Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/2/24

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Biden makes strides with Independent voters in new polling

and good morning welcome to morning Joe it is Tuesday April 2nd we have a lot to get to this morning including the expanded gag order in Donald Trump's is somebody somebody's passing passing somebody's passing they're just getting set for the show. I had to move from over there to over here. I had to put some stuff. Yeah. Right behind Willie.

OK. Mr. Lemire. Just have a seat. Mr. Lemire. Are you ready? Ready for us to begin the class?

Yeah, let's do it. I know it's your first day. Cue. Cue it all up, TJ. Her name is. Hold on one second. Look at you. Look at you. Look at my phone, TJ. Her name is Anika. Hold on one second. Look at you. Look at you.

Look at you. My fault, guys. Wow. Okay. All right. Okay. Welcome, everyone, to Morning Joe. Boy, that's a beautiful shot.

We still even have you. Thank you for joining us. Beautiful shot. I think it's Tuesday. Everybody's in their seats. That's right. And we'll get to all that's going on this morning. Hi, Willie.

The expanded gag order and Donald Trump's hush money case comes as the former president came up with the cash needed to appeal for his civil fraud judgment. We'll talk about that. Meanwhile, on Wall Street, truth, social looks more like a meme stock with shares of the company plunging yesterday, significantly lowering Trump's net worth. I never understood this. Who saw that coming? We'll explain all of this.

A company that has been losing money from the very beginning. Who would have ever guessed it would have dropped? You mean a company that loses money probably actually isn't worth $8 billion? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, kind of. Yeah. Oh, right. Wall Street whizzes over here.

Yeah, exactly. All right. Also, we're going to get... I'm still waiting for that call from Wall Street for you and me. Hey, what's going on? We've dropped the hint for like 15 years. I mean, how many years? Yeah, exactly.

Where do you want to go? They must not be impressed by what they see. You want to go to J.P. Morgan or you want to go to... I feel like I'm a Goldman guy. Goldman guy? Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Like the culture. Well, I may be even going to dissect what we just said there and say we need those two guys. Right. There we go. Good times and bad. Back to Alabama one. I guess TJ is directing again. Can you believe Alabama one?

I was very happy for you when Alabama one roll tie. They got a tough task. That's why Joe looks the way he does. Oh, that's rough. Whoa. 30 to nothing run. Yeah, we were tied at 23. My parents went to Illinois.

Yeah. And then all of a sudden it was 53-23. A 30 to nothing run. Yeah. UConn men's team is one of the best, honestly, we've seen. I can't remember since when. In a long, long time. So balanced and so good.

Tough task for Alabama, but we'll see. Maybe they'll pull off the four for the first time ever. I know. Good, good, good. OK, right here. Back to me now. One shot. Plus, we'll talk about the key abortion rulings.

Yeah, just do the one. Goodbye. Abortion rulings yesterday from Florida Supreme Court. This is a major story. Could the appearance of a measure on the November ballot put the state in play for Democrats? A lot to talk about there, including just explaining what happened yesterday. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of way too early. He's made himself known.

Oh, Jonathan. White House Bureau Chief. Politico Jonathan Lemire, professor at Princeton University, Eddie Glaude Jr., and special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the host of the Fast Politics podcast, Molly Jong Fast. She is an MSNBC political analyst and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and assistant editor of The Washington Post. The great Eugene Robinson is with us. So let's begin with the latest. This is kind of interesting. We don't do these every day, but the latest morning consult survey shows President Biden holding a two point advantage over Donald Trump, 44 to 42 among registered voters nationwide. That's within the polls margin in the era. What's interesting, though, is it's a pretty big shift from a January survey, which found

Trump leading Biden 45 percent to 40 percent. The swing toward Biden is partly due to an increase in support among independents. In January, independents backed Trump by 10 points, 38 percent to 28 percent. In the latest poll, Biden and Trump are tied with 34% each. What do you think, Joe? Well, you know, Willie, we always say it's about trend lines. This is one of many polls, but we're saying that more often lately. Oh, this is just one of many polls, one of many polls.

What we saw last week was a poll that showed Biden making great strides and doing it on the strength of younger voters coming home. What we're seeing now is Biden making really good strides on the strength of independents coming home. And I saw Dan Pfeiffer, I think it was Dan Pfeiffer, saying the important thing about the State of the Union address wasn't that it was going to give Biden a quick bump. It's that it proved the Republican lie that he was some doddering old man, some doddering idiot. Just prove that to be a complete lie, that this is a guy that actually gave better than he got. And it's actually House Republicans and Donald Trump that are looking like, you know, like idiots. And it's interesting because that's what the Biden campaign wants

the public to believe and wants us to believe, which is the more they see of Joe Biden and in contrast, the more they see of Donald Trump, the more independents in particular are going to like Joe Biden. So they saw the State of the Union. You've seen a bump since then for the president said, OK, he looks solid that night. He's up to this job. And now they're seeing more and more of Donald Trump. They're seeing the repulsive stuff he's putting on social media. They're watching how he behaves outside the courtroom. And people who may have tried to tune politics out and who could blame them for the last couple of years are starting to tune back in and go, oh, I don't think I want to do this show again. I don't want to see this movie again. So we'll see if those trend lines continue. But certainly in the last couple of weeks in the favor of President Biden. Well, and Gene, two things

going on also right now is you have you have Trump getting more important by the day. You know, all these people, oh, they're just tweets. Oh, they're not just tweets. No, this is an out call for authoritarianism. This isn't just tweets. This is calling for the assassination of political opponents. So you have that on one side. And I, you know, especially these Wall Street guys, you know, oh, I will never vote for

Donald Trump ever. And then, you know, three days later, yeah, I'm kind of leaning toward it, which is just it's obscene. It's absolutely obscene. And this BS. Oh, Joe Biden's a socialist. They love to say that Joe Biden's a really. Yeah. Is that why you get richer by the second? Is that why you have more money than you know? You know, their problem tax season is it really is. If they're investing in the stock market, it's not that he's a socialist and they've got to figure out how to hide money. It's that they're making too much money and they got to figure out how to hide

all the record profits they've made this year. Stock market at an all time high. So that's on one side, right? This this desperation to justify supporting a fascist because you think it may be good for your bottom line. Yeah. And then on the other side, you have the fact that Joe Biden is doing something, Gene, that nobody has done to Donald Trump in all of his years in politics. He's taken it to him every day. He's mocking and ridiculing him. Donald Trump can't even put up anymore that he cheated to win his club championship anymore without Biden making a fool of him. Everywhere he moves, Biden and his campaign are just tweaking him, mocking him. And suddenly this bully isn't looking so tough. Absolutely. Don't underestimate the mocking. This is really,

you know, a lot of people sort of question that at first. Is this really the right line for the for the Biden campaign to take? I think we can now say, yes, it is. It's a very promising line for the Biden campaign to take. And it drives Donald Trump crazy. And that's a that's not much of a drive, actually. He's already there. But but he's going to get increasingly frantic, increasingly cornered by all these court cases, by all the money he has to put up. And this is a this is a bad period in this campaign for Donald Trump. And I think there's there's every reason to expect that it's it's going to get worse. As you said, watch the trend lines. The trend lines are clearly in Biden's favor right now. I know we're going to talk about Florida later, but what happened in Florida yesterday, you know, potentially puts that

red state back into play, a state without which Republicans cannot win. Donald Trump cannot conceivably win. At the very least, he's going to have to put a whole lot of time and money in trying to defend Florida. It's not the sort of rosy political picture that they'd like to paint down at Mar-a-Lago anymore. In fact, it's not looking so good for the former president. So I was speaking yesterday to a senior Biden campaign official who said, first of all, in the State of the Union, that target message was nervous Democrats. That's the audience they needed to reach. The likes of David Axelrod,

who a few months ago said Joe Biden should step aside, is now saying he's our guy. And not just to pick on Axelrod, there's a lot of Democrats who are feeling that, Molly. They've now feeling much better about their candidates' chances that he's up to the job. And we're seeing that movement here after a pretty campaign blitz through eight battleground states. The other thing this official said to me yesterday is their theory of the case has long been. We've talked about on the show. The more Americans hear Donald Trump, the more they'll be repulsed by him. And independents and swing voters will say, we can't do that again.

The issue is Trump's largely been offstage the last month. And these numbers have already started to move. That changes tonight. Donald Trump is going to be in Wisconsin delivering his first rally in front of a crowd of people in a month. If that Easter Easter Truth Social posted any preview, we're going to be in for some unhinged comments. And then we know how he reacts to pressure, political pressure, starting to trail in the polls, legal pressure. He's got to be in a court in two weeks. This could go south pretty quick for him. Yeah. I mean, look, the visual of him sitting in a New York City courtroom for weeks and weeks with people like his former fixer, Michael Cohen,

Stormy Daniels and maybe Hope Hicks. Right. We don't know who's testifying. I think that's going to be really rough visual for voters. And and look, we've never had an election where one candidate is sitting in a courtroom like this for weeks and weeks. So I actually think it's I think it's really going to be a heavy lift. And just because all of this has helped him with the base, he needs to expand the electorate in order to win. Right. He's never worked on expanding the electorate. And I think that this is going to be I think this is a bad look for swing voters and has no interest in expanding the electorate. He won't even go after Nikki Haley's voters who are Republicans who he needs to bring back into the fold. He says, no, you know, and Joe Biden's taking

the campaign, taking advantage of that with aides courting Nikki Haley's voters. But what's interesting to Molly's point inside that poll, the top line number is interesting, but the independence swing of 10 points in just a couple of months, that's where the action is in the general election. Right. I mean, we need to brace ourselves for an unhinged Trump. I think Jonathan is right, but he's in Michigan and he's in Wisconsin for a reason. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. So I understand the consult poll is the snapshot, but I want to understand what the swing has been in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan,

because we know that's what matters, right? And so it's great to see Joe Biden out there, as Joe, you described what's happening coming out of the State of the Union, but what matters, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. I miss those, those three states. Now you're right. If he wins those, that's it. And I'm curious, Jonathan, how are they feeling in those states right now? Certainly better. There's still worries about Michigan. We know that the Gaza conflict really weighs heavily there. Some Biden aides have said to me that they think that some of those

Muslim voters, Arab American voters, young voters, they're gone. They're not going to come back to him. They're not going to go to Donald Trump, but they're going to stay home and find a third party candidate. But they feel like they can stitch together a coalition there to still win. Wisconsin is actually usually the closest of these three states. That's the one they feel best about right now. It's been trending that way. There was obviously an abort. There have been some abortion decisions there of late that they feel like is breaking their their favor. They like the Senate race. Strangely enough, older white dudes. Yeah. Have held for Biden. Yeah. It's I say it's really strange because we have this

we have all these sort of simplifications of how voters go. But there there are older white men are doing much better for Biden. And I suspect it's because, you know, I guess the older you are, the more conservative you are, which usually turns you against Democrats and toward Republicans. But here, conservative with a small C looks at a guy that's trying to destroy their life that they've known for 60, 65 years. They want no part of it. And also the president has done things for seniors, capping prescription drug costs and the like. And then Pennsylvania, of course, is the state where President Biden has spent the most time in. It's in his backyard. They know Trump's strength in rural areas. That's going to decide. One could argue the whole election is going to come to sound to where they could turn

out voters in Pittsburgh, in Philadelphia, young voters, black voters. That might be the whole thing. But right now they feel OK. But having Democratic governors in those three states really does help. And good Senate candidates in all three. Yeah. Hey, Mika, a lot going on in Israel, a lot going on across the region. None of it particularly good. No. And we've got the major news out of Florida and significant legal developments in Trump's

trials. But first, as you said, let's go to Israel. The World Central Kitchen Aid Organization says seven of its workers were killed yesterday in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. In a statement, the charity says a convoy carrying workers was struck, leaving a warehouse where aid was being dropped off. Among those killed was an American who possessed dual citizenship with Canada. The organization says it is immediately pausing its operations in the region. The IDF said it was conducting a thorough review of the tragic incident. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports Iranian officials claim two generals and five officers were killed in an airstrike in Syria yesterday. The Times of Israel reports one of those kills was an Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps senior most official in Syria. Four unnamed Israeli officials confirmed Israel launched

the strike, according to The New York Times. Israel has not officially commented. All of this happened the same day Israel and the U.S. met for virtual talks to discuss alternatives to a ground invasion of Rafah. Let's bring in columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. David, break down what's going on here. And obviously, at the same time of all of this, we're supplying military aid to Israel. Is this becoming more complicated for the Biden administration? So, Mika, let me just say a word about the tragic deaths of the World Central Kitchen volunteers. Two weeks ago, I was with Chef Jose Andres, who runs this wonderful charitable organization. And he was passionate, occasionally the point of tears, in speaking about the humanitarian need of the people that

his workers were going to serve in Gaza. And it's just a tragedy to see these people trying their best to keep Palestinians who are suffering under this now almost six-month war alive. So I just want to note that, and our hearts go out to the people who are trying to help. The shadow war between Israel and Iran exploded yesterday in Damascus in a building currently next to the Iranian embassy. Who was killed there? The apparent principal target, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, ran Iranian proxy operations for the Quds Force of the IRGC in Syria and Lebanon, which means he was directing so many aspects of this war,

undeclared war against Israel. It's said that he was meeting with Palestinians to plan next stages in Gaza. So it was a particularly important meeting. The Iranians must be wondering, how on earth did the Israelis have the intelligence to target that place at that moment and take out not just Zahedi, but six of his key deputies. This is an example to me of what Israel does with sometimes chilling brilliance, this precision targeted killing. It's a sign, I think, of Israelis turning to something that they can do as difficult as it is at a moment when the Gaza war itself remains so difficult. Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas, may be underground, but Zahedi, the Quds Force chief in the region, he's not underground.

He's in a building that you can strike. And they did. This has all the earmarks of being something personally approved by Prime Minister Netanyahu. These kinds of targeted strikes are not taken without a prime minister's direct approval. So I think we need to see this as something that Netanyahu, in a very frustrating moment in the war decided to do. And just a final point. This shows Israeli force of arms at their toughest and in some ways most effective. The most expert journalist on this subject, Ronan Bergman from The New York Times, wrote a superb book called Rise and Kill First about this program of targeted assassinations. And he says that there are really thousands of these operations over 30 plus years have been almost always tactical successes. But you have

to be honest that in terms of overall strategy, they haven't really brought Israel closer to the kind of settlement of these problems that it seeks. In the United States government, the Biden White House reached out directly to the Iranian government, said it did not know about this strike and had nothing to do with it. This was an Israeli operation. David, I want to go back to what happened on the ground in Gaza with the World Kitchen group that was killed. Apparently, seven people killed in that Israeli strike that Israel has not taken. It's not claimed the strike yet. That wonderful group that rushes in for the last decade or so into places like Ukraine and Haiti and wherever else they're needed to feed people in a time when public perception of the Israeli

mission there has turned. Obviously, the sympathies of the world are still with the Israeli people over what happened on October 7th. But the public perception, the White House pressure campaign on Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up. This obviously makes things much more difficult, does it not, for the White House as it tries to stand with an ally in Israel? I think I think it does. These these killings need to be investigated. How did it happen that humanitarian relief workers ended up getting killed? And I hope that there's a sincere, deep IDF investigation that they have that obligation. Knowing Chef Jose Andres, he'll continue with these missions if it is in any way possible. It's rare to find somebody in our world who's as

dedicated to doing good as he is. I was in Ukraine last week, rolling down the highway, and I saw a big convoy of World Central Kitchen trucks rushing toward the front lines where hungry people are suffering. So he's everywhere. But we'll have to see exactly how this happened. It matters to find out the details here. All right. We're going to move to Ukraine and House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly coming around to the idea of Ukraine aid so long as he can get a political win out of it. The New York Times reports Johnson is allegedly hinging his support on a measure that would force President Biden to reverse a pause on new permits for liquefied natural gas export facilities. Should that happen, it would give the speaker a personal win,

unblocking a proposed export facility in his home state of Louisiana. Johnson has also discussed financing some of the aid by selling off Russian sovereign assets that have been frozen and turning the money into loans the Ukrainians would have to pay back. The speaker has not publicly pledged his support for any option, but he has stated the House will address Ukraine once it returns to Washington next week. Let's bring NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale. Ali, what more do we know about this? There's a little Trumpy sound to that, making Ukraine pay back. Yeah, that's definitely one of the ideas, though, that's percolating, Mika, in large part because we've seen the idea of just giving continued direct aid to Ukraine fall flat, especially among key people within Johnson's

House Republican conference. Now, if it wasn't Ukraine, it would be the appropriations package that has him in trouble. If it wasn't the appropriations package, it would be the border. You can really pick any issue. And the realities of a very slim margin that seems to always be getting slimmer in the House GOP becomes evident when you speak about the realities of a very slim margin that seems to always be getting slimmer in the House GOP becomes evident when you speak about the way that Mike Johnson is going to navigate this next stretch going forward. Now, the House has been on recess for the last week. They don't come back until next week. This is him trying to get his ducks in a row here. But it's now the second time that we've heard this idea of frozen Russian assets being a way to possibly give aid

to Ukraine, even if it's just on a loan basis. This is not just something that House Republicans are talking about amongst themselves either. When President Zelensky last week spoke with Johnson, he referenced this idea in his tweet, sort of giving a readout of what they talked about. So this is something that could be gaining traction. But I think it's also important to note the way that he's pairing it with the potential to do more on liquefied natural gas. Of course, that's something that helps him at home, as you mentioned, as well as abroad. But then also the idea that they're also going to try to contend with the border, which has been such a thorny issue the entire time that he's been speaker, which, again, has not been the entirety of this Congress. We all remember what happened at the end of last year that landed Mike Johnson in this very tough position to begin with.

Yeah, Gene Robinson, though, it looks as if the speaker understands he really needs to get the yes. I'm sure he's hearing from his the chairman, chairwoman to that, that one of the most important foreign policy committees saying, you know, you either get there or we'll find a way to get there, whether it's a petition or. But but it looks like we're moving in that direction. Yeah, it looks like things are moving in that direction. But boy, are they moving slowly? You know, the House doesn't even get back until next week. And so meanwhile, the days pass. The clock ticks. And a question for David Ignatius.

David, you were just in Ukraine. You interviewed President Zelensky. What is the situation on the ground there now? How long can Ukraine hold out? And how are the ukrainians doing so gene he was very specific about what the delay of nearly six months in approving this package is meant for ukraine they can't get started in building new brigades that they need for offense uh coming later this year or next year uh he said that unless the aid comes he's going to have to shrink his lines meaning retreat

if he's only got 2 000 of the 8 000 artillery shells he needs he said the only way to handle that is to have a smaller front line that he has to defend so he's talking about about having to move west as the russians, a lot of really frightening possibilities. I think Ukraine will be enormously relieved if this package does go through. I'm told that Ukrainian soldiers in their trenches look at their phones to see what the latest news is from the U.S. Congress, if you can imagine that. So this will be a morale booster for the people who are fighting so hard in that country. Just a final thing. While the Ukrainians have been waiting for the United States

to provide this aid, they haven't just sat around. They've been developing their own weapons. And they're now sending those weapons into Russia. There was a strike just over the last 24 hours, 1300 kilometers from Ukraine to a Russian target. So they've got drones of their own, not our drones, that can hit targets that far away. Those refineries that you've seen ablaze, those have been hit by Ukrainian drones. So they're not waiting. They need those weapons. But they're determined not to give up. All right. The Washington Post's David Ignatius, thank you so much for your insights this morning. We have a lot more to get to on Morning Joe. Florida's Supreme Court upholds the state's strict abortion ban, but will allow voters

to have the final say in November. We're going to go over the key rulings and what they could mean down the road and explain how the issue factors into confidence that Florida is winnable for the Biden campaign this fall. Plus, we'll break down the major legal developments surrounding both Donald Trump's civil fraud and hush money cases. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. 31 past the hour, the Florida Supreme Court has issued two landmark rulings on abortion access in the state. In a pair of conflicting decisions yesterday, the court both upheld the state's strict abortion ban and said it would allow a proposed amendment to enshrine abortion access to appear on the November ballot. The court's ruling was for a planned parenthood lawsuit against a 15-week abortion ban signed into law in 2022. But in allowing that ban to take effect, the conservative-leaning court has also made way for the more strict six-week abortion ban that Governor DeSantis signed in 2023 to move forward.

The court's decision on the 15-week ban yesterday means that six-week ban on abortion will take effect in 30 days. Also yesterday, in a narrow four to three ruling, the court agreed to allow Floridians to vote on enshrining abortion access under Florida law. The Supreme Court must approve the language of any citizen led constitutional amendment before it can move forward. Opponents of the ballot measure criticized the proposed wording of the ballot question, saying it was unclear. At least 60 percent of voters will have to back the move for it to ultimately pass. Kind of a mixed bag yesterday, Joe, but in a way, not a way that I would choose, but Florida is being set up for a very important vote in November, and they will have some pretty searing examples along the way as to why perhaps a ban on abortion is a problem.

Well, in the short run, bad news, obviously, for women's health, for women's reproductive rights, for women's choice. In the long run, Molly, and you brought it up during the break, both items by the Supreme Court were bad news for Donald Trump yesterday because first thing the court did was stick Trump with Ron DeSantis. A six week abortion ban will be extraordinarily unpopular. And then the second thing is making making the election in 24 a referendum on a six week abortion ban. That's just bad for Donald Trump and Republican candidates up and down the ballot. Does that mean that Biden's going to win Florida? You know, it's still a long shot, but I'll tell you what, if I'm if I'm a Florida

Republican, I hate this being on the ballot. Right. I mean, they worked hard to keep this off the ballot and the Democratic State Party there worked really hard to get it on the ballot. A million, almost a million signatures. And it went through the court a bunch of times. I mean, I think what's interesting is it tends to be when abortion is on the ballot or any you know, it tends to be when abortion is on ballot. It wins people even in red states like Ohio. What I think is super interesting about Florida is that we see how much this this Republican Party has moved even on abortion. Remember, they started with these six week heartbeat bills, heartbeat. Right. And now they are really have moved on to like embryonic personhood. Right.

So in states like Alabama, they're going after IVF. So we can really even see the progression of if you give these people a little bit, they are not satisfied. They are not satiated. So I do actually think that this is really something that Democrats can run on. And let's not forget, it was about a year ago that Governor DeSantis signed this ban in the cover of night. Remember that? There was no big, splashy press conference. It was late at night, and they tried to turn away from it. But now here we are, Ali Vitale, you've been covering this case very closely. So just as a practical question, how does this work now? So the 15-week ban is upheld, but as Mika just pointed out, a month from right now, a month from today, perhaps that could become a six week ban.

Exactly. And I think for people who have been watching where reproductive access is on the map, this is a real whiplash moment because Florida used to be one of those states that was considered a safer place to go for abortion care. And now we are watching in the span of just a few weeks, it going from a state that used to be a safer state to now being at a six week ban. I mean, it is really stunning and a reminder of the way that things can move so quickly. But I think that I always thought based on what I was hearing from advocates on the ground in Florida and my sources there, they thought they were going to be pushed to the precipice on this. They thought that they would be operating on a landscape where they are both trying to enshrine abortion protections in that ballot amendment that would put it at around 24 weeks. But then

they also thought they would be doing it against the backdrop of one of the most restrictive bans in the country, which is to say they thought they'd be operating with Florida at a six week ban. So as much as this might have been a setback in the short term, I think most of the folks who are working on this from an advocacy perspective and a political perspective on the ground thought that this is where they were going to end up. And I'll pick up on something that Molly said, because I was in Ohio and I feel like we've talked about this so many times on the show before. But last August in Ohio, millions of people should not have turned out

on a random Tuesday in the summer for an election for an election on a ballot referendum that didn't actually have the word abortion in it. But everyone knew was very much about abortion access and reproductive health care. And so I think that when you watch what's happened in Ohio, when you watch what's happened in Kentucky, Florida could be the next place to join a long line of political winners on the abortion access side of things. It's why you see House Democrats led by Hakeem Jeffries going down to Florida today. It's why in my conversations around the Florida Senate contest, we're hearing Democrats sound a little bit more optimistic than they tend to sound. I mean, I remember when I first started coming on this show back in 2018, I was covering the Gillum DeSantis race that gave us Governor

Ron DeSantis and then ushered in this wave of policies. And so midterm elections matters. We often like to remind because that's how we got to this place in Florida on abortion access being so heavily restricted. But it's also why Florida could be the next place that we are looking in an on year where and again, Democrats have a real steep climb here. And I know that you guys know this so well, but it's why the White House is saying they feel that Florida might be winnable this year. Abortion is a motivator for voters. It gets people off the sidelines. And you say it once, you say it again. You can never underestimate the impact of female rage or their allies, especially on an issue as visceral as this one.

No doubt about it. NBC's Ali Vitale, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. Hey, TJ, can you put up that Fox News poll? It showed only 32 percent of Americans oppose or want abortion to be illegal most of the time. You see that number, 32 percent? You can go back and look at Gallup polls. You can look at other polls over the past 10, 20, 30 years. That number is always at about a third. Right. So think about this. Americans they had a judgeship, a Supreme Court judgeship that would determine the future of so many things in Wisconsin. But because Republicans were stuck defending an 1848 abortion ban, they got wiped out. Now, again, I'm not saying that Republicans are going to get beaten in the

state of Florida. I will say this, though, Jonathan O'Meara, you look at those numbers and then you look at the type of Republican that has put Florida out of reach for Democrats. it's not like right-wing Christian nationalists saying, let's move down to Florida. It's, you know, people that are moving down because they don't want to pay state income taxes. People that are moving down for business reasons. People moving down economic. I mean, all in all, that's been the story. That's been the issue. And so when you have such an extreme position being taken, and it is extreme, if you look

at if you look at the polls, if you look at the numbers, this isn't going to help Republicans, even with the influx of 500, 600,000 Republicans that have streamed into that state over the past several years. Yeah, some to escape COVID regulations, other where else. Two, I mean, there's no doubt since Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion rights access has been a winner. It's been a winner for Democrats in every state. And that's why, Eddie, the Biden campaign thought North Carolina was the place to get a pickup this time around, because there's going to be abortion access on the ballot there as well. They feel like that's the place where they could flip from red to blue. The campaign manager, Julie Chavez-Rigues, put out a memo last night to NBC suggesting they now

think Florida is winnable, too. I think we can all register some skepticism to that. But at the very least, it might make the Republicans spend resources, resources they don't have, defending Florida, a very expensive state in which to advertise. So, weighing on that, but more than that, how we started this. This is now something Donald Trump has to wear. And he's trying to dance about abortion rights. On one hand, he tries to distance himself from this fight. On the other hand, he brags about appointing three Supreme Court justices who overturn Roe.

And now he's got to wear something more extreme policy that DeSantis put into place. That's not going to be easy even beyond the borders of Florida. Well, absolutely. And we know that women across a range of demographics are animated around this issue and they're going to turn out and they're going to impact the election. I don't know if that will mean that Florida will actually be winnable, but it will, as you say, force the Republicans to spend resources in the state, which they don't have. But I want to say this, too, that's really important. In the interim, between this six-week ban and the constitutional amendment, we have to think about what will happen to women in the state of Florida. And so we understand the politics,

and I think it's important for us to think about what this means in the long run and how it plays out in the presidential election, but we need to be mindful of what's going to be happening to little girls, young women and women and their reproductive health care in the state of Florida because of this nonsense. I totally agree with you. And I think it's going to be grim in the next few months coming up. We're going to dive into we've got a lot more to get to The two big legal developments involving Donald Trump, the modified gag order in his hush money case and the one hundred and seventy five million dollar bond he just put up while appealing the civil fraud judgment against him. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin joins the table to break it all down for us next on Morning Joe. Here we go. Sun's starting to come up over our building here in New York City.

The land of the New York Yankees. It is the unbeaten New York Yankees. I see. We talked about it during the break. Lemire, what do you put the over under for this team? For it to be a successful season for them. Here we go. So we should note the Yankees start the season 5-0. Five wins on the break. Lemire, what do you put the over-under for this team? For it to be a successful season for them. Here we go. So we should note the Yankees start the season 5-0. Five wins on the road.

On the road. All against good teams. Great teams. I think the over-under for this to be a successful Yankee season, and they should get this with ease. 129 wins, maybe? Wow. 129?

I was going to put it 119. Why don't we just put it 124? Because they're not- Let's split the defense. They're not 124, seriously. Just, you know what? Pull up the stakes. Yeah. You4? Let's put the defense. They're not 124, seriously. Just, you know what, pull up the stakes. Yeah.

You know, and move out of town. You know, guys. Sell soda. We're on a fast track to that Yankees-Pirates World Series everybody predicted right now. Oh, yeah. It is the 162-game season, though, and as we know, we'll go peaks, there'll be valleys, and there'll be injuries

the orioles are great the rays are good the jays are good you're already overcoming adversity yeah overcoming injuries winning by the way joe's really good one soto yeah he's great you guys should have gotten him you got money you know you'd think we do you'd think we did but we we do not appear to have. Oh, look, good. Yankee hats. Fly out. Oh, look at this catch. Oh, what a sliding guy.

Does it all. And he can play right field. Does it all. Good in the clubhouse. Judge loves him. I just hope he stays healthy. That's a nice grab. The kids look up to him.

We're going to talk about sports in just a moment. We've got baseball. We've got Kaitlin Clark going off last night. That's amazing. The elite aide of the NCAA tournament. But let's turn back to some news with two major legal developments overnight involving Donald Trump. The judge who will preside over the New York hush money criminal trial has expanded now a partial gag order against Trump following the former president's online attacks against the judge's daughter by name. Trump also has posted a $175 million bond in his New York civil fraud case, preventing the seizure of his assets while the case is under appeal.

Joining us now, former litigator, MSNBC legal correspondent, Lisa Rubin. Lisa, good morning. Good to see you. You can weigh in on the Yankees or the Red Sox. I can't compete with that. Okay, we'll keep it legal here. Let's start with where we ended there on the posting of the $175 million bond that was knocked way down from $450 some million. Any surprises in what we saw yesterday? We expected him to post. Well, we expected him to post. And the document itself is not much of anything in terms of what it reveals, except for who underwrote this bond. Company called Knight Specialty Insurance Company out of Los Angeles, part of a constellation of companies

owned by the billionaire Don Hanke, who has been called the king of subprime loans by Forbes magazine. He's 127, I think, on Forbes 2023 billionaires list. But most importantly, I think for Trump world purposes, Don Hanke is the largest individual shareholder in Axos Bank. That's the bank that in 2022 refinanced both the commercial portion of Trump Tower and Doral,

the golf course in Florida. Trump owes in principle, not just an interest, $225 million to Axos Bank. And now presumably he has pledged a whole lot more than that to Don Henke to get this $175 million bond. So Don Henke, it's fair to say, is a guy who's kind of rode in and had Donald Trump's back in several times when no one else would. Well, Don Hankey was a large individual shareholder of Axos when those loans were written. But at the time, he was not the largest. The then CEO of the bank was. So it's hard to say Don Hankey himself was Donald Trump's white knight at that point in time. I think what we can say is that Don Henke was the unexpected white knight here. When we think about

the bond litigation, Alan Garden, who's the chief legal officer of the Trump organization, filed a declaration that said, you may remember, we consulted 30 different insurance companies to see who would post this bond. When you look at the list of that, and I consulted it last night, Knight Specialty Insurance is not on it. And so how we got from there, where Alan Garten is telling the court, we talked to the 30 largest insurers in the country, nobody will underwrite this bond, to a situation where Don Hankey and his company are willing to put up that $175 million. That's a story to be told. And I'm looking forward to seeing how that unfolds. Well, let me ask you, as you look at that story, is there any evidence on the surface? I mean, this seems like a very naive question. Is there any evidence on the surface that this

is just a business play that the guy thinks, you know what, he repays his debt? I mean, you know, he he had a lot of bankruptcies in the past. But, you know, you you you look at the people that he borrowed money from when he inflated his values. Even those banks are saying, well, it's good business still for us. So I guess a better way to ask that is, is there any direct evidence that this was a political play? He's trying to curry favor. That's a lot of money to just be currying political favor. I don't think there is right now, Joe, on the surface. I think what you can say is Don Hinckley already has a sizable amount of wealth tied up in investments that are related to Donald Trump. In some respects,

this looks like a self-protective move, right? By helping him for a penny and for a pound, right? That may be part of it. Yeah. The other part of it is he might believe, as Donald Trump has said many times, my assets are worth a lot more than that. Some people in the universe think that they're worth. And he's making a play that if the former president ends up owing hundreds of millions of dollars to Letitia James and others, I could end up owning some of this real estate myself. I'd rather own it outright than see him sell it at a fire sale, particularly given my status as an investor in Axis. So Lisa, let's talk about the other legal development, which is the expansion of the gag order and the New York criminal case now extending to include

the judge's family. We know that Trump had been going after his daughter recently on social media. What's your read? Does this feel appropriate to you? And what does it really mean? And it feels like something that Trump is running up against nearly on a daily basis. Well, first of all, it does feel appropriate to me because we're at a break glass moment in terms of what Trump is saying and how it endangers a whole range of participants in the case. And I spoke with Michael Cohen earlier in the week. Whatever you think of Michael Cohen, he will tell you that gag order or not, he lives in a constant threat environment where when he walks down the streets in New York City, as friendly as you might think some people might be to him, he doesn't know whether someone wants to shake his hand or take a gun out of their jacket.

And so gag order or not, that will continue to be the environment for people. But it is entirely appropriate given the way that the rhetoric has ratcheted up against people like Judge Mershon's daughter. And one of the things that I think is really interesting about this order is sort of the remedies here, because at the end of the order, not only is he expanding the gag order, but he's saying two things that I think are really important to point out to our viewers. First, if Donald Trump engages in any conduct that threatens the safety and integrity of the jury, the jury selection process, and that includes making threats to people who are not themselves participants in that jury selection process, but maybe making prospective jurors fear for themselves on the basis of what he's saying about other people saying you're going

to forfeit your statutory right to the names of jurors. In New York State, there's a statute that says criminal defendants get to know the names of the people who are going to stand in judgment of them. That's not true in this federal system. So right now, Donald Trump going into his trial will know the names of the jurors. Marshawn is saying I can take that away from you. And the second thing he's saying that I think is really important is that if you violate this reconfigured order, Donald Trump, you're going to have sanctions, not may result in sanctions, will result in sanctions under judiciary law 750, a three and 751. Let's unpack that. Those are the two provisions that have to deal with criminal contempt in New York state court. 751 in particular says those remedies can include up to 30 days imprisonment.

Juan Rashaun is not playing. So given all this, and this is just a simple question, we're two weeks out, April 15th. Yep. What should we be expecting as we get closer and closer to this criminal trial? Let's start before, I thought you were going to say what we're going to expect on day one of the trial. There's 14 days between then and now. I think one of the things we can expect is other last minute day one of the trial. There's 14 days between then and now. I think

one of the things we can expect is other last minute efforts to delay the trial. So Donald Trump was talking a lot about how Judge Marchand should have been recused. Unsurprisingly, last night in opposing this expansion of the gag order, they tell us in a footnote, we have now sought permission to file yet another recusal motion. Donald Trump already has on the table a motion to indefinitely postpone the trial because of pretrial publicity due to people like Michael Cohen speaking out or Stormy Daniels participating in a documentary. Never mind the fact that the largest motivator of that pretrial publicity is Donald Trump himself. But I think you're going to increasingly see, Eddie, a number of other efforts to postpone that first start date of the trial,

that April 15th jury selection date. Watch for Donald Trump to do anything and everything he can to make that not a reality. As of right now, it is April 15th, two days from yesterday. We'll see if that stands. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Lisa, thanks as always. Thank you, guys.