Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/24/23

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

NBC News poll: Nearly 70% of GOP voters stand behind Trump amid indictment and investigations

President Joe Biden could announce his reelection campaign as soon as tomorrow. It's like Monday. I'm getting there. It's like Monday. We're back into the show, remember? Back into the show. Setting up a potential 2020 rematch with Donald Trump. We'll look at new polling on how voters feel about a second term for Biden and Donald Trump's

mounting legal issues. They're really excited about that rematch, huh? I don't know. Are they? Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the House is expected to vote this week on Speaker Kevin McCarthy's plan to raise the debt ceiling. Also ahead, the State Department pulls U.S. personnel out of the embassy in Sudan amid fierce fighting in the country.

We'll have the latest on the deadly conflict and what's next for thousands of Americans who are still over there. Plus, we'll dig into new reporting on a possible spring counter offensive from Ukraine. Looks like the Russians are actually retreating or starting to evacuate people from areas around Kyrgyzstan, which suggests a retreat's coming up for the Russians. It's Ukraine again is trying to regain land controlled by Russian forces. And that will ultimately in the end, whenever that is, it's going to involve some very, very deep negotiations as it pertains to land they took now, as opposed to Crimea. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Monday, April 24th. There's our good morning. With us we have Monday,

the host of way too early White House Bill Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation. Reverend Al Sharpton is with us and member of the New York Times editorial board. Mara Gay joins us this morning, along with senior columnist for The Daily Beast, Matt Lewis and U.S. national editor at The Financial Times. Ed Luce joins us this morning. I mean, let's just say it, Jonathan Lemire. I mean, just like I've said all along, Yoshida, the Red Sox. I mean, come on. They're bound for glory. We've known it all along. Never doubted them for a second. Our confidence has been unwavering, unyielding and steadfast, Joe. We knew all along. We've

been nothing but optimistic here. The Red Sox yesterday won again. They won a series from the Brewers. They've won, Joe, seven out of ten. Yoshida, your guy, managed to hit two home runs, one of them a grand slam in the same inning. So I hope hotel rooms book for Boston in October. Sweet, sweet swing. Nice, easy swing. Like I tell Jack, let the bat do the work for you. And yeah, it's nice to see that Yoshida is finally hitting the ball.

If anybody else wants to weigh in on Red Sox baseball, feel free. Hearing no takers, we move forward to the 2024 race for the White House. All right. New polling shows most Republicans still support Donald Trump's campaign despite his mounting legal troubles. Can we just stop right there? Can we just stop right there? There's a lot of reasons for that. We can go into them. Can we just stop right there for a second? They still support him, Reverend Al, despite the fact this is a guy who said he wanted to terminate the Constitution. This is a guy who denied the election, would not, was the first president, actually, since the Civil War, did not allow a peaceful transfer of power.

A guy who actually supported the overthrow of the election results, spurred on an insurrection against the United States of America. All of these riots, people in jail because of Donald Trump and Republicans are. That's fine. That's fine. You know, it reminds me back in 2016, John Meacham said that Donald Trump was like a hijacker that got on a plane, the Republican Party in this case, and everybody that was, all the passengers on the plane were cheering for the hijacker. They still are, despite the fact he took the plane down in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, we're going to show polls too, Reverend Al, says that that, yeah, people aren't excited about Joe Biden. People aren't excited about Donald Trump. But if you match Biden against a generic Republican, the generic Republican wins easily. But if you compare Biden to Donald Trump, it's Biden.

Trump's approval ratings lower than Biden's. And yet they just keep wanting to lose these Republicans. You're exactly right. But I think we must remember the rise of Donald Trump was as a grievance candidate that they are after us. They look down on us. They do not hear us. They are trying to destroy our families and never really defining who they were because he was closer to the established order than any of the people that he was appealing to. So now he has convinced them that they are prosecuting me because I am one of you. And it's his next step in grievance politics. The question is, does a DeSantis or someone have enough of a charisma, appeal, or political savvy to counter

that with another narrative? We keep hearing the DeSantis and others coming out, but they've not developed a narrative that the public, in terms of the Republican public, buy into. They bought into grievance politics with Trump. No one has come up with an alternative narrative. And, you know, Marge, it is so fascinating. Republicans, these Trump Republicans, they love this whole they're after us. They're coming after our whale.

They are. They're after us. They're not the ones that are making 10-year-old girls who have been raped flee the state of Ohio to not have a forced birth in the state of Ohio. are sending little children to school in fear of their lives instead of reading and writing and arithmetic, they have to worry about AR-15s. They have to worry about shotguns. They have to worry about being killed. Because now, and it's not Democrats doing this, it's the Republican Party.

Now they're the ones that are passing crazy legislation that allows the killings of little children to continue to where now it's the number one cause of death among children. Guns. I mean, what you're talking about is just what grievance politics that the Rev was was discussing hath wrought. And of course, that's not about delivering anything real to the American people. That's just about stoking old hatreds. And that's a sad day because what we have now is a slate of politicians,

most of them in the Republican Party, who are in office not as public servants, but just to stoke grievances. And that shows, that shows, you know, even when Ron DeSantis, for example, didn't show up, you know, several weeks ago when there was really horrific weather situation. That's just one on one in politics. But these are politicians who actually are more motivated by grievance than they are by public service. And so you see that. I mean, the other thing that you kind of brought

up here, raised, Joe, and I think this is interesting, is the advantage that Donald Trump has right now is also that he's not in office. And when you're in office, you get blamed for everything that goes wrong. So despite the fact that he stoked this really sad decline of the Republican Party and that has kind of ushered in these kind of politicians who are passing these draconian laws on abortion, punishing women, doing nothing about guns. He's actually not having to take the blame for it because he's not in office. So I think that also is giving him an added bump among Republican voters. We shouldn't discount that. Well, and Rev, another reason

they're losing these Republicans, you just you have to just say it because it's the truth. And this isn't a knock on Republicans. I'm trying to help them every day understand why they just keep losing because the hatred, the victimhood. I mean, we we we watched a little bit of a certain network over the weekend. Meek and I, you wouldn't believe. I mean, it's a hundred Biden's laptop. I think the trans influencer beer commercial. And I forget the third thing, but you're sitting there, you're going, are there really people at home going? Yes, these are the most important issues in America right now. And you had this unbelievable statistic on Politics Nation about news coverage and pictures of all of these Republicans getting AR-15s.

I kid you not. Getting AR-15s and shooting up Bud Light beer cans. Acts of violence against beer because of a social media post on Bud Light. What was that? What was that stat? They spent more time covering that than what? They spent more time covering that than they spent dealing with the issue of the gun shootings that were going on. And I think that we wanted the people to see this was, as you said, an online ad that they were going up against, that they just went through violent acts of shooting up things. And they spent an inordinate amount of time on that rather than the dominant issues that people were dealing with. And that was shootings around the country by accidental incidents like a 16 year old kid ringing a doorbell in Kansas City and then a cheerleader going to the wrong car in another state.

And then in upstate New York, someone pulling in a wrong driveway of different races. We, you know, we, we focus of course, on the black kid who was shot by an 84 year old white man. Who's great. Grandson said he had racism, but then you had a black guy shooting a young white cheerleader for opening his car door, thinking it was her car. And, and we have to denounce that they ignored all of that. They are in this bias, bigotry against trans and and LGBTQ and blacks. Us against them is what they're being fed. And they're going for it. It's so Matt Lewis, you sit back and it doesn't take long to figure out why Republicans keep losing elections every single year. I mean, why did we used to talk about taxes?

We used to talk about spending. We used to talk about regulations. We used to talk about a strong defense. We used to talk about freedom. And now that has been so twisted. And so, you know, somebody in the state of Florida in 2022, somebody in the state of, you know, Virginia, somewhere all across the country, they're going to get like 10, 15 pieces of mail on trans athletes. And I think after the first or second, like, OK, we get this.

And now this meltdown over a social media post by a trans influencer about Bud Light, they're melting down over that. They're melting down over Hunter Biden's laptop still, still. OK, what have we said here? If he gets arrested by the FBI, OK, you're not going to see us talking about injustice. OK, well, I guess he does. That's how the world worked before Donald Trump. If the FBI arrested somebody, you're like, OK, well, I know I'm too bad. Innocent until proven guilty. And then you're innocent until proven guilty. You cover the news. But they've twisted it so much. These Republicans are focusing on things that are never going to win them elections. It's just hatred and extremism and and and extreme positions on abortion, extreme positions on guns, extreme position on social issues that when they go mainstream, they win. No, I think that's I think that's right, Joe. And I think maybe the lesson should be Joe Biden.

Look at how Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination in 2020 and then the presidency. And it was by not being on the Internet. Everybody else was following Twitter. Twitter was running their campaigns. And you had all these Democrats who thought, I don't know, Medicare for all. There was a whole bunch of Bernie Sanders ideas, you know, the guy who didn't win, that they were essentially co-opting. Meanwhile, Joe Biden just ran as, you know, Uncle Joe and ended up winning the nomination and the presidency. And if you contrast that with what someone like, say, a Ron DeSantis is doing this time

around, I mean, I think Ron DeSantis was pretty well poised to run as someone who kind of a hybrid candidate. Yeah, he could dip his toes in the culture wars and gin up the base. But he could also run as kind of a mainstream, dare I say, Reagan Republican who was, you know, you could be just a normal person who supported Ron DeSantis. I think he is too online. I think that his campaign thinks that Twitter or maybe he thinks that Twitter is the real world. And so they've doubled down really on the culture wars and going after Mickey Mouse instead of Donald Trump, instead of Joe Biden, really. I mean, they're running this kind of culture war campaign.

And there is a sense that like the big enemy out there is Bud Light, you know, not China, not not even the not even the Democrats. He is not running as a mainstream candidate who could win a general election. He's running to be the he's running to be the president of right wing Twitter. And I just don't think that's a smart political move, never mind what it might be doing to the country. Well, I mean, I mean, it's Bud Light instead of China. It's Mickey Mouse instead of North Korea. It's Hunter Biden's laptop instead of Russia. In fact, a lot of them are on on Putin's side and will basically say that you listen to what Marjorie Taylor Greene says, you listen to what other Republicans say. And and and it's it's it's it's frightening for people who are supporters of freedom, not just in the United States, but across the West. But this is exactly what this is. This is the the the looming and still I'm going to say this carefully, still existent threat of Donald Trump. When you see those numbers, you wonder what's going on there.

Well, we just described it. It's this entire media ecosystem that he sits in where lies fester and they're not checked. And then you have voters saying, yeah, I still back Trump because they don't know about anything else. And that's the conversation. They don't want to know about anything. Oh, no, I still back Trump because they don't know about anything else. And that's the bigger conversation. They don't want to know about anything else. Oh, no, they don't. They if they if they plug into a network after that network admits that they've lied to them or if they plug into a network after they read the text. No. And if they plug into that network and they plug into other networks and they continue to follow Donald Trump's lies, they're doing that deliberately.

It's just like the Facebook pages, the shares that they send around that are just absolutely outrageous. I had a family member send around something to me during the pandemic three times. I said three times, you know, this is fake. And then I sent the documentation. I had people send me stuff from Chinese religious cult website, Epic Times. I understand. No, no. But I'm saying, though, you tell them and you keep telling them and they know that they're

digesting information from a Chinese cult, religious cult website. They know that. And they still because they like what it says, or they like what the Facebook page says, they take that on as their new reality and they send it around to other people. This is about a party that is no longer in the majority. This is about a party that's lost seven of the last eight presidential elections in the popular vote. This is about a party that's taken radical positions and they're badly outvoted in places like Kansas now on abortion, Wisconsin. And they know the only thing they can do is if they keep pushing these extreme positions, Mika, and they're trying to subvert democracy. Why? Because democracy doesn't work for them anymore.

Because in the world of one person, one vote, they lose. Yeah, well, we can talk more about this. But to your point, in the latest NBC News survey, 68% of GOP primary voters say the investigations into Trump are politically motivated and that they must support him in 2024 to stop his opponents from winning. And that, too, is this ecosystem that I was talking about. On the flip side, 26 percent say the party should nominate someone other than Trump who isn't distracted by legal issues and can make defeating Joe Biden their sole focus.

Overall, Trump is still the top choice of 46 percent of Republican voters. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the second most popular option with 31 percent. All the other candidates, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who has not announced a run for the presidency yet, poll in single digits. And actually, Ed Luce, your latest Financial Times piece is entitled The Rise and Fall of Ron DeSantis. Tell us more. And is it is it over? Can you deduce that? No, slightly provocative headline. But if you looked at those numbers, the same numbers you've just shown after the midterms,

they were the reverse of that in most polls. DeSantis was 10, 20 points ahead of Trump in many of those. And now he's 10, 20 points behind. And the reason for that is because as he's sort of dipped his toe on the national stage, gone to New Hampshire, gone to Iowa, he's actually now in Japan, by the way, and he's heading to Israel and to the UK. So I guess very safe allies to demonstrate his foreign policy credentials in some ways. But anyway, as he's stepped onto the national stage, his lack of sort of human quality and likability, and I guess ineptitude. I was just astonished last week, I still am, by his sort of brutal daylight homicide of Churchill's rhetoric.

We will make war on woke in the universities, war on woke in the corporations. We will never surrender to woke. He delivers in a wooden way. And he doesn't come across as remotely relatable as a human being. Then there's also, of course, the indictment, the New York indictment of Trump, where the scientists sort of backed Trump. Here was an opportunity for him to really differentiate himself and to condemn lawlessness and to promise Trumpism without Trump, without the incompetence and the criminality of Trump. And he didn't. And if you hesitate before killing the king,

you're going to lose all kinds of potency. And I think that's what's happening now. But yeah, that headline, this is a newsletter I do. It's not one that's checked by my colleagues at the Financial Times was slightly was slightly hyperbolic. I'm not sure it's we're ready yet to declare the fall of Ron DeSantis, but it's he is falling. That's for sure. And the headline does capture the growing Republican worry about Ron DeSantis, who just a few months ago, the forces in the GOP who wanted to stand against Trump seemingly coales about Ron DeSantis, who just a few months ago, the forces in the GOP who wanted to stand against Trump seemingly coalescing around DeSantis. And his poll numbers, not terrible. He's still clearly in second place, but he is declining. And so many

Republican strategists and donors have pointed out to me and others in recent weeks, we have his draconian stances, that six weeks abortion ban that he signed in the middle of the night, this war on Disney, which feels very anti-Republican, many in the party say, taking on a private business like this. As Mara said earlier, turning his back on Fort Lauderdale as it was underwater. Last week, there's these gas shortages in South Florida that even Senator Marco Rubio bashed and wondered where Tallahassee was. Why are you not helping out here? And DeSantis, with some real challenges in terms of his retail political skills, really hasn't had any kind of connection yet, hasn't hasn't found his footing during this

national tour that now international tour that he's doing. It is early. But right now, to Ed's point, Trump's lead is growing. And, you know, despite this also increased legal peril, but the party itself finds itself talking to a smaller and smaller piece of the electorate. And that polling suggests if Trump's their guy, well, that's going to be a very hard case to make come 2024. Republican primary and general election, very different things. Again, you look at the poll and people have their headlines. Oh, this is bad news for Biden.

This is bad news for Biden. Trump reelect. You look at generic Republicans beating Joe Biden. But then you look at Joe Biden's approval numbers. You look at Donald Trump's approval numbers. The guy's down in the 30s. And, Mara, it's the extremism. It's the extremism.

I mean, he's so much more extreme, this is hard to say, but true, than he even was in 2016. And so is the extremism. I mean, he's he's so much more extreme. This is hard to say, but true than he even was in 2016. And so is the Republican Party. And you look at what the Republican Party, again, is defined by. And I mean, let's look at Ron DeSantis, for instance. Is this guy going to somehow bring back suburban voters when he supports a six week abortion ban? Just lost the Atlanta suburbs right there. Bye bye. Gone. When when he supports open carry people being able to carry around an AR-15, you know, the legislature actually said no to that. But DeSantis supported an open carry. So, I mean, in his world, somebody, if they wanted to go to Walmart and Alpharetta, they could carry an AR-15 on their shoulders going into their or into a grocery store. It's just absolutely crazy.

And then, again, this war on Disney and not just war on Disney, but war on corporations to do what they think they need to do to make money, to make money in the free marketplace, to appeal to younger consumers. That's what they're doing. They're not trying to change the world. We were we we we free marketers know that they're trying to make money and he's trying and he's actually the one saying the government needs to step in here that you talk about socialists. No, no. We don't like how you're trying to make money at Disney. We don't like how small businesses in Florida are trying to make money. We don't like how cruise lines are trying to make money by making people wear masks during a pandemic. And that's the only way we can make money to get

them back up. No. Tallahassee says under Ron DeSantis, no, no, no. We don't want you to make money your way. We don't trust you. Big government needs to step in. It's about as un-Republican, un-conservative traditionally as you could be. I mean, it's also bizarre. I do think that if DeSantis really does kind of go away and fade politically into the long, dark night, that this bizarre feud with Disney World is going to be remembered as the beginning of the end, because it just makes no sense. Math of employer in the state of Florida that he's trying to run, apparently. And also just, again, I've said this before, but every kid in America loves Disney World.

What kind of politician runs for president, you know, trying to beat up Mickey Mouse? So I don't understand that. I don't understand what the national strategy would be. But I actually I had a question. Sorry. I had a question for Ed Luce. I mean, I you know, he mentioned you mentioned Ed Glenn Youngkin, the Virginia governor in the piece who you would think in the traditional Republican Party would have, or at least nationally, would have much more appeal and crossover appeal and would be much more competitive against Joe Biden, has been very successful. And in many ways, is just as conservative, if we can even call it that at this point, on policy matters. Can you tell us why? Why isn't he running? Is it just that the Republican voters are just too tied to Trumpism still? Is there any hope there for a return to kind of some normalcy in the Republican Party?

What did you see there? So I wouldn't describe a Glenn Youngkin candidacy, which he has ruled out. I wouldn't describe that remotely as a return to normalcy. I would describe it as a better imitation of a return to normalcy than you're getting posed by Mike Pence or Ron DeSantis. He's got that kind of suburban dad, you know, weekend sweater appearance, reassuring ability to deal with suburban voters, to say extreme things but not sound extreme.

And so he's very much just as much an anti-woke warrior as DeSantis or Trump. But he's got that mien, that appearance of being moderate, which I think is the kind of skill this kind of Republican Party is the best they can hope for. But he's ruled out running. Why he's ruled out, I don't know. I mean, you have to look forward to August when the Republican primary debates begin and wonder what kind of masochist would want to be on the stage with Trump. I mean, it would have to weigh on your mind that Trump, you know, as I think David Axelrod said recently, when there's a food fight, he always brings more food.

And you know, that's not the best way of spending your summer if you've got no chance of getting the nomination like Mike Pence. But, you know, if you've got some chance, it's still got to it's still got to weigh on you. The only thing I'd say is if Ron DeSantis does continue to slowly self-destruct, I imagine there will be quite a lot of pressure on Youngkin from from other Republicans like McConnell to get involved in this race. All right. Ed Luce, thank you very much. And still ahead on Morning Joe, the U.S. military says it has successfully evacuated American diplomatic officials from Sudan. We're learning details about how the operation came together,

plus new reporting about Ukraine's armed forces preparing for a counteroffensive against Russia. We'll talk to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby about both of those big developments overseas. Also this morning, a look at how former President Trump is defending his efforts to limit access to abortion. This as his former vice president draws a direct contrast between himself and Trump on the issue. They're getting a little extreme. Yeah. You can't even look at each other. No, not even like each other. And we got a conception. Now, don't even look at each other. It's where they're there. They're they are racing towards political irrelevance. Regardless of how you feel on this issue,

read the room. You lose everything if you are politically irrelevant. Also ahead, a top Senate Democrat calls out Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, saying the allegations about accepting gifts from a wealthy donor shows a clear conflict of interest. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Monday morning, it was all I hoped it would be. But Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee That Monday evening you would still be here with me Together we achieve more for our values than any administration in the history of our country, and it's not even close. I faced down vile attacks to confirm our three great Supreme Court justices,

Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Last year, after decades of work by organizations like yours, those justices delivered a landmark victory for protecting innocent life. Nobody thought it was going to happen. They thought it would be another 50 years because Republicans had been trying to do it for exactly that period of time, 50 years. From my first day in office, I took historic action to protect the unborn. I'm pro-life. I would tell you that if I was in the Congress of the United States, I would certainly support any pro-life legislation that came before me. I do think it's more likely that this issue is resolved at the state level. But I don't agree with the former president who says this is a state's only issue.

I mean, we've been given a new beginning for life in this country. I think we have an opportunity to advance the sanctity of life. I think the Republican Party will be in good standing to oppose late term abortion like most of the civilized world. Just for the record, Roe went up to viability, but I just want to button this up. The man that you're coming— No, no, no, quit covering for these guys. No, no, no. Quit covering for these guys.

No, no, no. Your media, you keep covering for these guys. They introduced legislation that allowed abortion on demand with taxpayer funded. Well, you paying for it, the taxpayer up to the moment of birth. That was their position in Washington. That's the law they want to pass. And nobody in your business will talk about it. It's barbaric.

Senator, I'm not covering for anybody and you know that. And when I have Democrats on and I've had Democrats on, I've asked for the fact I have asked many, all of them about their position on where, where they believe this issue should be. My question for you, sir, is about my question for you, sir, is about President Trump, who you've endorsed to be president again. Is he right in saying that this issue should be a state's issue? He said yesterday, I think, at a speech in Iowa that he opposes late term abortion. who has a snowball's chance in hell in the 2024 primary is going to be with me, the American people and all of Europe saying late term abortions should be off the table.

You know, it's it's interesting, as somebody say somewhere that it's fascinating how much how angry and incensed a 67-old bachelor with no children gets over the health care of women, young women, teenagers, sometimes tragically, 10-year-old rape victims, 11-year-old rape victims. How about women right now who have abnormalities and illnesses that cannot get the health care they need right now? The doctors send them home despite the horrific situation that those doctors are putting them in because of the radicalism. Right now. Right now. Right now. And again, so it's really something how, again, a 67 year old bachelor with no children suddenly is so incensed about how a 14 year old girl and her family handles her being raped by an uncle. If we want to use the example that the Republican candidate in Michigan used is the great reason why we have to have forced births of rape victims' children.

It's crazy. And, by the way, Donald Trump, there's some somersaults going on there. There's some major somersaults. He's like, I'm the biggest. I'm the biggest champion of all. And yet this is a guy who was screaming when he found out they're going to overturn Roe v. Wade. And he said it was going to be a political nightmare. Said it was going to be a political nightmare.

He blamed pro-life voters for the Democrats' losses in 2022. Very interesting. Yeah, it is. Some somersaults going on there as usual. Mental somersaults. In the months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voters responded by upholding abortion rights in every state that put it on the ballot. Now, anti-abortion activists are trying a new tactic for upcoming ballots, moving the goalposts or avoiding the voters altogether. The New York Times reports Republican controlled legislatures and anti-abortion groups are trying to stay one step ahead by making it harder to pass the measures or to get them on the ballot at all. The first state to test this new strategy is Ohio, a coalition of abortion rights

groups pushing to get a vote on a constitutional amendment in November that would stop the state from being able to ban abortion before 24 weeks. Why? I'll tell you why. Because 65 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases. And that means it would very likely pass in Ohio. And they just need a simple majority. But as The New York Times writes, Mika, Republicans in the state legislature are advancing a ballot amendment on their own that would raise the percentage of votes required to pass future measures to a 60 percent super majority because they know they are in the minority. Similar efforts to block citizen votes are happening in at least five other states. It's hard not to get really angry about this, because as we all know, as Americans know, and this is an

issue, you know, I believe I disagree a little bit. I think Trump's lies still fester among the population. And we can talk about that another time. But this story has cut through the American culture, American society, because women understand what they need for their health care. They need Mifepristone. They need access to abortion. And it's not just, as I said, one late term pregnancy by somebody who doesn't feel like having a baby. That's not what it's about. We all know this. We all know this.

We all know there are women right now who will have to carry to term dead fetuses because they cannot get a termination. A 67-year-old white man bachelor decides that for her and her family. This really follows up on what I said earlier this morning about the fact, Ed Luce, that Republicans know they've lost America. Seven of the eight last presidential campaigns, they lost the popular vote. They were in the minority. You look at Madeleine Albright's funeral. What do you see there? You see candidates there and and you take Al Gore as well. And, you know, they won in 2000. Well, they won in 92. Bill Clinton won the popular vote in 92 and 96. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000. Barack Obama won the popular vote in 2008.

Barack Obama won the popular vote in 2012. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016. Joe Biden won the popular vote in 2020. And speaking of Bill Clinton, I interviewed him for my special tonight, but I asked him about abortion. And he he said, well, you put this up to the voters so they can't say that. So it's extremists put it up for the voters. And he talked about in 2000 when George W. Bush easily won Colorado. But they had a pro choice referendum on the ballot, which easily won in Colorado. You look at the numbers on Roe v. Wade.

You look at the numbers on guns, on red flag laws, on universal background checks. You just put those three referendums up in 50 states, they would pass in 45 of them comfortably. So Republicans know this. They know they lose in a Democratic election. That's why they're so anti-Democratic in so many ways. And now they're trying to stop the one person, one vote reality that this country was supposed to be built on. And and here's a perfect example of it.

They know in Ohio they put this up for a referendum. They lose just like Kansas. And yet they now are working as hard as they can to subvert the will of people in Ohio. So my theory, sort of grand theory of Republican politics is that the big funders, the Koch brothers, now the Koch brother, Ken Griffin, singer people like that. The really big donors are not in this for culture at all. They're not really interested in those issues. They're in this for deregulation and low taxes. But those things don't win. Ultra-libertarian positions don't win elections. They just don't poll well with the average voter. The average voter is kind of center-center-left on economics. You know, they want Medicare. They want Medicaid. They would like family leave and

sick leave and paid vacation and stuff. That polls pretty well. Health care, public health care, polls pretty well. But that's not what the Kochs and the Ken Griffiths want. So the way they get the support of blue collar voters, particularly white blue collar voters, is to rile them up on the culture wars. And I think that this is this strategy being taken to its most absurd, extreme conclusion, because ultimately it's a failing strategy. But it hasn't always failed. Look at where the tax rates are. Look at where the estate tax kicks in. It's not failed from the big donor perspective. It's not failed them yet. I think, though, you're right. This is a hiding to nothing. You cannot go against people's views on abortion like this and expect to win elections. Ed Maragay here from The New York Times.

I'm curious, do you think there is an opportunity for the Democrats to actually point this out? It has not been since the Trump tax cuts where you saw, you know, billionaires getting even richer, buying bigger yachts, doubling the size of their yachts in Nantucket. I saw that with my own eyes the summer after. I mean, is there an opportunity there for the Democrats or what is the winning Democratic response or strategy to what you're describing? And that dynamic is very real. You've got donors who are kind of whispering in Mitch McConnell's ear what they really want and then feeding red meat to the Republican base. Yeah, that's a really, really good question. And I mean, I think the way for them to play this is to sort of stick to principles in terms of, you know, fighting racism and fighting homophobia and misogyny and, of course, defending women's right to choose and so forth.

These are both essential on principle grounds, but also, you know, popular, I think, with the majority of Americans. But also not to fall into the trap of the DeSantis's and the Trump's of becoming sort of caricatures of themselves in terms of getting stuck on debates about the trans issues. They should have their position, which is to defend trans rights. But to treat this as a sort of the overwhelmingly important issue of our time is going to put people off. So, they have to thread a needle there

that shows support for the ordinary people of America, whatever color and whatever gender and whatever orientation they are. But but talk about issues that most Americans consider to be everyday issues. Matt Lewis, you're one of the keenest observers of the Republican Party. I want to get your take there on how abortion is playing out with the backdrop of this effort in the states. But as we've been discussing, it's so out of step with where the American public is writ large. Is this just going to doom Republicans at the ballot box in national elections in 2024 and going forward? So this is one of those cases where I have my conservative hat and my political analyst hat, and they're a little bit different. I am pro-life, and I actually would push back a little bit on the conversation today, which is to say I do believe that there is a ton of weirdness happening in the Republican Party, obviously, like the American right today is decadent and depraved.

I do believe that the pro-life cause, there are a lot of honorable people out there, good, decent people who care deeply about the life of the unborn, and they want to have a culture of life. And I believe that this should be something that transc life of the unborn, and they want to have a culture of life. And I believe that this should be something that transcends just the unborn. It should be part of that, but also compassion for all sorts of people, you know, the immigrant, the widow. How about people who don't want to be shot when they open or knock on a door? All of these things are part of a culture of life. And so I think that there are people who are legitimate conservatives who are willing to lose elections

if it means that they've accomplished this goal that, frankly, took us 50 years to get to. And I think there's something noble in that. Having said that, from a political standpoint, this is incredibly dangerous right now for the Republican Party for a couple reasons. One, I think there's just a predicted backlash that is going to come. You know, sometimes in politics, winning is losing. Losing is winning. For a long time, I think the pro-life forces had the advantage politically, right? Because we felt like we lost in 1973. We felt like Roe was not a good decision. And I think that that gave the pro-life side the energy and the ground troops, quite frankly. And now that has changed. So I think the energy is on the other side.

The other problem, I think, is that because the Republican Party and the right has become so deranged and weird, just plain weird, that it's hard to it's really conflated these messages. Right. And so it's hard to be a pro-life conservative in a party with Donald Trump, who has sex with porn stars and pays off porn stars, and with Herschel Walker, who fathered all these out-of-wedlock children. And then you have someone like Ron DeSantis. And again, now I'll put my political consultant, political hat on. The 15-week ban that Florida had was, most pro-lifers would have applauded that a few years ago. That would have been seen as a big win, a 15-week ban. And I think that that was probably a mainstream position that would have been very politically popular or at least defensible. Moving to six weeks, forget what I said about my principles. From a Machiavellian political standpoint, I think that what is

going to happen is if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, the Democrats will destroy him because A, he's Donald Trump. B, he's a threat to liberal democracy. And now if Ron DeSantis manages to become the nominee, it's going to be all about abortion and they're going to have a pretty good argument against them. Yeah. And Matt, let me just say, we all know, I think we all here, I don't want to speak for anybody, but most of the people I know that are engaged in politics know people who are pro-life, who are pro-life because they do believe in their heart that life begins at conception or they believe that that that protection should come in at some point. And you are right. You look at most polls. Most Americans support a 15 week limit and a 15 week ban and then exceptions after that. If you just look at the polling, it we the American people's feelings on this track with with Europe, where Europe, most of Europe is on on abortion. But you would have to agree with me. I would assume like like my pro-life relatives that I spoke with over Easter, that especially the women who were just

horrified, horrified by the extremist position state legislators were taking that would make 10 year old girls flee Ohio, that would make women at a great health risk carry fetuses that are no longer viable to term, that they would be like in severe duress and be sent out of an emergency room. And so no one is doubting the fact that people of good faith are pro-life, but it's been taken to such an extreme that they've lost the middle of America. I mean, do you agree with David French that the problem is this was ruled by judicial fiat and you have a movement that never won the hearts and minds of Americans, never made the political argument. It was just passed down by judicial fiat. I think that's exactly right, Joe. And I think, you know, part of it is what you just said. It was passed down. I think part of it is, frankly, that the pro-life community spent 50 years trying to overturn Roe. But it's kind of like winning the war, but you don't win the peace. We weren't prepared for what happens after the regime falls. How do we win

the peace? How do we win the hearts and minds? And there was very little work done there on building a culture of life and on having a plan forward. You would have thought we had time, but no one was focused on it, really. But how do you have time to implement a compassionate response that is common sense that could win middle America over, very little time was done on that. And then the other problem, Joe, is that if Roe had been overturned 20 years ago, let's say when George W. Bush was coming in and compassionate conservatism was the ethos, the mentality of the Republican Party, then maybe it would have looked different. But Roe was overturned at the exact moment

when the Republican Party was being much more radical, much more mean-spirited, and maybe even especially true at the state level. And so it was really kind of a perfect storm. And, you know, again, I'll say I think that there are a lot of pro-life Americans out there who are, you know, compassionate and deeply believe in this cause. But from a political standpoint, it was it is going to be a rough road ahead, politically, certainly. Matt Lewis, thank you for being on this morning. We'll see

you again soon. Thank you. We turn now to Sudan. American personnel have been evacuated from the U.S. embassy in Sudan, where a civil conflict between military forces enters week two. President Biden announced on Twitter he ordered the evacuation, saying the violence in Sudan had already cost hundreds of innocent lives and called for an immediate cease fire. Since the conflict broke out on the 15th, the Associated Press reports more than more than 400 people have died and nearly 4000 others have been injured. Joining us now, former CIA officer Mark Polymeropoulos. He's an NBC News security and intelligence analyst and visiting fellow in international diplomacy at Brookings Institution. Jeffrey Feltman, he's a former U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa and former U.N. undersecretary general for political affairs.

And I think we'll start there, sir. Jeffrey Feltman, about exactly what is happening in Sudan. Can you explain what the fighting is about? The fighting is really about a lust for power between two generals and two security military institutions. The two generals were partners, uneasy partners, in trying to direct the transition that took place after Omar Bashir was overthrown from power four years ago by these sort of heroic public protests, citizens' protests. These two generals had institutional rivalries, jealousies, etc., but they were united in wanting to make sure that they never had

to report to civilian authorities. So they were working together in order to try to thwart the civilian ambitions for democracy, for democratic rule. But then the unanswered question in this sort of marriage of convenience between the two of them is, who would ultimately prevail? And now you're seeing the fight on the ground. It's basically a fratricide between these two security services, the army, headed by General Burhan, and a paramilitary force that came out of Darfur, headed by General Mohammed Hamdan Daghlo, who's known as Hammedi. So it's basically a clash for power in which the civilians of Sudan are the

collateral damage. Mark, we know that U.S. evacuated embassy personnel over the weekend, but there are thousands of Americans still there. What is your concern level for them, but also the security implications going forward for the region as this violence continues? Well, first and foremost, really well done to my former colleagues in the U.S. government who often don't get a lot of public recognition. And these are members of Naval Special Warfare, the intelligence community, the Diplomatic Security Service, and of course, just the regular embassy personnel and Army Special Forces as well. So really a ballet of capabilities that allowed this to happen. And there's 70-plus U.S. families and diplomats who are now safe.

It's really extraordinary. This doesn't happen overnight. There's a lot of planning that goes into this. Now, there are still remaining American citizens in Sudan. One of the things, and Jeff certainly knows this this is that we never have an actual accurate count. If an American citizen doesn't register at the embassy, you know, we don't know if they're there. So there will be efforts made. You know, we certainly have seen reports on on perhaps getting information to U.S. citizens on the ground for land evacuation routes, perhaps to Port Sudan. You know, we're not going to leave everybody high and dry.

And this is probably just the first step in what is a long process in trying to get Americans out. This is what happens in the third world, you know, in the Middle East and Africa, where I served, where certainly Jeff served. A lot of planning goes into this. And sometimes, you know, the ball goes up and we do have to get our people out and certainly get Americans out as well. So can I ask either of you, or both, in horrific humanitarian situations like this, there's also opportunities for bad actors to exploit the situation. And the Russian Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin's group, there are reports that they are stepping up their activities. They're involved on the

paramilitary side of this fight between generals. There is, of course, a lot of gold, gold deposits in Sudan, which the Wagner group are skilled at exploiting in other parts of war-torn Africa. And Russia itself has aspirations for a naval base there at Port Sudan. Do you have intelligence on the degree to which the Russians, well, the Wagner Group in particular, the mercenary Russian group, are fomenting the situation there on the ground? Without doubt, Evgeny Prigozhin is with Hamidi. He's had assets on the ground. He'shin is with Hamidi. You know, he's had assets on the ground.

He's been working with Hamidi. Hamidi has worked with Russians on gold smuggling out of Sudan via the Middle East. So without question, without—there's no doubt that Prigozhin, who heads Wagner, has been involved with Hamidi for some time. Hamidi was present in Moscow on the day that the Russians invaded Ukraine. On the other hand, I think that the real risk here is that all of the neighbors, many powers, will start to choose sides. Right now, at the beginning of this, nobody wanted to see civil war or clashes between the military and Sudan. Whatever side people may have been on in terms of what the transition should look like, countries, leaders wanted to see Sudan stable. This is the third largest country geographically

in Africa. It has over 46 million people. 10% of the world's trade goes along its shores through the Red Sea. It's a strategically important country with a large population. Nobody wanted to see this country destabilized. But the longer this fight goes on, it will become almost irresistible for some countries to say, well, if the two generals are going to fight, if these two services are going to fight, I guess we better try to put our fingers on the scales one way or the other to try to make sure that one prevails over the other, depending on which one they favor. So I'm worried about the longer this goes on, not only will you have a higher cost in

terms of the civilians being killed, injured, unable to access food or water, but you're also going to have a higher likelihood that not only Russia, but other countries, other leaders, other forces are going to start to try to intervene on behalf of one general or the other. Mark, I visited Sudan in 2001 when the controversy was between Christians and Muslims and the allegations that people were being penalized based on their religion. So I got to know some of the human rights activists there. The question I'm raising to you is, as we see this battle with the two generals,

what is happening on the ground, if anything, to protect the citizens? Because this is not a battle that engaged between a democratic process with citizens. two generals seeking autocratic power. What is happening to protect the rights of the people on the ground? And should the United States and others, as we are trying to protect getting our people out, be concerned about what happens to the populace in Sudan? Well, of course. And so Sudan, you know, this is a this is a tragedy that is unfolding there's you know considerable death and there's certainly incredible concern that a civil war is going to break out and we're going to see you know you know things on the ground which um we certainly

don't want to to have occur i think the international community is going to be more involved there's there's certainly some thought that perhaps we were not so uh for some time and and look at the end of the day, it's going to be kind of Africa, the region, who's going to have to jump in. As Jeff said before, there's a lot of players involved. And sometimes when you get kind of this great power competition, things go awry. I will throw one other kind of word of caution here. And one of the reasons I think there is some concern in the U.S. counterterrorism community is failed states, states at civil war, are breeding grounds from terrorism. There is a problem with ISIS on the African continent. We see that problem growing. We see cells metastasizing. And so

at the end of the day, there's a humanitarian tragedy that is occurring. But also, I think there's a worry about another failed state and what that means in the counterterrorism arena, something the U.S. government's going to be watching very closely. All right. Former CIA officer Mark Polymeropoulos and former U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, thank you both very much for helping us break down this developing story. Ed Luce, thank you as well for being on.