Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/18/24

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Speaker Johnson digs in on foreign aid package

Momentum is building to oust Johnson from his House speakership. But Johnson's not going down without a fight, folks. He went on Fox Business over the weekend to remind Republicans that he has the backing of the party's dear leader. I spent hours with the president on Friday. He's 100 percent with me. Well, that settles it. Trump is 100 percent with him. Isn't that right, sir? Well, we'll see what happens with that. That is a dose of classic Trump loyalty. He's got your back so he can push you under a bus. Speaker Mike Johnson pushing forward with a series of foreign aid bills despite growing pushback within his party.

How much will he need to lean on Democrats to get the funding passed? And will it cost him the speakership? Plus, the Senate dismisses the articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Very quickly. That was fast. Yeah. We'll show you how things played out on Capitol Hill and why Mitch McConnell said it was not a proud day in the history of the Senate. And what to expect today when jury selection picks up again in

former President Trump's hush money trial. They went pretty fast in the first couple of days. We already have seven jurors seated. Trump saying they're moving too fast. Oh, they're rushing it. OK, good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, April 18th. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have former White House director of communications to President Obama, Jennifer Palmieri. She's co-host of the MSNBC podcast with Claire. How to win twenty twenty four. Chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, Peter Baker, is with us this morning and MSNBC contributor and author of the book, How the Right Lost Its Mind. Charlie Sykes is with us this morning. We have so much to get to talk about. And in a few minutes where we were going to talk about Speaker Johnson in Ukraine.

I must say he has had a conversion. You know, it's it's like a Christmas carol that the ghost of the Republican Party past came to visit him in the middle of the night and said to him, well, and he said, yes, sir. And now he's. Listen listen what do i say about conversion i'll take them i'm a baptist yeah we love deathbed conversions we love midlife conversions you want to convert just as i am and awaiting night to cleanse my soul of one dark spot. Well, OK, we'll take Speaker Johnson, who sounds like Ronald Reagan. And I will say in defense of some of the leaders in that House GOP, like some of those leaders that run important committees, I sound like they're actually concerned about China, Iran and Russia. And this might literally be a political deathbed conversion for Mike

Johnson as the threats to his job continue from that faction. But Joe, Speaker Johnson invoked Ronald Reagan's name, finally said it out loud. It's something we've been talking about for months now on this show, the party of Ronald Reagan turning its back on Ukraine in a fight against Russia. Speaker Johnson said yesterday, I am a child of the 80s. I am a child of the Reagan era. We have to do what's right here. We have to give Ukraine what it needs. Where was that over the last couple of months? Unclear. But he's come around. The question will be, have enough other Republicans come around to that position to clear this funding and get it to Ukraine, perhaps as early as Saturday night when Speaker Johnson says there'll be a vote. Oh, we'll see if Democrats step up.

Maybe he'll go to the floor. No. And maybe he'll say, Listen. MTG, tear down that wall. I mean, there's so many options now. Yeah, there's a lot to say. He can borrow so much from Ronald Reagan.

Yes, he can. And he appears to be doing so. Yeah. And I will say that, you know, Reagan always figured out how to be conservative ideologically, but at compromise, but moderate temperamentally. And I think Ronald Reagan would be shaking his head right now if he saw what was happening in the state of Arizona, where you actually had Republicans going back to 1864 for a ban that that actually allows. young rape victims and young incest victims from Phoenix, from Maricopa County, from Tucson, from across the state, if they're raped by an uncle or if they're raped by, well, like in the Ohio case, an illegal immigrant, that there's going to be a the state is going to have a forced birth for that 10 year old or 11 year old or 12 yearold. And it's happening. It happens across America. And this is what the Republicans in Arizona

are forcing on their people, on their women, on their children. Makes sense since the guy who came up with the law raped children, forced them to have his children. Arizona, you've done it again. For the second time in two weeks. Republicans in Arizona's state legislature have rejected an attempt to repeal a near total abortion ban

from 1864. It's like people, Willie, are running into a burning house and they're saying, hey, we got an exit. We got you can run out the back door and not be engulfed in flames and come with us. You can save all these women. No, we're fine. We're fine. We just can keep them in the house. Let them burn. Let it burn down. We're totally cool. No, no, but you can go out the back door. This is the second time

now that Democrats have tried to save Republicans from their own worst 1864 instincts. And what did they do, Willie? They got, no, we're good. We want to stick with the 1864 law. Yeah, I mean, even if you hold the reprehensible view

that someone who is raped must deliver the baby because you said so, do it for the politics. How about that? Do it for cynical political reasons that most people in your state think this is appalling. And yet you're standing by it. In fact, only two Republicans joined all the Democrats in the House chamber in Arizona on the vote to repeal the Civil War era ban. House Republicans later voted to adjourn until next week. They did this last week as well, leaving a path for repeal of this bill unclear. Democrats in the state house blasted

their Republican colleagues. The message for today is clear. Arizona Republicans voted not once but twice to uphold the draconian 1864 abortion ban that includes absolutely no exceptions for rape and no exceptions for incest. Our voices may not have been heard today, but let us be clear, we will be heard in November. So, Jen, the Republicans in Arizona keep running back this playbook. They did it last week where they didn't want to take a vote on it. Yeah. So they're just going to dismiss themselves, adjourn for a week and do what? I don't know, because they came back after a week this time and did the same thing all over again. Again, only two Republicans in the Arizona House

voted to repeal a law that would force a woman who was raped or is a victim of incest to deliver the baby. Yeah. And if Democrats are being political, they could have voted against it, too. Right. They could have said, hey, Republicans made this mess. Let them, you know, let them deal with it. Or, you know, let's just pass something on the state ballot initiative and not give them a lifeline. But I have, you know, two two takeaways from this. One is just how destructive Donald Trump's presidency has been. Right. Just how destructive this has been for women. And when Republicans are in charge, they will take the most extreme position when it comes to, you know to women's rights on this on the state level.

And, you know, Trump, you know, he's trying to say that he said Arizona will overturn this. Well, they didn't. Right. You leave it to the states. We've left it to the states. This is what's happened. He may be trying to moderate his position, but he's already done the most extreme thing because he took away the fundamental rights that women have. And brags about it. And brags about it. And brags about it. He said it was incredible. He said it was amazing. He said people were happy.

One of the state representatives that was part of this debate yesterday, a Republican said, talked about how, you know, pregnancies don't have to be picture perfect. Meaning, you know, suggesting that it's OK if pregnancies come about by rape or incest. They don't need to be picture perfect in order for a woman to need to have that child. My God, I'm just the hypocrisy of that, of course. They say that generally if it comes into their own home and if it happens in their own home, if their 10 year old daughter were raped by an illegal immigrant, they'd be the first to say, OK, we're going to take care of that. They'd be the first. So the hypocrisy is just staggering. And, you know, Charlie Sykes, Jim's right.

Donald Trump has been just absolutely terrible and destructive for the rights of women, for the rights of rape victims, for the rights of incest victims. And you move it to politics, so destructive. And we've said this before, because we're really kind people and we're trying to help Republicans. We're trying to help them find their way back to where they can actually win an election once in a while. They just won't listen. They just keep losing. And you live in a state where this is, again, I think it's one of the great examples. We're talking about Kansas.

We're talking about Kentucky for good reason. But I keep going back to that Wisconsin Supreme Court election that should have been a slugfest. And instead, it was a wipeout. Why? Because they were clinging to a 150-year-old abortion ban ban and it cost them the Supreme Court in Wisconsin. They don't care. Yeah, well, it did. And you've seen this in one state after another. Look at all the politics here are absolutely fascinating. You have Donald Trump last week thought he was going to neutralize this issue, kind of throws the pro-life movement under the bus, even though he's responsible for Roe versus Wade being overturned. Kerry Lake flip-flops on the issue.

And as you point out, in Arizona, they have a law on the books that probably has the support of less than 10 percent of the electorate. They have an easy way out, and they've chosen not to do it. And so you see this dynamic here where at the very moment that Republicans are saying, hey, can we moderate our position on this? Can you know, is there some sort of an off ramp? The Arizona Republican Party is basically saying, no, we're completely comfortable with this, even though it's probably going to cost them the control of the legislature, may cost them the U.S. Senate seat, and probably is going to tip Arizona over in the presidential election. But this is one of the, you know, again, part of what makes this fascinating is kind of the trick box that Donald Trump has put Republicans in where he says, OK, you know, I am the pro-life president. We have overturned Roe versus Wade, but it's completely now up to these states, states rights, except that look what the states are doing. So while he's trying to sound moderate, he owns every one of these extreme draconian laws and Republicans are not backing off.

But that was an amazing scene yesterday in Arizona. Unbelievable. I just don't understand why the women of Arizona are going to have to go through the process of showing politicians what these abortion bans will mean to their lives. I mean, you mentioned rape victims, incest victims, people with fetal abnormalities. And that's a lot of people. But women who just want regular health care, who might need a DNC, who might need an abortion like procedure, won't get them. It's going to have an incredible impact on women and families across the state of Arizona. If this ban stays in effect as extreme as it is. By the way, we're still waiting to see. I mean, we're so concerned because Clarence Thomas, of course, in overturning Roe v. Wade, wrote in a concurring opinion that we have to look at not only things like same sex marriage, also have to look at the right to contraception. Right. Right. And then you have IVF in Alabama, the Senate and in Washington, the U.S. Senate, Republicans are blocking an attempt to make IVF

protected. So, again, this is impacting women's health care and for women who consider themselves to be pro-life, who miscarry. And and yeah, it's just it's really terrible. All right. So much to get to. Last night, Speaker Mike Johnson released the details of his proposed foreign aid package, which includes four separate bills. One is roughly 61 billion dollars for Ukraine. Another provides 26 billion for Israel. The third is eight billion for the Indo-Pacific allies. And the fourth is aimed at combating U.S. adversaries. The fight now heads to the Rules Committee this morning,

where Speaker Johnson will likely need Democrats to support the measure after several Republicans said they would vote against them. Democrats appear inclined to approve the package after President Biden gave his full support yesterday. By the way, they're going to vote against the package because, again, as leaders their their top committees are saying, Republicans are saying about other Republicans, they have their dupes are maybe even worse. Useful idiots are even worse. They're parroting Vladimir Putin's talking points.

They're parroting the talking points of the Russian invaders. That's happening in the United States Congress. Yeah. And so so, yeah, they're they're going to push back on any attempt to find freedom fighters. And despite the threats from his Republican colleagues, Johnson is pushing forward. We're going to stand for freedom and make sure that Vladimir Putin doesn't march through Europe. We're an exceptional nation. We're the greatest nation on the planet. And we have to act like it. And we have to project to Putin and Xi and Iran and North Korea and anybody else that we will defend freedom. It doesn't mean boots on the ground. We're not the world's policemen, but we're going to do the right thing.

And I think the Congress is going to take an important stand here. Are you going to have to rely on Democrats to pass the rule in order to bring these bills to the floor and also the legislation itself? Well, I hope not. I hope that our Republican colleagues will stand together, stick together on this. I think we understand. Look, I'm a child of the 80s. I regard myself as a Reagan Republican. I understand the concept of maintaining peace through strength. That's one of our guiding principles. It's a really important philosophy, and it's a big part of our party and our worldview. And I think here is an opportunity to make that stand at a really critical time in world history. I mean, this is like a movie for me.

I went to sleep last night, and we were living in the age of Trump. And I woke up this morning, and now we're in the age of Trump. And I woke up this morning and now we're in the age of Reagan again. Listen to this. Peace through strength. That sounds good. And, you know, a couple of days ago, I kind of got heated up

about how Republicans hate on America so much. I was talking about how horrible America is. And I said, America is the greatest country in the world. They need to start saying it. Well, the speaker said we're the greatest nation in the world. Good on him. Like we don't hear this from Republicans. We certainly don't hear that we have to actually fund people who are fighting against Russian aggression much these days, except from, again, those responsible leaders, whether you're talking about the chairman of the Intel Committee or the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, people who are actually talking like grownups. But I've got to say, give credit where credit is due.

And credit is definitely due with Speaker Johnson talking like a Reagan Republican, talking about the need to protect freedom in this fight that between Western democracy and and what's going on in Russia. Peter Baker, maybe you can help help us out here. I'm absolutely fascinated by the relationship with Mike Johnson and Joe Biden because I know so little about it. But I hear from time to time to talk to each other. They talked, I guess, a couple of days ago when this package came out. President Biden was extraordinarily optimistic about it. Hey, I'm strongly supportive of this. It sounds like they had a talk.

Tell me about this relationship and how we got from Speaker Johnson being his foreign policy being shaped by Marjorie Taylor Greene of Dalton, Georgia, a town I love, and how it went from that to being shaped by Ronald Wilson Reagan. Yeah. So I think President Biden, you're right to say he doesn't really have a relationship with Speaker Johnson. They've spoken a number of times, but not very much and not very long. They didn't know each other, obviously, before Johnson became Speaker. You know, but the president understands better than most how Congress works. He understands that you can't get something to the floor if you're not able to command your own majority. So he has some sympathy, I think, for the problem that Speaker Johnson has, but he doesn't trust that Speaker Johnson is going to necessarily deliver. For Speaker Johnson, they have wanted to make the case that Biden is weak. That's what they came

off of last weekend's Iranian attack on Israel, trying to make the case that only happened because President Biden was weak and didn't deter Iran. But it's hard to make the case about Biden being weak if you're not supporting Israel yourself with the funding that they have asked for, not to mention the Ukrainians for the funding that they've asked for. The Ukrainians are in desperate straits. They're out of ammunition in a lot of cases. They're looking at a situation where they were on the cusp of winning and now suddenly it looks like they could be losing all because they don't have the resources that they had been promised for the last really 16, 17 months since this Congress took office. So the president has been willing to give Speaker Johnson a lot of rope.

He's been very patient with him. But there is a sort of a moment of truth arriving at this point. And I think the president is going to be watching to see whether Speaker Johnson can can pull it off. You know, it's fascinating, Peter. You have Republicans that are still running around complaining about the border, and yet they killed the strongest border policy bill ever because Donald Trump told them to. They complained that Joe Biden is weak, and yet they won't provide funding for Taiwan, Ukraine or Israel. Now it looks like they may be doing that. Do you sense that perhaps, and I've been waiting for the influence of Chairman McCaul and Chairman Turner and some of these other Reagan Republicans that are running these committees. Do you think that over time,

their influence, their pull may have been too much for Speaker Johnson to ignore or did he decide that it was in his best interest to use them? So, you know, Republicans won't be accused of not only botching a border deal, but also losing possibly losing Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. Yeah, it's a good question. I can't get into his head. I'm not I'm not a congressional reporter, but I do think that you're right to say that, you know, that the establishment part of the Republican Party that traditionally believes in peace through strength, the Reagan slogan, has finally lost its patience with the far right of the party, which has been blocking this for so long. I think that they realize that they look bad publicly, that they're taking away an issue that they could have against President Biden.

You know, the essence of the case that they want to make against President Biden on foreign policy is one of weakness. They want to go back to the Afghanistan withdrawal. Again, it's really hard to make that case if you yourself are the ones holding up the aid. You can't sit there and complain, well, gosh, he didn't give the right weapons to Ukraine, which is a completely legitimate argument that people have made, including some Democrats against President Biden, when you're not willing to provide any kind of aid whatsoever to them. So I think I think the politics of this have just finally come around to the point where he felt the pressure to to move forward. Now, it's not easy. He can only afford to lose two votes because of vacancies in the House. He has the slimmest

majority practically that you could have. And he looks like he's going to have to rely on Democrats. That means he could stay as speaker. But if you're a speaker who relies on Democrats, that's a position of weakness in your own party. No Republican speaker wants to be speaker because Democrats saved him. And that's a that as a prescription for a lot of real churning volatility going forward. And add to that intrigue that Mike Gallagher, the Republican from Wisconsin, is scheduled to leave his job every stepping down on Friday, the day before a planned vote. Maybe he'll stick around. We'll see. Let's bring the conversation. NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale So, Allie, let's start first big picture with what Peter was just talking about and why this change in rhetoric, change in tone, perhaps even change in policy from Speaker Johnson.

Why did he come around to this? Yeah, it is striking. And I actually think it's important that Joe talks about the role of people like Chairman McCaul, who is all over this legislation. He's the person who I believe is the sponsor of the REPO Act, which is one of the key planks of the fourth bill about combating foreign adversaries. It would effectively allow Putin to pay for what we aid Ukraine with by using leveraged frozen Russian assets. So that's one plank of this piece of legislation that we've seen. I do think that as speaker, Johnson has been a different person than he was as just a member of this Republican conference, though it has been striking to see. And I think this week especially it came into really clear focus with the ways that he's basically challenging his conference at various points to say, hey, this is important enough that I'm not going to worry about losing my job over it, though certainly that is a worry and a concern, if not from Johnson explicitly, then from most rank and file Republicans who I talk to who definitely do not want to spend the spring finding another speaker. I candidly don't

even know who would want that job at this point, but it would be a real problem for them to have to find somebody else. So we are watching that closely. But I think when you look at the landscape writ large on this legislation, it's important to point out that it's the same, same, but different as the Senate supplemental that passed several weeks ago. The reason why you're seeing Democrats speak in support of this is because the numbers are largely the same for Ukraine, for the Indo-Pacific and for Israel. It's that fourth bill that's going to be interesting here because it has a lot of things in it. And Congressman Jake Auchincloss and I were just talking about this on way too early. It has a lot of things in it that Democrats want to see passed.

Things like the TikTok bill that would at least force ByteDance to change its ownership. The fact that we now have Senator Maria Cantwell saying that she likes the changes in the legislation that she sees could only ensure a better reception on the Senate side of this building. The fact that it has the repo act in it that we were just talking about, there's going to be a border provision in there. And I think that's the thing that Democrats are really looking for. But look, by and large, this is something that can be passed in bipartisan fashion, even if it's a different vehicle for doing it than the Senate supplemental. So, Ali, Speaker Johnson suggested he could have a final vote, a passage on these supplemental bills on Saturday night.

But before he gets to that, he's got to clear the rules committee, where several Republicans have said they will not support it. So he may have to reach out to Democrats just to clear the rules committee to get to that vote. How does that look to play out here? It's just really rare. And I think that it's important that we spotlight this. I know that the rules committee feels like this arcane piece of Congress that doesn't deserve much attention. But it is the very vehicle and the committee that gets things to the House floor.

Typically, for the party in the majority to have to use members of the other party to pass a rule is really rare. And it's absolutely stunning that that could be the position that Speaker Johnson is in on this piece of foreign aid legislation. He has several people, including Chip Roy and Tom Massey, who are on the rules committee, who have openly said that they are questioning whether or not they're going to vote for this rule. We're going to watch that very closely this morning. If Democrats come along and come together on this, yes, that gets them to the House floor. But then the full House has to vote on the rule. And the way that you can think about the rule is it's like they're the bouncer to the bar of the legislation is the best way for us to put it at this point. You can't get into the bar without

going through the bouncer. And so the full House has to work on actually passing this before they can vote on each of these four pieces of legislation. That's going to be really important, too. All right. Good update still ahead on Morning Joe, despite his past criticisms of Donald Trump. Former Attorney General Bill Barr now appears to be effectively endorsing him. Shocked, shocked. Plus, the two top lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee get into a pretty heated exchange over the Republican-led push to impeach President Biden. We'll show you that moment, or at least a part of it. It went on for quite some time.

You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in just 60 seconds. We have another about face from a Trump ally turned critic, harsh critic, very harsh, turned ally again, despite previously warning that a second Trump term would be, quote, chaos. Chaos. And let me just say this correctly, a horror show. You're not saying this. No, I'm not. Who's saying this? Bill Barr.

Bill Barr, that's right. Chaos. He said it'd be a nightmare. And a horror show. A nightmare. A nightmare. So, yeah. So, yeah, I'm sure he's going to be campaigning for President Biden to try to stop this.

To try and avoid a horror show. A horror show. Who wants chaos and a horror show in the White House? Former Attorney General Bill Barr now says he plans to vote for Donald Trump in November. Wait, but. Do these guys know that? I don't understand. Anyhow, in a Fox News interview yesterday,

Barr was asked about this year's general election choices. Here's what he had to say. Given two bad choices, I think it's my duty to pick the person I think would do the least harm to the country. And in my mind, that's I will vote the Republican ticket. You will support the Republican ticket. I think the real danger to the country, the real danger to democracy, as I say, is the progressive agenda. And while Trump and I said Trump may be playing Russian roulette, but continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide, in my opinion. You know, that's just such a lie. And he knows it's a lie. And

this is Charlie. We're going to play some clips in a second, but I just have to stop. We've got to stop and call out the lies. When these people know that they're lying, Barr is playing, I guess, for a Fox News audience because he wants to keep giving speech. I don't know why he's doing it. He doesn't believe a word he just said there because he knows how chaotic Donald Trump is. He knows, as he said, that him being in the White House again would be a horror show. He also knows, listen, Bill Barr, you and I, we all agree on like the progressive agenda. We're not supporters of it. We also know that Joe Biden has spent his presidency like feeling pressure from progressives because they

say he's too moderate. This guy from Delaware who who who, again, is not some left wing wacko. And Bill Barr knows that. But he would rather have chaos and a horror show, he says, that guy's going to vote for. Listen, I've been through this before with people that talk that way on TV. And afterwards, I ask him who they vote for. They all vote for, you know, he's going to vote for Joe Biden because he knows that the national suicide doesn't come from Joe Biden. He may not like all his policies, but it comes because Donald Trump has said, you know, it's going to terminate the Constitution.

He's going to be a dictator from day one. He's going to use SEAL Team 6 to execute his political opponents if he wants to, and nobody can do anything about it. I can go down the line. Barr knows this guy can't be president again. No, he knows it. And this is a choice. I mean, this is one of those WTF moments where you have Donald Trump waging this campaign to undermine the rule of law.

Bill Barr knows all of this, and he's decided it's a binary choice because in his world, in order to stay relevant and viable, he has to he has to put party over country. I mean, literally, when he uses the phrase literally Russian roulette, when he uses the term Russian roulette, he knows the danger he poses. He doesn't have to do this. Look, you know, what is extraordinary is the contrast between what Bill Barr is saying and what the former secretary of defense, Mike Esper, is saying. Vice President Mike Pence is saying, yes, I'm not going to endorse him. There are exit ramps. You are not required to look at Donald Trump and say, OK, because I don't like student loan forgiveness, I'm going to put a man who is clearly unhinged, who clearly, you know, tried to overthrow the government, called for terminating the Constitution. We could spend the next 10 minutes

just walking through all of the things. Somebody who has been found liable for rape, put them back in the Oval Office. But I do think it is interesting, the contrast between Bill Barr and much of the rest of the cabinet. And we need to remind ourselves that never before in American history have so many people who work so closely with the president taken the position that, you know, don't do this again. We've seen him. He is unfit for office. You do not want him back in the Oval Office. The fact that Bill Barr reminds us that he is a political hack is, of course, interesting. But also realize what he and people like, you know, Governor Sununu are going to have to defend. They're basically going to have to say, and this is radical.

I mean, we ought to continue to be surprised by this. You know, up until like five minutes ago, nobody in America would say that a convicted felon should be elected president of the United States. Now they are all saying it up and down the ticket. They have to defend what Peter Wehner calls the kaleidoscopic, the kaleidoscopic corruption of Donald Trump. And this is not just Chris Sununu. It's not just Bill Barr up and down the ticket. They're going to have to explain that. Yeah, we don't care about this man's character. We don't care about how deranged he is. We don't care about his crimes or what he intends to do as president. And the fact that Bill Barr says that it's Russian roulette for the country to put Donald Trump back in the presidency, and he's OK with that. What a remarkable moment. What a remarkable moment.

What a remarkable moment. And you're right. They own it. He owns it. Chris Sununu owns it. You know, a judge said Trump Trump is a rapist. You know, said he's going to terminate the Constitution on day one, said he's going to be a dictator on day one. Of course, January the 6th, continuing to praise people that beat the hell out of cops and were ultimately responsible for the death of four police officers, according to their families. I mean, they own all of this and so much more, Mika. Barr is just the latest in a long line of Republicans who found the courage to stand up to Donald Trump, only to then come crawling back again. Take a look.

We're tired of the Donald Trump drama. We want real Republican drama. Donald Trump's not a Republican. We want real Republican drama. If he's off the teleprompter, he can barely keep a cogent thought. You support him for president even if he's convicted in classified documents. You support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection, you support him for president, even though you believe he's lying about the last election, you'd support him for president,

even if he's convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say the answer to that is yes, correct? Yeah, me and 51% of America. He's a race baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn't represent my party. I'm for Donald Trump because I know what I'm going to get. We need somebody that on day one can get this country back on track. Please help President Trump. If you can afford five or ten bucks, if you can't afford a dollar fine, just pray. If you got any money to give, give it. There is no way we are going to allow a con artist to take over the conservative movement. And Donald Trump is a con artist. You said it would be an honor to be offered a spot on his ticket. Really?

Yeah. I think anyone who's offered the opportunity to serve this country as vice president should be honored. I think the country and the world was a better place when he was president. And I would love to see him return to the White House. I think really there's a sophomore quality that is entertaining about Mr. Trump. But I am worried. I'm very concerned about having him in charge of the nuclear weapons because I think his response, his visceral response to attack people on their appearance, short, tall, fat, ugly. My goodness, that happened in junior high. Are we not way above that? Would we not all be worried to

have someone like that in charge of the nuclear arsenal? But I'm proud of the job Donald Trump has done as president. I don't always agree with him, but our occasional policy differences are far outweighed by our significant agreements. But more important than simple agreement is accomplishment. President Trump gets things done. The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. Can he count on your support? Yes.

That's an endorsement. I will support the president. I will support President Trump. Would you be willing to serve in a Trump cabinet? In the right position. Look, if I'm the best person for the job, yes. I don't want to claim this guy. Donald Trump, if we're going to be honest, is a progressive. He supports eminent domain.

He's supported tax increases before. He's donated 300,000 to Democratic candidates. So the fact that the Republican Party is now having to claim him is both unfortunate and to me, inauthentic. I want my daughter to grow up in President Donald J. Trump's America. Oh, my goodness. Kayleigh McEnany, who became the White House press secretary after all of her criticism. I mean, Jen, you just Joe and I talk about this a lot, but how those people look themselves in the mirror as their souls escape their bodies through their mouths while they make this conversion. I want to add into because this all started with Bill Barr. He's been extraordinarily critical of Donald Trump in the last couple of years, calling the attempt to overturn the election a grotesque embarrassment,

saying a vote for Donald Trump is like playing Russian roulette with the country. He has been supportive of the DOJ in its pursuit of these trials against Donald Trump, saying there is no weaponization. This is the Department of Justice doing its job. He was impressed by Jack Smith's indictment and famously said, if half of what's true in the indictment in the classified documents case is true,

Donald Trump is, quote, toast. And yet here he is saying he's got my vote. I am shocked. You know, it's like, oh, we shouldn't be shocked. is saying he's got my vote. I am shocked. You know, it's like it's like, oh, we shouldn't be shocked. Like, of course, it's like the least surprising thing ever is, of course, Bill Barr comes back around and supports Trump. But I really thought given all of the cabinet that has walked away from him, which is historic in its own right, I really thought that Bill Barr would would actually would not support

him this time. I thought that we could count on that. And it is I mean, it's just poor Willie had to live through all of my gestations of outrage and watching that last the clip of all of these cowards that eventually went his way. And I will never understand this, Willie. I will never understand this. I will never understand. It's not that great being relevant.

You know, it's not it's not I will never understand how it is worth it to them. And it's interesting when you contrast that with what is happening with Mike Johnson, who seems to have really taken to taken hold on him, that he is the speaker of the United States House of Representatives. You know, that meeting he had with President Biden and Mitch McConnell and Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and Vice President Harris, who they really gave in the business about like, I'm not sure if you understand what we're doing here, but we're the United States of America and we stand up to Russia when they're being adversarial in this way. And, you know, maybe there's a new reckoning coming for Republicans. That would be great. But I will

continue to be shocked by the cowardness and hypocrisy when you see it like that. To be clear, Speaker Johnson did spend the weekend at Mar-a-Lago. So he's having a moment. Yeah, that's true. Peter Baker, I want to read one more quote. We could do this all morning from Bill Barr, which may be the most important of the quotes for the man he says he's voting for. He said this very recently about Donald Trump. Trump already has shown he cannot forge that kind of decisive victory at the national level. He is a three time loser. And I think he will clearly lose again on the national level. A quote from Bill Barr about Donald Trump. Barr now says he

will vote for the three time loser. Yeah, I think we forget that Bill Barr is actually a pretty ideological guy. He has a very kind of moderate mean and moderate demeanor. And so therefore, people have mistaken him over the years for somebody who is a little bit more centrist. He's not. He's a very ideological person. If you read his book, if you read his memoir, as much as he's criticizing Trump and he's also criticizing progressive left, he has very strong conservative views. And I think this is, you know, this is about partisanship, ultimately. You know, in the end, people come home to their parties and they can tune out the clips that you just played and say, well, that was then and this is now. And I'm going to go for for my party over over what I said

before. But you're right that Bill Barr is a striking example of this because there's probably no witness against Trump who has been more powerful in some ways than Bill Barr is a striking example of this because there's probably no witness against Trump who has been more powerful in some ways than Bill Barr, who testified before the January 6th committee that he told the president, then the president, President Trump, that his claims of an election theft by Joe Biden were BS. He used the full word. He made very clear that when former President Trump, when then President Trump was going out and telling the country that the election was stolen, that he knew it wasn't, that he knowingly went and told the country that the election was stolen when he had been told by people like Bill Barr that it wasn't. And therefore, when he was trying

to overturn an election and hold on to power, to hold on to power that he had been denied by the voters in a reelection, according to Bill Barr, you know, we know that that was something that Donald Trump tried to illegally and unconstitutionally seize power, then turn around to endorse him for reelection, says a lot about the pull and power of partisan identification these days. Well, it and it is something that John Meacham regularly says is is one of the great challenges on whether whether we survive as a republic after this election. If Donald Trump wins, you have all these people that have said, again, Russian roulette. This is Russian roulette if Donald Trump gets in there again. And now he's endorsing him just out of blind partisanship. We could go down the list, though, of people who served, who are conservative, who have been conservative their entire life, starting with me, Charlie Sykes.

But let's talk about the people who served with Donald Trump. The vice president of the United States who served with Donald Trump said won't be endorsing him and for good reason. He said he deserved hanging. Basically, you have the chief of staff of Donald Trump, General Kelly, who served, who talked about how it's sickening about what he says about young men and women who gave their lives to America in service of this country. Donald Trump believes that they're suckers. General Kelly, obviously, who lost his son serving America at war, will not be supporting Donald Trump. You have his secretary of defense, Mad Dog Mattis, as Trump loves to call him, will not be supporting Donald

Trump. You have one of the last secretary of defenses, Secretary Esper, who said he will not be supporting Donald Trump. I mean, we can go down the list. The secretary of states, you know, his ambassador to the United Nation. I mean, they understand. And by the way, you know, they understand that Donald Trump's not a conservative. That's the thing. Kayleigh McElhinney or whatever. I mean, give me a break. She runs around calling everybody progressive and left wing.

Well, she called Donald Trump a progressive, too. And how talk, I mean, all these people, con artists, Marco calls them con artists. And I was like, yes, I'd love to serve a religious bigot, Lindsay. Well, you know, Lindsay, I mean, you just you go down the list and it's just it's this reverse. It's it's this harsh partisanship, actually, that is one of the great threats to our country. And it's coming. It's coming from these people who know he's bad for America and yet are going to support him. It's not like they're privy to some huge secrets. We saw January 6th. We see what's happening with the documents and honestly, might be nice to go back to the day

where it's shocking, where somebody lies multiple times about using campaign money to pay off somebody to keep quiet. It would be, you know, refreshing, but that'll never happen. Peter Baker and Charlie Sykes, thank you both very much. Coming up on Morning Joe, Steve Ratner joins us with charts on Major League Baseball's efforts to renew America's pastime. Morning Joe will be right back. Never hit a walk-off home run. Until now, maybe. Deep right field.

Cedric Mullins! Good night! The announcer speaking it into existence. Cedric Mullins, a two-run home run, lifting the Orioles to a 4-2 win over the Twins for the O's fourth straight victory. Jen Palmieri, they stay now a half game behind the Yankees, who stopped a three-game skid with a comeback win last night up in Toronto over the Blue Jays. Aaron Judge breaking a 4-4 tie in the ninth with that two-run single with two outs. Yankees avoiding the sweep with a 6-4 win.

Meanwhile, in Boston, Major League Baseball saw its fastest game in almost 15 years. Red Sox starter Tanner Howe threw just 94 pitches, 69 of them strikes, to finish the first complete game of his career. The 2-0 Red Sox win over the Guardians lasted one hour and 49 minutes, marking the fastest nine-inning game in the majors since June of 2010. Now, that's the pitch clock, Joe. That's the new pace of play in the big leagues. Red Sox tied for third now, only three games back in the Yankees. It's all happening for you. Yeah, it's all happening, all as we've foreseen. We were prepared to finish safely in last place after breaking the hearts of Red Sox fans. No, their starting pitching has been really great. We had no good quality starts last year.

We've got young pitchers that are doing that. Right now, defense, problems with our defense. But, yeah, Sox in the middle there, all packed up. But I'll tell you what, Jack and I saw the Sox game because it went so fast. I'm usually asleep by about the fifth inning. But that thing flew last night. And Tanner Houck, extraordinary control. But we also sat and watched the last two innings of the Yankees-Blue Jays game.

And yikes. Hard to watch for a Red Sox fan. the last two innings of the Yankees-Blue Jays game. And yikes. Hard to watch for a Red Sox fan. But Aaron Judge finally kind of getting out of his slump and having game-winning hit. So anyway, the pace of play, as Willie said, it's picked up across the league since we had that pitch clock change last season. Let's bring in right now a man who can put a chart

to just about anything, Steve Ratner. And he's looking at the impact of baseball's new rules. And Steve, I must say, watching a baseball game, it's completely different this year than last year. And I'm dead serious. You see a pitch, especially in a Red Sox-Yankees game. Then I'd walk downstairs. I'd go, hey, Mika, how's everything going? She goes, going pretty good. I go, what are you doing? She goes, not much, just, you know, on the phone with my kids. I said, all right, I'll be right back. Then I walk upstairs, next pitch. You know, then I'd walk downstairs. I go, you have any plans for tomorrow? Like it was so slow. Now it really does. It comes at you just like that. You look down for a second. Oh, wait, baseball is moving fast. It's so much easier to watch now.

Yeah, Joe. Now you've got 15 seconds if there's nobody on base, 20 seconds if there are people on base to go get that beer. And not every game is going to be the way it was last night. But let's talk about what has happened. So if we take if we take a look over here at average game length, you can see it was creeping up. I started going to the polo grounds in 1962, and games were about two and a half hours. And they got all the way up to three hours and 10 minutes, and then they put in that change. And boom, games went down to two hours and 39 minutes last year, and it basically hung in there at around two hours and 41 minutes this year. And this is all, we're living in a TikTok age age and people want things to move faster, especially sports. And this has been one of baseball's problems. We'll talk in a

minute about some others of baseball's problems. So let's move on to your next chart. And that is a 10. Oh, you got another element there. Go ahead. Sorry. Sorry. The other chain, one of the other changes they made, Willie, as you know, is they made the bases three inches larger. Yes. And they were trying to create more stolen bases in order to, again, make the game a little bit more exciting in today's world. And so you can see it actually also had that effect. Total bases stolen last season went up to 3,500, the second almost tying the record of 3,590 games set back in the 80s. So that also has made the game a bit more exciting. And of course, as you know, they eliminated the designated, expanded the designated, excuse me, across both leagues and so forth. And so they're trying to get this game back in front of more Americans.

Yeah. And the larger bases only marginally, but makes them closer to the next base, which is the hope is more action, more people stealing. And as you said, with the DH, more hitting, more action in baseball. So what does it mean for attendance, the Major League Baseball? As we go to your next chart, Steve is hoping that the young generation, which perhaps is a little impatient with the pace of old Major League Baseball games, hoping to bring in some new fans to the game. How's that going in terms of attendance? It's actually showing some signs of improvement.

Baseball attendance grew way back to the 1940s, World War II, but it peaked right before the financial crisis in 2007 at 80 million fans in a year. And then it dropped, and obviously you had COVID in here, which destroyed it all, but you can see it dropped pretty consistently. And then last year, it did bounce back to 71 million. So we got some more fans back. Obviously, the quality of the teams, the competitive nature of the games, which teams are winning and so forth plays a big role. But what's also interesting economically to watch economics actually work is that baseball did increase its ticket prices pretty substantially all through these years. This black line is the one to focus on.

This is the ratio of ticket prices to people's incomes. In other words, how affordable is baseball for the average American? And you can see baseball essentially was kind of pricing itself out of the market. But once attendance peaked and the teams realized they got to get fans into the stands, you can see that they've cut the prices, not in actual terms, but they've cut them in relation to incomes. And so they've made baseball more affordable. What's not on this chart is that they have not made hot dogs more affordable. They've actually made hot dogs less affordable.

So in a way, you can go to the game on a more affordable basis, but those hot dogs are going to cost you more. You still got to get the hot dog. I know the prices are up. The beer, it's outrageous. You got to do it. It's a part of the experience. Finally, and quickly, let's move to your last chart in terms of television ratings. As Joe said, and I share it, is you sit down with your kid for a 705 game. It used to be, well, this thing's going to go to 1005, 1030. Why even invest early on? Now, if it's nine o'clock, 930, that's more manageable.

Are they seeing that in the ratings? You have not quite seen that in the ratings yet, if it's nine o'clock, 930, that's more manageable. Are they seeing that in the ratings? You have not quite seen that in the ratings yet. But but let's take a look at what has happened. The Super Bowl always did really well against the World Series, even all going all the way back to the early 70s. But you can see, again, the popularity of baseball and what happened. Super Bowl up, up, up, up, up. And of course, this year, Super Bowl being so extraordinary, even my wife watched it and baseball going kind of down, down, down, down, down. And then you finally sort of hit almost rock bottom here with the Rangers versus the Diamondbacks, where even the final game, this little triangle didn't even attract many more viewers than the series as a whole. This is the 19, the Cubs winning the World Series for the first time since 1908.

And this is the Dodgers versus the Yankees highest rated World Series game. And of course, you got two marquee teams. But all of this actually has an effect because without as many viewers on television, television rights get affected. The profitability of the team gets affected. And this is interesting because there have been three recent deals in major sports. And let's look at the differences. Baltimore Orioles, owned by Peter Angelos for 30 years, over 20 years.

He made a 7.7% annual return on his investment. He bought it for about $193 million and sold it to David Rubenstein for about 10 times that amount. But the stock market, he would have done even slightly better if he had just left his money in the stock market. Contrary to what people think. The Washington Commander is owned by Dan Snyder, not a beloved figure in sports, was sold to Josh Harris. Also, he owned it for about 25 years. And you can see he way outperformed the stock market. And then lastly, the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban selling it to Miriam Adelson,

knocked the cover off the ball, no pun intended, in terms of the return. So markets work and the sports that are successful have been more successful for the owners financially as well in attendance and other measures. Yeah, you know, I mean, you look at the attendance and everything's good. The ratings go down. But, Willie, let me just say, as much as I love baseball, I didn't see a pitch of the Rangers' Diamondbacks. I just didn't. And despite hating the Yankees for good reason and not really caring for the Dodgers, if it's the Yankees-Dodgers, I, along with everybody else,

will be watching that World Series because of all the superstars on both of those teams. I mean, it does depend on who's in the series. It does, for sure. But even by that, with a good matchup or a matchup with the big markets, it's a tough comparison to the Super Bowl, which is effectively a national holiday and Taylor Swift's in the stands and you got Usher and all the things that come with that. So, but I think I agree with you, Joe, the new rules from last year, we're seeing again this year, the games are moving, there's more action, there's a lot of base stealing like you and I used to watch in the 80s. So the game is on a good trajectory.

Steve Ratner, thanks so much for the charts as always. We appreciate it.