problem. I think that as you look at what will come out of this, there'll be some significant tactical information that flows across the wires to Russia. Russia will use this to try and drive wedges between the U.S. and some of our allies who are named in it. There'll be some heightened awareness of the war and so forth. But that basket, I think, is smaller as a concern than the classification, the tightening up.

I think this is a fairly significant leak, Willie, in terms of opening a new can of concerns. Here you've got a very young individual who has access somehow, perhaps through a burn bag, perhaps through his duties in the IT world. But then he is printing it, carrying it out, photocopying it and putting it in private chat rooms. That's a tough problem to crack from a counterintelligence perspective. And I think the Pentagon spokesman is right. You need to focus on the fact this is an insider threat. All the sophisticated counter cyber surveillance would not have stopped this. What would stop it is tracking who has that kind of access. It's more a human personnel problem than it is a surveillance problem, Willie. Yeah, and the fact that he even had access to it at 21 years old as

an Air National Guardsman is concerning as well. So, Admiral, was there anything in what we've seen publicly, and we want to be careful because we don't even have all of it authenticated, what's been posted online. Some of it, as I said, may have been altered. But is there anything in there that surprised you? It's not particularly surprising to you, I'm sure, that we're conducting some surveillance even on our own allies. Was there anything else in there that raised your eyebrow a bit?

I think that the number one thing that really stood out at me, and I've been tracking this, of course, more than perhaps the average person, but the rapidity with which the Ukrainians are using up their air defense systems. I've said for a long time, Willie, that there's really two wars at play here. The ground war, where the Ukrainians are doing quite well with our help. We've got a spring offensive coming. There is an air war that hasn't really unfolded yet. Putin has not really launched his air force against Ukraine in big ways because he's afraid of getting planes shot down. What you see, if it's accurate, and you're right to underline the veracity, no ability quotient here, but if it's accurate, the dropping down of those inventories concerns me. It's a message that we ought to be

putting more focus on that air war and, again, thinking consciously about getting fighter jets in the hands of the Ukrainians. So, Jen Palmieri, you've worked in White Houses before. Obviously, Edward Snowden comes to mind during the Obama administration as well. We heard from the president over there in Ireland who said it doesn't look from what he's heard and what he's learned from his intelligence sources that there's a lot of damaging information that was made public. But the concern remains, as the admiral underlines, that this guy even could get to the information to post it on social media. Right. And they do. I mean, part of the problem here is we're living in a digital world. This man is 21 years old. He was born in this century, right? So he's very, even when things are in hard copy

and kept offline, he figured out a way to get the materials out of the, presumably out of his office, photos of them, get it back online. And I mean, I have an experience when working in White Houses with classified information, some concerns about things being overly classified. And then if that means that there's millions and millions of documents that are classified with the United States, that there could be a problem of over-classification. But then also just access. And I'm wondering for the Admiral, given this situation, are there any reforms that you think should be put in place that might prevent someone from his age?

I'm not exactly sure what his job within the intelligence unit at the Air National Guard was, but that might prevent someone like him from getting access to this. Yeah, it's the right question to be asking, Janet. Everybody is focused on that right now in the Pentagon. You know, we've mentioned Snowden a couple of times this morning. This one feels to me a little bit more like the WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning. And by the way, to put that in perspective, Chelsea Manning provided 750,000 documents to WikiLeaks. This is about 100 documents. Why so small? Because he was using paper to move them. What we could do to improve this is redouble our efforts, not only at how we give classified clearances to individuals, but in the post-clearance phase, we need to be more observant of individuals. It doesn't mean we want to turn our military into, hey, we're spying on each other. But it does mean that if you see something,

if you hear something, say something. That's the way you can find these kind of insider threats. Obviously, Admiral Servetus, we are concerned about the leaks concerned how long this information was up online but let's talk about the substance of the leaks i know in the past you've had people leaking documents that were meant to undermine u.s efforts across the globe in this case there was some talk that it might undermine efforts in ukraine but if you look at the two or three big headlines that come out of this number one is that that Russian commando units have been obliterated. Second big headline is a lot of Russian infighting, the type of information we don't usually receive in the United States or in the West, a lot of Russian infighting about how badly this war is going.

And then the third thing that you brought up earlier was Ukraine needs more of our support. Ukraine is running out of munitions to continue obliterating the Russian army. It seems to me for the Ukrainians, this is a win all across the board. I agree. And if you look at sort of the four buckets of people here that you just sketch, the United States, our allies, the Russians and the Ukrainians, the ones who are getting the most positive effect of this are going to be the Ukrainians. This is going to exactly, as you say, put a spotlight on their needs. It also puts a spotlight on the shortfalls and the difficulties the Russians are facing. And in terms of the U.S. and our allies, a couple of

headlines there. Look, in terms of nations spying on each other, it's like the movie Casablanca. I'm shocked there's gambling in this house. Nations look on each other. That will pass, and I think very quickly. So yes, Joe, I agree. My takeaway here in the real world is let's keep getting the help to the Ukrainians. We're at a critical point here. All right, Admiral James Trevitas, as always, thank you so much for being with us. And Willie, let's underline the Admiral's last point, at least from everything I've heard here and what we've been reading the past couple of days. This story has been met at least behind the scenes with a collective yawn from most of our European allies. They know this sort of thing happens. They're not thrilled about it. But at the same time, certainly it's not the crisis. It's, say, the 2005 Washington Post stories about black sites during the Iraq war and during the

war on terror cause not a lot of consternation among our allies right now. Yeah, it sounds like more of an annoyance to South Korea, to Israel, some of our closest allies who learned in these documents that they're being spied on something, frankly, they probably already knew. But I think as the admiral was pointing out, the larger concern is how this guy could get access to the documents and who else could dial in and get some get some sensitive national security information and post it online. We'll have much more on that story this morning. Also in Florida today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban into law. He did that last night. In a move that may underscore just how controversial the bill is, DeSantis announced the decision with a tweet just after 11 p.m.,

hours after the ban was approved by the Republican-controlled state legislature. Just two out of 28 Republicans in the Florida Senate voted against the bill, which does make exceptions for pregnancies involving rape or incest up until 15 weeks. Those exceptions, however, will only be allowed if a woman has documentation like a restraining order or a police report. The bill does not change current exemptions for the life and health of the mother, still though up to 15 weeks. The new law will only take effect if the state's current 15 week ban is upheld.

That ban, which DeSantis signed into law last year, is the subject of an ongoing legal challenge before Florida's conservative controlled Supreme Court. So, Jen Palmieri, this is just another chapter in what we've seen really just in the last couple of weeks, but in the last almost year now since the overturning of Roe in Wisconsin in the state legislature, abortion was a central issue, that Texas decision by a judge out there really putting on hold or banning the abortion pill. And now this in Florida, a six-week extreme abortion ban. I mean, and I love that DeSantis tweets this after 11 o'clock at night, as if then people aren't going to notice. But recall the 15-week ban, which that's also what the Mississippi law was. In the Dobbs case, 15-week ban a year and a half ago we thought was extreme.

Lindsey Graham offered that as the alternative, the moderate alternative, as you recall, in the midterms. And even though politics is clearly against the Republicans on this, like you see it in Wisconsin, we saw it in the midterms every week. It seems there's another example of why it's bad politics for them. He then goes with a six-week ban because he thinks that's going to be popular

in a Republican presidential primary. And like, there is the vice. And I mean, the politics of this are clear, but it's also, we need to remember the impact, the rulings on the abortion pills, the impact that this is having on on women. I mean, you just read off the list. If this, uh, you, you, the Republicans intellectually will be saying, we've seen reported on this. We know we have a problem here.

We know that the abortion positions are too extreme. Um, but then you have people like DeSantis, you know, second, number two in the presidential primary pushing forward with a more extreme ban. And Joe, if Ron DeSantis does run for president, if he does somehow find his way to the nomination, good luck pivoting to the general after this, a six-week abortion ban, which is something like a 15% position nationally. But let's look at the state of Florida and how it's changed even since you were in Congress there. What do you make of this six- week ban now in your home state? Well, it's going to be a problem for Ron DeSantis, like you said, or any Republican that gets behind this in a general election.

We've seen this time and time again. The Republicans know what the politics are for an abortion ban in a general election. And Republicans apparently don't care. And so Florida is one of those states, again, we always think of it as a Republican state and we've always thought of it as a Republican state. And then Barack Obama wins it. I think Bill Clinton won it one of the two times that he ran. And I suspect, again, right now it's breaking red.

Trump obviously won by three or four points there. But I will tell you, there are a lot of people in Florida, as everybody watching this show knows, that moves down from the northeast, that moves down from the Midwest, that moves down from places that have a much more moderate view of the issue of abortion. And they move forward anyway. Of course, as you noted, it's why he signed it at 11 o'clock at night. I suspect if this had come out right after the Dobbs decision, before Republicans understood the wicked backlash they're getting politically on these near abortion bans, some of these more extreme bills. He may have signed it in the middle of the day, brought legislators around, but instead signed it at 11 o'clock last night and tweeted out the picture. That is not a man who wants this to be front and center of the news today, but it is. Eugene Daniels. I'm sorry, Eugene Robinson.

Yeah, I'm in a different time zone here. Eugene Robinson, you look at Wisconsin. Here's a state that that I was calling. I think we were all calling perhaps the tightest swing state in America. Just like Russert had said, it was Florida, Florida, Florida in 2000. It became Wisconsin, Wisconsin, Wisconsin. And yet because of abortion, because of an 1849 ban there, an extreme abortion law in Wisconsin,

one of the most important state Supreme Court races in recent years turned into a blowout, an 11 point win for progressive forces, something that nobody saw is coming, just like the Kansas abortion referendum. Nobody saw that landslide coming. And you just wonder why Republicans in states like Florida, in states like Michigan, in states like Wisconsin, keep moving in these extreme directions. It always causes them to lose. It absolutely does. You saw it in Wisconsin. That was a blowout in Wisconsin terms.

You saw it in Kansas. You saw it in Kentucky. These deep red states, when abortion rights, when the basic constitutional right, in these cases, state constitutional right to abortion is on the ballot, voters want it. They want it in their state constitution. They want to protect that right. And what DeSantis signed, and by the way, we did notice, we saw, Ron, that you signed this bill. This is as close to a complete abortion ban as you could really conceivably get, except for that 1849 law in Wisconsin. I mean, six weeks before, that's before a lot of women even know that they're pregnant. There are all these conditions, even on the rape and incest exceptions.

This is a radical sort of handmaid's tale abortion ban. And it's going to be a millstone around Ron DeSantis's neck. I mean, it won't hurt him in the Republican primary, I guess, even even though, you know, there are a lot of Republicans who think that's going too far. But but let's say it helps him in the Republican primary and the general election. This is absolute poison for him. It really is. And Republicans who think that they can get away with this sort of thing and not pay a price in general elections are whistling past the graveyard. They really are. The White House reacted to Florida's new abortion ban, calling it extreme and dangerous. The statement reads, the ban flies in the face of fundamental freedoms and is out of step with the views of the vast majority of the people of Florida and of all the United States.

We will continue to fight to protect access to abortion and defund, defend, excuse me, defend reproductive rights. So, Sam Stein, there is the primary issue here, which is women's access to abortion care. Florida had been an increasingly popular place, actually, for women in states where it was becoming harder to get an abortion to go to Florida. Now that all changes. But then, of course, there are the politics of this, which we've seen the fallout from just since Roe. But again, Republicans seem to be leaning into an extreme position here nationally. Right. Well, just one thing on the Florida situation. So they currently are waiting. This law is contingent on the Supreme Court, the state Supreme Court ruling on the 15 week ban. So as of now, you still can get an abortion in Florida up to 15 weeks. It's

probably going to be put down to six weeks, though. So that is the issue here. On the politics of it, look, it's pretty simple, right? We have now empirical data. In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court race, abortion was a major issue in the 2022 midterms. Abortion was a major issue. We had a referendum in Kansas on abortion, in which voters turned out in Kansas to uphold abortion rights. I mean, we don't really need much more real world data at this juncture to know how this is going to play politically. I would add one small, little, tiny caveat to what Eugene was saying. And I'm not sure if I believe it myself, but Ron DeSantis' real sort of claim to win this nomination against Trump is not that necessarily he's more conservative. It's that he's more electable,

that he's more electable in a general election than Joe Biden. And I don't know if this necessarily helps him in a primary. I think, in fact, it might potentially hurt him in that, you know, if you're a Republican voter, even a middle-of-the-road Republican voter, you now conceivably can say, wow, Ron DeSantis might not be as electable in a general election as I thought he was. This will tangibly hurt his standing in a general election. I don't know if, you know, how big a deal will be in the context context of Republican primary, but I don't know if it's a huge win or a surefire win even in that context. So I just wanted to throw that out there as well. No, it's an important point. And Donald Trump really largely has stayed away from the abortion issue and, remember, blamed pro-lifers

for the losses in the midterm elections. It's not that he stayed away. He affirmatively came out after the midterms and said, hey, it's the fact that we did not embrace exemptions for rape and incest that we lost. I mean, Trump is a lot of things, but I don't think he's a total dummy on the politics of this matter. I think he understands that it is a real albatross. And look, maybe he's wrong. Maybe he ends up embracing the six week ban himself because you just need to do that in the context of Republican primary. But I think in the heart of their hearts, they know that this is a political loser for them. Sam Stein, Sam, great job on way too early this week. I hope you get some sleep this weekend. You've earned it, my friend. All right. We'll see you still ahead on Morning Joe.

Donald Trump spends eight hours sitting for a deposition in the New York attorney general's office. We'll have the latest on the investigation into the former president's real estate business. Also ahead, the second of two expelled Tennessee lawmakers is sworn back into office. State Representative Justin Pearson will be our guest this morning. Plus, seven months worth of rain falls in just seven hours over parts of Florida, leading to catastrophic flooding. We'll get an update on the historic weather there. And Emmy-winning comedian John Leguizamo joins us with a look at his new series on MSNBC. A busy Friday morning. It's going when We come right back. And welcome back to Morning Joe.

We are in County Mayo, Ireland this morning. Going to be going to visit Joe Biden later on this afternoon. But right now we're at Ashford Castle on the shores of the Republic of Ireland's largest lake, Loch Corb. This is, of course, County Mayo. But behind us, this castle was built in 1228. Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness of the Brewing Dynasty purchased Ashford in 1852, extended this estate out to 26,000 acres, built new roads and the planting of thousands of trees. And that brought, obviously, a lot of notables here. During that period, the castle hosted the Prince of Wales, who subsequently became King George V and several other dignitaries. Ashford Castle is now a resort.

And President Ronald Reagan stayed here when he famously visited Ireland in 1984. And I must say, obviously, just breathtaking, breathtaking grounds here. Also, Joe Biden has to has to love what what he's received in terms of a welcome here, a heartwarming welcome. The Irish Times calls it a very Irish welcome for President Biden. And you read through it and the lead is Joe Biden's big day out in Dublin was a joy. Let's bring in right now, U.S. national editor at the Financial Times, Ed Luce. And Ed, I don't know what it is. Maybe you can help me. There is something about Ireland that seems to revive the spirits of every American president that comes here. Yeah, I mean, if you think of JFK's famous trip there in June 1963, which he described as the happiest four days of my life. I think it's not just that people like

Kennedy and Biden, of course, have very strong Irish ancestry and heritage. It's that there is something about Irishness. And I feel, you know, a little bit fraudulent with an English accent talking about this, but I am married to, as you know, Joe, to an Irish woman who's from County Mayo, where you are right now, at least her people originally from County Mayo. There is something about Irishness, the hard scrabble, the immigrant story that links into the broader American creed, that sort of gives gives them an ability to intuit the American creed that I think Biden taps into the whole time.

You know, he talks about being middle class is more of a value than a number. And he interweaves that with stories of his grandfather and stories of the passage across the Atlantic. So I imagine this will be amongst the happiest three days of his presidency. This is, you know, I envy you being on this trip. Yeah, it's been remarkable. But it is something that JFK said is four days in Ireland. Nineteen sixty three were the four happiest days of his life, because as we got ready for this trip and we're talking to the White House, they all said that that the president was excited about coming and that he expected it to be his happiest time

in the White House or even in politics. And let's get to your latest piece for the Financial Times. You write about the president's trip overseas and you say, it's hard to imagine Trump wanting to help out with the fragile Good Friday agreement. It is unclear if God Almighty himself, as Biden would say, could persuade Ulster's Democratic Unionist Party to embrace the deal's power sharing formula that has left Northern Ireland rudderless for just under a year. Because of Protestant Irish intransigence and the effects of Brexit, it is still too early to proclaim one of the world's most celebrated peace deals a success. But in trying to shore it up, Biden is doing more than just a favor to Ireland.

His decision to attend the Good Friday anniversary and skip the London coronation sends a message to Britain, Europe and beyond. The UK will get no trade deal with America if it jeopardizes the peaceful border between Ireland's north and south. Rishi Sunak, Britain's prime minister, has taken that to heart in his recent Windsor framework deal. Moreover, Biden, unlike Trump, values the EU in Biden's head. And undoubtedly, Trump's two, Brexit and Trump's 2016 election, were closely linked to those events. There's no harm in a U.S. president reminding people on each side of the Atlantic that alternative paths are available. And, Ed, of course, the Clintons are coming here along with Tony Blair to celebrate the 25th anniversary. We're going to be speaking with them this weekend as well. Just an extraordinary peace agreement 25 years ago. And what I find different about Biden's visit, it seems that in the past,

Ireland has been a place that presidents have loved to go. But their first their first allegiance was always with Great Britain. You do not get that sense with Joe Biden. He expects Britain to do everything it can do to keep this peace treaty in place. And I think he's right, too. I mean, this was an ingenious peace deal, you know, and it was it was negotiated between Irish and British prime ministers over successive administrations, of course, by the Clinton administration, between the communities on the ground in Northern Ireland and then across the border with the Republic. And it gave people in Northern Ireland, whether they were Catholic or Protestant, multiple choice of identities, which made it much less of a zero sum game. But it is also a fragile peace agreement. And I think Biden is right to stand on Ireland's side of this and say, look, Britain's got to uphold its side of the deal because it's created peace for a quarter of a century in a corner of Ireland and of Great Britain that have been suffering horrific strife and sectarian violence over the previous 30 years. And it's very valuable.

It's very precious. There's a little bit of tabloid complaining that Biden is not going to the coronation. Of course, the first lady, Jill Biden, is going. Biden did go to Queen Elizabeth's funeral. No American president has, in fact, ever been to a coronation of a British monarch. They don't happen that often. The last one was in 1953 when Biden was a child. So I don't think anybody serious in Britain thinks this is a snub to Britain. It's also pro-Britain as as well as pro-Ireland,

to want to preserve the Good Friday Agreement. It is a model peace agreement. Ed, you know, I covered, from London, I covered Northern Ireland years and years ago, before the Good Friday Accords. There were still, you know, Ulsterman like Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin, people like Gerry Adams. And there was a lot of tension in Belfast still. It wasn't active when I was covering it, but it was still there. What is the atmosphere like in Belfast and then between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. So, as you probably noticed, Gene, in the last few months, the percentage of Northern Irish who are Catholic has overtaken the percentage of Northern Irish who are Protestant.

And that's a big demographic change. If you look at the traditional Protestant parties like the DUP, which is refusing to take part in the Good Friday Agreement, they're against, they're intransigent. They're kind of the political arm of the 17th century. But if you look at younger Protestants and Catholics, quite different attitudes. They like the freedoms they've grown up with. They like the fact that they can cross the border without being checked, without having machine gun military posts looking at them. So I think there is also a demographic change being driven by the young. The Good Friday Agreement is the guarantor of their of their of their futures. And so there is hope in that.

And we had some interesting comments coming out of China, out of Beijing when Macron went there and some critical comments actually about the United States and behind the scenes, but mainly talking about how France and the rest of Europe should work harder to build bridges with China. And there certainly was undercurrent that they should do that without the prodding, without the assistance of the United States. Talk about Macron's meeting with China and the growing trends there. Yes. Macron went to Beijing, met with Xi Jinping. And then on the way back, he gave an interview saying, essentially, we've got no dog in the Taiwan fight and we don't want to be a vassal of the United States, which is a fairly extraordinary thing to say, given how much aid the United States is sending to Ukraine, in which France very much has a dog in the fight. And also, given the degree to which China is backing Russia, maybe not

directly with arms supplies, but with diplomatic support. So Macron, as a lot of French presidents do, is sort of channeling his Charles de Gaulle. He wants to create an independent foreign policy and he wants to speak for Europe. But the response from other European leaders was really to pour cold water on what he said, not just the Baltics, not just the ones close to Russia that you'd expect. But the German foreign minister, for example, who's a green, Annalena Baerbock, she's in China right now on a trip to China. And she said very much the opposite, that the future of Taiwan is something Europe is very interested in and said the kind of things you would expect Blinken or Biden to say. So I think Macron might have miscalculated on this score.

Well, you do wonder, Ed, how much of this was aimed for international audiences and how much of it was aimed for domestic audiences trying to flex his muscles, show strength. Like you said, channeling his inner Charles de Gaulle, who, of course, a lot of people watching this may not remember, but actually France declared itself neutral in the Cold War for a point between NATO and the Soviet Union. So perhaps the protests in the streets may be one reason why he was doing that. Ed Luce, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. And Willie, back to you.

All right, Joe, at least four million people remain this morning under flood alerts in South Florida after historic rain slammed the region, leaving streets and an airport underwater. Let's bring in meteorologist Angie Lassman. Angie, good morning. This is some pretty serious weather down in Florida. Yeah, and it's been incredible video that we've seen coming out of this historic rainfall event. Take a look at just some of the flooding that was across the Fort Lauderdale area. This is in parts of Broward County. We saw the airport shut down after over 25 inches of rain fell in one day. That actually breaks the state record for the most rainfall in a 24-hour period.

The previous record was in Key West, and that, of course, was from a tropical system. We're finally getting a little bit of a break for folks there. You can see the radar is much quieter, but we did have a couple more rounds of rain that occurred yesterday that, of course, isn't helping to see some of that flooding recede. We'll likely see that happen through the day today and maybe into tomorrow. But in the meantime, we continue to see the really concerning conditions for floods in that area. Now, meanwhile, a much different story for folks in the northeast and in the Midwest. Did you feel the heat wave? If you were out and about in places like New York yesterday,

we hit 90 degrees in Central Park. We haven't seen a temperature like that on this date since way back in the 70s. So it was a real warm kind of day. And we're going to see another day like that today with temperatures 10, 20, even close to 30 degrees above where they should be for this time of year. And we might even see a couple records. New York headed to 86 degrees. The current record, I should say, sits at 85 degrees. Detroit is headed for 80 degrees and ends up with a record for this date of 81. So we'll see what happens with that. We're a little milder tomorrow, but

still above normal. So we'll kick off our weekend with some nice conditions. And then spring gets back into the picture. New York ends up into the upper 60s by the time we head through the weekend and into next week, Willie. 90 degrees in Central Park. It was hot in the city yesterday, but back to the 40s and 50s next week. Up and down we go. Angie Lastman. Angie, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Have a great weekend. Coming up, Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver the keynote address at the National Action Network Convention today. The president of the organization, our friend Reverend Al Sharpton, joins us next. And later, a prominent Democrat comes to the defense of Senator Dianne Feinstein, following calls from within the party for her to resign. We'll get to that and much more ahead on Morning Joe.

That is a beautiful live picture of the White House at 651 on a Friday morning. While President Joe Biden speaks from Ireland today. Vice President Kamala Harris also will be delivering the dress hers at the National Action Network's annual convention in New York City. Let's bring in the president of the National Action Network, the host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton. Rev, it's good to see you again this morning. So you'll have the vice president with you at the convention today, drawing a contrast, I know, to the NRA convention where Donald Trump will be speaking. Absolutely. As Donald Trump and the NRA convenes to talk about, in my judgment, the glorification of guns, the vice president will be discussing in her keynote address today gun violence, as well as the inequalities that we still face in communities of color, black community and others, as well as the fight around the battle for women to protect their rights as women to make choice over their own bodies. So we are extremely

excited that given the time, as well as given where we are in history, that the vice president is going to make this address at the same time. Donald Trump, who is the antithesis to all she stands for and we as an organization stands for is speaking in Indianapolis. Rev, I've seen the National Action Network Convention in action. It's quite a gathering of people who are really organizers and they're active, they're interested in politics. And I'm wondering, I assume the vice president will get a warm reception. But what do you hear about her as a political figure from people around the convention, from that network of people? How are they regarding Vice President Harris? I hear from people all over the country and we have chapters in about 48 of the

states and many of them, I would say over 40 of them are here, their chapter leaders, and they think that Vice President Harris has been unduly attacked by the media. It seems that if she doesn't go out and project more, they're saying she's somehow not being active enough and projecting enough. If she does, she's overshadowing the president. They put her in this kind of catch 22 that is widely disregarded and in fact angers a lot of our community. The fact is that she is the first woman of any color to be vice president, the first person of color, black and Asian. And clearly we feel she's been held to a different standard. And this is throughout not only National Action Network's convention, but wherever I travel and what I do on my radio show with Collins, the feeling of many people is that no one expected Mike Pence or Joe Biden,

all of the last three or four presidents to do what they keep putting on Kamala Harris. We refuse to have her subjected to a double standard. Rev, hi, it's Jen Palmieri. Yeah, I'm familiar with the double standard that our vice president gets held to twice as hard, right? That's what a woman, a woman of color is facing as the first person in a job like that. I know Susan Rice spoke to you all yesterday.

I read her speech. She's the president's domestic policy advisor now, talking about the accomplishments the Biden administration has made on behalf of black Americans. I know that polling has suggested that black Americans aren't feeling the effects. They aren't certain what the administration has accomplished on behalf of the community. How do you see the Biden's agenda as what it's done for black Americans and maybe why it might not be breaking through? Well, I think that the agenda has been pretty good. I think that we certainly want to see more. I think good is all right, but great is what we should be striving for. And we had to come out of all of what happened in the prior agenda

of Donald Trump. And I think that a lot of the time of the Biden administration has been trying to dig us out of the mess we were in. It is encouraging that we see this month. This is record unemployment among blacks. We've not seen black unemployment this low since we've recorded unemployment. That's a good thing. The reason it's not breaking through, in my opinion, is that we have a media that ignores substance and likes to play for what is flashy. And I think that the Biden administration has had a hard time breaking through, which is why they spent a lot of time on the ground, like doing conventions like National Action Network. Like one of the things we celebrated yesterday was the efforts Joe Biden's administration did to get Brittany Griner out of Russia. She made Brittany Griner made a surprise appearance yesterday at National Action Network's convention.

These are things that would not have happened had we not had some real active work by the Biden administration. So the prayer that I wanted to go to Russia and have with Brittany when she was being held, we had yesterday at National Action Network doing large parts of the efforts of President Joe Biden. Yeah, Rev, that was an extraordinary moment, one that most of us didn't know was coming when Brittany Griner made that surprise appearance. What was it like to be around her? We haven't heard a lot from Brittany Griner since she finally was released from that Russian prison, gosh, what, four months or so ago.

What did you talk to her about and how is she doing? We talked about how she was doing. We talked about how she was able to tunnel through. She told us how the fact that people were praying and standing for her meant a lot. And it did get through to her in Russia that this was happening, that she was being supported. And you can imagine she is still trying to, in her own mind, deal with what she went through, the trauma, the challenges of being incarcerated like that. Only she knows the condition she was under. But she stressed that she wanted us to continue to pray and fight for those that are still being held in Russia, including this journalist from the Wall Street Journal

that was just picked up for no reason other than doing their job. So her stress was, don't only pray for me and stand with me, stand for those that are still captive in Russia, and let's fight for them together. It's an extraordinary collection of people that Rev brings together every year. Doing it again this year with Vice President Kamala Harris appearing at the convention today. Reverend Al Sharpton, Rev, great to see you. Have another good day at the convention. We appreciate it.