Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/18/25

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Sen. Chris Van Hollen meets with Kilmar Abrego Garcia as Trump fights to keep him in El Salvador

Well, I'm not involved in it. I'm going to respond by saying you'll have to speak to the lawyers, the DOJ. I've heard many things about him, and we'll have to find out what the truth is. I was elected to get rid of those criminals, to get them out of our country, or to put them away, but to get them out of our country. And I don't see how judges can take that authority away from a president. That's President Trump yesterday responding to a question about Kilmore, Obrego Garcia and whether you deserve due process before his deportation to a prison in El Salvador.

Good morning and welcome morning, Joe. It's Friday, April 18. Good Friday to you and your family. With us, we have U.S. special correspondent for BBC News and the host of The Rest is Politics podcast, Katty Kay. Also, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and MSNBC political analyst, Eugene Robinson. U.S. Senator at The Financial Times, Ed Luce. And Roger's chair at the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, historian John Meacham. I've only said it a thousand times.

You'd think I'd get it right the thousandth time. Also a host of Pablo Torre Finds Out on Metal Art Media, MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre, and columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. And Cady Case, so much continuing to happen in this case of Garcia, Abrego Garcia, a man who was the government, let's just say, fine, again, the government admitted they made a mistake.

And of course, that's because in 2019, he was provided protection by a judge in his case who determined he couldn't be sent back to El Salvador. And that was a decision that the Trump administration back in 2019 went along with. Did not appeal. Did not appeal him being released from jail. And obviously they didn't appeal that because the so-called evidence said he was a gang member. I think somebody informed it and said he was a gang member in an area where he had never been before in his life. The case just sort of fell apart.

He was released. He was given special status, protection. He became a union member. We heard a union leader yesterday banging his fist on a podium saying, bring our brother home. I guess it's a very interesting case, as I've said before, kind of like that Signalgate issue where they should have just admitted up front they made a mistake, moved on, and it wouldn't have caused the damage that apparently this is continuing to cause. I know a lot of people in the damage that apparently this is continuing to cause.

I know a lot of people in the White House think this is something they want to talk about every day. It's not when you have people like Joe Rogan and when you have right-wing publications like the National Review, when you have Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorial page continually saying he should not have been deported. There are a lot of political fights they could pick. This, though, just doesn't seem to be won, no matter how much they try to spin it.

Yeah, and this ruling that El Salvador was the one place he couldn't be sent back to, and then, of course, that is the place he is sent back to really undermines the question of due process in this case. And that's why you have even conservatives on the legal side saying that this case needs to be watched very carefully to see how the administration deals with it. From the Democratic side, though, what we had yesterday was Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

He met with Kilmar Brego Garcia in a hotel in El Salvador that comes after the senator was denied initially access to the prison where the Maryland man is being held. Images of the meeting were first posted online by El Salvador's president, who has rejected calls to return Braygo Garcia to the United States. Right now, it's not clear how the senator managed to get the meeting last night. Van Hollen posted on social media that he had spoken to Abrego Garcia's wife

and that he would provide more details when he returned back to the US. The White House then in turn responded to that post, calling the meeting truly disgusting and continued to characterize Abrego Garcia as a gang member. Despite, as Joe said, there's no clear evidence that he has ever been affiliated with any gang. El Salvador's president then took a sarcastic tone himself in his social media post writing this, Kilmer Abrego Garcia miraculously risen from the death camps and torture,

now sipping margaritas with Senator Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador. We should just note, fact check, it's unclear what they are actually drinking. NBC News has reached out to Senator Van Hollen's office about this tweet. El Salvador's president later added, now that he's been confirmed healthy, Abrego Garcia gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody. So Joe, I read, there's a very interesting interview with Jack Goldsmith, the law professor at Harvard that's been done in the New York Times.

It's pretty lengthy. It's a podcast, but it's worth reading, particularly this section on this, just for the scenarios in how the administration is going to handle this one, how the Supreme Court might handle this, if this goes back up to the Supreme Court. But it looks like in this case, so far it's been a little murky on both sides. But if it comes to a clash, how does that end up? Is this a case in which the Supreme Court would be prepared to order the White House to have this man returned from El Salvador or do they

choose to pick a fight over something that they feel is a clearer issue? Well, I mean, you know, the thing is, the Trump administration has a lot of issues where there are people who are unambiguously gang members, people who unambiguously committed crimes, people who unambiguously would be so-called sort of poster childs for these, what they're trying to prove here. Instead, they have a man here who was sent to prison, a man who, the evidence that sent him to prison, where he was in the United States supposedly a gang member, it ended up being from a detective who was suspended, that it was got clothes that he was wearing.

It was also, again, the conflict between the hearsay evidence, even had the court, again, this is the most important thing, in 2019 the court let him go. Never charged for a crime. The court released him and gave him a special protected status. It's rarely given in America. The special protection status says you are allowed to stay in America, you are not. The US government is not allowed to send you back to El Salvador. Now that is just clear cut.

And it was in 2019, it wasn't in 2023 during the Biden administration, it was 2019 during the Trump administration, and the Trump administration let the ruling stand. They did not appeal it because they knew that Garcia was standing on firm legal grounds. So Garcia stays in America. He reports to his immigration officer annually. He becomes a member of a union. He's a worker. He's a father.

Again, and you have the court saying, U.S. government, you cannot deport him. And again, the Trump administration in 2019 went along with it, let it stand, didn't appeal it. So this whole idea that, oh, he's a gang member, we all know he's a gang member, he's not. It was never proved, never proven. So, this whole idea that, oh, he's a gang member, we all know he's a gang member, he's not. It was never proved.

Never proven. And, you know, David Ignatius, I just want to say again, on that front, never proven, but has been proven, and what has been admitted by the federal government is they made a mistake. That's number one. I want to talk about the foreign leaders, though. And in this case, we'll talk about the president of El Salvador. And I just think it's curious that foreign leaders often make the same mistake that, and I know you've heard it, and I've heard it, somebody gets elected president,

and everybody in Washington DC for about six months thinks, well, this person's going to be president forever. And we've got to move all of our policy. And then about six months, then you're like, oh, wait, yeah, gravity. Yeah, it still exists. Political gravity still exists. I just, the contempt the president of El Salvador has for United States rule of law, the mocking of people in the United States. It's as if somebody in El Salvador hasn't told him that there are going to be elections a year from now. And I think most smart money right now would say Democrats are going to do pretty well. So Democrats will be funding whatever aid El Salvador gets. And I find foreign leaders make this mistake time and time again. They have this

myopic vision. This is happening in America right now. American media exaggerates this, makes it seem far grimmer or far more, you know, intense than it actually may be. We better put all of our chips on this side of the table. And then they find out a year and a half later, they're dealing with the other party when it comes to funding. I just, I'm just curious your thoughts about what you're seeing, the contempt out of El Salvador for a president who, whether he likes it or not, a year from now is going to be depending on Democrats, most likely for funding and aid.

So, Joe, President Bukele was a tough guy, disdainful of law, normal procedures, before Donald Trump ever got to the White House in his second term. That's who he is. And there's a growing movement of leaders in Central and South America who are similarly taking very hard stands against gang members, cartels. That's just the way South and Central America is rolling right now. I think what's really striking about this case is less about what's happening there, which has its own momentum, than what's happening here. I think we are heading into one of the great legal and constitutional events, I don't want

to say crises, of my lifetime. Reading the appellate opinion that Judge Harvey Wilkinson issued last night, talking about this case, I've rarely seen more brilliant and thoughtful language in a judicial decision than this. He says that we are, I believe his language is, grinding irrevocably towards a confrontation between the branches of government. He tries to speak sympathetically to the executive branch, he speaks to the judicial branch that he represents, but you couldn't ask...I mean, I wrote to a friend a hundred years from now, people will read that decision as a model of clarity in crisis.

And it reassures me that our judicial system is as intact as ever, that this is going to the Supreme Court with, I think, more and more clarity about the lawlessness of the executive. And that in that sense, we're heading toward this crisis not with Trump on the rise. We watched a segment of Trump that we began this show with. Trump is back, you know, it's a classic Trump. Well, I don't know much about this. That's what he says when he's about to lose. You know, he's just, it's not my problem when he's about to lose. You know, he's just, ah, it's not my problem.

I'm looking to others. So, but I urge viewers, if you have a minute, take a look at that appellate opinion and tell me if you don't feel better about the country when you read it. Well, I mean, the judicial branch has stepped forward. And again, it's pretty unambiguous. I mean, again, in 2019, Judge ruled he couldn't be taken out of the country. Trump administration then obviously agreed they didn't appeal it. Trump administration this time said we made a mistake and again it's just like the signal gate thing, know when to say hey we made a mistake we're to bring him back and move on. I don't understand because you see the thing is,

what the White House is trying to do, well, some of the White House at least, is trying to make this, oh, these are left wingers. I mean, this is MSNBC and CNN, this is New York Times editorial. No, it's not, it's Joe Rogan, right? Joe Rogan has gone out there and is saying, what's going on here, man?

I don't understand this. You have Ann Coulter talking about deportations of people because of what they said politically. She said, don't, again, Ann Coulter. I thought we had a First Amendment, Ann Coulter said. You've got the voice for the right wing, the national review, just eviscerating the administration and the Justice Department and Marco Rubio on this Garcia case. You have Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorial page constantly. This again, why fight on a ground where you're going to lose?

This is, I guess some people inside the White House are thinking just like they did at the beginning of the signal gate, oh, these are just lefties. No, no, man. You got town hall meetings where you've got Chuck Grassley in Iowa, and he's in the middle of Iowa. You got people yelling from the audience, what about that guy in El Salvador? Are you going to bring him back? That's in the horror land of Iowa. And those weren't lefties. We saw. At least it's all video. And then you even had trade unions now throwing their political weight. Because actually

had trade unions now throwing their political weight. Because actually, they call Abrego Garcia a brother because he was a member of their union. The Maryland man was in the first year of a sheet metal workers apprenticeship when mistakes happened. He was mistakenly deported by immigration enforcement. Now his union, the International Association of Sheet Metal,

Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers want him back. And last week, the president of the North America's Building Trades Union received a standing ovation when he called for Abrego Garcia's return. Watch this. You wanna build a $5 billion data center? Want more six-figure careers with health care retirement and no college debt? You don't call Elon Musk, you call us!

North America's building trade unions and yeah that means all of us, all of us, including our brother, smart apprentice, Kilmar Arbrega Garcia, who we demand to be returned to us and his family now. Bring him home. Gene Robinson, I mean, just not a fight. They need to be fighting. They're wrong on the law. They're wrong on the facts.

They're wrong. I mean, there are a lot of fights to win here. This, as we've said on this show every day, is a political winner with Americans as far as getting, we've all said it, getting violent gang members out of this country. We've said it from the very beginning. There are fights to be had on this issue politically

that they can fight and win. It's just that one of them is it? I mean, when you see images like that, when you have Joe Rogan, when you have all ofan, when you have all of these other people on the right or some on the far right saying come on, deport them, we want them deported, but do it the right way, the way nine Supreme Court justices are saying you need to do it. That's absolutely right and you know there are a couple of issues, there's

And, you know, there are a couple of issues. There's the question of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Judged by that support from his union, the entire evidence against him in terms of being a gang member seems to consist of the fact that he was hanging out in a Home Depot parking lot one morning with some other people, at least one of whom might have done something wrong. And then there's an unnamed informant who said, oh yeah, he's a gang member once with no verification, no proof, no evidence, just an allegation, again, by an unnamed informant. And on that basis, they're calling him a violent terrorist who needs to be deported to El Salvador. I'm going to underscore what David Ignatius said, though.

That opinion by Judge Harvey Wilkinson. It's incredibly eloquent, and this is a voice that conservative jurists listen to because he is a highly respected conservative judge. He has been for many years. And so this will be noticed in, you know, this will be noticed by the judiciary, including the Supreme Court. Everybody's going to read this opinion. It was written clearly with that in mind, and it's really powerful. This is simply wrong. Ed, let me just read you a couple of sentences from it. This is Judge Wilkinson's ruling.

The judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy. And he goes on to say, the executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions. Basically, what he's arguing is that we have a system where the two sides have to respect each other more, or both sides get damaged. We know the White House wants this conversation. They do believe that every time this conversation is had, they love the fact that Chris Van Holland went down to Maryland and met Albrego Garcia.

They feel that plays to them. Are there any voices, do you think, in the White House who have concerns about the impact that White House's language around judicial cases might have on future Supreme Court rulings that the White House would like to win? So, I mean, I think they might like having this conversation, but the opinion polls are moving against them, even on immigration, even on immigration.

So the union's backing Garcia is not some sort of flash in the pan. There is a general public sentiment about Garcia that's seeping through and reflected in the numbers. That isn't what you'd expect if you're in the Trump White House from the heartland of America. There is sympathy for this man, understanding that an innocent person sent to a superlux… Can we have polling on that? There is polling on that. There's been downward slope, a very steady downward slope over the last two weeks

from a number of different polls. Don't have them at my fingertips, but I promise. So anybody in the White House who understands, I think Judge, I'd just like to echo what's been said about Judge Wilkinson. He's clearly also writing for the Supreme Court, because this is going back to the Supreme Court. He is bolstering them to do what they did in a sort of pro forma way, by saying he should

facilitate his repatriation to America, to stiffen their spine when it gets back to them, as it will. I don't think there's anybody in the White House who's going to be contradicting Trump on this. Maybe they're all going to sort of forget this ever happened and say, don't ask me, I only work here, as we saw Trump saying at the beginning of this show. But I don't see any countervailing voices in this Trump administration. This is so different. It's

an echo chamber and he's not going to be contradicted this time around. You know, that said though, they certainly figured out that halfway through Signalgate that it was a mistake and an unforced error. And again, I think just with the accumulation of this, again, when you have people on the right, some on the far right being critical, when you have the most conservative judges writing opinions, when the Supreme Court's deciding 9-0,

this isn't a 5-4 decision, right? But when it's a 9-0 decision. And again, Chuck Grassley goes to hold the town hall meeting in Iowa, and you have Iowans in middle America shouting out about this man from Maryland that was deported improperly, illegally. In politics, that's when it's officially broken through. And I will say, John Meacham, there's the saying that was attached to the mass killings, not comparing this at all. I'm making a larger point. Mass killings of, let's say, Hitler or Stalin or whatever. This applies for politics in general. There's that old saying that the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic.

Which is basically saying, don't personalize things. The deportation of 300 men, well, that was an unfortunate error. And well, they need due process. And okay, let's figure out how to get them back. But there just wasn't the urgency there is with this one man who has a story, who was improperly jailed before, released by the court, 2019 given special protection. Almost extraordinary special protection where the court says the United States government can't send him back to El Salvador.

The Trump administration went along with it. They did not appeal. Here we have all the things that have happened since then. You have people on the right, even the far right right saying, no, no, this doesn't work. I mean, it seems to me this isn't what the Trump administration wants. They don't want a face on mass deportation. That's bad politically. And maybe they didn't see it coming, but now Obrego Garcia, he is the face of a man who

has been wronged, a man who has been illegally deported, a man who needs to be back with his wife and his special needs children, a man whose union brothers and sisters want him back. I just I don't I don't think politically this makes sense for them to continue fighting this. And and when you have the decision that came out last night that everybody's talking about today from one of the most respected conservative jurists, not only in Washington, but in America, again, it seems to be a losing political battle for the White House. And one of the things about Trumpism is if he just decides, well, I never said that,

he can convince himself that and change course. I think we're in a vivid example here. First of all, as you know, there's always a...not always, but most of the time there's a particular that illustrates a universal, right? That's what litigation often is. And what we're seeing, and you're exactly right about the conservatives, the constitutional conservatives on the other side of Trump, of President Trump on this, this is a question, are we going to have principled constitutionalism or are we gonna have a cult of personality?

And that's essentially what Judge Wilkinson was writing. I mean, let's remember too, Judge Wilkinson is a...I believe I'm right, a Reagan appointee. I mean, that's as core to the non-Trump Republican Party, people who made this possible, by the way, but they are the folks who made up their minds to go along with this, always saying, as we've talked about endlessly, well you know what, you all always think it's gonna be worse than it is. It's all going to be fine. They'll stop him, blah, blah, blah. Okay, we're about to find out. And I think that if President Trump turns, I think I'm right to his left, in the Oval

Office, he will see among the many portraits there is a portrait of Ronald Reagan, the man who appointed that judge and who argued that the law matters, the Constitution matters. He quoted Thomas Paine all the time. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. To me, the relevant quotation here from Paine is, you ask in America who is king, in America the law is king. In America, the law is king. Yeah, well, I mean, you also have Ronald Reagan not only in his farewell address talking about how immigration is so critical for America, saying, forever young. And when America closes its doors to immigrants, it becomes older, it becomes more tired, and it fails as a nation.

You had him saying that at the end of his political career and you had him in 1980 in a debate with George H.W. Bush famously saying, let them come in, give Mexicans work visas, let them come in, work, they will help us, they can go back home, they can help their families. I mean, again, Ronald Reagan would be the wrong person for any Republican right now supporting this to talk about.

Pablo, if you watch another news network and if you listen to some people in the Republican Party day in and day out, they'll say, oh, he's a gang member, I can't believe those Democrats are defending a gang member, MS-13. And they think if they keep repeating it enough that it becomes a fact. But of course it's not a fact, and it's not a fact because again, never arrested, right? Federal judge looked at the evidence, saw that there was this crazy hearsay evidence from these so-called informants that a detective who was suspended had gotten together,

threw it out, released him from prison, 2019, Trump administration didn't appeal it then, and gave him pretty extraordinary protected status. Not a lot of people get it. And they said, we're gonna release you from prison. You're gonna be free to live in America. You're gonna be free to work in America. And America cannot deport you back to El Salvador, right? And so you've got

federal judges doing that, not in 2023, 2019, the Trump administration, and the Trump lawyers go, yep, yep, don't appeal it at all. And that becomes the case. And he checks in regularly And that becomes the case. And he checks in regularly with his immigration officer. Checks in regularly, does everything he's supposed to do, plays by the rule, he gets that job. He raises with his wife special needs children. He becomes an apprentice in a union shop. He's an American worker.

He's part of the union that builds America, right literally builds America And again, my point here is I'm not making him out to be a saint I don't I can't vouch for everything in his life. No, but I can tell you the courts in 2019 Said let him go. We don't have evidence that he's committed crimes. Let him go and give him this special protection status. Whatever these other networks and people are trying to sell when they defame him every day, 24 hours a day, Americans aren't listening. And again, I just keep going back

because I'd hold a hundred town hall meetings a year at least. And man, that's when you found out, as Ross Perot would say, where the rubber meets the road. And when you're in Iowa and you got people shouting from the audience, when are you gonna return that poor man from El Salvador? The rubber has met the road here and it's time to quit while the White House is behind

and move on. Joe, I am tempted to go Ross Perot on you. Bring out some charts, some poster boards, some grass. Do it! I am tempted to assemble an Avengers-level roster of every messenger that can be persuasive to the people who are listening to the propaganda of Trump TV. I really am. But I think we can do this a lot simpler, right? You don't need to listen to me.

You don't need to listen to us. You don't need to listen to any of the people that you don't trust. The question is whether you want to listen to the courts. Okay? We can do the storytelling. We can do all of that. And I think we have a really strong hand politically, electorally, for people who want to nuance this and explain, is this a person that you want to fully co-sign as a dad?

We're not here to tell you that. Well, we're here to ask you, Joe, during Holy Week, and again, I cannot believe I'm the guy who gets to go New Testament before John Meacham and Joe Scarborough. Hey, man. But I'm the guy who's going to ask you, do you want to do this like Pontius Pilate? Do you want to do this as in we want Barabbas? Is that our justice system now? People yelling at officials saying this is our guy. That's our villain and it drives me insane. It drives me insane. We could just listen to the Supreme Court and I know to the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals.

We could listen to the judiciary defined in the constitution by the separation of powers, or we could be the mob. Which do we wanna be? That's not a matter of messengers, that's a matter of system, of principle. That is what we're deciding. It's not a matter of who's more popular.

That's what's driving me insane. You know, if we had one of those ESPN shows where they give people points, Pablo, and he always wins on Around the Horn, would get a hundred and twenty points for the Barabbas reference on Good Friday. Sir, that's a hundred and twenty points right there. You are our around the horn winner. Drop the mic, it's all over. I will say one other. I mean, Pontius Pilate, 50 points,

but Barabbas that really jacked it up. And Pontius, that's very good, very good. I think about the Roman Empire quite a bit, it's true. Yeah, you do, yeah. I hear that's a thing these days. So anyway, with younger guys. So, Katty, one final thing before we go to break. We saw the White House have a mother tragically, and we're going to play a clip in a little bit,

tragically talk about the loss of her daughter. And it's heartbreaking for anybody, anybody with children to see that. I just do want to provide proper context that none of the Nincato Institute looking at how Republicans would talk about illegal immigrants and crime, talk about Ms. Riley during the campaign, pointed out that in the state of Texas, which has a lot of illegal immigrants there, the state of Texas has the most comprehensive numbers as far as tracking for crime, for murder. as far as tracking for crime, for murder, 5% of the murders committed in Texas out of 8,000 that they studied

were committed by illegal immigrants. 95% were committed by Native Americans or by people who were American citizens. There are tragedies out there that are committed, and we all grieve today and every day for parents who've lost their children or spouses who've lost their children to crime. The Curie's decision, though, to focus on 5% instead of 95% when statistics going back 150 years. 150 years. And just ask Cato. Again, a very, very conservative think tank

shows that native-born Americans commit more crimes proportionately than do those who are illegal immigrants for a variety of reasons that we won't get into here. But again, if that's their argument, that's an argument that also fails and it fails just because it's disproportionately a small number of crimes that are committed by illegal immigrants compared to those who are legal citizens in the United States. Yeah, those statistics have been around for a long time and they are replicated in study after study. The people who are here in the country illegally commit crimes at a much lower rate,

but of course every single incident of a crime like that, tragic in itself and for the family, is then used politically to drive up the idea that people who are here, who are undocumented, are somehow very bad people or evil people. And we hear that demonization is a way to justify getting them out of the country. But Pablo has said this before. It's about due process.

It's about the process, not about the individual in this case. Okay, still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll have more on Albrego de Garcia's deportation case. When the president's borders are, Tom Homan joins us for the conversation. Also, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warns the U.S. is prepared to move on from peace talks with Ukraine and Russia. We'll have the latest on the efforts to end the war and what those words actually mean. You're watching Six thirty seven in the morning. Two people are dead and one person is in custody this morning after a shooting at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Authorities say a 20-year-old, who

is believed to be a student, opened fire on campus yesterday just before noon, prompting the school to issue a shelter-in-place alert. Police then escorted students and staff out of academic buildings. The gunman was identified as the son of a deputy in the local sheriff's department. He was allegedly armed with his mother's former service firearm.

The two people killed have not yet been identified, but police say they were not students. All classes and events at the university are canceled through the weekend. Again, it is happening in America. And now, turning to another immigration story that's making headlines. On Monday, Victor Martinez Hernandez was found guilty of murdering Rachel Morin, the Maryland

mother of five, who was attacked on a hiking trail back in 2023. He was convicted on charges of first-degree murder, premeditated murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sex offense and kidnapping, according to authorities. He entered the U.S. illegally from El Salvador in 2023 and has known ties to gangs. On Wednesday, Morin's mother spoke at the White House to share her daughter's story. This person took my daughter so violently and so gruesomely and so graphically that they sealed the pictures because I don't want my granddaughters to see these pictures. Can you imagine standing there alive, you're alive, and someone comes and puts their hands into

your chest and rips out your heart? That's what it feels like. It feels like a part of you is being ripped out of you. You can't even describe the pain. Why are we not protecting the American citizens? It's just common sense. Why are we not protecting our children? So, such an awful tragedy. We're, of course, thinking of Rachel and her children and her family as well.

New this morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the United States may move on from efforts to reach a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine if there's no clear progress soon. Take a listen to what he said to reporters in Paris this morning as to the state of those negotiations and what America's European allies can do to help move things forward. We'd like them to remain engaged. I think they can help us. I think the UK and France and Germany can help us move the ball on this and get this closer to a resolution. I thought they were very helpful and constructive with their ideas. So we welcome their input, we welcome their involvement. We think it's important. There are probably elements of this as well.

I always remind everybody that part of the sanctions against Russia, many of them, are European sanctions that we can't lift if that's wherever to be part of a deal. So they're going to have to be involved no matter what. This war has no military solution to it. It really doesn't. It's not going to be decided with... Neither side has some strategic capability to end this war quickly. And so what we're talking about here is avoiding thousands and thousands of people from dying over the next year. We're

trying to avoid that. We saw what happened last weekend with a missile strike in Sumi where people died on Palm Sunday. We're just going to see more like that on both sides. We're going to see more of that. We're trying to prevent it. But we're not going to continue to fly all over the world and do meeting after meeting about after meeting if no progress is being made. So if they're serious about peace, either side or both, we want to help. If it's not going to happen, then we're just going to move on. Sir David Ignatius, the Biden administration never said they're going to move on, but I can't underline the fact enough that the Biden administration, I know that you know this, they were saying this going back to late 2023-2024. This is a stalemate. These are like World War I

lines. It's a war of attrition. Man, at some point, they need to get exhausted and need to make peace. Obviously, that's not happening right now, but Marco Rubio did say that he had confidence in Great Britain, France and Germany in moving this process along. Tell us where we are right now and what you expect to see in the coming weeks. So Joe, sad to say the effort that President Trump began to bring this war to an acceptable, and that means a lasting and just solution, seems to be running out of gas. When I hear the Secretary of State say, well, we may be ready to move on,

that tells me that the President is getting bored, that he hasn't made the progress that he wanted. He promised he'd get this done in a day, and then it was a few weeks, and here we are, more than two months into his administration. And what he's finding is that his friend, Vladimir Putin, doesn't want to make any concessions, is not in fact prepared for the peace process that Donald Trump has teed up. Rather than pressure Putin to move him towards a deal that would bring a satisfactory

end to this war that would stick through the rest of the administration, Trump, Rubio, their team seem to be getting ready to walk away from it, leaving it in the hands of the Europeans. And I'm sorry to say that despite enormous efforts by the Europeans, the British, French, to get ready to take up as much of the American burden of supplying weapons, supplying intelligence, they simply don't have the resources. They're not able to make up that gap, which means that Ukraine is going to be heading into this summer, absent some changes, in a situation where its losses will be ever greater.

The bravery of Ukraine to have fought to this point is extraordinary, the losses they've experienced. But when you hear Rubio say, we're about to move on, you have to think about what that means. That means people naked, vulnerable, without intelligence or interceptor missiles, patriot missiles, that can take down the huge ballistic missiles coming into them from Russia, the deaths that are going to result. And again, I come back to what Trump correctly said, it's time for this war to end, but it's going to require him to put more effort into

it than he's been prepared to so far. You don't just stand there if you're Marco Rubin and say, well we haven't made any progress, I think that's it. What you do is go back to the parties in particular, they've already pressured Ukraine, God knows. You go back to Russia and say, this is not acceptable. And if you don't begin to move and make concessions, we're going to pressure you further. That's what an administration that's serious about negotiating peace would do. You know, Ed Lewis, of course you just, you're about to release your biography on Dr. Brzezinski,

who warned repeatedly throughout his career about the long history of Russian imperialism. I saw a clip of Richard Nixon from 1974 issuing a dire warning, we better get it right in Russia. This was again in 1994, because there's a long history of Russian imperialism, and we will not have to fight communism in the next century, but we would have to fight a Russia trying to reconstitute basically the old Russian Empire. Remember Mark Brzezinski, Bika's brother and then the ambassador of Poland, I correctly pointed out that Putin doesn't want to reconstitute the Soviet Union. He wants to reconstitute the old Russian Empire and that means that you know with the capitals of Odessa and

Kiev brought back in under Russia's control. It appears that after all the fighting, all this war, all the talking, we are back where we started in this war. Putin won't be happy until he has Kievan Odessa. No, no, he won't. And when, you know, Rubio says that they're prepared to walk away from this, what he really means is, as David has just very eloquently said out, is he's preparing to pull the plug on Ukraine, because there have been no sustained efforts to get Putin to agree to a real ceasefire. He breached—has breached the one that's about to end, which was just confined to energy infrastructure, as Rubio did mention on Palm Palm Sunday with some really obscene breaches,

obscene attacks on civilians during that period as well. So the idea that, you know, by implication, this is Europe and Ukraine, the ball is in their court is completely wrong the ball should be in Russia's court it should be Steve Wittkopf going to Moscow and delivering reading the riot act to Putin instead he's going and sort of putting his hand on heart as if he's pledging the sort of the pledging allegiance to Putin it is an extraordinary asymmetric one-, 87-day attempt at peace that really doesn't amount to any serious attempt at peace. And I think that Dr. Brzezinski would not be alone in seeing this as a bad faith effort to end the war. And David's right,

the war needs to be ended. But this has been a bad faith effort to end the war and David's right the war needs to be ended but this has been a bad-faith effort to end the war. Putin is under no pressure from the Trump administration to come to the table. There have been no credible threats, there have been no credible sticks offered to Putin, just carrots and until that changes there's not going to be be any kind of credible peace process. Putin was right. All he had to do was wait it out. Wait out the West, wait out the United States.

Still ahead, President Trump renews his attacks on the central bank, calling for the removal of Fed Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. We'll play for you those comments. Ed Luce has things to say. Plus, the Atlantic's Anne Applebaum will join us with a look at the president's foreign and domestic business ties as she calls it Kleptocracy Inc. Morning Joe will be right back. It is 6.52 in the morning. White House looking very sparkly on this lovely April morning. On the night, talking of April, of April 18, 1775, 250 years ago today, Paul Revere set

out on the ride of his life, rallying the residents of Massachusetts to face the British Army at Concord and Lexington and begin their war of independence. An engraver, artisan, and part-time dentist by day, Revere was widely known by colonists and British soldiers as the best horseback rider in the Patriot stable, having conducted several riding missions in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. Joining us now, New York Times bestselling author Kostya Kennedy. His latest book is titled The Ride, Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America. Kostya, thank you so much for joining us.

I'm loving this period because we're getting so many different angles of the Revolutionary War that people had not talked about. Why did you single out all of the figures, that pantheon of figures that there are at the beginning of the Revolutionary War that people had not talked about. Why did you single out all of the figures, that pantheon of figures that there are at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, why was it Paul Revere and his ride that you decided to focus on? There was something really appealing about somebody who knew so specifically what time it was in his life and in the moment of the audacious revolution they were about to embark on. in the moment of the audacious revolution they were about to embark on, and something

very focused about that time, as you mentioned, April 18th, the night of April 18th, leading to dawn and then the day of the 19th. The world changed, America changed, Revere's own legacy, of course, changed. There was something succinct and very powerful about that, and seeing his use today across the political spectrum in metaphor, in actual actual inspiration all that kind of drew me to it cost you didn't talk talking about thinking about the uh... politics of that period they were loyalists there were sons of liberty uh... it was not a

universal period uh... i want to say i think we should sick a moment and thank Cady for not being triggered by the story of the loss of her empire. I think that's very big of her. Proud to let you have your moment, John. Thank you, thank you. So I think it's very important.

Place Revere in the politics of the time. So I'll say my father was British, so I'm right there with you, Cady. He was a fierce patriot, believed very much in the cause. There wasn't necessarily the strict animosity between other loyalists, as you're kind of alluding to, John. You would go to loyalists and patriots would go to church together, they'd go to a tavern together, and they disagreed ideologically, but it wasn't this deep-seated enmity. But Revere was very much on the side of this rebellion. He was a really interesting character

and that he was a sort of blue-collar, you know, silversmith, as was said, and he ascended to the sort of right near to the corridors of leadership and power of John and Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren. So he was, he knew his politics and he followed them. And he, like many others, he really risked everything. You know, he would have been OK if the British had continued to impose taxes. He had a pretty successful business. He had a wife, five kids. He would have been all right, but he answered a call for an ideal and a principle that was a lot

bigger than himself. Kostya, we worked together at Sports Illustrated one zillion years ago and a couple revolutions back. NFL draft wise, Paul Revere the prospect, why was he the perfect person to make this entire thing happen? It's combined, it's draft on the brain. How do you assess him as a scout? Well, he was, you know, he was great on the back of a horse. That's why he was sent down to deliver news of the Boston Tea Party in 73, went to the First Continental Congress in 74. But he was also really an intelligent, well-spoken gruff. But John Adams had this saying, he said, you know, Paul Revere will give you the news.

He gave the news in not only a trustworthy way, but a succinct way without a lot of external stuff with a lot of confusing messages and he was extremely brave he could have easily been killed that night and so were of course many many others involved in its revolution so he had those characteristics he was ingenious he was courageous he was physically able and he was really equipped to deliver the news strong motor caddy is what they say in draft parlance is what Paul Revere had. The new book, The Ride, Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America is on sale now New York Times best-selling author Kostya

Kennedy thank you so much for joining us and John Meacham we just have to say we're glad it's all going so well 250 years later.