Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/23/24

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Today: Day 6 of Trump hush money criminal trial

That jury was picked so fast. 95 percent Democrats. The area is mostly all Democrat. You think of it as a just a purely Democrat area. It's a very unfair situation. yet again yesterday during a radio interview complaining about the jury. We'll get expert legal analysis on that and yesterday's opening statements and first witness. Plus, we'll go through the newly unsealed transcripts in the classified documents case, which shows a former White House staffer tried to warn Trump about the legal issues he could face, you know, if he stole classified documents. And it's another day where Trump is in court and President Biden is on the campaign trail, this time in Trump's home state. We'll preview the president's speech in Tampa, Florida. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, April 23rd. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kay and deputy managing editor for politics at Politico, Sam Stein,

doing a little way too early duty. Of course he is. Of course he is. He's the great Sam Stein. He is the great, the legendary Sam Stein. Thank you, guys. Very excited, Sam Stein, because despite the fact that we are fielding a double-A team, Red Sox are doing pretty well right now. Better record than the Dodgers.

Better record than the Dodgers. Exactly. Exactly. And it matters more now because it's April. But anyway, Willie... Just go to Willie for the top story. Really. Because the Red Sox did not play last night.

Mika and I got to... How many episodes did we say? Oh my God, we binged. We binged. We saw four maybe. It's called Palm Royale with Kristen Graham. So good. Incredible.

Wait, you guys, so good. So, Willie, you... She's so talented. Oh, she's amazing. She's amazing. She's amazing, too. Oh, my God. Oh, my Lord.

When she goes, you failed. So, you interviewed Willie. Yeah. Carol Burnett, the legend of all legends. And I never thought I would say this, but there was a scene where Kristen Wiig and Carol Burnett were going back and forth. Yeah. Carol Burnett can't talk. She's just going.

And Mika and I looked at each other and I was like, oh, my God. Like, yeah, she she can go. They're spirit animals. They're spirit animals. She can go like toe to toe with one of the greatest of all time. And it was just such a pleasure to watch. And in fact, the whole set, the whole crew, everything. It was amazing. Yeah, it is such a beautiful, splashy show.

It's Palm Beach in 1969. The sets, the houses, the costumes, snooty people hanging out at country clubs trying to crack into society. It's amazing. And yeah, Carol Burnett, I guess we shouldn't give too much away, but let's just say she starts the series in a coma, which when I interviewed her, she said it was the best gig she ever had. She'd go to hair and makeup and then just lie there and go to sleep all day and she got a check at the end of it um yeah we won't give away too much but she and kristen are incredible together and the entire cast and it's just like i said it looks good too it's a great show yep yeah i mean there's so many great actors in here but yeah and at one point carol bermudet while she's not talking, Desiree goes, oh!

I mean, nice little throwback. But, yeah, Katty K., you obviously have seen it. I would just say one or two snooty reviews saying, oh, this couldn't happen, that couldn't happen. They don't know Palm Beach. I thought it was a pretty extraordinary send up of Palm Beach. Yeah. First of all, the fashion. Amazing. God, I wish we still dressed like they did. All the bit parts, the husband, the pool boy, the guys that come into it are great. And I love the way you start to realize that, you know, for all of the glamour and the glitz, it's all about secrets. Everybody has secrets and they're all trying to be somebody they are

not actually. And that's what I think that's what's so genius about it. You're right. I completely binge watched it and I'm waiting now. It comes out on Wednesdays. I wait for Wednesday. Yeah, we are waiting. I'm waiting for Wednesday. That's my life.

Waiting for Wednesday. Of course, Josh Lucas was on earlier. Oh, I know. We have to get more of them on. No, we need to collect all. This was a nice break from Donald Trump in court, Donald Trump in court, Donald Trump in court. But Willie Donald Trump was in court again yesterday, and I think he fell asleep again. I think you need to three more quick shout outs.

Laura Dern, Allison Janney and Ricky Martin. Yes, Ricky. Come on. It's incredible. All three of them. Yes. Yes. I mean, all three of them. Just great. And

Brewster, I mean, we could go go down the list. I will say they're all extraordinary. I will say that Meek and I turn to each other. I've always I just loved Kristen Wiig. I just, she's an extraordinary, she's extraordinary on SNL, extraordinary in whatever she does. But we looked at each other after it was over and we said, no, she's next level. Yeah, she has gone next level. This is, yeah, extraordinary. She has taken it to the next little palm royale.

Check it out if you haven't seen it yet. So speaking of South Florida, Donald Trump lives there. I don't know. I was trying to make a segue. It didn't work. Let's try again. Donald Trump. By the way, Willie, there was a reference or two.

By the way, there was a reference or two at one point when Allison Janney says she looks at the mobster husband and she says, this is where we're going. This is where common criminals. This is where we're going in the future in Palm Beach. It was good. Yeah. So there's your segue. They're going to run this place. There you go. So Donald Trump's hush money criminal trial will resume today in a New York City courtroom after a busy day yesterday where both sides delivered opening statements and the prosecution called its first witness. In their openings, the prosecution and defense painted two very different pictures of the former president. Prosecutors describing him as having been involved in years of sordid business dealings. They called Trump a co-conspirator

in a plot to cover up sex scandals in a so-called catch and kill plan during the 2016 presidential election. They said Trump's actions amount to criminal conspiracy and cover up by scheming with his then lawyer, Michael Cohen and David Pecker, who was the publisher of the National Enquirer at the time and the first witness. The defense depicted Trump as a dignified former president and a family man, and above all, innocent. Defense stressing no crime was committed. The prosecution then called Pecker as its first witness. The former chairman and CEO of American Media Incorporated explained his publications had practiced, quote, checkbook journalism, where they paid thousands of dollars for stories. The publications also would purchase stories to prevent them from being published by other outlets and then bury them.

Pecker also testified Trump met with him after the 2016 election to thank him for being the campaign's, quote, eyes and ears scooping up information that could be harmful to Trump and then reporting it back to Michael Cohen. Pecker is expected to resume his testimony later this morning. Let's bring in former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin and former U.S. attorney and MSNBC contributor Chuck Rosenberg. Good morning to you both. It's great to have you with us. Lisa, you're in the overflow room yesterday watching all of this, kind of keeping track of Donald Trump's facial gestures and perhaps nodding off. What was your big takeaway from yesterday, day one?

A big takeaway is that this is a crime about falsification of business records. And yet what the government seems to have the most evidence of is of the underlying conspiracy. What's still unknown to me is how they're going to prove Donald Trump's own involvement in the falsification of the business records with which he's been charged. So we heard a lot of previews of the evidence of the construction of the conspiracy, who was involved in it, who will place Donald Trump with the knowledge and intent to commit election related crimes. What I didn't hear as much about is how Donald Trump then directed the cover up thereafter. For example, Willie, there is a 2017 Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Michael

Cohen where the prosecution says they cemented the repayment deal. How are they going to prove that? One, through the testimony of Michael Cohen. But I was looking yesterday to hear how else are they going to prove that? They say they have a photograph of the two gentlemen at that meeting. They also have invoices days afterwards. And then a couple of days after that, the first payment to Michael Cohen. But I was hoping to hear that they have a lot more than that. Somebody who was also at the meeting, who overheard the meeting, who placed some of these documents in front of Donald Trump, heard his comments about it. I didn't hear that yesterday. I'm hoping that we hear prosecutors have a lot more about the back end of the deal as they do, as much as they do about the front end of it. Chuck, what stood out to you yesterday?

Yeah, so I agree with Lisa, but I would add one thing. You know, the circumstances also matter. We often talk about there being direct evidence, maybe conversations or photographs or emails of a transaction. But circumstances matter, too, Willie. If you walk out of your house and there's snow on your front lawn, what do you think happened last night? It snowed. And you may not have seen it. And there may be some other explanation for why there's snow on your front lawn, what do you think happened last night? It snowed. And you may not have seen it. And there may be some other explanation for why there's snow on your front lawn. Maybe someone put it there. But the likely explanation is that it snowed. And so here,

Lisa, and I know you agree because we've talked about this. There are a bunch of circumstances, the timing, the motivation that show that after these conversations and this conspiracy formed, certain things happened, including the issuance of checks to Michael Cohen under the guise of a retainer agreement and then false ledger entries that followed. And so you're going to see, I think, over the course of this trial, Willie, direct evidence of the conspiracy and what they agreed to do and circumstantial evidence as well. And a judge will tell the jury at the end of the day, both matter. They're both compelling. You can accept circumstantial

or direct evidence in deliberating on your verdict. So Donald Trump is calling on his supporters to protest outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan where his hush money trial is being held. So far, his base has been a no show. And as The New York Times puts it, the former president is not getting the circus he wanted. The paper reports there were only a handful of Trump supporters outside yesterday morning, and they were outnumbered by the Trump detractors who had signs about his alleged affair with an adult film actress. The former president tried to rally his followers with a long post on his social media site just before seven yesterday morning.

He would post later that the courthouse has completely closed down, which is which it is not suggesting that the poor turnout was a plot against his supporters. Yeah, I actually want to go to Sam. But you first, Joe. I mean, I know that there's going to be this hearing before court resumes today about the gag order. And I just wonder, I mean, Donald Trump wants to be careful about asking people to come and rally. And I mean, the last time he was pushing people to show up somewhere, there was an insurrection on the Capitol and he was saying, I'll meet you there. I just don't think he should be. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that he might want to just go to court. That's who he is and not ask people to show up in his defense. Sam, after he was inaugurated as president of the United States, you could go in the White House for the next week.

And usually when you're outside the press room, you can see all these different pictures. President with a young child, president with Marines saluting, president with this, president with that. Donald Trump put up pictures of the crowd from angles that made it look like he had more people at his inauguration. He likes that he actually did. So he's sort of obsessed with this stuff. I will say he told them to congregate peacefully. Maybe that's where the misstep was for Donald Trump because nobody showed up. And so it's maddening to him. Everything seems to be going against him. He's having to sit in this courtroom. I thought it was fascinating last night on Fox News.

You actually had Fox News hosts complaining that he was too old. He was a 77 year old man who would make a 77 year old man sit down all day.'s what a lot of 77 year old men do they sit down all day they watch the atlanta braves i know my dad was one of them but a lot of people sit down all day but but he's just going crazy and add insult to injury course, he's being outnumbered by people that are having, you know, his supporters are being outnumbered by people that are holding up signs talking about porn stars and time in prison. Yeah, I mean, he doesn't have Sean Spicer this time to go out there and tell everyone that it's the biggest crowd ever to witness a court case. Right. And we can see it with our own eyes and ears. There are not that many people out there. Some of it may have to do with the fact that it's taking place in New York City. There are not that many Trump supporters who are there. Some of it may have to do with the fact that the last time

he urged people to congregate on his behalf was January 6th. And certainly we know how that ended up. And certainly a lot of people have been arrested for their decision to descend on the Capitol. But I still can't quite get around the fact, and maybe Lisa could address this, which is the act of encouraging protests at the courthouse, of asking your supporters to make a spectacle of the court proceedings. To a degree, maybe not in legal terms, but to a degree, it seems like an act of attempted intimidation. And I'm wondering if that's permeated the courthouse at all, if the judge is aware of this, if there are ramifications or implications for Trump for doing things like this? I think, Sam, that those implications or

ramifications sort of pale in comparison to the alleged violations of the gag order that we're going to deal with this morning at 930. The D.A. has brought to the judge's attention at least 10 different instances that they say are Trump's statements that violate this gag order. Many of them are the same statement with respect to Michael Cohen. But there's also a statement with respect to the jurors themselves. And in particular, a quotation from a Fox News host about Democratic activists trying to infiltrate this jury to throw it against Donald Trump. That's quite an accusation, putting aside the existence of the gag order. But given the wording of the gag order, even worse. And one thing I want

to bring to your and our viewers attention is that in asking for this hearing, they have asked for a thousand dollars per violation and they've asked the judge to award what is just and proper in addition. That matters because under the criminal contempt statute in New York, you only have two options. You can either find someone $1,000 per violation, or you can put them in jail for up to 30 days. And so in asking the judge to take additional measures to the extent he finds them just and proper, that's the DA very subtly saying to him, and if you think this guy deserves a slammer, now's the time it's in your court. You know, Katty K, I don't want to run too far afield, but I promise we will get back to this point quickly. but I remember in 2016, opinion page editors had to cut down on

the quotes that columnists would want to bring into their columns from William Butler Yates, The Second Coming, and apply it to Donald Trump. And especially the line that the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. And that was, it seemed very applicable in 2016. But I actually thought about those lines when I saw Trump whining about the fact that basically nobody cares anymore. This isn't even Elvis 77. It's like the tour buses rolled on and people just don't care. I don't see the intensity, but I will tell you, I see a lot of exhaustion from people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016.

Yeah, you see that reflected on the streets of Manhattan. You see it reflected in all of the polls that show us that there's a phenomenal lack of interest in this election writ large. What do we the NBC poll search seem to show that the least interest in 20 years. I don't think this is going to be another situation where Donald Trump drives out massive turnout like he did in 2016, like he did against him in 2018, like he did in 2020. I mean, that's been the argument of the Trump campaign all along is whether you love him or you hate him, Trump drives people to the polls and manages to find new voters to come to the polls, which is how he squeaked out his win in 2016. Well, if that's the

model that they're looking at in 2024, it just doesn't seem to be there. You know, we look with our eyes. We hear it from our friends. We talk to people who say they're exhausted. I don't know anyone that isn't already exhausted, and we still have another six months to go of this election, and we still have another however many six weeks or so

of this court hearing to report on. But, Chuck, let me ask a question to you about the prosecution strategies. You saw it laid out yesterday. And there does seem to be this focus on election interference. So this election interference is behind this. And yet that's not actually what Trump is charged with in this case, unlike in Georgia or January the 6th or the documents. Those cases are election related. Is that a risky strategy for the prosecution to try and throw that in there?

Will it complicate things for the jurors? I think, Katty, it helps explain things if done properly. You're absolutely right that Mr. Trump isn't charged with election interference. He's charged with the falsification of records. But there's a context to this. There's a story to this. And it's a logical one. And it's a linear one. And the government is trying to tell it chronologically. The reason that you end up with falsified records is because there was a plot, a conspiracy, a scheme to try and suppress what Stormy Daniels and perhaps Karen McDougal and others had to say about their

liaisons with Mr. Trump. And that set off a chain of events, including payments to Michael Cohen disguised as retainers, when in fact he was really just a pass-through to get money to these women to keep them quiet. And so in the context of a trial, and I think context matters, you want to tell a jury why it happened. You don't have to prove motive, but if you can prove motive, it makes it a much more powerful case. Look, to your question about whether or not this is risky, trials are always risky. The government has a huge burden. They have to prove their case by proof beyond a reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury. So there's always some risk. But if you could explain why things happened and tell it in a chronological fashion, I actually think that makes a more compelling story for a jury,

one that is easier for them to latch onto and to follow. So, Lisa, to that point, we've said in the lead up to this trial that this is, of course, a hush money case, but it's also an election interference case. That's not really what the prosecution is arguing, is it? And in fact, the defense has said this is not election interference, quieting people who might hurt your campaign. He said, this is Todd Blanch saying that's democracy. His words, not mine. So is this a case primarily or exclusively about hush money and not election interference? No, it's a case I would I would venture the opposite. It's a case primarily about election interference because but for that conspiracy, you don't have felony charges. So the statute in New York that prohibits falsification of business records, those are

misdemeanor crimes unless you do it with an intent to commit or conceal another crime. And that's where the election interference comes in. But for the intent to either commit or conceal this conspiracy to throw the election, these would not be felony charges. And so they have to tether the hush money payments and the conspiracy to throw the election, these would not be felony charges. And so they have to tether the hush money payments and the conspiracy to silence these women and the cover up. That all has to be tethered to an effort to change the outcome of the 2016 election. They don't have to prove that it actually did so. In fact, the prosecution said we will never know whether this

made the difference. But at the end of the day, their line was this is about election fraud, pure and simple. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin and former U.S. attorney Chuck Rosenberg. Thank you both. We'll be seeing a lot of you again soon and still ahead on Morning Show. President Biden is heading to Florida today to put the spotlight on abortion rights. We'll have a preview of that trip and talk about the split screen of Biden campaigning while Donald Trump is sitting in a courtroom. Plus, colleges and universities across the country are struggling to contain pro-Palestinian protests. We'll show you what some Democratic lawmakers had to say during a visit to Columbia University yesterday. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be back in just one minute.

24 past the hour, President Biden travels to Florida today to deliver remarks highlighting efforts by Democrats to safeguard abortion access and casting former President Donald Trump as a threat to reproductive rights. The president will forcefully advocate for reproductive freedom and call out Donald Trump's abortion bans, as he's been doing since Roe was overturned, according to a campaign spokesman. The Biden campaign has been emphasizing what it sees as a potential path to victory in the state that was captured by Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Biden's visit comes days before a six-week abortion ban in the state takes effect. An unpopular ban. Let's bring in right now CEO of Messina Group, Jim Messina. He served as White House deputy chief of staff to President Obama and run his 2012 reelection campaign.

You know, Jim, it's very easy to look at Florida and say it's out of reach. If you look at all the Republicans that have moved to the state, you know, look at the Trump country. The numbers have really gone up. That being said, we always have to remember Andy Beshear won the state of Kentucky, a pro-choice referendum, won the state of Kentucky. Andy Beshear won, I think, in part because of an extraordinary ad of a young woman who was raped and was forced to carry her child to term. I'm curious what your thoughts are about Joe Biden going to Florida. Is he wasting his time? No, I don't think so. And in part, you know, I will never try to lecture Joe Scarborough about Florida.

But, you know, when you look at it, it really is about a national issue. And he's driving this across the country. Barnacle and I were just talking backstage about this is the issue that Joe Biden needs to continue to drive down and tell the kind of stories that Bashir told, have those people out with him talking about why this is so important. And that will drive these numbers across the battleground states. When you look at the contrast, when you run campaigns, you want contrasts. And the contrast between Donald Trump sitting in a courtroom every day saying crazy things and Joe Biden talking about this unbelievable effort to take away your fundamental rights. That's not just a Florida issue. That's in all seven battleground states. We'll see whether

Florida is a battleground state in 197 days, but it doesn't really matter. You want the contrast and Florida is a great place to do it as their Supreme Court looks at another one of these crazy six week bans. You know, a couple of months ago, we were talking about bedwetters in the Democratic Party. Even during that time, the Biden White House was like yawning. It's like, whatever. We've got a theory of the case. It's going to work out. You look at the trends of recent polls, it seems like they may have been on to something. Here's the latest Marist College poll. It follows up on an NBC News poll that actually shows that when you put Robert Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein in, Biden leads. In this case, Biden up by five points over Donald Trump. And it's within the margin there, but it's up from the two point lead Biden held earlier this month. And again, what I always say is this early, it's not about the

bottom line. It's about trend lines. Talk about the trend lines you've been seeing. Yeah, look, in the 23 polls in the past month, Biden leads in 10. Trump leads in eight and five are tied. You know, when you go to D.C., you think there's panic in the streets of D.C. because Democrats are like, oh, my God, the polls are terrible. It's like, no, look at the trend lines. Look at how things are getting better. And that's what you really want to see right now. You want to see the numbers continue to move. And you want to see who RFK is taking votes from. Because when you look at the models, the thing you can't figure out why I don't really trust the polls is who the third party has taken votes from. And to Joe's point, now it looks like he's taken more votes from Trump, which makes

sense. It's unlikely the Democrats are going to want to vote for an anti-choice, anti-vaxxer in the middle of this. It makes sense that there would be more Trump voters that would look at RFK than Biden voters. But those are the trend lines we're going to be watching for the next 198 days. Jim, you've always been bullish while others have been wetting the political bed over the course of this campaign with the release of every new swing state poll. And the theory of the case, as Joe said, has been we're going to go out into these states. We're going to rail against these these abortion laws. We're going to talk about the economic data being strong while we still need to drive down inflation. He's going to go out and

talk about the things he's done as president while Donald Trump is sitting in a courtroom. And you're reminded that he allegedly paid off a porn star after having an affair with her, interfered with an election, took classified documents back. Is that what what we're watching finally right now? Is this what the Biden campaign has been talking about all along? Yes. Yeah. The Biden campaign and the Biden political team is probably the most underrated team around. Lots of people want to give them grief, but they've had a theory of the case and the case is starting to work. And, you know, the contrast we talk about contrast in political campaigns. You have to have the contrast.

And there's no better contrast to the president doing his job and Donald Trump sitting in a courthouse every day saying crazy things. Because part of the problem has been voters forgot about the bad Trump, the Trump they didn't like because they didn't see him right for two years. Like they don't they're not on true social. They don't see the crazy things he's saying every day. Well, Willie, now they're starting to and they're starting to say, oh, that's the guy I didn't like. Yeah. You know, Sam Stein, it's interesting. And I have you go to Jim next. But it's very interesting how these cases have lined up. I think like a lot of legal people, I'm not saying I'm a legal person, but I listen to them. They come on my show. I take copious notes. I think this Manhattan case is

the weakest of the cases by far. I would have never brought it. I think it's the weakest case. I think the strongest case is the documents case. But the way things are lined up and again, it's just the way things are lined up. There's no Joe Biden has nothing to do with any of this, though. Those walking through the fevered swamps of other networks say he does. But this is, I think, the weakest legal case. But politically, it's probably the strongest case because politically, this is something people can put their arms around. Hush money payments, porn stars, Michael Cohen. You've got all of this chaos going on.

And for the people that when I was saying they're exhausted, for the people who are exhausted, you know, they're not going to be following this day in, day out. But they're going to look up and go, oh, that guy. Maybe I'll just not vote or maybe I'll vote for RFK. I mean, it is again, I think it's a weak case legally. I think politically, though, it would be the last case he would want to start with. You're saying you would rather not be in a hush money trial with involving an affair with a porn star in your presidential campaign? Yeah, I think that's if I'm running for president. Yes, I would rather argue about the Presidential Records Act, even though I think he's guilty of that one.

Well, you know, yes, I do agree. I think the one kind of weird caveat here is, you know, we went through this in 2016, not obviously the specifics, but the Access Hollywood tape is what comes to mind. Right. It's like in that moment, everyone was just like the bottom had fallen out. This was done. And we just obviously didn't know what we didn't know. And people rallied behind Trump enough. Enough people were behind Trump and enough people were disaffected with Hillary Clinton that it worked for him. I don't think this is a historical parallel. I think to a degree you are absolutely right. There is no there. There's not a con. This contrast does not work for Trump.

It doesn't work in two degrees. One is that it reminds people of the chaos of the of the show that surrounds him. And Biden, for all his flaws, gets to go out there and do traditional, generic political speeches, which helps with the contrast that he wants to create. The second thing is that it ties Trump up in a courthouse at a time when he needs to be doing a few things. One is campaigning, but the other is really raising money. He's got a real cash disadvantage. And I guess this is what I would ask Jim about. It's like, you know, money is the biggest currency on campaigns, but currency, little currency also matters. And how does this just affect the campaign itself from the inability to have a candidate get out on the road, do these events? He's tied in New York for four days a week. He can do radio interviews. He can do something on Wednesday and the weekends.

But that logistically has to be extremely difficult, right? It is, Sam. The one thing you can't go get more of in a campaign is time. You can go get more money. You can get a new message. You can do lots of things, but you cannot go get more time. And he knows that. That's why he's lashing out. He's sitting in this courtroom day after day while his opponent is out there on the hustings talking to voters. And so that waste of time, we only have 198 days here. And every day he's sitting in the courthouse. That's the contrast. You and Joe said the magic word, which is the word chaos. Voters look at this

chaos and say, do we really want four more years of this every day? This kind of thing. It's not really about porn stars or hush money. It really is about reminding voters of the chaos that was the Trump four years and why they don't want it again. And that's the contrast that is driving Donald Trump crazy. Jim, I want to underline something you just said, which speaks to why Donald Trump is going crazy sitting in that courtroom. And it's something that I felt even when I was running in a little congressional race, one of 435, I would look at the calendar 18 months out and I go, oh my God, I don't have enough time.

I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time. I have all of these. It doesn't matter how small the race is, how big the race is. Well, obviously, if you're running for president, it matters a lot. But that resource, that precious resource time, I don't care what race you're running in, you never have enough time. If you're Donald Trump or if you're running Donald Trump's campaign, what do you do to try to adjust for that? Yeah, I think you do what they're doing, which is try to put him on shows, get him on interviews, do hits.

You know, he's calling into events. He called into his rally the other night that he didn't want to attend because it was raining too hard for his hair. Like, it's like you're kind of going to do some of that stuff. And then, you know, I'd put him on the phone raising money like they're the cash stuff that Sam was just talking about is real. They're being badly outraised. And that matters in these battleground states. You need money to go on ads. You need money to turn your vote out.

And so you'd put him on the phone and start raising money because right now they're just getting buried in fundraising. It turns out supporters don't want to give money to pay legal bills for all these these trials. They wanted to go to an election. So let me just ask you quickly at the end here, Jim, if we go back to the Marist poll about RFK Jr. Yeah. You hear Democrats when you talk to them, they panic a little bit. They say, this guy, he is, you know, his family's Democratic. He's associated with Democratic politics. His family is anyway. And he's going to, he might cost Joe Biden the election.

Think back to Ross Perot, got about 19%. RFK Jr. at 14% here. Should Democrats be concerned about RFK Jr. polling as high as he is right now? Absolutely. We should be concerned about everything, Willie, but especially in a race where, you know, you can argue Hillary Clinton lost in part because the third party's got six percent. Democrats still have PTSD from 2000 in Florida with Nader. And so, you know, that's why RFK is the one thing that makes the polls confusing, because you just don't know in what state who he's pulling votes for. So if you're a Democrat or Republican, yeah, he's the thing you don't know about. And from a campaign manager, that's

the stuff that keeps you up at night. You can control everything else, but there's some things you can't control. And let's be honest, RFK is something you cannot control. CEO of the Messina Group, Jim Messina, thank you very much for coming on this morning. And coming up, our next guest is out with a simple formula for financial security. Professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, Scott Galloway will walk us through what he says you need to do to win today's wealth game. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. It's a busy week on Wall Street with a number of earnings reports due from several tech giants. Tulsa kicks things off today amid troubling news of layoffs, price cuts and recalls. Google, Meta and Microsoft will all follow and face pressure to deliver amid a recent market sell off. Joining us now, professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, Scott Galloway.

He's out today with the new book entitled The Algebra of Wealth, a simple formula for financial security. So do you have to be good at algebra? No. Okay. Thank God. What if you had to take it two or three times? Well, well, then you would be- That's a problem, right?

You would be a co-host of Morning Joe if you had to do that. No, I knew it. Scott, we're going to get to your book. But it's going to be a long and winding road to get to your book because there's some things I'm a big fan of yours. There's some things I want to talk about first. One of my pet peeves seems to be one of your pet peeves. And that is, you know, two million people have been killed in the Sudan civil war.

I haven't seen a protest in the way you for that. Assad killed 500 Arabs. I didn't see colleges burned down. Five hundred thousand Arabs killed 500 Arabs. I didn't see colleges burned down. 500,000 Arabs killed by Assad. Saddam Hussein killed over a million Muslims in wars. I gassed them. I didn't see protests there. Yet your school is shut down right now because Israel is responding to the worst attack against Jews worldwide since the Holocaust. Help us sort through that.

And we can debate that response. Again, I don't know algebra, but I'm pretty good at the common denominators here and why there's no common denominators in all of these. It's just that it's Jews defending their homeland, because if you look at the numbers, even with American wars, they don't add up. Well, first off, good to be with you. And I especially appreciate your leadership on this issue. I'll give you some more numbers. Twenty two hundred American servicemen killed at Pearl Harbor. We go on to kill three and a half million Japanese, including one,000 in one night,

2,800 Americans in 9-11. We go on to kill 400,000 people in Afghanistan and Iraq. We weren't accused of genocide. You had, if Mexico had elected a jihadist cartel to run their country, and then they incurred into Texas, and on a per capita basis killed 35,000 people of the population of the University of Texas, and on the way back took the freshman class at SMU hostage and hid them under tunnels, what would we do? It'd be the great Sonora radioactive parking lot. But Jews are not allowed and Israel is not allowed to prosecute a war. And they are prosecuting a war more humanely than we have done. The ratio of combatants to civilians is, of civilian death to combatant mortality is lower than it was in Mosul, lower than it was in Japan,

lower was in Germany. So there's just a different standard for Jews in Israel when it comes to prosecuting a war. They're allowed to fight back to a truce. But unlike America or any other Western nation that has attacked this viciously, they're not allowed to win a war. It's a double standard. Willie, I've said on the show consistently for 16 years, even before this heinous Hamas attack, I've said on the show for 16, 17 years, if what is done to Israel with missiles being fired into Israel consistently by Hamas, if that were done from Mexico into Texas, we would be in Mexico City. Our tanks, they would, would be surrounding Mexico City by nightfall. We just wouldn't put up with it, and no country would.

Yeah, especially after what we saw on October 7th. And Scott, we were talking as you sat down about what's happening on your campus was happening up at Columbia to very different scenes, I think, based on what you're telling me about NYU. But what a lot of what we're hearing in these protests and yes, there are outside agitators isn't even about the war so much. It's a it's this just open this floodgate of anti-Semitism that somehow October 7th gave people cover to come out from under their rocks and just chant out loud the worst things you can say about Jews. In other words, a lot of what we hear on campus is don't just protect the civilians in Gaza, which we all agree needs to happen, but kill more Jews is what we're hearing in some of these chants. Yeah, well, if we were talking about this off camera on October the 6th,

if someone had asked me the state of anti-Semitism in the United States, I would have said it doesn't exist. I don't see it. This was a level of hate on an iceberg that was 99.9% below the waterline, but we didn't know the volume. And I do think there is a double standard. I walked by NYU last night. What I saw was peaceful protests. But I can tell you, if I went into the NYU square with a white hood on and said, lynch the blacks or burn the gays, my ID would be shut off by that night. And I would never work in academia again. There would be no need for the words context or nuance.

I wouldn't be protected by terms like First Amendment or free speech. I would be out of the world of academia. It seems like we have a double standard when it comes to hate speech, as long as it's against Jews. And we're not just talking about the exercising of free speech and protests, which we agree people have, and there are spaces on campus for that. It's what they're saying. It's the harassment of Jewish students. So what is that? Why is there that double standard? Because of course you're right. You don't even have to say it out loud. If these things were being said about black people or gay people or Latinos or Asian or anybody else,

forget it. Shut down the school. Everybody's expelled. Why is there still that double standard? I think it's complicated. I think one, young people have a healthy gag reflex on what people our age think. And I think that's healthy, too. I don't think Israel has draped itself in glory over the last 20 or 30 years. They've shifted from being kind of a David to the Goliath. I also think that incorrectly, students on campus conflate the civil rights movement with what is going on in Palestine and have digressed, unfortunately, because of an orthodoxy promoted by me and my colleagues, that there are oppressors and oppressed. And the easiest way to identify oppressors is how white and how rich they are. Fairly or unfairly, Israel is seen as ground zero

for whiteness and how wealthy they are. And then what might sound paranoid, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong. I think we are being manipulated, specifically youth, who their frame for the world is TikTok. And if you look at TikTok, there are 52 videos that are pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian for every one served on Israel. I think that we are being manipulated. I think Americans are easier to fool than convinced they've been fooled. But if I were the CCP, I'd be doing exactly the same thing. I think social media is sowing division and polarization in our society. And we're allowing the communist Chinese, we really we're allowing the communist Chinese to shape the debate with our children. I'm glad the bill passed in the House. You know, Scott, one final thing, and then I promise we'll

get to your book. Well, I'll just say this and then I'll go for a field in another direction. But, you know, this argument that European colonists have somehow this is colonization is in Israel. No, Israel was created three years after we discovered that European colonists gassed six million Jews. And so the conflation of Jews who were, you know, European Jewry was gutted. You can look at the numbers in Poland before the war, after the war, go go go country by country. And it was just absolutely horrifying. So this whole idea of trying to throw this on Europe is again, it's just it's pure madness. Well, if Jordan was coordinating anti drone missile technology airborne, they were coordinating with Israel. The kingdom of Saudi

Arabia, it ends up, was supportive of Israel. So I would ask these far left groups on campus, what do their Arab brothers and sisters know that you don't? And this is, you know, like I said, I've absolutely never seen anything like it. It's rattling to Jews across the nation. And I'd like to think that America is steadfast here. I think the Biden administration has done a great job. But I think young people over time will look back and regret their views on it. And again, I think there's outside forces. Yeah. So you mentioned. Oh, go ahead, Jeff. No, no. I'm sorry. You go, Will. I was just going to ask you about the military. So you mentioned TikTok. Oh, go ahead, Joe. No, no, I'm sorry. Go, Will.

I was just going to ask you about the TikTok ban that you referenced. Obviously, there are concerns now from TikTok. I think they're taking this seriously at this point that they may have to sell. What are the odds that this actually happens? In other words, that TikTok is not available or new versions of TikTok are not available to people in the United States? Well, to Joe's point, imagine it's the Cold War in the 60s and the Kremlin owns CBS, NBC and ABC. The fact that we've let a neural plant, Jack, be implanted into the wet matter of 170 million of

our youth by an adversary is absolutely insane. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe the way they framed the law more about trade symmetry and the fact that it's executive action and they have nine to 12 months. Banning was the wrong word or ban was the wrong word. This will be a divestment. I've always found in situations like this, money wins. And there's both American and Chinese investors that have about a quarter of a trillion dollars on the line. So my prediction would be you're not going to lose your tick tock. It will be divested. People make a lot of money and we will restore the same type of trade symmetry that that China demands. I'm now going to list every American media company that's been allowed to operate in China.

OK, I'm done. This is about trade asymmetry. You don't even need to you don't need to wrap yourself in an argument around First Amendment. This is trade symmetry. They would never let us do this there. We allow B.Y.D would never let us do this there. We allow BYD into here because we have tests. We allow we allow Sheehan in here because they have the North Face and Polo in their market. They let no media companies in there. It's crazy that we would allow this. It is crazy. I'll tell you what, we promise we're going to get to Scott's book. We're going to do that again. Meek and I a little skittish because the word algebra. I know, but we're're going to get to Scott's book. We're going to do that again. Meek and I a little

skittish because the word algebra is in there, but we're going to get back. We're going to talk about the book. And I'm also going to ask Scott to explain how the entire process is. And he's a capitalist like me, except he has a lot of money, how the process is rigged to help the richest Americans. There is that. Still ahead. OK, also still ahead, Democratic Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado will join us ahead of today's Senate vote on a major aid package for Ukraine. Plus, we'll speak with the exiled crown prince of Iran, who says Iran's attack on Israel were the actions of an increasingly weak and divided regime desperate to hang on to power.

Morning Joe will be right back. Welcome back. It's a few minutes before the top of the hour, and we will be getting to the very latest on former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial, which resumes today at 11 a.m. Before that, there's a hearing on the gag order, whether or not he broke it and what the consequence should be, if any. We'll get to that in just a moment. But we're back with professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, Scott Galloway. His new book entitled The Algebra of Wealth, A Simple Formula for Financial Security.

And we're talking about it. Because it seems so simple to me. And we're talking about everything but his book. Yeah. So, Scott, let's get into your book. But first, run through, if you will. I've seen you talk about this in speeches. Talk about how the system is rigged.

So if you got a million dollars, great. If you got five million, 10 million, even better. Life gets easier because the way our tax system set up. Yeah, we we have a very progressive tax system until you get to about the ninety ninth percent. And essentially the people who get most damaged by our current tax code, it's lower middle class households. Their taxes have gone up slightly because of consumption, but not because of federal. The people that really get hurt are what I call the workhorses. And that are people who make an exceptionally good living, but it's all current income.

And they live in a blue state. They might be paying 50% to 54% tax rate. I bet some of those people are around this table right now. But if you can make the jump to light speed and invest in assets, stocks, housing, then your tax rate plummets. So in America, we've decided to try and create a superclass of billionaires. And then if they win the gold medal, we're going to give them the silver and the bronze. Two biggest tax deductions, capital gains and mortgage interest.

Who owns homes and stocks? People my age. Who doesn't know? Who rents and makes their money from current income? Young people. So we've decided that the wealthiest people in the world should get exceptionally more wealthy. Minimum wage stuck at $9.25. Stock market is screamed up. The average 70-year-old is 72% wealthier than they were 40 years ago. The

average person under the age of 40 is 24% less wealthy. We are purposely transferring more wealth from the poor and middle class and the upper class to the super rich and from young to old. And you say in the book, which is true and alarming, but 30, let's say a 30 year old American in America right now is doing no better than his or her parents. Then that's a new thing in American history that you would think over time, you know, we want to do better than the next generation, than the last generation. It's not happening anymore. I think it all ties into what we're talking about on campuses. For the first time in our nation's history, a 30-year-old man or woman isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. That is the social compact breaking down. People age 30 to 34, 60% of them in 1990 had one child. Now it's 27%. People are opting out of America. They're not optimistic about it. They're not having kids. Young people aren't having sex.

They're not meeting. They're not mating. The pool of emotionally and economically viable men shrinks every day, which lessens household formation. So we have a real issue. Young people are enraged. So it turns every cut, every movement into an opportunistic infection because, quite frankly, they are just pissed off. They look up. They see wealth, exceptional wealth across my generation and people in certain industries. And they are really struggling. Their purchasing power is going down.

And the incumbents create artificial scarcity on campus. We take pride in rejecting 90% of our applicants. So the incumbents who already have a degree, so their degree go up in value. We get very concerned with housing and traffic. Once we own the housing, housing permits are sequestered from young people. Housing prices have gone from 290 to 420 in the last four years. So a young person, a house, stocks that I don't own skyrocket in value. Let's have COVID relief and flush the markets and take assets way up because if a million people dying would be bad, it would be tragic if I got less wealthy. And we're doing it on their credit card.

Young people have every reason to be enraged and every issue they see, they look up, they get angry and they see someone doing better than them. And then every day it is speedballed in their face that they are failing, that they are not doing as well as everyone around them. We have lost the script. Our kids are more anxious and more depressed and more obese and more addicted. And we have made a purposeful decision to let this happen by ensuring the people around this table stay wealthy at the cost of young people. So, Scott, the social element of that, that's the economic element, the social elements that you mentioned, the happiness, the anxiety, all of those things, the kids aren't getting together anymore, that they're not having kids.

What happened in one generation? Social media has to play a role in it, I'm sure. But what else do you see that has created this climate for this generation? I think you have the most talented, well-resourced people in the world and companies trying to convince a young man that he can have a reasonable facsimile of life in his basement behind a screen. You don't need friends to go on Reddit or Discord. You don't need to get a job, go on Robinhood or Coinbase and trade crypto and stocks. You don't need to go through the rejection and the expense and the humiliation and working out and having a plan and humor and showering to get a romantic relationship. You have you porn. So we have an entire generation,

especially of young men who are out home sequestering from society and missing out on what it means. You know, there's a reason romantic comedies are two hours and not 15 minutes. True victory in life is hard. Going out, meeting someone, finding mentors, finding mates, that stuff is hard. But that's what real victory in real life is like. And because a lot of men feel rejected on dating apps, the number of jobs that are accessible to them has gone down. You have essentially a group of men who are saying,

I want a low-risk entry into life. And they go down a rabbit hole. When group of men who are saying, I want a low risk entry into life. And they go down a rabbit hole when they don't have social connections and they don't get out and they don't have the prospect of a romantic relationship. They're more prone to conspiracy theory. They're more prone to misogynistic content. They're less likely to believe in climate change. And some they come become really bad citizens. We are producing too many of the most dangerous person in the world. And that is a young, broke and lonely young man. Why is it that so many of these young people that you're talking about seem to head into life after going to four year schools or two year schools or

whatever, head into life with a lack of financial literacy? They don't know anything about money or the growth of money. All they know is the absence of money. I think we need to have in our curriculums in high school a class on adulting. My kid, I say to my house, my kid can do integers and basic calculus, but he doesn't understand the interest on his credit card. So there's just some basic kind of financial literacy that we're not teaching. And when you start replacing civics with computer science, you lose a sense of the country and you start learning about programming. And when you don't talk about basic financial literacy or even mating, I would like to see in the senior year of college mating dynamics and help men understand and women

what is unique to them and their vulnerabilities to social media. I was talking about the challenges of men from social media. At exactly the wrong time in a young girl's life, she is presented with a valuation where she never gets to leave the high school cafeteria, 24 by 7. And as my colleague Jonathan Hyde has pointed out, we've seen a dramatic uptick in suicide. But I think effectively, we just don't have basic skills for young people. We're not we're teaching them advanced things, but we're not teaching them the basics around what a mortgage is, what interest rates mean. So I think we could use just a basic class on adulting junior or senior year in high school. Scott, Katty Kay's got a question for you, Katty. Scott, I have four kids

between the ages of 18 and 30. And you parroting, you know, you're talking back exactly what I hear from them all the time. You haven't even mentioned climate change yet, which is the other thing that they are mad at all of us for destroying in their lives. But the book, the title of the book sounds like you have hope or at least some kind of positive message. So let's end the conversation there. You have identified things that young people can do relatively easily, it sounds like, within their grasp if they just put their minds to it that would help their financial prospects. What are they? Find your focus and your talent. Find your passion is terrible advice. The person telling you to find your passion is already rich. Find something you'd be great at, maybe in the top 10%. And this is key that has a 90 plus percent employment rate. And the less sexy it is, the more likely your return on your human

capital is going to be greater. Two, focus on trying to push back on a flaw in the species. For the majority of our time on this planet, we haven't lived longer than 35 years. So young people can't recognize they're going to be around for 60 or 70 years. I mean, how fast has it gone? Lean into time, low cost ETFs, only 11% a year. That sounds awful. Guess what? That means every 20 years, you're increasing your wealth eightfold. Diversification. You don't need to be a hero. Don't try and find the needle in the haystack. I've been around the brightest minds of finance. My summary is no one has any idea. Buy the whole haystack, let it grow slowly, and let time take over, let diversification take over, and a little bit of stoicism. Recognize

that people aren't as impressed with your stuff as you are. Develop a savings muscle, be the person with a plan, be the boring person that starts saving early, and you'll wake up, and if you aren't a baller and you don't sell a company, you don't go public, that's okay. You're going to have financial security by the time you're our age. The good news is I know how to get you rich. The bad news is the answer is slowly. One last thing, and I swear I'll let you go. We could talk to you all morning.

Yeah. Money, in fact, you write in the book is happiness, contrary to what you heard in none. Some flip way. But in that your health care is better. Your housing is better. If you follow some of these tips and others, it affords you a lifestyle that's actually better for you and your happiness. America becomes more like itself every day. It's a loving, generous place for people with money. It's a rapacious, violent place for people without money. This is, you know, and the whole shooting match is to get very focused on financial security such that you can use that as the means to the ends and the ends across every study around happiness is deep and meaningful relationships.

What money has meant for me and economic security is it frees me up such that I can focus on cementing the key relationships in my life. And I would wish that for everyone. The new book is The Algebra of Wealth, A Simple Formula for Financial Security for Suppressor Marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business. Scott Galloway, boy, we could talk to you for four hours. Thanks so much, Scott, for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you.